Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Rez is a community where Jesus welcomes, shapes, and sends disciples for the good of our neighborhood. No matter where you are in life, this is a place for you.
Life Together In The Goodness Of God
I love how the words of our gospel song echo the words of scripture the travelers along the road coming to realize that their hearts were burning within them and indeed this story of the two walkers to Emmaus is one of my absolute favorite Bible stories I mean what's not to love I think of a lovely road winding through olive groves a gentle breeze blowing away the heat the day and the sun low in the sky providing a soft evening light and two friends talking as they walk along of course that seeing it all through my rose tinted glasses and probably not at all anything to do with what that walk was like we don't know exactly why the two of them were walking to Emmaus were they trying to get away from the craziness of that first Easter morning had they just had enough had the week's chaos finally put them over the edge when each year we observe Holy Week we do so in a pretty organized and managed manner you know we get our processions together we know exactly what the passion gospel is going to sound like read by different voices we gather to wash feet to celebrate that first Lord's Supper we gather in devotion at the foot of the cross and we spend Saturday the day before Easter day we spend Saturday getting ready for Sunday's big news and celebration we know what is happening and we know what to expect and what is going to happen but our two friends on the road to Emmaus did not have that hindsight that we come with it was not so for the disciples the friends and family who had watched as their rabbi their friend their son their brother died a violent death and was buried along with their dreams it had been a week of chaos fear and sadness and they would now have to live with the loss of their friend in whom they had put so much hope and to top it all in the early morning of that very day some of the women had gone to the grave and come back to tell them an unbelievable story Luke tells us it was unbelievable an unbelievable story about some angels and Jesus' body missing an idle tale which they could not believe Peter had tried to check it all out and had been amazed by seeing only linen cloths in the empty tomb that's the introduction to where we then pick up with Luke's story on the road to Emmaus this is what had happened that first Easter morning according to Luke so surely these two friends follower of Jesus had good reasons to want to get away from it all to gain some perspective to figure out what to do next make some sense of it all we don't really know why they were going to Emmaus perhaps it was their home village and they were going back to their old life it had all but been a dream of course they were talking about everything they had experienced seen heard and Luke tells us Jesus himself came and joined them but they did not recognize him their eyes were kept from recognizing him and when he asked them what they were talking about they were surprised at this stranger's ignorance surely everyone in Jerusalem would know what had happened you know we always think that everybody knows what we know right well he didn't and they shared how the one they had hoped would redeem Israel had suffered betrayal condemnation and death and how astonished they had been at the women's news of the missing body and sharing with them a vision of the angels saying Jesus you know was alive and how they had not believed it but some of them were told at first Peter had gone to the grave and seen it empty and in the greatest irony I think they tell Jesus who we know is walking right along with them none of them had seen him no redeeming Israel no savior for them so that's that and as they walk on Jesus calls them on it he calls them out oh how foolish you are and how slow you are to understand he says how slow you are to understand what the prophets have declared how God loves God's people and will hear their cry how God has acted throughout their history he taught them all that the prophets had taught perhaps he reminded them how in Exodus 3 7 God says I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt I have heard their cry on account of their task masters indeed I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land a land flowing with milk and honey perhaps he reminded them of Isaiah's prophecies especially in chapter 52 and 53 of the suffering servant who would bring new life to God's people through humble service or he might have jumped right to Micah who in 6 8 says he meaning the Lord has told you oh mortal what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness the stranger on the road Jesus pointed out to them how all scriptures point to God acting in Jesus Christ in that moment we don't know how our two travelers heard all this they do however realize at the end of the day and their walking companion may not have anywhere to stay the night so they invite him to stay with them and they sit at table stranger takes bread blesses and breaks it and gives it to them this action opens their eyes and they recognized Jesus eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus who immediately vanished from their sight in hindsight they now recognize that something special had been happening to them on the road I mean I so identify with you know afterwards it's so much simpler to figure out what it is that was happening right but they now recognize that their hearts were burning as Jesus taught scripture and they leave Emmaus and rush back to tell the others who were gathered who had news of their own Jesus had by then appeared to Simon we're told and our two Emmaus friends shared how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread a little note here about what Luke does with this Easter story I mean we know it and we imagine it right but can we notice how community is actually made by the telling of this story and then made further because of the next little piece of how Jesus appears and stands among them and asks for something to eat when all of them are gathered in that room in Jerusalem the telling of the story of how they encountered Jesus builds and makes community community that goes on and on by the telling of that good news even to this day even as we hear it this morning that's a great great Easter story but how do we hear it what does it say to us I mean we can we can look at how we know we observe Easter we can come together as Easter people we're sometimes called but what does it say to us to each of us where do we find ourselves in this story of the resurrection and of Jesus's presence among the living see these Easter appearance stories tell us that Jesus did not disappear not in the tomb he did not disappear and the church observes and remembers that year after year we light this paschal candle at this Easter candle at the very first service of Easter and it burns throughout the Easter season when we know and experience Jesus's physical presence among those who had known him in the flesh what other times of the year do we light this candle it burns all through the 50 days of Easter and then it burns whenever we gather at that baptismal font and baptize people into the new life of Christ into a new life into the life of the vision Lord and when else do we light it when we gather to bury someone when we gather to celebrate their life and celebrate their entrance into that greater joy and light that we cannot even imagine all times of new life all times when we are reassured that Jesus is right there with us thresholds of new life at our baptism at our burial just like these stories as we hear them describe how the disciples how those who had known Jesus were at a threshold of coming into knowing him more fully than than you know simply following him he showed up even after he was dead or supposed to be dead we understand ourselves to be walking in life just like the two on the way to Emmaus all on the road to somewhere we may be by ourselves we may be with a friend a partner a child we're walking along and figuring things out sometimes the walk is easy and often times it is very hard and Jesus shows up perhaps for some of us for the very first time perhaps on a very ordinary day or on a very troubled day or on the brightest most glorious moment that we experience Jesus shows up we may or may not recognize him but by God's grace and through God's love sooner or later we figure out that God in Christ Jesus is walking with us and is revealed to us we do well to heed the words of this Easter story and study scripture to help open our hearts our eyes we do well to sit to come to the table and know Jesus in the breaking of the bread scripture and that breaking and sharing of the bread helps us love our neighbor as the prophets through the ages have told us and helps us accept our neighbor's love for us and that's good very good God works in us and we come to at least sometimes recognize and know that the Lord Jesus walks and dwells with us but that's not all this is a depiction of a painting by Duccio from about 1310 and now I have to say when I hear the road to Emmaus what comes in my mind to my mind is an image of people two people walking on the road and the third joining them Jesus right or sitting the three of them at a table and Jesus lifting up the bread and they recognize him this image startles me this stops the action the two friends stop and they invite who to them is a stranger to stay with them invite him to come into the house and invite him to sit at their table invite their fellow traveler to share their rest to share their meal to abide to dwell with them Jesus scripture tells us made to go on as if to go on but they stop and say no we are inviting you to stay with us the stranger responds and joins them in what for them was probably a dark and troubling night they had gone through really hell the week before and were confused and yes Jesus listening to them and teaching I'm sure was wonderful and had helped but they were facing an evening of thinking about maybe what had really happened and how sad they were and how would they live for tomorrow and of course Jesus blesses the bread breaks it and they recognize him but look at the image look at what they're inviting Jesus into the doorway to where they're going is dark it looks solid now we glimpse some light behind it a table perhaps an altar but they have to go through that dark doorway in order to come to the place where they see Jesus fully they invited a stranger even as they face the night when their doubts and fears might well be surface and that's when God's ultimate gift of love was revealed to them death had not separated them from Jesus he was still present among them and known to them in the breaking of the bread you know we are so used to hearing Jesus invites us to follow him I've heard countless sermons of you know follow Jesus listen to him go along with him and I'm thankful for that constant invitation but I also need to be reminded and perhaps you do as well that I must invite Jesus into my dwelling into my life to sit at my table it's this Easter story is a call for us to invite Jesus into whatever our lives are no matter how dark no matter how scary no matter how hopeless we are to go through that place of the dark doorway asking Jesus to join us because as those two Emmaus travelers found out nothing not even death can separate us from the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and so we come to this table we come to the tables in our homes we come to tables offered in our table fellowship groups we sit at you know whatever taco place we want and we invite Jesus to be there perhaps as a stranger perhaps as someone who wanted to strike up a conversation with perhaps a dear friend a partner a lifelong lover but we ask them to join us and in asking them we're asking Jesus and for that for that we say thanks be to God hallelujah hallelujah as we spend just a few moments considering this let us face the dark and troubling and scary places in our lives and invite Jesus to join us there that we might know him as he's revealed in scripture and the breaking of bread. Amen.