Easter 3
April 23, 2023
Text â St. Luke 24:13-35
âTheir Eyes Were Opened!â
We remember how several weeks back our Gospel lesson spoke of a man who was born blind⊠he meets Jesus, and he sees, and it gets him into trouble with the leaders of the Jews and kicked out of the synagogue.
Last week we heard of a man, Thomas, who refused to believe in the resurrection until he had seen the evidence with his own eyes. He heard â He saw and believedâŠÂ Yes, the risen Jesus had touched his life as He had with the others as they had tpuched His wounds!
Picture if you will, two guys out walking on a Sunday afternoon⊠there are things they have heard, but they have yet to see. Will their lives become any different once their eyes are opened? You better believe it! You cannot move from darkness to light without your life drastically being changed â without there being a new perspective entering your existence. You cannot see and be a member of this Kingdom unless the Spirit moves you from doubt to faith⊠unless you are convinced that death and the grave have been conquered.
Now, the path from the cemetery to Rising Heights is uphill all the way. Itâs not the easiest trail to follow. Itâs not always clearly marked and the whole time youâre on this byway your mind says you shouldnât be. There are more important matters to be concerned about than to go out hiking. But as the Scriptures say there is a time to sit and there is a time to hike⊠or something like that.
This is a path not easily traveled on alone. Really, one needs to take another along to provide commentary and to encourage you on the way. When the going gets dark, someone experienced in the going is mighty helpful! One needs to be reminded that the goal is still Rising Heights!
But it never fails, the doubts are there every time one passes the cemetery. That place serves as a reminder that the glory of Rising Heights is still not yet fully known. In Rising Heights there are no cemeteries. There is no death!
These two particular pilgrims have been to the cemetery and have found no happiness there, rather only gloom. They had found exactly what they were looking for â Death. However, now one of their loved ones was gone! Before His death they had expected so much more from Him! He talked about emptying the cemeteries, but now Heâs in one! A lot of talk, thatâs all it appears to be at this point.
Their hearts were filled with doubt, disappointment, and despair at a prospect that seemed to have gone up in smoke. Their only hope had flickered for a brief moment, and it was gone! Defeat was left in its place. Under those conditions one hangs their head. They cannot look up! Rising Heights is just a myth if the founder of Rising Heights, the âheroâ who said that He would win the greatest battle, is dead and gone! Then to ever dwell in Rising Heights is a delusion and figment of an active imagination, of a deceived and deluded mind.
If we lack anything (and we do), then we remain inadequate to the moment and the task ahead. If we are destined for death and our own place in the cemetery (and it appears that such is the case) then weâve lost the comfort that Rising Heights offeredâŠ
Itâs amazing how self-absorbed one can be while hiking past the cemetery, but there is reason to be. Without Rising Heights and its Lord, we are in a heap of problems, a thorough mess out of which we cannot climb. We are the results of immorality unredeemable; rebellion irreconcilable; we are death undeniable. We are hope and paradise lost. Then, we, Christians, are among all to be pitied the most!
But then add a third party, an Encourager, who lifts up with holy and inspired words. Self-absorption becomes redirected to those words and their promises that reaching Rising Heights is still possible. Rising Heights is real. Hope still lives despite what our senses might try to communicate to us otherwise. âCarry on and believe,â is this strangerâs exhortation.
Oh, we want to believe. âLord, help me in my unbelief!â But still doubt continues on a different plain. True or False? Is this new information worth listening to or not? Continue on or stop? Their hearts are strangely warmed with these assurances coming from His lips.
With more and more being said from this encouraging gentleman the journey becomes easier. A light is dawning. Scales fall from their eyes and there is a spark of hope from which to gain strength. This stranger appears familiar. The comfort and warmth of His words, drawn as they are from that which was revealed in times past, from prophets of old⊠raise us up on the path ahead. Will we believe it?
He tells us that there had to be a cemetery in order to overthrow it. Itâs always easier to conquer something from the inside out. Death is destroyed in Godâs dying; then comes living again. Sin is destroyed in innocence suffering under its consequences and then comes a righteousness to share with those not so innocent. The enemy is overthrown when the victory is won in his own domain, and then there is glory!
What strange and wonderful words these are but the two travelers continue to doubt as they head up toward what they thought was Rising Heights. Still, it is just a lot of talk! We need proof! We need to get to Rising Heights, but the prospects are still pretty slim while we are surrounded by clouds and continued bleak conditions.
The ancient seers, moved by Godâs Spirit, knew what these two couldnât grasp. And what they are about to realize, those prophets longed to see with their own eyes! What these two should be seeing they are not, hearing they are not yet comprehending. Look ahead, with a pin-point divine perspective and you can begin to see the throne of Rising Heights on the horizon. But those who donât think it exists any longer (or never did) wonât look â they donât expect it! Yet, if Christ is still dead, if He is not risen, we are still in our sins and our faith is empty and meaningless.Â
 In our day and age, I guess there are several things one shouldnât expect: for sinners to be in the presence of a holy God and live, for a meaningless life suddenly to become purposeful, or for dead people to be walking and talking. These are the things that just donât happen every day or very often.
And despite what anyone says to the contrary, most people would insist that those things just donât happen at all. Someone says that God doesnât exist, and many believe itâŠÂ Some say that sin is not redeemed nor the sinner redeemable, and many believe that too! Some say that the body obviously cannot rise from the dead, and so many believe that. But what good do these contrary thoughts work in our hearts as far as a living, breathing, and reviving faith is concerned?
When the expected happens such as we bury someone, and they stay dead. âThatâs just as I figured!â we say. The promise of blessing without measure and we donât see it happen or donât feel it, âI was afraid of thatâ is the often-heard response.
But when we step through the pearly gates of Rising Heights everybody is surprised because what you wouldnât ordinarily expect, that is what youâll find there! As the two travelers see its golden streets and its many mighty and roomy mansions, they realize that the cemetery did not hold their Lord. This is where He lives! And here sinners stand before a Holy God only because the Innocent Lamb has redeemed them and by taking up His life again, He has won the victory for us!
Here is the proof! Seeing that He lives, body and soul, is knowing that He is not dead, and it is thus forever believing that He lives and will not die ever again⊠and neither will we who trust in Him! We will not be left in any grave or cemetery because our Lord has overcome the grave, the cemetery, and death and the devil! âWhoever believes shall not perish!â
As you travel along that same route, that same path as those who have gone before us we cannot afford to be foolish, or keep our eyes closed to a greater reality, or slow to believe the words of the prophets, the Apostles, and He who is the first-born of the dead, because the possibility of leaving the right trail for the wrong one is too great an option to those who come by our spiritual blindness naturally.
We each move on to our new address on Heavenly Way in Rising Heights in the Kingdom of our God. We move away from cemetery tears and fears, and seek the Wounded now Risen Lord who heals, who formerly was dead and who now lives forever and who makes you alive. In this light only are our eyes opened and we truly see! Opened to expect the unexpected and to move from hopelessness to hope, and from doubt to faith to fulfillment!
The reward of living in Rising Heights is eternal victory and life everlasting in the presence of our eternal and Triune God. As we gather at the altar in the breaking of the bread we must see and recognize the Lord of victory who brings us joy and Godâs undeserved love and forgiveness. As we feed on the feast of His body and His blood we feed on life and salvation, and we now possess the glory of His grace and the power of His resurrection (the real prize of Easter)!
Christ the Lord rose from the grave, and He lives and reigns even now and forevermore and through Him we live, now and always! He who has ears to hear â let him hear and believe and live!
Amen!