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.

Jesus is Alive, Surprise!

Sermon Matthew 28:1-10 April 16, 2017 Easter Sunday

                                                Sermon: Jesus is Alive, Surprise!

A friend of mine (Jo Ann Staebler) said,

“The Easter gospel begins with great grief.”

At first I thought, “No way. Easter is a time of joy. There is no grief.” And then I realized, “Just a minute-of course it begins with great grief.’

The women were on their way to the tomb where Jesus lay. And these women were deep in grief. The women have gone into muscle memory mode. They are going through the motions of grief that all do when tragedy, death, destruction or trauma strike.

And it is also true that it is darkest before the dawn.

And our greatest fears rise up in those darkest hours.

Everyone was in shock and they did not know what to do without their Lord.

Their faith had been crushed, beaten, and dismantled by the death of the Savior. And they were very afraid of what would happen next.

In our journey of faith we too have faced times when everything we believed was crushed, beaten, and dismantled.

We have been in dark hours where we did not know what to do or what to say.

We too were functioning in muscle memory mode.

We too were going through the motions just to get through the day only to have to repeat those motions for more days than we could remember.

The gospel lesson of Easter pulls us into all the

grief and drama of the power of loss.

And then while we are still caught in the challenge of grief,

God astounds us with the BIG SURPRISE!

Jesus is not here.

He is ALIVE!

It is a surprise beyond our imagination.

It is a surprise that once again startles our faith!

He is alive shocks us as much as his death did.

It is too much to bear.

Now what do we do? He is ALIVE!

How do we act? He is ALIVE!

And how do we share this news? He is ALIVE!

Jesus said he would return again, but how many really believed it would happen like this?

He said it over and over again.

But how well did they listen?

I know my husband is always trying to get me to listen-to really hear what he is saying.

I know I’m told things for my own good over and over again-but I don’t seem to hear it-even when my life depends on it.

Jesus spoke in riddles. Some we can give the disciples a break-maybe not judge them so harshly. The parables of Jesus were hard to follow…

Remember the one when he was telling Nicodemus about being born again. We, like the disciples, scratched our heads wondering how this renewal of life can actually happen. We know our bodies don’t go through the birth process more than once. So how can new life be born in us?

Jesus was full of surprises alright.

He had a way of making food appear out of a couple slices of bread. He touched people and they were healed. He taught the leaders of the synagogue things about God no one had ever known. He walked on water.

He raised Lazarus from the dead…wow, he really was full of surprises.

He really did do things beyond anyone’s imagination.

He really did do miracles.

Perhaps, then his rising from the dead is true too.

And if this surprise is true then we can remember all the things he did.

We can talk about them to people.

Jesus didn’t do all these surprising things to entertain us.

He did them to transform us; to change us; to make us new.

Just as the caterpillar crawled into the tomb of its chrysalis and rose from it as a magnificent butterfly; so Jesus has risen-magnificent from the depths of his tomb. Transformed. And so he declares we are too.

You see, in dying, God is making sure there is rising!

For if God goes down to the dead and rises to new life;

rest assured God has made the way for us who die

                                              to rise to new life!

We can be assured and raised up with strength as we witness the surprise and wonder of the Resurrection;

of new life;

of a new creation!

This is our hope!

Believing in this surprise, this miracle of God, fills us with new life.

We rise up today filled with joy and wonder.

God makes all things new through the power of the resurrection born in us.

Jesus has risen to new life so we too rise to new life.

It is the miracle that grants us the power to change not only who we are but the world around us.

SO we wonder again,

what do we do?

How do we act?

What news do we share?

We go out from here today rejoicing in the strength and courage of the Savior born anew in us.

We go out from this place nourished and fed at Table so we can do the things Jesus did.

We can make the abundance of food appear from two slices of bread. We have the capacity to offer our extras to others in need.

We can share the abundance of our joy with our neighbors.

We can take the abundance of our knowledge and offer to help others learn and live. Just like those who volunteer with the literacy council, we offer the abundance of our knowledge through tutoring, mentoring, teaching.

We can take the abundance of our courage and stand in the gap for those who can’t.

The list goes on and on of what we can do.

And how can we share this great surprise?

Through sheer faith in believing. We may not understand it, and we may not be able to explain it, but, we can believe it by the evidence of God’s love within us. It is real because God’s love is real.

Friends let the warmth of love flow through you today.

Let the love you cannot imagine surprise you.

Let the power of the resurrection surprise rise up in you.

Go now and live. Go now and give.

Jesus is alive-surprise! Amen.

This is the good news which we have received, in which we stand, and by which we are saved, if we hold fast: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, and that he appeared first to the women, then to Peter, and to the twelve, and then to many faithful witnesses. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus Christ is the first and the last, the beginning and the end; he is our Lord and our God