Church of the Holy City

Burning Hearts

Burning Hearts
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
May 1, 2011

1 Kings19:9-13 Luke 24:13-35 Psalm 116

The reading about the Apostles on the road to Emmaus is an interesting story. As two disciples are walking along the road, Jesus Himself appears to them and walks along side them. Although they walk about seven miles together, they do not recognize Jesus. It isn’t until Jesus breaks bread with them that He is recognized.
There are some other plot elements to the story. It begins with sadness and it ends in joy. In the beginning, the disciples are sad because of the crucifixion and they are also somewhat perplexed about stories about the empty tomb. And the story ends in joy, when the disciples actually recognize Jesus and realize that He has risen from the grave.
I’ve often wondered why the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus. Did Jesus appear in a different form? Or is it more about the state of mind that the disciples were in. All we are told in scripture is that, “They were kept from recognizing Him.” What kept them from recognizing Jesus? Was it Jesus Himself? Or was it something else?
I have an idea that I would like to share with you. I think that part of what kept the disciples from recognizing Jesus was their own state of mind. They had expected Jesus to be the Messiah whom the prophets said would take over the throne in Jerusalem. All through the Gospels, we see that the people of Israel had expectations of Jesus that He Himself denied. According to the beliefs of the Jews in Jesus time, the Messiah was to be a worldly ruler from the lineage of King David. He would assume the throne in Jerusalem, drive out the Romans, and usher in a time of world-wide peace when all of the nations would come to Israel and be taught the Law of Moses. At the birth of John the Baptist, his father sand a song about Jesus and John. About Jesus, Zechariah sang,
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us . . .
salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us–
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies;
and to enable us to serve him without fear (Luke 1:69, 71, 74).
The disciples with whom Jesus walked had the same expectations. They told Jesus, “we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). They were utterly baffled and completely disappointed when Jesus was crucified and did nothing to liberate Israel from the hand of the Romans.
Is it possible that their own understanding of what the Messiah was supposed to be kept them from recognizing Jesus? Perhaps they were so focussed on their disappointments that they didn’t recognize the glory that was around them. Perhaps they were so caught up in their own shattered hopes, that they didn’t see the risen and glorified Lord right next to them.
There are story elements that support this interpretation. After Jesus disappears, the disciples recall their walk with Jesus. They say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). If they had been paying more attention to their own spirits, and to Jesus, they would have noticed that their hearts were on fire. They would have felt Jesus presence and perhaps recognized Him when He taught them as He had so often in His ministry. But instead, their own disappointment and misunderstanding were occupying their minds to the extent that they shut out the emotions they were feeling and the identity of He who walked along side them.
I like this interpretation because it is something that I think we all can relate to. How often do we pay attention to the fact that Jesus is walking beside us every day of our lives? How often are we so caught up in “Getting and spending” that we don’t pay attention to the spiritual realities that surround us all the time. The words “Getting and spending” come from a poem by Wordsworth called “The World Is Too Much With Us.” And I think that for a lot of us, the world is, indeed, too much with us. How much of what we think we desperately need, do we really need? Or yet, how much of what we think we really need to do, do we really need to do? How much pressure do we need to take on? How much worry, fret, and anxiety do we really need to accept into our lives? These are the kinds of things that shut out the peace of God. These are the kinds of things that blind us to the presence of Christ in the world and in our lives. These are the kinds of things that turn our hearts into images of the world and block the inflowing image and likeness of God into which we are all created.
I bring up this point because I, myself, suffer from this same spiritual sickness. I can get so caught up thinking about the many tasks ahead of me, that the actual import of what I have to do becomes ten times greater than they really are. I think that we all do have much to do in our busy lives. But there is a solution. When we approach our life’s tasks with the notion that what I need to do is what is right in front of me, and not think of all the other things that I need to do, some of the anxiety lessens. It is when life piles item upon item on our plate, and we fill our minds with visions of everything that needs to get done–before we can actually get at those things–then we become a basket filled with worry, stress, and anxiety. Then, our mind becomes filled with the world and we shut out the peace that is right with us at all times–that can be with us at all times.
We need to take time to quiet our minds, in order to feel Jesus walking by our side. We need to find a quiet place and a quiet state of mind in order to let the world spin without us, and let in Christ’s peace. We can do this, I think, even in the midst of our busy lives. By working one thing at a time, and keeping a presence of mind as we work, we can keep an attitude of calm in the midst of a storm. Things will get done, but the memory of what we have done and the anticipation of what needs to be done can dissipate. Then, the task at hand is all we are in, and that can be handled calmly, with presence of mind, and in peace.
We can also blind ourselves to truth when we are too invested in our own ideas–as paradoxical as this sounds. We can become too married to our own way of doing things to see anyone else’s way of doing things. We can become too sure that we are right and others are wrong to be open to a better way of doing things, or another way of seeing things. We can become too filled with ego to open our hearts to others’ feelings and other ways of living that aren’t our own. When we do this we can become the problem, not the solution that we think we are. We can get in the way of God’s way and replace it with our own ego-driven understanding of the way things ought to proceed.
This same issue works spiritually. Our own ideas of God and our own ideas of our spiritual needs can actually interfere with God’s actual presence and with God’s still, small voice in our hearts. How often are our prayers filled with things that we want, and want God to give us? I mean material things and even spiritual things. We can ask God for direction in life when we have issues in the world to deal with. But we can also ask God for spiritual qualities that we think we need. I have found myself asking God to help me achieve a spiritual goal that I had set for myself. I didn’t even think to ask whether God wanted this for me. In our prayer life, we need to be open to hear God’s voice to us. We need to quiet our own thoughts enough to feel God’s presence and God’s will for us. Otherwise, we are just like the disciples who were kept from recognizing Jesus by their own preconceptions of what the Messiah was supposed to be. It was their own ideas of God that kept them from seeing God right next to them.
Let’s not blind ourselves by our own power to see. Let us listen for that still, small voice in our hearts that is God’s constant presence with us. Let us not close off God’s influx with worldly concerns. Let us not close our eyes to God’s true nature by images of God we form from our own private wants and perceived needs. God is walking beside us all the time. Let us quiet our busy minds and open a channel for Him to reach us. Our hearts are burning within us. Let us feel our burning hearts, and not pay attention instead to the many distractions we can fabricate from our own minds. Then, when we see Jesus walking beside us in our lives, our hearts will be filled with joy–just as the hearts of the disciples did when Jesus was recognized as He broke bread.