What's Wrong With Ablaze!: Part 6

Let’s take another look at the Ablaze! website’s use of scripture. The “What is Ablaze!?” site uses the following passage and explanation:

“They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’ They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, ‘It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon’”—Luke 24:32-34.
Ablaze! is not a program or a campaign. It began as a mission vision with the hope of starting a mission movement. Each participating congregation, group, mission society, partner church, individual, etc. is challenged to pray about its own particular situation and the part of the mission endeavor it can impact and to design its own strategy to contribute to reaching 100 million people. LCMS World Mission is asking the church to develop mission models that work and can be shared with others. Ablaze! is not an answer…it’s an invitation!

Hmm, why would I spend any time on a three verses that seem to directly contradict my own argument? Just as I looked at an entire parable last post, I think it just as important here to look at what leads up to the apostles saying what they said. The road to Emmaus account is recorded in Luke 24:13-35

Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him. And He said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?” Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, “Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?” And He said to them, “What things?” So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but Him they did not see.” Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them. Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 35 And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread.

I think the key verse for us to look at is not verse 34 “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” but rather verse 25 “ He said to them, How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” But doesn’t verse 34 make Ablaze!’s argument? No, I don’t believe it does. But I do believe this verse is crucial as to why the confessions seem to not speak to our way of evangelism in America today.

As the apostle start their journey to Emmaus, they are clearly demoralized. The guy they thought was going deliver Israel had just been crucified on a cross and had died. They can’t even mourn him properly as there is no longer a body to sorrow over. For three years they traveled with someone who they thought would be a king only to see him nailed to the cursed tree like the lowest of criminals. They wanted a messiah, and they went looking for the Anointed One at a tomb. I for one do not blame them for losing hope, I’m positive I would have done the same. (truth be told, I would have been one of the Pharisees plotting his arrest. My natural human tendency is to want to follow the Law. But that’s just me.)

Jesus meets them on the road and still they do not recognize him! Why? Because they still are not looking (does anybody blame them?) for Him where he says he will meet them. Jesus even tells them where in Scripture He is and still they do not see him. Just a few nights ago he told them where he could be found, and still they just don’t see him. But when He breaks bread, blesses it and gives it to them, their eyes are opened and they see their Lord and Savior where he said he would be; in the Word and in the Sacrament.

So what are the disciples saying when they proclaim “Did not our heart burn within us”? What was the cause of this holy heartburn? Why is there is no mention of the holy heartburn after Christ reveals Himself in the breaking of the bread? Just think about it and it should not be a surprise.

I would argue that they were looking for Christ outside where He states He’ll continue to serve us to this day. Christ has no other option on the road to Emmaus but to say “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” In these verses we see our Lord frame how His church will come to him until the end of time. The disciples did not believe and for that they were chastised by their Lord. But through the Preaching of the Word and the administration of the blessed Sacrament they met their Lord where we met him, for all time and in all places, just as at Emmaus. Their hearts were burning because they were foolish and unbelieving. After Jesus shows them once again where He meets them (and us as well) the holy heartburn goes away. Emulating the faith of a child is one thing, but emulating the faith of the foolish and slow of heart is something else entirely. We should seek Jesus where he has told us he will be.

Today we sing the Church’s first hymns when we chant the psalms. We read the lessons from the Old Testament where the Prophets spoke of the coming messiah. We hear the apostles, who have been sent by Christ Himself to preach the Word and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, speak to us in the Epistle reading. We hear our Lord himself not only speak to his hearers in ancient Galilee but to us sitting in the pews of our modern churches. In the Emmaus story, Christ gives us a model for all ages to emulate. Word and Sacrament is where he has chosen to meet us. Word and Sacrament is where we are given that saving faith that allows us to see Christ where he wants us to see him.

Now, let’s look at Ablaze!. Just as Julie Martinez stated in her paper “Is Ablaze! Evangelism?” Ablaze! gages itself by the number of critical events reported to a website. This approach is in direct contrast to the Emmaus. Instead of pointing us to the one place where Christ has told us He will be, it has as the “critical event” us and our work. Ablaze! has all the earmarks of making a visible church out of the invisible. How can people be brought to faith outside of the means of grace? As Dr Luther wrote in the large Catachism explaining the third article; “For where Christ is not preached, there is no Holy Spirit to create, call and gather the Christian church, apart from which no one can come to call the Lord Christ.” If we want to stop being Lutheran and start being PentaBaptiMethoCostal that would make Ablaze! ok and hunky-dory as well. Actually, nothing makes Ablaze! ok and hunky-dory . The teaching that faith can be obtained or sustained outside of Christ’s Church is wrong when other Christian denominations do it, and it should be clearly and obvious to all it’s wrong when we do it!

We in this country have a problem with very poor catechesis. We seem to think Christianity started the day we were confirmed. Or, for the masses with a more bronze tinge, as soon as the ink was dry on the first copy of TLH. Christianity starts and ends at the cross. To look elsewhere, especially at our own works, is foolishness.

We need to reach the “unchurched” by preaching the Law so that the sinner understand his (or her) sinful nature that has existed since Adam’s fall. Whether or not he wants to hear it (the Law) is irrelevant, he needs to hear it. The second part of the equation is once he understands that he falls under the curse of the Law, he needs to hear the sweet message of God’s saving faith in Christ given to us freely for the sake of and on account of Christ.

Ablaze! points to events outside of the Church as critical. This is why Christ tells the apostles and us today to stop being foolish and look to Scripture for those things concerning himself. (“And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself”).

Ablaze! is a foolish attempt to appeal to our inner theologians of glory and make us the subject of the verbs. We need to stop being so foolish and make Christ the subject our evangelism. When we run the verbs, we do it wrong!

The confessors rightfully understood that we only find Christ where he says he is; in Word and Sacrament! We should understand that as well!

“But”, you might say, “Ablaze! is about sharing Jesus. And besides, the website says “Ablaze! is not an answer…it’s an invitation!””

We’ll go over what exactly we’re being invited to in the next post.