Luke 24:13-32 – From Heartbreak to Heartburn
I remember reading once a true story about a man who was saved from his burning house in the middle of the night. The house was a total loss, but no-one was hurt. After some work, it was discovered that the fire started in the bedroom, the same room the man was sleeping in when he discovered the fire. The man, being a smoker, was questioned as to whether or not he was smoking in bed. “Of course not,” he said. He was pressed a little further: “Well, how did the fire start? Where did the fire come from? Are you sure your cigarette didn’t set the bed on fire?” The man, flustered, tired, and discovered, said, “No, the bed was on fire when I got in it.”
Fire can be a dangerous thing. It can also be a wonderful thing, depending on its use. It’s been said fire makes a great servant but a horrible taskmaster.
The truth is God wants to set our hearts on fire. To give us a burning passion in life. We all long for the eternal but are too easily contented with the temporary. We want to do something worthwhile but spend too much time wasted. We come, we go, we do our part. We go through motions. We lack purpose. We lack passion. We lack burning hearts.
We are not alone. Most people have to deal with hearts that are breaking instead of hearts that are burning. Most people have too many hurts in their own lives to seriously invest in others. Some of you would like to be more involved, but you’ve got too much on your plates already. So what happens is your time and energy gets sapped on things that won’t matter when it all ends. What we need is God’s fire upon our lives, giving us purpose and direction, taking us farther than salvation. How do we get heartburn – that is, hearts burning with passion and purpose? Our passage today gives us two clues to fuel a fire in our lives, to move from breaking hearts to burning hearts. Luke 24:13-33.
Let’s paint the picture. It’s the first Easter Sunday. Jesus has risen and appeared to Mary Magdalene, who at first thought he was a gardener. Then he appeared to several women: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, Joanna and Salome, the mother of James and John. There was one other: Mary, the other Mary, the wife of Clopas or Cleopas or Cleophas, also known as Alpheus. It’s very possible that this Mary also appears in our story today.
Two followers of Jesus, shaken up by the last week of events – Jesus’ trials, death and so-called appearances – were headed out of Jerusalem and all the events there, to the town of Emmaus, present day Khan el Khamaseh. V13-16. These folks were battling the big D’s: depression, discouragement, disillusionment.
V17 says they were downcast. Heartbroken. Why were they heartbroken? Why were they downcast? Because all that they had known was turned upside down. V18-24.
Once they had been sure that Jesus was the answer to all the world’s problems. Look at v21 – “We had hoped”. How sad are those words. When hope dies in someone is a terrible thing. When what you hope happens doesn’t happen is sad, but when it seems that God has let you down, it’s worse. We all have been let down by others; it hurts, but we come to expect it somewhat. But when God doesn’t do what you hoped He would, the pain is greater. Why didn’t you save this life? Why didn’t you save this marriage? Why did you let this happen?
Understand: all that they knew was based on what they could see. All they could see was chaos and confusion. All they could see was with their physical eyes. Heartbreak comes from walking by sight. Heartbreak happens to all of us from time to time. And while we’re in it, it’s so easy to get together with our friends and talk and whine and complain and relive the past and run away from it all, just as these two followers were doing. Sometimes it’s so hard to see what God is doing while we are in the middle of a painful experience – in the sea of a heartbreak. Just as Jesus promised that He would die but be raised from the dead 3 days later, it’s so easy for us to forget all of His promises too. When He says He would never leave us or forsake us, that applies even in the middle of a heartbreak. When He says that He will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory, that’s true in tough times too. And especially when He says that all things are working for the good for those who love Him, even our heartbreaks can be redeemed and turned into something useful. But if all you know is what you can see with your own two eyes, you’re in trouble.
The following letter was found in a baking-powder can wired to the handle of an old pump that offered the only hope of drinking water on a very long and seldom-used trail across Nevada’s Amargosa Desert:
“This pump is all right as of June 1932. I put a new sucker washer into it and it ought to last five years. But the washer dries out and the pump has got to be primed. Under the white rock I buried a bottle of water, out of the sun and cork end up. There’s enough water in it to prime the pump, but not if you drink some first. Pour about one-fourth and let her soak to wet the leather. Then pour in the rest medium fast and pump like crazy. You’ll git water. The well has never run dry. Have faith. When you git watered up, fill the bottle and put it back like you found it for the next feller. (signed) Desert Pete. P.S. Don’t go drinking the water first. Prime the pump with it and you’ll git all you can hold.
Faith requires some trust. It requires believing that there is more than you can see with your eyes. One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you.” He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: “Jump! I will catch you.” But the boy protested, “Daddy, I can’t see you.” The father replied, “But I can see you and that’s all that matters.”
Moving on in our passage, Jesus hinted at their problem, why they were downcast. V25-26. They were slow to believe all the promises of the Scriptures. Belief in who the Bible says Jesus is was their problem, and it might be ours too. I’m convinced that heartbreak happens this way: we think God will do something, based on our faulty knowledge of His Word and His ways. He doesn’t do it in the way we wanted. We get discouraged and think that God let us down, that He disappointed us, that Jesus failed us. But the problem is not with Jesus. The problem is that we set up God to do something He never said He’d do. Boom. Heartbreak.
But in our lives and in our story, God had another plan. Jesus led them past their limited understanding, past what their eyes could see, and He led them to a deeper understanding of His plans. V27.
Jesus must have given these Emmaus travelers the greatest Old Testament sermon in history. He would have made sense of all the twists and turns in Jewish history. He would have reminded them that right back at the Fall of Mankind the apparently victorious Satan, in the form of the serpent, was told that the seed, the offspring of the woman "will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" (Gen 3:15).
And so was foretold the story of the cosmic struggle between death and life, of the pattern of death and resurrection in the Old Testament revelation. It’s clearly visible in the life of Abraham, sacrificing his dear and only son Isaac and getting him back again; of Joseph, preserved to become the benefactor of his brothers who tried to destroy him; of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt after having been saved from the angel of death through the sign of the blood of the Passover lamb.
Jesus would have recalled his own teaching of how the Israelites escaped physical death in the wilderness from a plague of serpents when they looked trustingly to a great bronze serpent which Moses raised on a pole, pointing out that he too would be lifted up on the Cross, "that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life in him" (John 3:15). Jesus would surely have taken the now speechless disciples through the Suffering Servant of Jehovah passages in Isaiah. He would have recounted how the nation of Israel, taken into exile and brought back again to rebuild Jerusalem, was a symbol of the greater redemption through personal salvation through faith in him.
Here was proof that Jesus had fulfilled that which had been prophesied over the centuries; that these Old Testament anticipations of his passion and triumph of life over death, proved that he was indeed the Messiah. The two disciples couldn’t have expected that sharing their problem with the stranger on the Emmaus road brought them towards a solution. But there was more to it than that. Christ wasn’t there besides them simply to help them to find solutions - he was in the problem itself. Jesus told his two listeners, "Did not the Christ have to suffer these things..."
Folks, understand that Jesus knows all your doubts and concerns. He sees your heartbreak, and He wants to point you to the answer. He doesn’t want to leave you high and dry. He wants to take you further in your faith, past pat answers and easy alibis. He wants to meet with you. He wants not to be a stranger in your life. Even for Christians, Jesus is sometimes a stranger. He’s out there, somewhere, but He’s not close. Folks, let Him show up and help things make sense.
V28-29. The believers invited Jesus to be with them.
V30-31. He broke the bread, gave thanks, and suddenly He was no longer a stranger. They recognized Him. And v32. Their hearts were burning inside of them. If heartbreak comes from walking by sight, heartburn comes from walking with Jesus. The source of a burning heart is a walk with Jesus.
The word “burn” means to set on fire, to kindle, to consume, to light. Jesus ignited something within these two followers of His. He gave them understanding. He opened their eyes. He gave them a passion and purpose where all there had been was pain. And it came from two things. These are truly the basics of a walk with Jesus: spending time with Him – that is, prayer. And spending time in the Scriptures – that is, the Bible. The burning heart finds its fuel in prayer and the Bible. These ignite us. These charge us. These are the connections to God.
Now there are others, as well. If we neglect church and tithing and sharing our faith and serving others, we will become unbalanced. But in the context of this passage, spending time with Jesus to allow Him to open up what the Scriptures have for us is the key to a burning heart. And ultimately, if we really allow Him to speak to us, the other things will fall in place anyway.
When John Wesley first got past the law and working to please God, and found a relationship with Jesus, he said that his “heart was strangely warmed.” Later he was asked the secret about his ministry. He said, “I ask God to set me on fire and let people watch me burn.” His whole life was of heartburn – a burning heart for Jesus, a passion to live for Him. Today, will you decide to get past the hurts of your life and press on further in your walk with Jesus?
