Burning Hearts or Burned Out?

Burning Hearts or Burned Out?
Luke 24:13-35; Acts 2:14a, 36-41; 1 Peter 1:17-23

Saddleback Church in California is famous for its hospitality; the church welcomes strangers as guests instead of as visitors. “The term ‘visitor’ implies that they’re not here to stay,” writes pastor Rick Warren in his book The Purpose-Driven Church. “The term ‘guest’ implies that this is someone for whom you do everything you can to make them feel comfortable.” For a guest, we do everything. For a visitor, not so much.

Saddleback staffer Erik Rees leads a “guest services team” that’s in charge of first impressions — they’re determined to be good hosts to the strangers who come to them. Traffic attendants are trained to welcome people and point them toward the worship venues, greeters are positioned along walkways to welcome people and answer questions, and ushers are in place in the worship venues so they can respond to people and seat them. The goal is that each guest will receive at least three greetings before sitting down in worship.

These first impressions are critical. Warren believes that guests “are deciding whether or not to come back long before the pastor speaks.”(1)

“Hospitality.” Those of you who were here in the fall of 2001, might remember that the word “hospitality” was used frequently. That was the first key word about our new building. It was what people first sensed from the facility itself. And it was what people needed to sense from those of us who were already here.

As Warren says, we will do anything necessary to make a guest comfortable and at home. Visitors, on the other hand, are often little more than tourists. No slight is intended. And we mean to treat visitors as hospitably as guests. But we know, and you know, that your family members visiting from out of town are happy to join you in worship, but they are here just a few days and will return to their own locations and schedules. Guests may stay around.

The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews admonished his readers, “Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2 ceb). That would certainly describe the situation with the two travelers on the road to Emmaus that first evening of Easter. Jesus plays multiple roles. He is the unrecognized stranger. He becomes the welcomed guest. And then, offered the honor of starting the meal, he becomes the host, at which point he was recognized. That’s when everything changed.

You will remember that the two people walking to Emmaus placed great hope in the Nazarene whom the religious leaders had handed over to be sentenced to death. And they didn’t know what to make of the story the women told about Jesus being alive or the report that friends had brought that the tomb was empty.

Like the tomb, their lives were now empty. Their hopes, once lifted very high, had been smashed with the hammer blows nailing Jesus to the cross. There was nothing more to do than go and reclaim some pieces of their former lives, endure the ‘I told you so’ taunts of their family and neighbors. Some were headed back to fishing boats, to a tax office, to missed appointments, to abandoned families, and to mercifully deadening routines. That will teach us to dream, they thought to themselves.

The question which had not yet occurred to them is this: For all we have been through, how are we different and what does that mean for the future? It was too early for that. They were spent physically, emotionally, spiritually, and probably financially as well. They were in a stupor when the stranger traveling at a reasonable gait made to pass them, but noticing their blank stares, inquired about what they pondering in such a doleful manner.

The two travelers could have told the stranger to mind his own business. Grief and confusion often erupt that way. We don’t want to admit that we are flummoxed, so we shut others out. Instead the two invite the stranger into their misery, thinking that he hasn’t a clue to what has been going on. The stranger, it turns out, knows more than they do, at least with respect to the background. “You mean that you didn’t believe all that the prophets said about the Christ – Messiah – anointed one – having to suffer before entering glory.”

Because the two were hospitable to the stranger, they got a step-by-step Bible study about Jesus. Today we would have to buy those lessons on compact discs to play through the car audio system on long trips. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the speed of the walkers didn’t pick up a bit as the salvation story was unfolded for them. Anyway, soon the two were at their destination.

They insisted that the stranger stop for a meal with them before continuing. As good hosts they offered the food to the guest first. And as was surely the custom, the guest took the loaf of bread and prayed the grace, “Blessed be the Lord our God who gives grain for bread.” Then he broke it. At that point, the stranger-become-guest became host because the two immediately knew who it was who had traveled with them, illumined their faith, and gave himself for them.

“Weren’t our hearts on fire when he spoke to us along the road and when he explained the scriptures for us?”

For Cleopas and friend, everything had changed. Just as the risen Christ was no longer in the tomb but abroad in the world, so Christ was no longer confined in the tomb of their despair and disappointment. He was abroad in their lives. He disappeared from their sight when he took, blessed, and broke the bread. He had taken up residence in their hearts. His absence is now explained by his presence in them.

Every teacher has had students about whom he or she have wished that they had a USB port that the teacher could plug into and download the information into the student’s brain. In a sense, that is what Jesus did with Cleopas and friend. He gave them a concise history of God’s activity that led up to Christ’s incarnation into the world, his ministry with the world, his crucifixion by the world, and his resurrection for the world.

If you attend a Good Friday worship here, you always get a list of readings for what is called the Great Vigil of Easter. The readings begin with creation. The next ones are Noah’s deliverance by the ark from the flood, Isaac’s near sacrifice and the substitutionary ram, and Israel’s deliverance from Egypt at the Red Sea. Moving on to the prophets, Isaiah offers words of salvation for all, Proverbs personifies wisdom, and Ezekiel promises a new heart, a new spirit, and indeed new life to the valley of dry bones, Zephaniah closes out with the promise that God’s people will be gathered. It is after those nine readings that the liturgy shifts to a gospel announcement of Christ’s resurrection. Every Holy Saturday we have the opportunity relive God’s plan of salvation for humanity and experience it fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ. That salvation story is what Jesus recounted to the Emmaus walkers. And it burned within them until the fuse was ignited with Jesus’ self-disclosure through breaking the bread.

We have been through the events of holy week and Easter morning. Are our hearts burning within us like Cleopas and friend, or did we miss ignition and our hearts, our faith have, gone cold, burned out?

God’s love for us through creation, promise, fulfillment, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection is an unquenchable fire burning within us if properly fanned into flame through the working of the Holy Spirit. Does Easter only visit us and pass on it’s way until another year passes? Or is Easter a guest that we have welcomed, invited in, hosted, and become changed by?

(1) Warren, Rick. The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth without Compromising Your Message & Mission. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), 257, 260-61.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 

Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.