"Minds Opened" based on Luke 24:36-49
The Third
Sunday of Easter/Confirmation Sunday -
Pastor
Troy Slater - Our
Today is certainly a day to
celebrate. Of course today as we began
our service with the Easter acclamation, "Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen
indeed!" we were reminded that we are still in the Easter season. And of course Jesus' resurrection is the
basis of our hope - it is the basis of our joy as Christians. Easter is our reason to celebrate each and
every day whether in plenty or in need. For
with the opened tomb we can know for certain that our sin is atoned for, that our
death is defeated, that Satan cannot overcome us, that the victory is won as
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! That's where our joy
begins. Yes today we celebrate that by
God's grace, the grave is open. …
But today we also celebrate another
opening. It's an opening that is also by
God's grace. It's an opening that our
Gospel reading for this morning from Luke, chapter 24 tells us was experienced
by the first disciples as they were gathered behind locked doors and a risen
Jesus appeared to them. For there our
reading tells us, "he showed them
his hands and his feet," and then He "opened their minds to understand the Scriptures." He "opened
their minds to understand the Scriptures." And as important as the opening of the tomb
is, as important as the fact that "Christ is risen"
is, this "opening of the minds to the Scriptures" is no less
important. For without that opening of
the disciples "minds to the Scriptures", the open tomb would have
been of no benefit to them. They needed
their minds opened to the Word of God in order to believe and to understand the
Good News of the open tomb. And so it is
that today we also celebrate that gift of "minds opened" to the Holy
Scriptures; we celebrate that the Lord God, by His Holy Spirit, enables our
minds to know, our hearts to believe, our lips to confess Jesus Christ
crucified and risen. Yes today is a day
to celebrate.
And of course with today being
Confirmation Day we celebrate that one of our young people has received this
gift - has studied the Scriptures and today is ready to make an informed
confession of her faith before us and before the world. And I must say that today is a bit different of
an experience for me. For starts today
is Confirmation Day and we have only one confirmand
this year. But then also that one is my
own daughter. Now usually for the sermon
on Confirmation Day I address it to the confirmands
and of course let the rest of the congregation listen in. But Ashten probably
thinks she gets enough sermons from her dad at home, so I'm not going to do
that today. Instead, today I'm going to
address all of us, not just Ashten. And certainly that's appropriate for I think
anytime we watch someone else's confirmation it's a great time to remember our
own. It's a wonderful opportunity to
remember those promises that we made before the Lord's altar, whether it was as
a young man or a young woman or whether it was later in life. Of course our confirmation was not the
beginning of our life of faith - that of course began through those waters of
Holy Baptism. But over the years we
received instruction - our minds were "opened" to understand the
Scriptures more fully. Using the Small
Catechism and of course the Bible our minds were opened beyond just the basic
Sunday School Bible stories; we were brought to a deeper understanding of our
Christian faith - that faith that we were baptized into.
Of course the danger has always been
that we go through our confirmation instruction and then we think we've got it
all - or at least we've got enough. Our
minds have been opened enough that we can now graduate from all this Catechism
and Bible stuff. And to be frank with
you, I suspect that's why our Bible study classes are so poorly attended.
But such is certainly not the
case. Speaking from personal experience,
I can attest that even after four years of seminary training and almost another
six as serving as a pastor, the more I learn, the more I realize that I don't
know. Minds must continue to be opened -
to be shaped and formed and yes even corrected by God's Holy Word. I mean how many of us for example, as our
child is about to finish the eighth grade would say to them, "You don't
need to go to school anymore, you know all you need to know in order to make it
in this world. Next year instead of
going to high school, you can sleep in everyday and do as you please."? Obviously we're not going to say that but yet
we do just that when it comes to something far, far more important than high
school or college or their career. We do
it when it comes to something that involves their eternal well-being. If not with our words then with our actions
for we've got to remember that our children, our grandchildren, nieces,
nephews, the young members of your congregation, their much more likely to do
as we do rather than as we say. If we're
not gathering around the Word ourselves - growing in knowledge, growing in
faith through Sunday School, Bible studies, Sunday
morning worship - well then we have absolutely no room to complain about the
lack of many youth in the churches today.
It's our own neglect of the Word - our own breaking of our own promises
made on the day of our confirmation, that's a big part of the problem in the
churches today. A
neglect of God's Word. .… …
Jesus "opened their minds to understand the Scriptures." He taught, they learned; their minds were
opened. Yes Jesus loves to open minds. …
Of course this open-mindedness that
we speak of here is very different from what our world today thinks when it
values open-mindedness. And I suppose
this is one of the reasons it's so important that we continue to study and to
gather around God's Word even after we reach the point of our
confirmation. For to the world, to have
an "open-mind" means to be open to all kinds of thinking, all
opinions, and all views no matter how God-forsaken or perverse they may
be. To the world to be
"open-minded" is to act, is to speak, is to live as if there is no
one truth - that all beliefs, all ideas, all interpretations are equally
valid. To be open-minded, according to
the world, is to open your mind and let all sorts of things fill it - all kinds
of worldly wisdom. ..
Of course we had a rather obvious display
of this last week with the controversy that erupted as one of the Miss USA
contestants answered a question during the pageant regarding gay marriage. After stumbling for a few seconds the
contestant ended up stating that she believes marriage is to be only between
one man and one woman. And so now over this last week while she has been applauded by
some, many are viciously attacking her for her belief including the judge who
asked her the question. The fallen
world just cannot stand it when someone stands up and says, "This is
right. This is wrong." We live in a world where
"open-mindedness" or "tolerance" as it's often called, is
supposedly some great overarching moral virtue.
If your not "open-minded" to all the
filth and perversions that are out there, well then you're the evil one. That's the world our children and
grandchildren are confronted with every day; that's the filth we are all
inundated with every day.
And so what are we giving ourselves to
keep our heads above water in this great cesspool that we live in today? Oprah?
American Idol?
Joel Osteen? Whatever feels
good? Whatever sounds good to us at the
time? … What are we using to arm our kids against the devil's temptations and his
subtle and deadly delusions? The Disney Channel? Sponge-Bob? The
neighbor kids down the street? … What's our guide in an immoral and a
dangerously confusing world that wants to lead us away from Christ? …
Well Jesus gives us what we
need. Only Jesus gives us what we
need. He gives us that sword of truth - His
Word; His Word that "is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness". He gives us His Word that we may know what is
right and good. He gives us His Word
that "uproots and tears down,
destroys and overthrows, builds and plants." He gives us His Word that testifies about
Him; that forgives us and restores us, that assures us
of heaven secured by His cross and resurrection. He gives us His Word that "we may know
the truth, that truth that sets us free."
Yes the Lord, He gives us His "words
of eternal life." …
Jesus gives us His Word; He gives us
Himself. He opens our minds to the truth
that He has lived among us, that He has died for us, and that He is now risen from the grave.
That's His Word to us - to you, to me, to our confirmand. Christ and His Word - that's what we
celebrate today as we mark a point along the road of a fellow sister in the
faith. Christ and His Word, that's what
we cling to today by His grace and by His Spirit. That's
what we cling to. But not just
today, not just on our Confirmation Day, but everyday - Christ and His
Word. That's what we cling to.
And so may we ever cling to Him - by
His grace - for His name's sake. May we
ever cling to Jesus and His Word, that with minds
opened, we may ever celebrate that all-surpassing truth that Christ is
risen! That He is risen
indeed! Amen.