Sunday, April 19, 2026… Third Sunday of Easter
“Hearts that Burn for Christ”
Scripture Readings: Psalm 116:1-14; Acts 2:14a, 36-41; 1 Peter 1:17-25; Luke 24:13-35
Divine Service IV with Holy Communion, Lutheran Service Book
Hymns: “Jesus Lives! The Victory’s Won” #490; “Who Are You Who Walk in Sorrow” #476; “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” #469
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The two disciples on the Emmaus road, after they’d met the risen Jesus and talked with Him - and even broke bread with Him - said their “hearts were burning within them” once they’d come to understand who Jesus was. May our hearts burn for Him as well, as we hear once again the Easter Good News.
“Now that same day,” says our Gospel (that’s Easter Sunday), “two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.” Which two disciples? Not part of the twelve (who were now down to eleven), but more likely part of the outer circle of disciples, part of the seventy-two. A man named Cleopas is named as one of them; many think St. Luke was the other, although there’s no real certainty about that.
They were leaving Jerusalem, most likely out of fear for their lives, and broken-hearted, disappointed, and confused. Like many others, they’d expected that Jesus would be the new King of Israel -- but He’d been crucified instead. What about His promises? What about their hopes? And now they’d heard those rumors that He’d been raised, that He was alive again. But could the word of the women who said they’d seen Him be trusted? You know how women are; who could believe a story like that? They were discussing and debating as they walked along, arguing with each other, all torn up inside.
And “As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing Him.” What was keeping them from recognizing Him? It didn’t fit their despondent narrative. They were focused on fear and on the disaster that had befallen them, and on “what in the world are we going to do now?” They had their poor eyes on the ground. And this man that came to walk beside them wasn’t like that at all. Picture here a Jesus who’s happy and laughing and bright-eyed and full of life. It wasn’t what they were expecting, nor what their sad hearts were ready for.
Jesus (whom they didn’t know yet was Jesus) asked them: “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” (although He knew!) They stood still, hearts and faces downcast, eyes on the ground. The one named Cleopas, in fact, gets a little snippy with the stranger. “You’re coming from Jerusalem, and You don’t know what’s been happing there? Where have you been? What rock have You been hiding under?” (What was done to Jesus had been done in the open, after all, for everyone to see).
“What things,” Jesus asked, pretending innocence. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a true prophet. He spoke with power, and did works of power and mighty miracles before God and all the people. Then our chief priests and rulers handed Him over to Governor Pilate, and Pilate had Him sentenced to death, and they crucified Him. So now He’s dead, He’s been laid in the grave, and all our hopes have been buried along with Him.”
“But we had hoped,” they said, “that He was the One who was going to redeem Israel. And what’s more, it’s the third day since all this took place.” We had such great hopes that He was the One -- the Redeemer of Israel, the new King David, the One who was going to make Israel great again. He’d always told us He’d be raised again on the third day -- but this IS the third day, and the day is getting late, and we have yet to see Him; and now we’re having doubts that what He said was true.
And then some of our women came from His tomb this morning, and claimed they’d seen angels who told them He was alive; but you know how hysterical women can be. Some of our brothers went to the tomb and found it empty, as the women had said; but they didn’t find His body, living or otherwise. So we’re on our way to Emmaus, or to somewhere else, or to anywhere else, because it looks like everything is lost.
And the stranger, who was Jesus, though they didn’t know yet He was Jesus, told them they were “foolish and slow of heart to believe.” Why? Because they were disbelieving everything the prophets had said about their Savior. They were looking for a conquering King, which He was; but they were wrong about the means by which He would conquer. They missed the part about the Savior, the Messiah, having to walk through suffering and death as the path to His glory. They were looking for the green pastures and the still waters, and forgetting the part about the valley of the shadow of death that the Scriptures said had to come first.
So, as they walked along the road, Jesus opened the Scriptures to them. Beginning with Moses and the Prophets, He showed them what they’d been missing, and what they’d failed to see – that part about a God who loved the world so much that He planned from the beginning of the world to send His Son to die to pay for all our sin. If some of you have been reading those wonderful books of the Old Testament, I hope you’ve seen that everything you read there points to Jesus, and to His cross, and to the empty tomb. “These are the Scriptures that testify about Me,” Jesus said.
They approached the village, Emmaus, where they’d planned to stay. (It may have been home for one of them). And Jesus acted as if He were walking on (although He never intended to). But the dam was beginning to break, and the disciple’s eyes were beginning to see, and something must have been happening in their hearts. The good Holy Spirit seems to have been working in them, because they asked Him to stay, and they wanted to hear more. (It’s the joy of every pastor’s heart when that happens!)
Then Jesus sat down to eat with them, and He did what they’d seen Him do many times before. Normally a stranger would be a guest in a setting like this; yet Jesus took His rightful place as the host, the One at the head of the table. He took the bread and gave thanks for it, most likely using the traditional Hebrew table prayer from Psalm 145: “The eyes of all look to You, O Lord, and You give them their food at the proper time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” And He broke the bread and gave it to them; He served it to them.
I don’t know if it’s proper to read Communion into this, or if that’s what Jesus meant by it; some say yes and some say no. It might have been just the beginning of an ordinary meal. But nevertheless, when Jesus passed them the bread, it opened their eyes. They recognized Him, and understood at last who He was, and who it was who they’d been walking with on the Emmaus road. They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Does your heart still burn inside you when you open your Bible and read it? Does the Good News about Jesus still move something in your soul? Does a Good Friday service still move you to tears? Does an Easter Sunday service still fill your heart with joy? Does our worship on Sunday morning make you want you want to go out from here and tell everyone what you know? Have you known the joy of telling someone about Jesus, and seeing by the light in their eyes that they believe it?
And “Who is lead into sin and I do not inwardly burn?” St. Paul wrote. Does it break your heart to see what sin does to people and how much it hurts them? Lord, have mercy! Is your heart on fire to let people know the Good News that can save them?
Is God’s Word, as prophet Jeremiah says, “a fire shut up in your bones” that you just can’t keep inside? May God set all of our hearts on fire for Christ, until we “can’t help speaking about what we’ve seen and heard.”
“They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem.” On the way to Emmaus, they’d shuffled along, looking down at their feet, the weight of the world upon their shoulders. But on the way back to Jerusalem, filled with joy as they were, their feet barely touched the ground. Do you remember how it was when you were five or six years old, and you could go and go and go all day, so light on your feet and never getting tired? That’s what it must have been like for these two disciples, on the way to share their good news. May God fill us with joy like that!
And they were met by the other disciples, so excited that it was true -- that Jesus was alive, and Simon Peter had seen Him. And they told their own story, about how they’d recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread. And it was very shortly thereafter that Jesus Himself appeared in the room with them and said, “Peace be with you!”
I hope and pray that your heart is burning with joyful anticipation this day, as we prepare to come before God’s altar, to share in the body and blood of Christ, and as we “recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread.” I pray that the greatness of this gift moves your soul, and that your heart overflows with thankfulness, that God would love you so much that He’d give you His very own Son, here in the bread and the wine. I pray that the joy that’s in you will come pouring out of you, and you walk in the world with Jesus in your soul when you leave this place.
Were not our hearts burning within us when we heard the Good News? Alleluia! Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Amen.
Rev. Larry Sheppard, M.Div.
Trinity Lutheran Church, Packwaukee, WI
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Oxford, WI
pastorshepp@gmail.com