God Revealed

Sermon Luke 24:13-35 April 30, 2017 Third Sunday after Easter

God Revealed

When have we experienced God revealed to us in such a way that it changed our thinking, our behavior, and/or our faith? (Taken from Luther Seminary ‘Preach This Week)

The road to Emmaus is seven miles. Now consider the distance between Onancock and Accomac it is four miles; or Accomac and Daughtery it is about three miles. To us today this seems ridiculous to have churches so close together. But, the reason we have churches in all of these towns is that most people used to walk to church. It took more than an hour to walk from Onancock to Accomac. It wasn’t until Henry Ford’s affordable car that the way to church changed. So, in the 19^th century each little town did their best to create an opportunity for worship that was not a hardship.

I’ll never forget the years our family didn’t have a car. We would sometimes complain and say to our father how it would be so nice to get somewhere without walking. My dad would respond with his wonderful wit, “Walking is good for the body. Walking is good for your system. Walking we discover so many things, and even each other.” As children, we would look at him as if he was crazy and looked forward to a day that we would have a little less discovery in our lives.

When the car arrived in our lives everything changed. It was around 1966 or 1967 when we got a car, a telephone, and a TV. Our behaviors, our attitudes, and even our thinking all changed. When we would take the car to go somewhere we would tease our father and ask, ‘whatever happened to the idea that walking is good for the body?’ He laughed and would say the car is now a healthy way to go.

For today’s generation, the greatest change they can attest to is the work of the phone, tablet computers all of which again has changed our thinking, behaviors, and attitudes.

The road to Emmaus was a road that led to change.

It was a road where what was, would never be again.

There was no going back to the way things were before.

We may yearn for life the way it was and some people try to construct their world in a bubble by going ‘off grid’.

But, we all know that is more living in denial than it is living within the circumstances that our world moves into.

It was along the road that Cleopas and the other were walking and discussing all that had happened when Jesus shows up.

They do not recognize him.

He asks them what has happened and they look dumbfounded that he was unaware of the headline news of the week. Jesus was handed over to die!

“And we had hoped that he would be the one to redeem.”

Their hopes for a future different from the one they had been living had been dashed.

They were utterly devastated and so they did the only thing humans know to do is to go back to what they knew before.

These men were headed home

away from Jerusalem,

away from the dreams they had,

away from the place where it all fell apart.

Jerusalem was the city where all the dreams and hopes of a messiah were to take place and the road they had been traveling on led them all together there.

Now, the only thing to do was to turn

away from the road that led them instead to disaster.

There was no hope and no chance of change.

There was no way to see anything good.

What they had expected did not happen and with the death of Jesus would never happen in their lifetime.

Even if a bunch of women came

and said he was alive

and he was no longer in the tomb

they did not see him.

It cannot be true until they see him.

Jesus must be revealed in the way the disciples expected or else Jesus was not alive.

We are the same way.

God must be revealed in the way we expect-within our own human limitations-or God is not there.

And perhaps that is our need for today as we read this story again this year. Where and when is, has, will God show up. And if so what is, has, will it do for or to me?

This story we hear on the road to Emmaus is the most profound resurrection story for all of us here in the millennium after the resurrection.

Because we, like these disciples walk

away from Jerusalem on the days after Easter

and say to each other, ‘we didn’t see him.’

‘Our hearts are disappointed because we had hoped by coming to church that we would see him, that something in us would change.’

‘We had hoped he would be there and we would be redeemed,

but even in the fanfare, we couldn’t find him.’

There on the Emmaus road, as these disciples walked there became a sense of something familiar. It couldn’t be explained, but there was a ‘burning in their hearts’.

 A memory was stirring in them.

Memories are valuable ways of kindling hope.

Memories of smell, touch, sounds, all stir in us.

They return us to a time we know and can remember as real and true.

These memories are most often built on relationships.

Jesus was real to them and their relationship with him was built on their faith in him and their hope. When he died, they lost every part of their faith and hope. How can lost faith and hope be rekindled?

Here on the road, the sounds, and the voice, the cadence, all begin to stir within and draw back to a time of faith and hope.

Jesus is walking along the road with us today.

This road to Emmaus still exists as each of us travels.

Jesus is talking to us and stirring within us memories that remind us of hope and begin to draw us back to faith.

Jesus is accompanying us even or perhaps especially when we say in our consternation, everyone is a liar, even when we are greatly afflicted.

Jesus is in the midst of it.

God keeps our faith for us when we cannot keep it for ourselves.

The stirrings of what they heard were enough to ignite hospitality-to open the door-to open the heart-to open the possibility to something new or renewed.

When we choose to open the door of grace through welcome we open the door of recognizing all we could not see or believe. What actions have we taken to open our hearts and minds to allow God to be revealed to us?

We only have to let go of telling our minds our expectation of Jesus.

Then we can invite him in to sit at our table and let the conversation lead to the revelation of his love.

When Jesus blessed and broke the bread before the eyes of the disciples, the memory of him brought forward the reality of all of his promises.

When we invite him at table with us the resurrection surprise,

the memory of all we have experienced in faith comes tumbling forward,

we are renewed,

we are filled with hope again.

And this time the revelation moves us to see, think, act, and be different.

Jesus was there present at the table with those two disciples.

There at the table, He became the host and he became the living God fully present, fully revealed.

May our tables wherever they may be, our communion tables at church, with strangers in coffee shops, at home, at the park, may they be moments of Jesus becoming the host, fully present in resurrection glory.

In that moment, for the disciples, their thinking, their behavior, and their faith was changed.

They got up and ran back to Jerusalem. They got back on the road that took them back to where their hopes had led them. Their faith carried their legs as quickly as they could go. The news of Jesus with them gave them what they needed to go and tell the story-the good news.

May we have the gift that each year when we travel this road to Emmaus God is revealed in a way that changes all of who we are so we can change the world for God’s glory. In our heart, Lord, be glorified. Amen.

P.S. Perhaps in Christ’s church today, people are walking home along the road after worship and saying to one another, “Were not our hearts burning as the Word was opened before us?”

Resources: Feasting on the Word. Luther Seminary-Preach This week.