Still trying to get into the rhythm of recording worship on Friday, which shortens the sermon preparation time. The road to Emmaus story has lots of preachable moments. I do not think I had taken this approach before, so it was fun to view the text from a different vantage point. It felt a little bit like an Easter sermon, which may or may not be a good thing!
“How Do We Recognize You?” SAPC, April 19, 2020; Luke 24: 13-35; Psalm 16; Questions of the Resurrected Christ series, 2020
Luke 24: 13-35 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles[f] from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad.[g] 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” 19 He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth,[h] who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.[i] Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” 25 Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah[j] should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us[k] while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Introduction: We are asking lots of questions these days.
when will they find a medicine that cures coronavirus?
How long until there is a vaccine?
how long will “shelter in place” last?
What criteria must be met for things to get back to normal?
Lots of questions, most for which we cannot find easy answers.
We have to live into the answers.
I imagine the time after the women discovered the empty tomb was also a time of questions.
did it really happen?
Did someone steal the body or was Jesus really resurrected?
What is a resurrection?
Where did Jesus go?
Lots of questions for which there were no easy answers,
they had to live into the answers.
Between now and Pentecost we are going to spend our sermon time reflecting on questions we might have asked the risen Christ.
the questions in the sermons may not be your questions, so I invite you to use the sermon time to expand your reflections beyond the question of the week to your own questions.
No easy answers, but some thoughts on how we live into the answers.
Move 1: Our first question to ask the risen Christ: how do we recognize you?
a. From Jesus’ perspective, how hard it must have been to make yourself recognizable to people who knew for certain you had died. they had seen it with their own eyes.
1. Case and point - the followers of Christ who meet him on the road to Emmaus walk with him and talk with him, but do not recognize him.
2. A couple of years ago I read a story about a man named Charles Hubbard of Austin, Texas. This Vietnam vet received a letter from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs informing him that he was dead and that his family needed to return thousands of dollars in benefits. A victim of stolen identity, Hubbard found his checking account closed by the VA. After he made an extensive case for being alive, the VA informed him that it would take eight months for him to be officially brought back to life. That’s when they would restore his pension benefit (by Peter W. Marty March 16, 2018, Christian Century, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/living-word/april-15-easter-3b-luke-2436b-48)
3. Of course, Jesus had an even bigger challenge since he had really died!
b. From the perspective of those who knew Jesus, how hard it must have been to recalibrate their understanding of what had taken place, what was taking place, so they recognize him.
1. Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis reflected this week on the story of Emmaus and on our current global reality. She said, “It’s unsurprising that the disciples don’t immediately recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Trauma does that; it can make what was once familiar feel strange. This experience is traumatic. So, lend yourself grace: We’ll learn to see anew, together” (As found in Calvary Baptist church email newsletter)
2. We are living in a time of trauma, which makes it difficult to recognize the risen Christ.
3. part of our task is to open ourselves up to how the Risen Christ is alive in our new, unfamiliar circumstances.
b. Of course, for the disciples who first asked the Risen Christ, “how do we recognize you?” the answer they received might have been a little more concrete: “you can recognize me because here I am, the same body that walked among you; the same body you saw hanging from the cross; the body you now see with you in this moment.”
1. The empty tomb signifies a bodily resurrection.
2. We may not understand resurrection completely, but it is not some mystical god thing that took place outside of our humanity.
3. God did come in flesh to be with us.
4. God did die on the cross in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
5. God did raise Jesus from the dead.
6. he had the same body, with the addition of some scars, to prove it.
7. As Presbyterian writer and theologian, Tom Currie notes: “ An empty cross lets us have an image of a successful resurrection; The Risen Christ with his hands and scars shows the messiness of the resurrection” (APTS, Currie lectures, 2010)
the first disciples recognize the risen Christ in his bodily person.
We recognize the risen Christ as he moves among us in the reality of our lives.
Move 2: The Risen Christ might also answer our question by pointing to hope and saying, “You will recognize me in the hope you have.”
a. Lots of interesting things going on in this story of Jesus meeting two of his followers on the road to Emmaus.
1. Disciples having a bad, confusing day: bad because they had seen Jesus dead on the cross; confusing because they have heard word that the tomb was empty.
2. Now the meet this guy on the road to Emmaus who has apparently not heard about what has happened.
2. So they start telling him. When they get to the part about the tomb being empty, we might expect Jesus to mention that he is the resurrected one.
3. Sort of an “aha” moment - “ta da, I am really alive. See me!”
b. Instead, Jesus sends them back to the stories of their faith..
1. he teaches them (again, presumably) about Moses and the prophets.
2. Christian educators must love this passage - how can you learn about the risen Christ? Study the Bible.
2. Why? Why return to the story of Moses and the prophets?
3. because they are stories of the God who saves; the God who hears the people’s cries and acts; the God who rescues the Israelites from slavery in Egypt; the God who returns the exiles to Jerusalem; the God who again and again saves God’s people
4. Jesus reminds these two guys that God’s people are a people of hope, who hope in a God who is true to that hope.
c. I read an article this week in which the author described scenes from an ICU in New York City at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. They spoke to nurses and doctors covered from head to toe in protective gear. I was struck by the tenacity of these health professionals, overwhelmed, stressed, but stalwart and committed. One nurse said despite the number of deaths, she always, always assumed, and therefore acted as if, the patient would recover and live. She noted that without that hope and expectation she could not do her job in the way she needs to do it. The end of the video showed a circle of masked men and women huddled in prayer. That same nurse shared with the reporter that they prayed before each shift, Christian prayers, Muslim prayers, Jewish prayers, every kind of prayer, displaying faith and a belief in healing and hope and life, in the face of deadly, overwhelming, desperate circumstances.
As the author notes: “Seeing and hearing their courage, their calm in the eye of the storm, their hope in the face of fear, bore witness to resurrection, to the presence of our wounded and living Lord present in the heart of suffering whose Word is trustworthy and promises are true.“ (“Looking into the lectionary, jill Duffield, presbyterian Outlook, 4/13/2020).
How do we recognize the Risen Christ? You will find him as you hope in the God who saves.
Move 3: A final thought on how we recognize the risen Christ - we recognize him when our hearts are burning.
a. Did you notice what happened after After Jesus broke bread with the gathering in Emmaus and their eyes were opened, after Jesus had disappeared from their midst, they took time to reflect on what had just happened.
1. “We should have recognized him because our hearts were burning.”
2. Not, “I saw him with my own eyes,” but “i felt him in my own heart.”
3. Recognition from the heart.
4. As the Psalmist described in the psalm we read this morning: "In the night, my heart instructs me.”
b. Our hearts can reveal the Risen Christ in ways that even 20/20 vision cannot.
1. our hearts that trust in God to be present reveal the presence of the Risen Christ.
2. Our hearts that fill with hope reveal the risen Christ.
3. William Willimon note that the most frustrating thing about the Risen Christ is that he just appears and disappears as he pleases (William Willimon, Journal for Preachers, Volume XXXVI, Number 3, Easter, 2011, 40)
4. We cannot contain the Risen Christ.
5. We cannot control the Risen Christ.
6. But we can give our hearts over to the Risen Christ.
7. How do you recognize the Risen Christ? Trust you heart to tell you.
Conclusion: "I myself believe passionately in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, because in my own life I have experienced Christ not as a memory, but as a presence. that is why on Easter we do not gather to close the show by singing “Thanks for the Memory,' but rather to reopen the show with the hymn 'Jesus Christ Is Risen Today.' “William Sloan Coffin
Christ is Risen. Look for him with your hearts as you hope in the God who saves.
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