Opened Eyes…Hearts Ablaze
Written by Pastor Kuder   
                  
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.
Many years ago, there was a man by the name of John Newton, who among his fellow sailors, was known as “The Great Blasphemer.”
He later called himself an “infidel and libertine.”  He was captain of a slave ship, transporting fellow human beings from their homes in Africa across the sea in chains to lives of servitude… that is, if they actually survived the crossing.
Now Newton, he was known as a mocker of God and of those who expressed their faith in God.  Yet, whenever he got into a close scrape and narrowly avoided death, and this happened on several occasions, he would try for a time to live a better life.  Now, mind you, this wasn’t out of any sort of love for God.  What he was trying to do was to, by his own efforts, avoid damnation.
There was one close call that was different though.  Moments after he had left the deck of his ship during a violent storm, the man who had replaced him was washed overboard and drowned.  Newton said that it was then that he began to be aware of his very own helplessness.
After that he began to read his Bible.  In time, he became a totally different man.  He turned to Christ.  He got married.  He even became a minister as well as an active opponent to the slave trade.  He also wrote these words:
Amazing grace—how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind but now I see!
God opened John Newton’s eyes and set his heart ablaze For Jesus.
John Newton may have been a blasphemer and a slaver, but he was no more sinful and no blinder by nature than anyone else.  You see, we all live in a world which is full of people who are spiritually blind.
Some people who are stumbling around in spiritual darkness are fairly obvious.  We can point to the so-called “New Atheists,” including some with their best-selling books, who have become very vocal in their critical attacks on Christianity.  Or just watch “Entertainment Tonight” or “Access Hollywood” on TV to see what kind of a mess some stars and would-be stars have made of their lives.
Truth be told, you really don’t have to look any farther than next door, or down the street or in your own families to find people in the dark and who need the Light of Jesus Christ.  People who are blind to God’s truth are very nearby and they may be people we know and love very much.
There was a time when each of us was spiritually blind as well.  Those of us who were baptized as infants and raised in Christian families probably don’t remember that time.  Some of us do, though.  Those who do remember the darkness may appreciate the light differently than those who never knew such a time.
Toward the end of his life, John Newton wrote, “When I was young, I was sure of many things; now there are only two things of which I am sure: one is that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, that Christ is an all-sufficient Savior.”
God opened John Newton’s eyes.  God also opens our eyes.  But sometimes, even Christians close their eyes.
The disciples on the way to Emmaus couldn’t “see” Jesus, even when He was right under their noses.  Their faces were “downcast” when Jesus asked what they were discussing as they walked along the road (Luke 24:17).
These two disciples weren’t unbelievers or ignorant.  They knew who Jesus claimed to be.  They even knew about the report from the women, that they had been to the tomb and it was empty.  “They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive,” they told the yet unrecognized Jesus (v. 23).
Still they were downcast.  And what does Jesus say?  “He said to them, ‘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” (Luke 24:25-27).
Through the power of the Gospel in Word and Sacrament, God the Holy Spirit opens our eyes so that we can see Jesus.  He then reminds us, “But you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of him who called out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).
God had opened the eyes of the disciples on that Emmaus road so that they could see Jesus and realize who had been walking with them, talking to them and teaching them.
How did they react?  Did they simply continue their meal and retire for the night?  No, they looked at each other and said, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”  Didn’t we get excited when we heard God’s Word?
And then they ran all the way back to Jerusalem to tell their friends that they had seen Jesus!  That’s how excited they were.  God had used His Word to set their hearts ablaze.
 In an article, Dr. Robert Roegner from LCMS World Missions shares one of his experiences that he had while in India.
On a summer Sunday in 2004, after I had worshiped with a Lutheran congregation in Nagercoil, India, five pastors of our Indian partner church asked me to travel with them that afternoon to a village where a new church had been started.  They were going to baptize the first new believers there.
It was about a two hour drive.  And by the time we arrived, worship had already begun.  About 250 to 300 were at worship.  And about 40 of them that day were to be baptized.
When it was time for the baptisms, the five pastors jumped up.  One grabbed a basin of water, one took the certificates, and anther had a Bible.  After the first person confessed his faith and said he renounced the devil and all of his works, he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to a pastor.  The pastor looked at the piece of paper and announced the man’s name.  Then another pastor baptized him in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
They went up one row and down another, baptizing those who were there.  In the middle of the third row was a woman in her early 20’s.  She gave the pastor her paper.  She had a 4 or 5 year old girl who was holding onto her.  The pastor announced her name, and she was baptized.  She began to cry.  Then her daughter was baptized, and the woman cried even more.  The pastor finished baptizing those in the third row, and she continued to cry.  They finished the fourth row, and she was still crying.
After the service I asked a pastor who spoke good English to help me talk to this woman.  We talked for a couple of minutes, then I said, “I couldn’t help but notice after baptism that you were crying, a lot. I guess those tears are because you are so happy that you were baptized and have become a child of God.”
She said, yes, she was happy that she is a child of God, that Jesus is in her heart, that she has received God’s free grace, and that she has forgiveness for all the sin and bad things she had done in her life.  This brought tears of joy to her eyes.
“But,” she said, “while I have tears of joy flowing from my left eye, I have tears of sorrow flowing from my right eye.”
So I asked, “Why so sad as well?” And I’ll never forget her face.  She looked at me square in the eye and said, “While I have received Jesus in my heart today and His grace and forgiveness, my husband, my mother and father, my brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, and all of my cousins do not know God’s grace and forgiveness because they still live in the darkness of all the Hindu gods.”
That’s when I turned in the Bible to 1 Peter 2:9 – “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
I read this to her and challenged her to not let God’s love, grace, and forgiveness be only for her and her daughter, but to go and tell her husband, her mother, her father, and her other family members about Jesus.
We left the village, and I returned to the United States.  For the next three to four months, I had her in mind and kept her in my prayers.  As happens over time, other prayers came to mind and I forgot about her.
In January of 2005, I received an e-mail from the pastor who had done the translating for me.  He was so happy to tell me that he and the other pastors were returning to this same village on Easter Sunday afternoon and were going to perform as least as many baptisms as they had when I was there with them the previous summer.
And he was excited to report that a majority of those Easter baptisms would be members of this woman’s family, including her husband and her mother and father.
This woman was spiritually blind, but God opened her eyes through the power of the Gospel.  And His Word had set her heart ablaze!  When she realized that God had called her out of darkness so that she could be a light to others, she acted.  And as a result, many in her family also had their eyes opened and their hearts set ablaze.
You see, it is God’s Word that warms our hearts, that sets us ablaze to tell others about Jesus as it did this young woman in India.  And like her, we have also been baptized.  Our eyes have been opened to the Gospel, so that through our lips and lives, the light of the Father may shine for all to see.  You are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
In his last appearance to the disciples on earth, Jesus told them, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
He says the same to you.  What a privilege to be part of His mission!
Think of your own Jerusalem, your own Judea and Samaria, and the ends of the earth.  God has placed you where you are so that you can be witnesses to Jesus Christ and what He has done for you and in your lives.
For us, our Jerusalem is right here, at home.  It’s right outside our the doors.  There are people just like you and me who need to hear the Good News about Jesus.  Friends, relatives, coworkers, and acquaintances are our Jerusalem. 
We need to be encouraging each other today and every day to go and share the Good News.  It’s because of God’s great grace and mercy that He has called us out of the darkness into His light through the power of His Gospel.  For the sake of the holy life and the innocent suffering and death of His Son Jesus the Christ which was sealed by Christ’s resurrection we are his forgiven people.
He has chosen us.  He has made us His priests, declared us a holy nation and made us His own, so that we can declare the praises of the One who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light.
We declare His praises whenever we tell others about Him and what He has done for them.  We do it because He has opened our eyes and set our hearts ablaze.
Amen
 

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