Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The text on which this morning's message is based primarily on 4 verses from our Gospel of Luke and Acts lesson (Road to Emmaus story & Acts 2: 14, 36-47) read earlier.

How's your heart today? I know a number of our high school and middle school youth are out for track and other sports this spring. Their hearts are probably in pretty good shape for running and jumping. I know two weeks ago I was playing tennis against one of the local high school varsity tennis members, and I was doing quite well against him I'm proud to say, for the first hour. When we started to get into the second hour, my heart and legs started to take its toll on my advantage of experience and skill. I was wise enough to quit while I was still not behind.

How's your heart today? For others of you, your days of high school track may be long behind you, if they were ever there. Your hearts may be strong, but in need of rhythm help from a pacemaker. Others of you have faced heart surgery in the past. A friend of mine, one of my high school classmates, is a heart surgeon in Wichita. He has actually held my Dad's heart in his hand as well as one of our members here. His skill with a scalpel and instruments has prolonged my father's earthly life and the lives of hundreds of others.

How's your heart today? Our Gospel and Acts lessons today are both written by the good Dr. Luke. In them, he puts a heavy emphasis on the human heart. Now the heart Dr. Luke is telling of is not the physical, beating, blood-pumping organ God-created in the middle of your chest. The word "heart" in the New Testament, just as it does in colloquial English, usually means our inner life, the center of our personhood and personality, the place in which God reveals Himself to us (Colin Brown, 1976). The "heart" in the New Testament is used almost synonymously with our "soul", our "spirit", but with a heavy emphasis on our emotional side to ourselves.

So, how's your heart today? This morning I've done something a little out of the norm for us. I've provided you with a Sermon worksheet to help you follow along with what Luke tells us about the hearts of the disciples in our texts, what Luke reminds us of in our hearts as well. This worksheet is on the back of the prayer needs insert and has the option of fill-in-the-blanks for you.

So, how's your heart today? The hearts of the 2 disciples on the road to Emmaus were heavy that date, troubled by "everything that had happened." Luke says that "their faces were downcast" as they walked along.

Many things in our lives can make our "faces downcast." Discord within our families and marriages. Diseases, injuries and other health problems. Family and friends who seem distant from a saving relationship with their Lord Jesus Christ. Frustrations with school or teachers, work or co-workers.   Many things in this life can lead us to have our faces downcast, to feel distant from our Lord and others.

The downcast Emmaus disciples are joined by Jesus, but they don't even recognize him. They tell this stranger of their woes and confusion, the crucifixion of their powerful prophet, the empty tomb, the reported vision of angels. They tell this stranger, perhaps expecting to hear sympathy and amazement as well, but no! He responds with "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself."

How is your heart today? How often are we "foolish and slow of heart to believe and trust our Lord's presence in our lives?" How often do we fail to recognize our Lord Jesus and the work and the people that he brings into our lives? How often are we foolish and slow of heart to believe all the wonders that God's Word reveals to us? How often do we let our earthly frustrations, real though they are, distract us from the main message of life, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God came to suffer these things for us? He took all of our frustrations and sins upon himself on the cross. There God Himself soaked up the effects of the Fall, the sin of mankind into his body.

Then he entered into his glory, conquering death on Easter, returning to heaven to sit at the right hand of God. All these things the Scriptures reveal to us, in both the Old and New Testaments. Jesus reveals this to the Emmaus disciples and what happens to their downcast faces, their foolish and slow hearts? When our hearts are slow to believe, what is remedy from Dr. Luke? Dr. Luke reveals to us Jesus' remedy. Jesus first "he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." Then "When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight."

When they realized that Jesus had given up his body for them on the cross, that he was giving his body to them in the Sacrament, that his body was standing physically alive before them in that room, then their hearts burned within them because Jesus opened to them the Scriptures. That day, when they realized the forgiveness and new life bought for them, they knew their downcast, slow of heart lives would never be the same. Jesus was there revealing himself and the meaning of life for eternity.

But Dr. Luke doesn't stop with his medical text on heart surgery here at Emmaus. He goes on to describe what happened to human hearts just a few weeks later, at Pentecost. Peter, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is preaching the first grand Christian sermon to a throng of thousands of people. Peter is now sharing with the multitudes what the Emmaus disciples had seen weeks before. Peter cried out to them: "let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say…. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact…. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."

Verse 37: "When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Have you been cut to the heart recently by Jesus story for you? Have you realized the extent of your sin and your need before God? Have you felt the need to cry out "What shall I do?" Have you sensed the need for your forgiveness for being foolish and slow of heart to trust in your Lord's Word and guidance for your life? If so, what shall we do? Peter tells those listening and us as well: "Repent and be baptized." Turn daily from your desires to control your own lives apart from your Lord, and turn to him and his forgiveness for you peace. This promise is for you. "With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.'" The ways of this world, of this sinful generation lead to corruption and separation from God. But turning to Jesus and what he has done for you leads to life.

That day 3000 turned to Jesus for salvation, for a new and different life. Today we again turn to our Lord, hearing his Word, repenting and asking for his mercy for our foolishness and slowness of heart to trust Him rather than the world. Today, here again, we celebrate Christ's conquering of death, of his heart surgery on us. Today we let the Words of Christ, sharper than any two edged sword (Hebrews 4:12) into our hearts. That Word "penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

And what is the result of this heart surgery? I know that when my Dad had heart surgery, we were all in awe. Here this doctor, a man I had known as an awkward 14 year-old, this man had developed the skills to hold peoples' hearts in his hands and repair them in remarkable ways. But Dr. Benton's heart surgery skills pale in comparison to the heart surgery that our Lord Christ longs to do on us every day through his Word.

What is the result of this heart surgery that Jesus does on us foolish and slow of heart ones he loves? We see those results in the early church as Luke describes them. They devoted "themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." They were "filled with awe" at what Jesus had done and was doing in their lives. "They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God."

So how is your heart today? Slow to trust? Cut and repentant? If so, let the Word of Christ dwell richly within you. Open wide your heart, for the gift is big (Banner statement on wall by pulpit). When the Word of Christ dwells richly in you, your heart will burn to hear of your forgiveness and Christ's power to save. Your heart will be glad and sincere. When I was honest with myself, I realized that one of the reasons I did not go to the seminary when I was in my 20's or 30's was because I had a slight fear about God's Word. I feared that as I learned more about the Scriptures, I would personally find them insufficient to answer life's most important questions. I am sincerely glad to be able to tell you that after decades of reading and hearing God's Word, and after 4 years now of studying it at the seminary and as your pastor, there is not a day that goes by that Christ does reveal Himself to me in some new and marvelous way. There is not a day that goes by that His Word doesn't work on my heart to make it glad and sincere.

I pray that as your pastor I am instill in your heart a similar passion for his Words and a burning to hear, again and again, of his forgiveness and strength in your life. Amen.

SERMON WORKSHEET – APRIL 14, 2002

How's your heart today? Luke 24: 25
Are you ______________________ of heart ______________?
If so, what is the remedy from Dr. Luke?
Luke 24: 32 Hearts _____________ because Jesus ____________________

How's your heart today Acts 2: 37
Have you been _________________________ heart?
How does that happen? (v. 38) _____________ and __________________.
What is the result of this heart surgery? Acts 2: 42- 46
1. ________________ to teaching, fellowship, sacrament and prayer
2. ________________                 
3. _____________ and ______________ hearts____________________.