Pastoral Letter 162
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and Peace to you all.
This weekend we remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice, paying the high cost of offering their lives for the sake of others and peace. We remember the Anzacs as well as the 1.5 Armenian who were massacred by the hands of the Ottoman Empire. Ironically these two commemorations stand next to each other. Armenians commemorate the Genocide on 24 April, while we, the Australians commemorate the Anzac Day on 25 April, both going back to the same period and year, which is 1915. We are saddened and remember those, who did their ultimate sacrifice, so that life goes on. And here we are commemorating and renewing our vows to do our best to continue our life and offer the best we can.
Lest we forget them!
If you will not be able to be with us tomorrow morning, please light a candle and join following the attached Order of Service.
At it has been our tradition, we are going to have a fellowship meal on Sunday 7 May 2023 at 12:00 noon to celebrate Mother’s Day. This is the Sunday before the actual Mother’s Day, which is on Sunday 14 May, when we like to celebrate the day with our families. If you plan to join us, please put your name down on the list, or send a note for catering purposes.
Be safe and well, continue to pray, remembering those who need care, support and love. Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
Here are some prayer points for this week:
- Pray and remember our ancestors, who paid a high price, so we can live in peace.
- Pray for the people of Ukraine, Armenia and Artsakh.
- Pray for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the struggling and the stressed.
- Pray for those who are unwell and struggling with different kinds of medical issues.
- Pray for those who are facing natural disasters causing death, loss and pain.
- Pray for world peace and ask for God’s blessings.
Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
Best Regards,
Krikor
MESSAGE
Burning Hearts!
Luke 24:13-35 and 1 Peter 1:13-25
According to our Gospel reading this morning, two of the disciples, we don’t know which two, were walking to the village called Emmaus and talking about all that had happened. As they were, suddenly another person joined them and asked them about what they were discussing. They told him that they were talking about Jesus’ deeds and teachings, and then how He had been handed over to the authorities and put to death. They also told him about the strange events of the morning of that first day of the week. Then, the man surprised them talking as they continued their conversation on the road. Beginning from Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted the scriptures to them, and he opened their hearts and minds to understand the scriptures.
When they arrived in the village, the person turned to go, but they invited him to stay the evening with them. They sat down to eat, and the guest took the bread, blessed it, and broke it and gave it to them. Suddenly their eyes were opened, and they realized that it was Jesus who was with them! Then He disappeared from their sight. They asked each other saying: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Although it was late, they got up and hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the others what they had experienced on the road and how their hearts were burning when they heard Him talking with them.
Their hearts were burning.
I don’t know if our hearts burn into flame as we read the Scriptures, hear a message or a sermon, study the Word and reflect on the Word we heard.
Fire can be a dangerous thing. It can also be a wonderful thing, depending on its use. God wants to set our hearts on fire and to give us a burning passion in life.
Sometimes we lack passion; we lack burning hearts.
We need God’s fire upon our lives to give us purpose and direction.
How do we get hearts burning with passion and purpose?
Our passage today gives us two clues on how to fuel a fire in our lives, to move from breaking hearts to burning hearts.
1. Hope was lost
The followers of Jesus, shaken up by the last week of events – Jesus’ trials, death and so-called appearances, were battling depression, discouragement and disillusionment.
They were heartbroken. Why? Because all that they had known was turned upside down. Once they had been sure that Jesus was the answer to all the world’s problems. Look at verse 21 – “We had hoped”. How sad are those words. When hope dies in someone, it is a terrible thing. When what you hope for doesn’t happen, it is sad, but when it seems that God has let you down, its 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 his life? Why did you let this happen?
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.
Sometimes it’s so hard to see what God is doing while we are in the middle of a painful experience. Faith requires some trust and hope. 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.”
2. Faith was weakened
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. We think God will do something. He doesn’t do it in the way we wanted. We get discouraged and think that God has let us down, that He disappointed us, that Jesus failed us.
Jesus led them past their limited understanding and what their eyes could see to a deeper understanding of His plan. Jesus must have given these Emmaus travellers 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 the story 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.
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...”
Jesus knows all our doubts and concerns. He sees our heartbreak, and He wants to take us further in our faith. He wants to meet with us. He wants not to be a stranger in our life. Even for Christians, Jesus is sometimes a stranger. He’s out there, somewhere, but He’s not close. Let Him show up and help things make sense.
When they invited Jesus to be with them, He broke the bread, gave thanks, and suddenly He was no longer a stranger. They recognised Him. Their hearts were burning inside them. The source of a burning heart is a walk with Jesus.
The word “burn” means to set on fire, to kindle. 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.
– Spending time in the Scriptures – that is, the Bible.
The burning heart finds its fuel in prayer and the Bible. These ignite and charge us.
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.
John Wesley have 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, we are called to turn our eye to the source of the flame that could set our hearts on fire.
Also, today as we commemorate Anzac Day and reflect on the great sacrifice of those who gave their lives for Australia and those who died for the freedom of all people. We remember those who still sleep amid the ridges of Gallipoli, in our land and unknown resting places in every sea and land. We ask God that we and our successors may prove worthy of their sacrifice.
Jesus was sacrificed, as those many who were ready to give their lives for the freedom of the people, but He is well and alive today, to encourage us and give us hope for a better life.
The same way, though the Anzac are not alive, but their message and legacy has passed to us, and our hearts should be on fire not only to remember and commemorate, but to follow their trend and give our best for others.
And to do that we need to have “burning hearts” within us to play our role and do our part with the same attitude and passion.
Let our hearts burn within us!
Amen!