“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)
One evening, as the husband was on his way from work, the wife saw on TV that a man was driving in the wrong direction on the same highway her husband was coming. She called his cell phone and told him to watch out because she saw a person was going on that highway in the wrong direction. He exclaimed, “ it is not just one person that’s going in the wrong direction, there are hundreds of them”.
Here we see two people walking in the wrong direction and talking the wrong stuff. They eventually end up with a heartburn. Wrong paths and lot of junk food can cause you heartburn, which is not healthy. Two followers of Jesus of Nazareth, Cleopas and his friend had been to Jerusalem during that tragic Passover when Jesus was crucified. They were returning home on the afternoon of the third day after Jesus' death. On that Sunday afternoon, they were sad, defeated, and were going home to their town in Emmaus to pick up the broken pieces of their lives. [Approximately seven miles west of Jerusalem archaeologists have excavated the remains of a village dating back to the time of Christ, which they have identified as Emmaus, the home of Cleopas and his friend (Source: Holman Bible Dictionary, Broadman & Holman 1991, p. 417)]. Their hopes had been vested in this Jesus, in His way of life, and in the Gospel He taught. They had believed with all their hearts that He was the Messiah. But He had been brutally crucified by the Romans. Jesus walked with them, but they did not recognize him. Then they sat together for a meal, and Jesus broke the bread, their eyes were opened. They recognized who He was.
The story outlines for us the journey that we all take from not recognizing Jesus, to understanding what the Scripture says about Him, to recognizing Him for who He is, and finally to our giving witness of what we have experienced. It is a story that reveals to us not only something about who we are, but how the scripture opens our eyes to see Jesus for who He is and about how we can come to know Him.
They were walking away from Jerusalem towards their homes in Emmaus. Walking away from God will lead only to desperation. Even when we walk away from God, He will not abandon us. He will join us in many ways, sometimes as a stranger, sometimes as some events or other ways.
Here the two people said, “they felt like their hearts were burning” when Jesus spoke to them explaining the scriptures beginning from the prophets to Jesus. Heartburns are not fun. It can be unhealthy if not managed correctly. Is there anything healthy or good about hearburns?. Not really. We all have had heartburns one time or another. It is not a good feeling. If it gets really bad, it can cause symptoms like that of a heart attack. Many emergency visits with suspecting heart attacks end up as some kind of gastric or heart burn issues. But there is a healthy heartburn the Bible talks about. Luke is the only one of the four gospel writers to include this story.When the scriptures are received, we may experience certain spiritual heart burns It is a healthy kind of heart burn. You will eventually like it as scriptures start working in you and through you. When He disappeared, they said, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32).
It is a story that reveals to us not only something about who we are, but how the scripture opens our eyes to see Jesus for who He is and about how we can come to know Him.
The Living Word takes them to the written Word.
We all need a good case of spiritual heartburn. We all know of experiences like this when our hearts were burning when faced with the Word of God. And we will get it when Jesus Christ speaks to us through His Word. He took them to the Word of God. The Living Bible opens up the written Bible. Look at verse 25: 25 He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself."
I assume that He had taken them through the message of creation, and the fall and the restoration, and the prophets and the promises. “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence”. (Hosea 6:1-2). He would have taken them through the prphesies of Isaiah, Jeremaiah and others who foretold the coming of the Messiah and how he would suffer and die and rise from the dead.
Theirs was a walk of discouragement.
The walk of sadness, the walk of disillusionment, the walk of lost hope, broken dreams and stolen future. Jesus is dead, and so is their future. The journey had been long. Seven miles is hard. Many of us have taken such journeys.
Suddenly, as they walked along in their sorrow and disappointment, surprisingly a stranger joins them in their walk. He was alongside them. He began with the earliest Old Testament Scriptures that prophesied His coming and shared with them all that was promised regarding the Messiah. Then they ate a meal together. After He had eaten with them in their home and vanished from their sight, Cleopas and his friend said, "Weren't our hearts burning within us while He was talking with us on the road?" (Luke 24:32). They did not know the stranger was Jesus until they ate together with him.
When we are discouraged, our talk will be different. Our words will explain what we go through in our lives. First, their viewpoint lacked a spiritual dimension, leaving them with a human understanding of the events.Second, their own agenda determined their expectations. Many disciples made the mistake of thinking that the Messiah would merely recapture the glory days of King David. Third, they failed to acknowledge the resurrection. They failed to acknowledge the resurrection because they didn't understand the Scriptures. Thats the heartburn they were feeling. We are asked to go to the scriptures when we dont see any hope or success in our efforts. God will speak if we take the time to listen.
Many saints in history have had the experience. “On the evening of May 24, 1738, John Wesley went to a little meeting in Aldersgate Street in London. He went feeling utterly dejected, absolutely cast down. He felt that he was useless. He was doubting everything. It was a very small meeting, and there was not even a preacher. But a man read out of the preface of Luther’s commentary on the epistle to the Romans. He was not even reading the commentary itself but simply the preface! So there was this little man reading, and John Wesley said that as he was listening, suddenly his heart was ‘strangely warmed.’ He said, ‘My heart began to burn within me. I knew that my sins, even my sins, were forgiven.’ The cold iceberg of a heart began to melt, and the fire came in, and the man became a flaming evangelist.
The two disciples leave Emmaus and return to Jerusalem. They are now in the right direction and heading to the place where God wants them to be. It was exactly the same attitude that had gripped Cleopas and his friend. Their doubts vanished, excitement overcame them, and they raced back to share the truth with their friends! They left their home and immediately walked all the way back to the house where the Eleven and those with them were staying in order to tell all that had happened. Their eyes were opened v-31. One thing is sure, heart burns will open your eyes. No matter how deep you are at sleep at night, you will wake up. “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12).
The most powerful proof of the resurrection is the “resurrected disciples.” Dull, defeated people became fearless, adventurous leaders. Cowards became courageous; the timid became triumphant when they meet the living Christ who led them to the scriptures.
When we become bewildered by circumstances in life, and get a heart burn, it is Jesus reorienting us to Himself through the Scriptures just as He did for these two men. From a human perspective, the situation may be confusing and discouraging. It takes the presence of Christ to open your eyes to the truth of the Scriptures. The word of God will melt every doubt and fear from our spiritual body, and burn our hearts with the Fire of the Holy Spirit. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:16)
If the circumstances confuse us and we are going in the wrong direction, Jesus is ready to join on the journey and explain His perspective. Once we have listened to him, we will be like these two men, excited to join God in what He is doing.
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