"Jesus: the God Who Sets Us Free" Luke 24:13-35

We continue in our Lenten series using Henri Nouwen's book Letters to Marc as our guide.  This week the topic is Jesus:  The God Who Sets Us Free.

1. Nouwen notes that “for most people freedom is a dream. It’s a lot easier to find evidence of oppression in our word than of freedom” (12). And he suggests that his read of history indicates it has been like that throughout history.

   
   

   a.  He indicates that for Marc, life is rather good, but that is not the case for everyone.

   
   

   b.  He mentions some of the issues in the world at that time – violent elections in the Philippines; Duvalier’s reign and end then flight from Haiti; genocide in Uganda; unrest in South Africa, Northern Ireland, Iran, and Iraq.

   
   

   c.  We might think about the world in which we live. We know freedom and opportunity, but we also are touched by or hear about events in the Crimea; Afghanistan; Iraq; China; N. Korea; and we probably all

   
   

    

   2.  To segue into a conversation about Jesus, Nouwen mentions the story about Cleopas and his friend who are traveling from Jerusalem to Emmaus three days after the crucifixion of Christ.

   
   

   a.  Nouwen notes that they “were going home, disillusioned, dejected and downcast” (12).

   
   

   b.  They lived in time when Romans were their masters, but in Jesus they had discovered the hope that they could be set free.

   
   

   c. But then Jesus had been crucified and Cleopas and his friend had lost heart and were making their way back home. Nouwen describes their journey: “It was not a way of hope. It was a cheerless way, a despairing way” (13).

   
   

   d.  Jesus joins the two men, but they do not recognize him.

   
   
   
   
   
   

Conversation starter: Share a time you have experienced disappointment or despair?

3. Nouwen stops to remind us what happened to Jesus.
   1. Not just Jesus’ resurrection, but his three days in the tomb. Three days of his dead body rotting.
   2. Nouwen uses this symbol to illustrate his point “dedcomposition is surely the most telling symbol of human desperation. Whatever we do or say,…we shall rot. That’s why we are so deeply affected by life’s disappointments and setbacks. They remind us that, sooner or later, everything decays. Decomposition is our inner conviction that, in the end, it is utterly impossible to prevent anything from coming to nothing”(13-14)
   3. Consider the implications that has for us. When we fail or are disappointed in what life presents us, part of our reaction is tied to our recognition of our human frailty. In fact, that is the point of the Ash Wednesday liturgy – “from dust you have come, and to dust you shall return.”

Conversation starter: Can you see how the time of disappointment you described earlier connects to the sense of despair Nouwen describes coming from our recognition of our human frailty.

3. Nouwen makes the point that Jesus did not tell them that “death and the dissolution of life were are unreal. Nor that their yearning for freedom was unreal” (14).

a. In other words, Jesus does not try to tell them what they feel is not real or that they just misunderstand the situation. Too often, we think that if we just understand something or can just figure out why, then we can handle it.

b. What Jesus does offer them is this truth: “the Jesus in whom they had placed all their hopes, the Jesus who was indeed dead and buried, this Jesus is alive...for the Jesus whom they had admired so much, death and dissolution have become the way to liberation” (14). Jesus transforms their reality; he does not just change their perspective of things.

c. Nouwen connects this transformation with our hearts: “Jesus makes us see existence in terms of his own experience that life is stronger and greater than death and dissolution. It’s only with our hearts that we can understand this” (15)

1. he notes that the two on the road did not suddenly understand what had happened, but “their hearts burned within them” (15.

2. Nouwen suggests that “at the center of their being, of their humanity, something was generated that could disarm death and rob despair of its power; something much more than a new outlook on things, a new confidence, or a new joy in living; something that can only be described only as a new life or a new spirit” (15).

4. Nouwen explains that the two discover freedom, but not the freedom they thought they wanted.

a. When they first met Jesus, they wanted someone who could liberate them from the Romans. Thus, they were “deeply dismayed when their great hero, their liberator, was put to death” (17).

b. But now they are being offered the “freedom of spirit: a freedom from any specific political, economic, or social expectations for the future, a freedom to follow the Lord now, anywhere, even if it should mean suffering” (17)

c. Nouwen makes an important point that the freedom not only frees the person from that which oppresses them, but it also frees the person to “forgive others, to serve them, and to form a new bond of fellowship with them. IN short, the freedom to love and to work for a free world” (18-19)

d. Nouwen illustrates this type of freedom in the woman he met in Jalapa, Nicaragua, whose husbands and sons had been brutally murdered by the Contras, but who still will to pray for their enemies to be forgiven and to give up any vindictiveness or hatred (18).

e. Nouwen connects this receiving of the freedom of spirit with the Eucharist: “Thus you can say that each time you celebrate the Eucharist you once again make the journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus and back” (19).

5. Two responses to this chapter:

a. First of all, I am reminded of the powerful African-American spiritual sung in the musical “Big River” that expresses the desire to know the joy of being free.

Free at Last

I wish by golly I could spread my wings and fly
And let my grounded soul be free for just a little while
To be like eagles when they ride upon the wind
And taste the sweetest taste of freedom for my soul
CHORUS:
Then I'd be free at last, free at last
Great God Almighty I'd be free at last
To let my feelings lie where harm can not come by
And hurt this always hurtin' heart
That needs to rest awhile
I wish by golly I could spread my wings and fly
And taste the sweetest taste of freedom for my soul
CHORUS:
Then I'd be free at last, free at last
Great God Almighty I'd be free at last
I'd be free at last, free at last
Great God Almighty I'd be free at last

b. I recently read a journal entry that I wrote on Ash Wednesday two years ago.  In it, I noted that I wasn't much in the mood for our human frailty (as signified by the ashes), but wanted more resurrection.  Ash Wednesday was just a few weeks after my friend Ed DeLair had died suddenly.  Ironically, a few weeks later my father died, and I noted in my journal that I was tired of the resurrection because I kept preaching it at memorial services and funerals.  As I read this chapter about Jesus who sets us free, I am reminded of how we struggle to live with our human frailty while claiming our hope in the resurrection.  

Resources used in preparation of these notes:

The New Oxford Annotated Study Bible

Letters to Marc about Jesus: Living a Spiritual Life in a Material World;