Reflections on "Jesus: the God Who Sets Us Free" Luke 24: 13-27

“Jesus: The God Who Sets Us Free”  March 9, 2014; March 2, 2014; Lenten series  

We officially began Lent with our second week in Henri Nouwen's book Letters to Marc.  Again the challenge not to become too dry with all the material that I have to work with that comes directly from Nouwen.  The notes below are probably more structured than the sermon ended up as I tried not to make the sermon merely connect the quotes. 

The journal entry illustration seemed to work (it was a last minute addition to the sermon), as well as the recording of "Free at Last."  I found finishing with the song, which you can't hear on this blog, was a powerful finish.  The words of the song connected very well with what I was trying to 

Introduction:  We continue our Lenten series reading through Henri Nouwen's book Letters to Marc:  Living a Spiritual Life in a Materialistic World. 

Last week we focused on how Jesus is the heart of our existence.

This week we contemplate how Jesus is the God who sets us free.

Move 1:   Freedom and oppression in our world.

            a.  Nouwen notes that “for most people freedom is a dream.  It’s a lot easier to find evidence of oppression in our world than of freedom” (12). 

1.      he suggests that his read of history indicates it has been like that throughout history.

                        2. In his time, he can point to violent elections in the Philippines; Duvalier’s reign and then flight from Haiti; genocide in Uganda; unrest in South Africa, Northern Ireland, Iran, and Iraq as signs of oppression in the world.

      3.  In our time, we might lift up places that struggle such Crimea; Afghanistan; Iraq; China; N. Korea; or reflect on how the economic volatility has oppressed some.

b.  Nouwen indicates that for his nephew Marc life is rather good.

     

                  1.  We would, of course, resonate with Marc's world.

                  2.  In our own lives, we know freedom and opportunity more than we know oppression.

3.  Nouwen wants to focus on freedom in Christ.  What it means to follow the resurrected one.

Move 2:  He turns to the in Luke that we read this morning 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).

                        1.  Although they have heard from others that the tomb in which Christ had been buried is empty, they cannot conceive of what has happened.

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

                        3. Then Jesus had been crucified – the world and its authorities had spoken and Christ was dead and buried.

                        4.  Cleopas and his friend had lost heart and were making their way back home. 

                        5.  It was not a journey of hope, but a journey of despair. (13).

            b.  Nouwen connects the despair and disappointment they feel with our human frailty.

                        1.  Jesus had not just been crucified, he had been buried in the tomb. 

                        2.  Three days. Three days of his dead body rotting.

                        3.  Nouwen suggests that  “decomposition is surely the most telling symbol of human desperation.  Whatever we do or say,…we shall rot.   

                        4. Remember the words we speak as the ashes are traced across our forehead on Ash Wednesday:  “From dust you have come.  To dust you shall return.”

                        5.  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)

c.  Consider the implications that has for us. 

            1.  When we fail or are disappointment in what life presents us, part of our reaction is tied to our recognition of our human frailty.

            2. Maybe not consciously, but our failures trigger in us a sense of hopelessness.

            3. We become oppressed by this sense that life is hopeless.

d. Notice who Jesus responds to Cleopas and his friend.

            1.   Jesus does not try to tell them what they feel is not real or that they just misunderstand the situation.

            2.  Too often, we think that if we just understand something or can just figure out why it happened, then it will not disappoint us or somehow we can handle it. 

            3. Jesus does not try to explain their disappointment away; instead, he offers them something more than their despair.

            4.  He tells them 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).

            5.   Jesus transforms their reality; he does not just change their perspective of things.

            e.  Nouwen connects this transformation with our hearts: 

                        1.  Only in our hearts can we understand that Jesus gives us life that is stronger and greater than death and dissolution (15)

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

                        3.  At the core of who we are, we discover “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).

Move 3:  Ironically, this is not the freedom that Cleopas and his friend thought they wanted.

  

          a.  When they first met Jesus, they wanted someone who could liberate them from the Romans (17).

                        1.  Their despair at Christ’s death was that the one who they thought could set them free from the Romans was killed by the Romans.

                        2.  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)

                        3. that is the freedom we too are being offered – the freedom of Spirit.

                        4. The world may continue dealing us disappointments; the world may continue to oppress; but in Christ we are set free.

            b.  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)

            1.  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).

            2. Imagine living in a world where you are so vulnerable and so helpless. 

            3. Imagine how free those women are when they are able to show the world that they may suffer at the hands of the world as seen in the murder of their loved ones, but they are free in Christ to respond with forgiveness.

c.  Amy Frykholm quotes Russian write Nicolas Berdyaev”  “It would be a mistake to think that the average man loves freedom.  A still greater mistake would be to suppose that freedom is an easy thing.  Freedom is a difficult thing.  It is easier to remain in slavery.”  The Christian Century

            1. it is not easy to lay claim to our freedom in Christ.

            2. Journal entry from Ash Wednesday two years ago, which was a few weeks after my friend and colleague Ed DeLair had died and at a time when I was doing at least one funeral a week:  “I am tired of our human frailty.  I want to skip the ashes and get to the resurrection.”

            3. Fast forward two or three weeks.  By that point, my father had died unexpectedly.  Now I have a journal entry:  “I am tired of resurrection, because every time I preach resurrection, it is at a funeral.”

            4. We know our human frailty.  We desperately need the hope of resurrection.  But it’s not easy laying claim to that hope.

            6.  being people of the resurrection means turning away from the way of the world and following Christ. 

            3.  Being free in Christ not only offers us hope in the face of despair, but demands that we live our lives accordingly.

Conclusion:  Let me finish with the powerful song, “Free at Last,” from the musical Big River, in which Jim, the slave seeking to escape to freedom, sings of the joy that freedom will bring.

****CD “Free at Last”

                        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

Great God Almighty has sent Jesus to set us free.  Amen.

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;        

            CD of Big River, produced by MCA Records, Inc., 1986.