Comprehending the Scriptures: An Eastertide Meditation on Luke 24

And he said unto them, 

These are the words which I spake unto you, 

while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, 

which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, 

and in the psalms, concerning me.

Then opened he their understanding, 

that they might understand the scriptures,

And said unto them, Thus it is written, 

and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, 

and to rise from the dead the third day:

And that repentance and remission of sins 

should be preached in his name among all nations, 

beginning at Jerusalem.

And ye are witnesses of these things.

And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: 

but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, 

until ye be endued with power from on high.

One of the great challenges which arises for anyone who encounters the Holy Scriptures, is understanding or comprehending them.  It is a book of books, composed and compiled over a period of centuries, as the people of God gathered and maintained His witness through prophets and apostles.  While Moses, living and writing around 1500 BC, opens our canon with Genesis, he is writing about things which God revealed to him and the people that occurred since the creation of the world— millennia before Moses’ time.  Exodus catches up to Moses’ present, with Leviticus and Numbers continuing God’s witness to and through him.  Deuteronomy recaps Moses’ witness to the people near the end of his life, with the final description of Moses’ death likely appended by Joshua, who picks up the story and the conquest of Canaan after him.  The Hebrew Scriptures continue to be composed by prophets and gathered by the people through the time of David and Solomon, through the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles periods, and the return of the people to Jerusalem several hundred years before Jesus and the Apostles.  The New Testament was composed in the first century AD during the lifetime of the Apostles who walked with Jesus and heard Him teach— who were witnesses to all that He did and said, including His death and resurrection.  Honest, traditional scholars know that the evidence is overwhelming for the reliability and accuracy of these ancient texts, as archeology and history studies continue to reveal.  All this is fairly easy to understand, if one simply takes the time to sit and read the Scriptures in a reasonable translation, and with appropriate linguistic, cultural, and contextual notes.

The harder part comes in asking, “What’s the point?”  Why does Moses or any of the other ancient prophets matter to me and my modern community?  Why does the witness of Jesus matter to me, nearly 2000 years after the last of his eyewitnesses died?  What is the purpose that God, who reveals Himself to be our Creator, Sustainer, Judge, and Savior, communicates to the world through His prophets and Apostles?  What is the point in having in our possession the longest contiguous, internally coherent writing project in history, composed over 1500 years by different people in different genres and styles and languages, and preserved among a community of faith which reaches back to the dawn of time?  Why do the Scriptures matter to me, my family, my neighborhood, my time, and my place?  These are the questions at which people stumble, even after they have dispersed the pretentious fog of modern theologians and scholars who disingenuously hack the Scriptures to pieces for their own popularity and to protect their own unbelief.  Even after the liars and frauds have been cleared away and a person encounters the Scriptures honestly and plainly, the questions regarding significance and applicability can remain:  what’s the point?

Our text for today in Luke 24 gives that answer, as the risen Jesus opens the minds of His disciples to understand how all of Scripture points to Him.  All the witnesses to God’s revelation in the Hebrew Scriptures were looking forward to the time in which God would fulfill His promise to save the people whom He created.  From Moses, the prophets, the psalmists, the writers of wisdom and history, came a golden thread which weaves from Creation, the Fall, the Cross, the Resurrection, to the Apocalypse:  Jesus the Christ, only Son of the Father, in the communion of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Jesus, who St. John tells us is the Eternal Word of God made flesh, is the true inspiration, author, subject, and fulfillment of His Holy Scriptures.  Having their minds opened by Jesus to comprehend this, He then sends them out as His witnesses to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His name to all the world.  What letters on a page cannot do alone, Jesus by His Holy Spirit accomplishes through that same Word, opening minds to understand who they are and who God is, how we stand condemned before His holy Law on account of our wickedness, and by grace through faith in Jesus stand forgiven and free in His holy Gospel.  Through His Word and Spirit, we see Jesus as the sum and summit of our faith, our redemption, our eternal life, and our peace with God through His Vicarious Atonement for us.

And what is Jesus’ command to His newly enlightened disciples?  To preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His name— to preach the Law with all its severity, and the Gospel with all its sweetness— in the power which He would give them by His Spirit on the day of Pentecost.  This Holy Spirit abides with Jesus’ people to this very day, and will continue to abide with His church until He returns at the end of time to judge the living and the dead.  Here, in the fellowship of Jesus and His Word, enlightened and enlivened by His Holy Spirit, reconciled and at peace with the Father through Jesus’ Cross, living in the present joy of His victory over sin, death, hell, and the devil which shall never end, the Word of God reveals why it matters for you and for me.  The point of the Scriptures is to bring everyone who will repent and believe into saving fellowship with the Triune God, by grace through faith in Jesus alone.

Today, the Word and Spirit of Jesus comes to you, opening your mind to understand the divine story which has been unfolding since the dawn of time, calling you to repentance and faith in Jesus, that you may be forgiven and live forever in Him.  Hear Jesus calling to you this day, turn from your evil, receive His free gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation through faith in Him.  And as the power of the Holy Spirit falls upon you, bear witness to Jesus and His saving Word to all who will likewise hear, repent, believe, and live— and see the thread of your own life woven into the golden thread of Jesus’ eternal story of redemption and life.  Amen.