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 19th
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.
