25.07 | When Hearts Burn

Luke 24:13-53

‘They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”’

Luke 24:32

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This morning, as I went downstairs, it was sunny.

It came after some weeks of cloud—not cold, but just never really summery. And so I took my cup of tea and my Bible, and went and sat in the garden.

And I sensed the Lord saying that the time today would be a little less about praying the psalms and reading Jeremiah, than it would be about lifting my eyes and engaging with the beauty of what He had made. 

Sometimes He likes to mess with our overly-spiritual assumptions.

And so I sat with Him, enjoying the early sunlight on my face, and letting my mind wander as my eyes followed the words of the Scriptures. And what began to form was a plan for a summer of camping trips—driving down to north Devon, a camping tent in the back. Folding down the back seats of the car so the kids could sleep there, hiking the coastal path, swimming in the sea.

I’ve planned most of my hiking trips on sunny days. That little taste of the sunshine gives a hankering for adventure.

I love how Luke tells the story today. He’s never conventional, but often gives attention to what is happening at the margins of the story—how Jesus so often is working in the places where nobody else is looking. The conventional telling of this story would be with the disciples in the upper room, Jesus appearing to them despite the locked doors. And yet Luke takes us to these two (relatively unknown) followers of Jesus, hiking along a road in the direction of Emmaus.

They’re joined by a stranger. They share their woes with Him about the crucifixion and their dashed hopes and the impossible story of the women from the empty tomb. They’re downcast and walking away, like the fans of a losing team in a stadium, heading for the exits at half time.

They share their woes with Him. He shares the Scriptures with them. And something happens in them as they listen.

Their hearts burn.

Something changes in the atmosphere of their souls, that is intangible. To their understanding, nothing in their circumstances has shifted. To their knowledge, Jesus is still gone. And yet, as this stranger talks them through the Scriptures, something inside them starts to hope again, to breathe again, and to awaken to the possibilities of the adventures of God. It’s like they’ve gone outside on a sunny morning and started dreaming of camping trips at the beach.

Hope is like this—a burning of the heart. It is what happens when we start to see our circumstances differently, allowing the possibility of a better story to invade the cold and small parts of our imaginations, turning our gaze upwards and outwards in the expansive possibilities of resurrection life. It is when the sunshine starts to warm our faces and we start to plan and act and think different, because something within us finds it can breathe and imagine and risk and live with adventure again. 

I love how the story ends. The stranger stays with them, and then proceeds to break bread before them. And suddenly, they know Him. The burning of hope was no sentimentality: it was their souls awakening to the rising dawn. It was their souls awakening to reality. It was the cold doubt of the cynic giving way to the wondering expectancy of faith. 

And so, they leave the house, and they run seven miles straight back to Jerusalem.

For the burning pointed to reality. And it is towards this resurrection reality that their lives now run.

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Reflect:

Has hope faded in your life?

Spend some time with the risen Jesus today. Rest in His promises. And ask the Holy Spirit to shine sunshine afresh into your soul, awakening you to the reality that, though you’ve struggled to see it, hope is endlessly yours.

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Pray:

Lord Jesus,

Sometimes I find myself,

Walking away from my hopes,

And leaving my aspirations behind me.

I find myself in the Emmaus plod,

Blind to your presence beside me.

And yet, Lord,

When you come near,

I feel the burn:

I sense that the hopelessness I feel

May actually be the imposter

And the impossible possibilities of resurrection life

May actually be my reality.

When you walk with me,

And you speak to my heart,

I begin to burn, 

I begin to see,

And my direction spins—

From the empty life beyond Emmaus

Into resurrection realities.

Set this heart on fire again today,

Lord Jesus,

In Your Name,

Amen

Old Testament: 

For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:

Jeremiah 15-17 | Psalm 90:1-12