It’s a Friday...a gorgeous day in April in East Tennessee. The wind slaps the newborn leaves; the lilacs can’t quite decide whether to bloom or to stay wrapped up for a few more days. It’s Friday the last of the Easter lilies has died and the last allelulia has faded away. It’s Friday, and for some of us, Spring has not yet arrived. In many of our lives, the forces of darkness have conspired once again to crucify the Son of God. It’s Friday and while the lion of Spring tests his lungs and shakes his mane, many of our hearts remain as cold and bleak as Winter.
It’s a Friday in East Tennessee and a college student stares at a note that tells him he’s flunking two classes. He’s 21 years old, $40,000 in debt and has absolutely no idea what to do with the rest of his life. In another part of town a man gets up, sits on the edge of the bed, rubs his eyes and begins to worry about the time bomb ticking away in his chest. Down the street someone else lies awake, wondering whether to buy gas or milk today. In another home, an unopened Bible lies next to a cold cup of coffee as a woman prays “I just don’t feel your presence anymore...are you there, Lord?” The world is waking up to shoulder burdens, to strap on secrets, to push through another day. What was your Friday like? What filled your day?
Sunday morning arrives and we pull ourselves out of bed, get ourselves together, arrange our hair, find socks that match, look for our Bibles, fumble with car keys, and as we pull into the parking lot we thank the Lord that we’re running on Hopwood time. It’s good to see familiar faces as we step into the church building. We share a laugh with a friend over coffee or one of John Jackson’s breakfast rolls. It feels right, somehow, to take our place in this familiar sanctuary, even with the struggles we bear. The service begins and something begins to happen. In spite of our inattention, our hard-heartedness, in spite of our slowness to believe, something begins to come over us when we are together. We stand with the music and our voices raise as one. We enter a time of prayer and find ourselves praying along even though the words almost stick in our throat: “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” O Lord, deliver us from evil.
We stand like defendants before the bar as the scripture is read: Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God...
We listen and almost hear, we sing and almost feel, we pray and almost believe...and then we come to this table...we take our place at this table, with our friends all around us. The host stands before us and speaks words of comfort and peace to our troubled minds. Then she takes the bread and blesses it, and breaks it, and gives it to us saying, “This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Suddenly it dawns on us that the hands that hold the bread are pierced hands, the eyes that meet ours are filled with knowledge, and pain, and deep love. Suddenly, if only for a few moments, it all becomes clear, it all makes sense. The fog is lifted, the darkness is dispelled and we catch a glimpse of the glory of God. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked to us...and opened the Scriptures to us?”
There is a curious similarity between our Gospel narrative of the disciples on the Road to Emmaus and a Christian worship service. Like the two travelers in Luke’s account, many of us stumble through life fighting “this week’s problems” and nagging disbelief. Sometimes we’re at the point of giving up...going home. As night closes around us we are joined by a stranger in this roadside house for fellow travelers. Here we share our struggles...here the scripture is laid alongside to our lives...here we fellowship (however dimly) with the resurrected Christ. Here he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, gives it to us. Here are eyes are opened and our hearts burn within us.
This town of Emmaus is unknown to biblical scholars. No one is quite sure where it was. These days there are three small villages with that name that vie for tourist dollars. And the two disciples– Cleopas and his friend–we don’t know who they were either. We have encountered them no where before, and we know nothing of them after.
Maybe that’s means Emmaus is nowhere; or maybe Emmaus is everywhere. These two men are no one...and yet they are everyone. They are us...you and me. They answer the question, “What does Easter mean?” Not in universal terms, but what does it mean to you...to me? What does it mean in your house, at your place of work, in our church? What does it mean in the way you struggle for meaning and purpose and integrity? What does Easter mean to you on a beautiful Spring morning two thousand years after the fact?
One thing this story says to me is that Jesus isn’t all that easy to recognize, even when we think we have a pretty good picture of what he looks like. Those who knew him best–Mary, Peter, these two disciples...had trouble identifying the Risen Christ. We think we’d know him anywhere. We think we could pick him out of a lineup... But do we see Jesus when he comes to walk with us? Do we hear his voice through the voice of a friend, in the advice of a spouse, through the message of the Word, in the bread at the Table? Can we make out his visage in the features of a prisoner, in the need of someone who can’t pay a light bill, in the cry of a tired woman in the nursing home?
Why don’t we hear him? Why can’t we recognize him? Perhaps because, like these two disciples who were giving up and going home, we’re so obsessed with our own problems that we can’t think of anything else. We’re so wrapped up with our own anxieties, needs, wants that we can no longer concentrate on anything else. We get so worked up about what’s wrong with our lives that we fail to recognize that Jesus has Risen...even when he walks beside us.
I find it very interesting that these guys only got to see Jesus because they were deeply immersed in talking and thinking about him...and deeply connected with each other. They recognized Jesus when they joined into real fellowship with him. Have you ever talked late into the night with someone. Have you ever found yourself around the kitchen table with a friend and become so engrossed in the discussion that you sat right there half the night? I remember one time when I sat up the whole night with a friend. We started out the evening shooting the breeze, telling stories, staying on the surface. As the night grew deeper we piled logs on the fire and opened our lives to each other. Slowly, through humor, through stories about our past, through tough questions and insights our walls of defense came down. An intimacy developed that will forever be remembered by us. When I see this friend, he almost always asks me, remember that night at your place...around the fire?
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus were already deep in conversation when the Lord joined them. They were leaning on each other, holding each other up in their disappointment and loss as they traveled that road to Emmaus.
Is there a Cleopas in your life? Do you have anyone with whom you talk, share, cry, dream? Is there anyone to catch you when you fall? Anyone to dust you off, to defend and protect you, anyone to care about you when things get rough? I don’t need to tell you that there is plenty of heartache out there–some of it has already found its way to your door. I worry that we’re losing our capacity to share our burdens with each other. Our morning scripture from Peter says: “You know that you were ransomed with the precious blood of Christ...as a result, we can now love one another deeply from the heart (1:18-19.)
Some of you are dying because of your isolation. You’re hurt, alone, bewildered, and you don’t know where to turn. Listen to me. You’ve got to pierce that veil of privacy and allow someone to share the grace and love of Jesus Christ with you. You need friends...believing friends. We come to this place to commune together, but this is only one setting...the easiest setting. Each person sitting here this morning needs to take the next step in letting someone come near. We need each other. (Spring Retreat?) (Men’s Group) (Morning Prayer group)
But it’s not just each other we need. We need to open ourselves up to the Lord Jesus. We’ve got to allow him to speak to us. We gather here each week for worship, and we make an effort each week to frame the service, and pray over the service in the hopes that you might hear the voice of the Lord. Listen for his voice, his message, which comes through our gathering together, through his Holy Word, through the prayers of God’s people, through the breaking of the bread.
I don’t know exactly what your life situation is today. I don’t know what trouble and heartache has done to you...I don’t know the burdens you carry. But you can be assured that on this difficult road, you are not alone. You have not been abandoned. You are cared for, your are valued. There is a Savior who is walking the road to Emmaus, searching for his friends. Look for him, wait for him, watch for his appearing.
When the disciples realized that it was the Lord who met them on the road, that it was the Lord who served them at the table–they were overcome with gratitude and joy. They got up in the middle of the night, and hightailed it back to Jerusalem, where the word was already spreading: “The Lord is Risen, and has appeared to Simon!” This week, let’s get out on the Emmaus road and tell others what has happened to us. Tell how he met us on the road. Tell how our hearts burned within us as he shared with us...how he opened the scriptures up to us. Tell how he was made known to us in the breaking of the bread.
The Lord has risen, and has appeared to Simon.
The Lord has risen, and has appeared to us.
Date:
Apr 5 2008 - 8:30amPreacher:
Tim Ross