Were not Our Hearts Burning Within Us?

 

The title for this series is borrowed from the Gospel of Luke 24:32. Two of Jesus's disciples are walking to a village named Emmaus when Jesus, after dying and resurrecting, appears to them and accompanies them. At first they do not perceive that the stranger is Jesus, but when they reach Emmaus, He blesses and breaks bread. At once they perceive.  Jesus then vanishes, and the two disciples say, "were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?"

​

It is evident that our culture suffers. Consumerism and postmodernism engender a value system based on pleasure, expediency and utilitarian pragmatism. We often get caught up in this rather nihilistic value system and do not perceive the abundant beauty beside us. In order to cultivate a culture rich with meaning, we must orient ourselves towards beauty, goodness and truth. Like the disciples walking to Emmaus, our hearts are burning. They burn for meaning, which is not always perceived in our culture. The purpose of this series, therefore, is to build up a culture of meaning through beauty.