Reverend Patrick Erickson
Pastor of Peace Lutheran Church
The Day Is Far Spent
(St. Luke 24:13-35)
My friends, the day is far spent, to use the Emmaus disciples' frame of reference and form of speech. And not just because, as in the instance of those disciples that first Easter evening, it's also evening, so to speak, for us--the evening of our lives. Hopefully, like them, we will still be talking about all the things that happened during Holy Week, not just this Easter evening, April 12th, not just the week after or the full seven Sundays, the Sabbath of Sundays of Eastertide, the great Fifty Days of Easter, but all our life, here and hereafter, ever after!
Those events in this eventful week, the holiest week of the Church Year, culminate in our Savior's institution on Maundy Thursday of His holy Supper for our forgiveness and the strengthening of the faith, God given, whereby we appropriate His grace as our paschal Lamb and His crucifixion and death as that Lamb slain for our salvation on Good Friday.
If Jesus came among us this evening, with the lights turned low, would our eyes, like those of the Emmaus disciples, be kept from recognizing Him? Like them, would it be because the light of faith was burning lower still?
St. John writes that in Him is life and His life is the Light of men, that the Light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood Him. Have we, in our gathering gloom, understood all these things Jesus has accomplished? Have we recognized Jesus in all of them?
John says that the true Light that lightens everyone has come into the world, that though the world was made through Him, yet it did not recognize Him. He came to His own, yet His own did not receive Him.
My friends, the Emmaus disciples are right. The day is far spent. And not only because it may be evening, not even because it's the evening of our lives and the light of life is burning low. How foolish we all are, how hard of seeing and hearing, how slow of heart to believe all that God has caused to be written in the sacred Scriptures for our learning and spoken from them for our wellbeing!
How hard it is for us to recognize that it was necessary "that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory" (Lk 24:13-35).
The light of life is burning low. The day is far spent. It is the evening of our life, whether or not it happens to be Easter evening just yet. Thank God, the lamp of faith is burning all the brighter. Thank God, because of His illumination, our eyes do not deceive us nor are we kept from recognizing Jesus, but by the bright rays of the Spirit we perceive Him all the more clearly.
Thank God, by means of the light of faith, Jesus has interpreted to us "in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Thank God, our hearts burn within us brightly as He opens the Scriptures to us and, by them, opens us to Himself.
Thank God, John the Baptist was a man sent from God. Though he was not the Light, thank God he came as a testimony to the Light, that all, enlightened by the Spirit, might believe through him. Thank God, through John and his like--God's lanterns, God's torches--that Light has been shed abroad in our hearts.
Thank God, through the oil and wick of faith, lit by the Spirit, we believe upon Him and trust in His name. The lamp and flame of faith burns bright! Thank God, He has given us power to become children of God, born of God and borne along by Him. Thank God, in His light we see the Light and the Life, and have both.
Thank God, by His light, we recognize Him in the breaking of the bread and in the cup of salvation at table with Him, partaking of His body and blood, the Staff and Stuff of life. And we are wont to say, "Stay with us, Lord, for it is evening and the day is far spent."
Indeed, it's not just twilight or dusk but the evening of the world! "Children, it is the last hour" (1Jn 2:18), writes St. John. And so, we are wont to partake of the Last Supper in this the last hour in glorious anticipation of the new day and the new creation breaking forth from our risen Savior, of which His Last Supper is an ever more glorious foretaste. We are wont to say, "He is risen! He is risen, indeed!"
And so, we are wont to pray, "Abide with us, O Lord, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent; abide with us, and with Thy whole Church. Abide with us in the evening of the day, in the evening of life, in the evening of the world. Abide with us in Thy grace and mercy, in holy Word and Sacrament, in Thy comfort and Thy blessing. Abide with us in the night of distress and fear, in the night of doubt and temptation, in the night of bitter death, when these shall overtake us. Abide with us and with all Thy faithful ones, O Lord, in time and in eternity." Amen. (Lutheran Manual of Prayer)
- Pastor Erickson