Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Sunday, April 21, 2013 Read – Luke 24:44-49 As we continue with Luke’s gospel today, we need to remember that this story is really a part of the story we began last week – Jesus with his disciples on the evening of his resurrection. In that story we heard how the disciples did not recognize Jesus at first and needed to be convinced by seeing his hands and feet and through the eating of fish. Our reading for today links that experience with the proclamation of Word. The story is similar to the story of the travelers on the Emmaus road – Word and Sacrament bring about faith. We have been talking about what has been called by others “Messianic Exegesis” (Don Juel). That is exactly what Jesus describes in our reading for today. Jesus points to the Old Testament scripture claiming that the scripture witnesses to him. And then Luke tells us that Jesus opened their minds to see what the Old Testament bears witness to. This is not a matter of going back and finding some “proof text” that proves that Jesus is the Messiah. Actually, we can search the Old Testament from beginning to end and we will not find a text that definitively states that the Messiah must suffer and die and be raised from the dead. What Luke is describing is what happened to the first followers of Jesus – and can happen to us too – when we read the Old Testament through the lens of the experience of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Old Testament takes on new meaning it did not have before! The end of the story of Luke’s gospel has arrived. But there is more to be said – and Luke will write a second volume about that, the book of Acts. As the gospel of Luke ends Luke tells of the commission of Jesus of his followers to bear witness to all these things. But how are they to do that? Luke’s Jesus tells them of the promise of God that his Spirit will empower them. They only need to wait for it to come. It is clear that Luke experienced that very Spirit in his writing of the gospel! It’s not that the Spirit told him everything to write down – no, Luke is the creator of his gospel, is responsible for it, and needs to be given credit for the marvelous witness he made! God treasures the creative of his creature. But, Luke would likely testify that God was with him in the journey. Luke does not write as a disinterested reporter – he writes as a believer fully invested in witnessing to his faith. Thanks be to God for the witness of Luke – and thanks be to God for his insight into “Messianic Exegesis.”