LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 70

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70

CONVENTION ESSAYS AND BIBLE STUDIES

parables, the healings, the expositions, His words from the
cross—all of these needed to be fulfilled. Our Lord’s ministry was itself the fulfillment of all that been written in
the Old Testament. The law of Moses, the prophets, the
psalms, all are fulfilled in Him. It is worth noting that the
threefold designation: law, prophets, psalms is the way in
which the Old Testament believer spoke of the Scriptures,
the written word of God. Thus, our Lord is saying that the
entire Bible is fulfilled in His words and life.
You see, words count. Words mean something. Words
are the means by which the Lord chose to reveal Himself
to us. From the very beginning it was through words that
God was active. God SAID at the creation, and it happened.
The word did what it said. These powerful, active words the
Lord gives to us. He has fulfilled all the words spoken and
written about Him.
The word to Adam and Eve that One would crush the
head of the serpent—fulfilled in Him. The word to Abraham that he would be a great nation and through him One
would bless the world—fulfilled in Him. The word that Israel would be rescued by the Lord being brought from
Egypt, for out of Egypt God had called His Son—fulfilled in
Him. The word that the Lamb would be slain for the sins of
the people—fulfilled in Him. Every word written in the
book that we call the Old Testament was fulfilled in Him.
The gospels keep reminding us, “This was to fulfill Scripture.”
A moment ago I said that words count. Words are all
that we have. It is through words that we communicate the
Good News of salvation to others even as it has been communicated to us. Over the years as a pastor I’ve come to realize that this is true. Words count. Every pastor here has
had the same experience. You’ve had a person come up to
you and say, “Pastor, what you said in your sermon years
ago when I was going through a very difficult time changed
my life. You’ll never know how much your words meant.”
Then they repeat what you’ve said, and you can’t really remember those words at all. You simply know that you were
about the task of speaking the word of the Lord, and those
words of His, not yours, are what had the impact and
changed lives. The words spoken by our Lord and the words
written about Him must be and have been fulfilled.

II. Jesus Opened Their Minds
to Understand the Scriptures
Words spoken and words written are not useful unless
they are understood. If I were speaking this morning in
Russian or Japanese, there is a good chance that almost no
one in this hall would understand what I am saying. That
is obvious and clear to us. However, it is also possible that I
could speak English using a technical vocabulary that few
could understand, and that would be as meaningless as if I
spoke a foreign language. If words are spoken and written,
they must be understood.
The text from St. Luke 24 that we are looking at this
morning says that Jesus opened the minds of the disciples
so that they understood the Scriptures. That phrase takes
us back to the event recounted earlier in this chapter, the
Emmaus event. The two disciples walking to Emmaus were
dejected. They had seen and heard all that had happened

that first Easter weekend, but they did not understand.
The stranger on the way to Emmaus had opened the Scriptures to them so that they understood. In fact, they later
related that as the stranger had explained the Scriptures,
their hearts had burned within them. The Lord had spoken, but the Lord had also opened their hearts and minds
to understand. So it is at the end of the Gospel of St. Luke
that Jesus again opens their minds so that they understand
the meaning of the Scripture.

III. The Heart of the Message: Death,
Resurrection, Repentance, and
Forgiveness
But what is it that Jesus expounded? To what did He
open their minds? Here we are at the heart of the matter. It
is the Good News. And we have been entrusted. Here is the
message that we have that makes evangelization and outreach possible. Our Lord expounds the heart of the Gospel
message to the disciples.
“It is written,” says the Lord, “that the Christ should
suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.” It was still
hard for that first band of disciples to believe that the
Christ, the Promised One of God, would suffer and die.
They had looked for the king to be a majestic king and not
the suffering Servant foretold by Isaiah. “Suffer and die?
That is not the kind of king we want,” they had said. “Rise
again from the dead? Not very likely. Things like that don’t
happen.” But happen they did. God had a different way of
doing things. His way was not of kingly majesty. Rather it
was the Lord of life giving His life for the life of the world.
His message was not a message of glory but a message of
the cross. God had turned everything upside down.
That is the message that we have been given. It is this
message of suffering and death and resurrection that we
have been given to reach out to a world that is perishing. It
is a message that confounds the world, even as it has confounded us, yet saved us. The world, and alas even many
in the church, find this message of the cross unappealing.
They want a Christ who makes them winners in life. They
would prefer a Christ who would give assurance that if you
believe, the world and its riches will be yours for the asking. “Name your blessing, and then claim it,” the theology
of glory proclaims. “Name it and claim it.” It is this enticing
theology of glory that calls to all of us with all of its allurements. But that is not what the Lord said. He opened the
minds of the disciples, and He opens our minds and hearts
to something quite different. It was necessary that the
Christ should suffer and die and rise from the dead and
that repentance and forgiveness be preached in His name
to all nations.
The suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord calls
us to repentance. Repentance, that word is often misunderstood. For many people “repentance” means to feel sorrow
for what you have done. But simple sorrow for sins is not
repentance. The Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article V, section 8, uses this Luke 24 text to define “repentance” as acknowledging sins, being heartily sorry for them,
and desisting from them. Our synodical catechism defines
sorrow for sin as contrition, and repentance as faith in the
work of Christ (question 256). Remember well the story in