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Sunday March 30, 2008 "Can You Believe It?" Luke 24:13-35 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 3/31/2008 2:20 PM | You knew this was going to take some time, didn’t you? I mean, let’s be serious: one unbelievable event after another had transpired. If you didn’t witness every single one of them, you would have a tough time taking it all in. No matter who you heard it from, no matter how much you trusted them, if you don’t witness something so remarkably surprising, it is hard to understand what really happened.
Of course, I am talking about the events surrounding the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, his arrest, his trial, his death, his resurrection.
Think about this for a minute: suppose you are a follower of Jesus during those tumultuous days. You’re not one of the 12 disciples or the other close followers like Mary Magdalene, but you believe that Jesus is the one who the Hebrew scriptures have foretold. You believe he will deliver the Jews from their bondage, he will redeem them, he will show himself to be the Messiah that you have longed for.
Because you are not part of the inner circle, there are whole chunks of Holy Week that you are not privy to. You might have been there on that Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem. You might have witnessed the adulation of the crowd and been excited and envigorated by this wonderful reception. You may have laid your coat down for Jesus. You certainly would have shouted “Hosanna!”
But you would not have been present at that meal in the upper room, the last supper Jesus shared with his disciples. And since you weren’t there, you wouldn’t have heard the cryptic message that Jesus conveyed…that the bread was the symbol of his body; the juice the symbol of his blood. You would not have heard Jesus tell his friends that he would be betrayed and that his hour was drawing near.
You wouldn’t have been present at the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives when the Roman soldiers and the temple leadership followed Judas Iscariot to the place where Jesus prayed. You would not have seen Judas walk up to his teacher and kiss his cheek. You would not have seen the soldiers seize Jesus and drag him away to the house of Caiphas.
So, try to picture this: you were enthralled by the Palm Sunday welcome given to Jesus, but that is most likely the last contact you had with him.
And then on Thursday night, you hear of a crowd gathering at the house of Caiphas, the chief priest. A crowd that is intrigued by a turn of events that you cannot fathom: Jesus is being held in the dungeon of the house, awaiting disposition of his case.
What is racing through your mind? What are the charges? Why are they doing this?
The information you get is sporadic at best, and much like a game of telephone that we have played as children, the message has become garbled. Remember, we did not have CNN on the scene to give us live, by the minute reports of official statements and film of the gathering crowd. All the information was passed from person to person, and depending whether they were supporters of Jesus or not, the information was most likely distorted and at best, partly accurate.
Since you are a follower of Jesus, chances are you are keeping your distance from the hubbub. Unsure what is happening, you probably are lingering at the edge of the crowd, if you are brave enough to stay at all.
The next day goes by in a blur. If you are like most of Jesus’ followers, you are being very circumspect about your behavior until you understand exactly what is happening. This much you know. Jesus has been executed as a criminal, hung on a cross at the place of the skull, Golgotha. You may even risk it and go to Golgotha to see for yourself. Whatever you don’t understand, this much would have been true: Jesus was dead. You saw it with your own eyes. Your dreams of the triumphant messiah are crushed. Your faith in Jesus must have been misplaced.
Saturday is the Sabbath and so, you being a good Jew, celebrate the day by keeping still, staying in, not working, resting. It’s probably just as well, because the grief and the confusion running around your brain would make it very difficult to do anything else.
But Sunday, strange news comes to you. It might have been brought by a neighbor, a fellow follower of Jesus, or it might have been simply a bit of a conversation overheard in the street. Wherever the information came from, it is fragmented, unclear, bizarre: Jesus is alive! Apparently, Mary Magdalene and others had gone to the tomb and found it empty. Well, the first conclusion would be that someone had stolen the body, but Mary told another story. She told of an angel, who let her know that Jesus was alive! She told of seeing the resurrected, very much alive Jesus and she spoke with him! She told Peter and the others, and slowly, that game of telephone started up again, and finally, the news reached you.
Can you believe it? Can you piece any of this together? All of it is so unclear, so fragmented, so ridiculously unbelievable! Let’s be serious, you still are struggling with the fact that one of the 12 betrayed him! You can’t quite fathom that the people and the priests wanted Jesus dead! And now this? He’s alive? But you saw for yourself: he was dead! No one survives such a brutal scourging and three hours hanging on a cross, nails driven through their hands and feet.
I’m not sure I can fully comprehend the flat out bewilderment the followers of Jesus must have felt, especially those who were on the fringes and had only bits and pieces of the story. The inner turmoil must have been incredible. I get a headache just trying to comprehend it all.
About the closest I can come in my lifetime is the first few hours after the planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The initial news reports were sketchy at best. Was it a pilot’s error? Was it a problem with the air traffic control system? Was it terrorism? But the buildings were still standing? Not for long.
I have friends and acquaintances who were in New York when the planes struck and all of them were operating on such limited information as to make the situation even more confusing. I learned of a friend of mine from high school who got on her daughters bike to get her at school in Manhattan, and when they had met up with her husband, walked out of the city, not sure where they were headed, but knowing they had to leave. There were others who were holed up at home, awaiting word about loved ones in the area of the Trade Center. There were still others at airports who had only the sketchiest information about why all the planes had suddenly been grounded.
And over and over again, the same question was asked that day: Can you believe it? Truth be told, it would be days, even weeks before the whole story could be adequately pieced together enough for anyone to understand what had happened. And that was with the massive resources of the most sophisticated information systems imaginable in place! What chance would there have been to fully understand the events of Holy Week and Easter in Jerusalem those many, many years ago?
That is where this passage begins: two followers of Jesus, but probably not close followers, on the road to Emmaus, trying to sort out just what had happened.
They were going to Emmaus. Where is that? We never hear it mentioned in any other context. Well, we are told that it is 7 miles from Jerusalem, but through the years, efforts to locate it precisely have been fruitless.
The great theologian Frederick Buechner tells us that it is not important exactly where Emmaus was. He contends that the importance of Emmaus is that is where these two were going in order to simply get away and sort things out. Hear his words: “Emmaus is the place where we go in order to escape – a bar, a movie – wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, ‘Let the whole thing hang. I can’t make any sense of it.’”
Where is your Emmaus? Where is the place you go when nothing makes sense? Where do you go to get out of the way of the reality of the day? Where is your place to hide?
Ahhh, but the two travelers on the road to Emmaus could not hide. They were joined by Jesus. Oh, they didn’t know it was him, but he joined them and asked what they were talking about. When they indicated their confusion and their lack of understanding, Jesus explained it to them. He used scripture. He used events that they would know about. He told the story of the people of Israel all the way to the events of Easter. He let them know that the story that Mary Magdalene shared with Peter was true: Jesus was indeed alive, resurrected, having overcome death as no one had before. And in his resurrection, Jesus fulfilled the promise of salvation and redemption that so many sought.
The two travelers, Cleopas and his companion, invited the still unkown to them Jesus to stay with them. It was late, they said. Have dinner with us. Rest.
And as they gathered around the table, Jesus took the bread, blessed it and broke it. His two companions suddenly recognized Jesus, and then he vanished.
This story is so rich, so full of meaning.
Clearly, we should take heart that Jesus revealed himself to these little known and seemingly unimportant followers. We need to take note of the fact that Emmaus was quite literally in the middle of nowhere, and yet Jesus chose to go there. We see again that the relationship with Jesus can be a personal one. We are instructed once again that revelation comes in many forms, and Jesus used them all in this story: he spoke to what the two had experienced themselves, he referred to scripture as a starting point for his instruction, he made it clear that the traditions of their ancestors all pointed to this day.
Scripture. Tradition. Experience. These are the elements of revelation. These are the places we find Jesus, even today, some 2000 years after the fact.
But to me, while the revelation of Jesus to Cleopas and his friend is so very instructive to clear up their confusion and bewilderment, while it goes a long way to helping us see and understand how we can access the revealed Jesus, the two most important parts of the story come near the end.
First, the shared meal.
“When he at was the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. They their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished.”
These two stunned travelers did not know of the last supper. They did not know of the the first holy eucharist that Jesus celebrated with his closest disciples. They would not have understood, any more than the 12 did, the symbolism of his broken body and his spilled blood. But in the sharing of this meal, Jesus was revealed.
Every week we gather around this table to share this same holy meal. We know of the last supper; we know of the symbolism of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. We gather around the table to commemorate that sacrifice, to give thanks for the relationship we have been offered. And, just like the travelers to Emmaus, the risen Christ is revealed to us in the breaking of the bread.
We gather at the table in fellowship with each other, with those who have come before us, with those who will follow us. We gather at this table as the Body of Christ, and so when I share the meal with you, and you with me, and both of us with all those gathered, Christ is once again revealed, in us. We gather at this table understanding the importance of our tradition, the clarity that can be found in scripture, and the power of God revealed to us in so many ways. As we gather at the table, we are united in God’s purpose and we are rededicated to being Christ’s body on earth. No matter where we are, no matter who we are with, when we share this sacred meal, the essence of Christ is present with us.
There is an additional bit of information in this scripture that we have taken to heart as Disciples of Christ. The two travelers invited Jesus to the table. In their offer of hospitality to the stranger, they wound up dining with their risen Lord. We need to learn from this. Every time we gather at this table, we offer our hospitality to all those who seek Christ and seek God’s presence in their lives. It is not up to us to decide who gets to sit at the table: we are wise to follow the example of Cleopas and his companion. When we welcome all to this table, we never know who we will be sharing bread with. But we do know that in the sharing, we will be blessed.
The second important part of this scripture for me is the very end of the scripture. Hear the words again: “That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”
Emmaus may have been the place these two went to hide, to be alone, to escape, to sort things out in peace. But having understood, they returned to tell the story.
It is understandable that at times we seek our own Emmaus, a place to escape with our own thoughts and confusions. But when understanding comes, when we recognize the resurrected Jesus in our midst, we need to follow the lead of the travelers in this story and get back to our real life, and tell the story.
Because only when we tell our story, only when we bear witness to the revelation of God’s grace in our life, only when we are willing to proclaim our faith for all to hear, then and only then will the all important questions be answered.
May it be so for you and for me.
Let us pray: Lord, too often we do not see you in our midst, even though we know that you are here. We get so caught up in the confusion of the moment that we neglect to notice that you are walking right next to us, guiding and blessing us. Help us to find that place where we can get away from the maddening crowd, the blur of activity, the dissonance of the world around us, and be open to recognizing your presence. And when your presence has been revealed, embolden us to tell your story, our story, to all we meet. In the name of the risen messiah we ask it all. Amen.
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