A Sermon
Presented by Rev. Merlin T. Batt
Intentional Interim Pastor
St. Matthew’s United Church of Christ
Maiden, North Carolina
Third Sunday of Easter
April 6, 2008
Scripture Lesson: Luke 24:13-35
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You have no doubt seen the large, outdoor sign at the entrance to the church parking lot, the one that says: “Easter lasts 50 days – Celebrate with us!” It would be a mistake to think that the church’s lengthy Easter celebration should concern itself only with what happened in the pre-dawn hours of the first Easter morning, only with the stunning, world-transforming event of Jesus’ rising from the dead.
Of course, that is the main reason we celebrate. There would be no cause for celebration at all if Jesus’ body had decomposed like all bodies before and since his Resurrection. As the Apostle Paul once wrote to the small group of Christians in Corinth, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” The point I’m making is simply this: in these weeks following Easter Sunday, our task as Christians is to think together about on how the Resurrection of Jesus makes a difference in our lives, a real difference in how we see and engage in everyday life. In other words, it’s about Easter becoming local!
The story which can help us explore how Easter gets local, how it makes a difference in our lives, is this morning’s Gospel lesson from Luke, the familiar story of an encounter on the road to Emmaus. This Easter story does not answer the question, “How did God raise Jesus from the dead?” Or even the question, “Why did God raise Jesus from the dead?” Instead, it raises the question of how Easter gets to us where we live.
You know the story; it’s one of the most familiar and beloved stories in the Gospels. It’s about two of Jesus’ followers leaving Jerusalem and heading home in the afternoon of the same day Jesus was raised from the dead. We learn that one of them was named Cleopas, but his companion is not named in Luke’s story. From a clue we have in John’s Gospel, it’s reasonable to think that Cleopas’ companion that day was his wife Mary, the sister to Jesus’ mother Mary, in other words Jesus’ aunt. These two followers of Jesus were not among the 12 Apostles, but they were followers of Jesus, and they were heading home, home to the village of Emmaus, a small town near to Jerusalem, about 7 miles northwest of the city.
But who they were and where they were headed are not nearly as important as how they were feeling as they walked home along the Emmaus Road and what they had experienced. You see, Cleopas and Mary had been eyewitnesses to the unjust trial, the brutal beating, the humiliation, the gruesome crucifixion and death of Jesus, the man they believed was not only a prophet, but Israel’s Messiah, the one who would liberate their people once and for all from pagan domination, free them to serve their God in peace and holiness. It had been an unimaginably terrible stretch of several days in the crowded, dangerous, and violent city. And if Cleopas’ companion that afternoon was indeed his wife, the sister of Jesus’ mother, then there was the additional aspect of watching a beloved family member be abused and then executed by their Roman oppressors. It meant at the very least that Jesus, to whom their hopes were tied, was merely another in a long, disappointing line of messianic pretenders. Going home to Emmaus, Cleopas and Mary were heartsick, discouraged, and depressed.
What’s more, that morning before they left the city, they had heard a strange report, something about some women of their group who had gone to Jesus’ tomb at sunrise to complete the burial process finding it empty. These women reported a vision of angels who said that Jesus was not dead, but this unconfirmed news, whatever its reliability, only served to confuse Cleopas and Mary further.
One thing for sure, the news didn’t prevent them from leaving Jerusalem for home that very same day to do their grieving and go on as best they could. They were weary with exhaustion, overwhelmed by grief, discouraged, disillusioned, angry at Jesus’ enemies, beset by fear that as Jesus’ followers they, too, might be arrested and punished. So they hurried away from the dangerous city along the Emmaus Road toward the relative safety and comfort of home.
Now here’s where the story gets both interesting and confusing. As they trudged home, mostly in silence, but occasionally speaking of the horror and disappointment they had experienced, a stranger caught up with them and walked along beside them as they talked. At one point he asked them what they were discussing. He said to Cleopas and Mary, “What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?”
They responded to the stranger with some irritation, as might anyone who has been totally absorbed in a traumatic event and so assumes naturally that everyone should know about the situation. So they said to the stranger abruptly, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
The stranger – who, of course, we know, but they didn’t, was the risen Jesus himself – then drew them into deeper conversation by saying innocently, “What things?”
The narrator of the story says about Mary and Cleopas that “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” Isn’t that interesting? Somehow they were kept from knowing the identity of the stranger. Now, you would think that especially Mary, Jesus’ aunt, would recognize him, recognize at least his voice if not his appearance. It’s very strange that, after all they had been through with him, they didn’t recognize him? The scene reminds me of another one involving a Mary, Mary Magdalene this time. Earlier that same day she didn’t recognize the risen Jesus either; she thought he was the gardener. Remember?
So what’s this about, that “their eyes were kept from recognizing him”? I think it’s about the fact that, when it comes to the things of God, you and I are not in control. God’s in control. The simplest and most plausible explanation is that God kept them from recognizing the risen Christ. “Earth’s crammed with Heaven, and every bush aflame with God,” wrote poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but until God opens our eyes, we do not take off our shoes! The living God is known only to the extent that God reveals himself to us, that God allows us to be aware of his presence.
Unaware of who the stranger really was, their eyes kept from recognizing him, the two forlorn travelers described to him with the terrible and confusing events of the weekend. And having listened to their story, the stranger began the process of revealing himself to his disheartened friends. As they walked the road to Emmaus, he reviewed with them the whole story of their Bible, beginning with the creation story in Genesis and ending with the prophets’ anticipation of a fresh, new act of God. The stranger showed them how their Bible told the long, intricate story of how God would redeem Israel, not from suffering, but through the suffering of Israel’s Messiah. And slowly, little by little, as he taught them, the “blinders” slipped from their eyes.
While there’s yet more to this drama I want to explore with you, let’s pause here midway for a moment, while I invite you to enter into this story whenever you find yourself in some difficulty, whenever you experience some agony of heart or downcast of spirit. For some of you, this is true even today. You may appear to the persons sitting next to you to be perfectly calm, secure, and happy, but you’re torn up inside. We’re all great actors when it comes to hiding our desperation from those who are closest to us.
If this is true of you today, when you go home, find a quiet place alone; and using your prayerful imagination, walk along the road to Emmaus with Cleopas and Mary. Be prepared to share your situation and your feelings with the stranger who suddenly approaches. Listen for his voice, explaining, leading you forwards, and warming your heart by applying Scripture to what’s going on in your life. Learn to enter into this story yourself whenever life’s hurts and disappointments accumulate, and they become too much for you to bear. As have generations of Christians before you, you will find this story an inexhaustible source of guidance, strength, and peace to help you live with Easter hope in a Good Friday world.
The drama continues with Cleopas and Mary arriving at their destination. The stranger appeared to want to continue his journey in spite of the approaching darkness, but the couple insisted that he come to their home for supper and stay the night. “Come with us,” they invited, “and be our guest tonight.” He accepted their invitation.
Mary hastily prepared a simple meal and called Cleopas and the stranger to the table, but as they gathered around the table, their guest suddenly and inexplicably became the host. From their humble table, he took the loaf of bread in his hands as the host would naturally do, and blessed it, again as the host would, offering the traditional Jewish prayer for the occasion:
Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu
Melech Ha-olam,
Hamotzi lechem minha-aretz.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe,
Who brings forth bread from the earth.
Then as host he broke the bread and gave it to them.
Took the bread, blessed the bread, broke the bread, and gave the bread - what does that sound like to you? Yes, that’s what it sounded like to Cleopas and Mary, the words from Jesus’ last supper with his disciples echoed in their minds. And at that moment, “…their eyes were opened and they recognized him….”
They now recognized the stranger sitting at their table as the risen Jesus, no longer hidden from their sight. As recognition turned to wonder and awe, Jesus disappeared from their midst as mysteriously as he had appeared to them on the road. Immediately they looked at each other, and Cleopas said, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?”
Burning hearts, broken bread…at one level, this beloved story is a parable about what happens to us at Sunday worship. The Risen Christ reveals himself in our midst as he “opens the Scriptures” to us, and as he takes, blesses, breaks, and gives us the bread of Holy Communion. In this sense we are, you and I, much like Cleopas and Mary, first-generation Christians. You see, ours is not a second-hand faith, but a first-hand faith because the Risen Lord comes to us in our worship, reveals himself to us through Scripture, and nourishes us in his risen life through the broken bread and the out-poured wine.
Burning hearts, broken bread…at another level, you see, this is also a story about every day, not just Sunday. It’s a story about Easter at work among us, a story about God’s power being stronger than death and God’s love being stronger than hate.
One of this country’s finest preachers is Tom Long. Once he was asked to preach at a conference somewhere on the coast of South Carolina. On the way home after the conference he was seated on the plane next to an older gentleman who also had been at the conference. They struck up a conversation which soon become quite open and candid.
The man told Tom that he and his wife had several children, one of whom was confined to a nursing home after several years earlier being involved in an automobile accident. His son suffered from permanent brain damage, and for years has remained in a comatose state.
The preacher was startled when the man said, “We had stopped loving our son. We visited him every week, it was our duty as parents, but we stopped loving him. Love is reciprocal relationship, giving and receiving. Our son could not receive, our son could not give. We went to see him, but we had stopped loving him.
“Until one day, we went to visit our son and were surprised that he already had a visitor in his room. We did not know this person. He was a stranger. It turned out that he was the Lutheran minister from down the street who just routinely visited in the nursing home. We waited outside in the hall, and we saw this minister engaged in a conversation toward our son, and I thought to myself, ‘As if my son could appreciate a conversation.’
Then (the minister) took out a Bible and read my son a psalm. As if my son could appreciate a psalm. And then he prayed a prayer, as if my son could appreciate a prayer. And then it dawned on me, he does know. Of course, he knows. (This minister) sees my son not simply through clinical eyes, but through the eyes of faith, and he treats my son as a child of God.”
That, my friends, is an example of what Easter does in us – it gives us eyes of faith through which to see the world in a new way and act accordingly. The Risen Christ comes to us through word and sacrament to open our eyes. He allows us to see the world through the eyes of faith, through Resurrection-eyes, so we can treat others as children of God, trust that God’s power is stronger than death and love is stronger than hate, and know that everything we do for the sake of Christ is not in vain – this is how Easter works among Christ’s people in the everyday world.
So come, Lord Jesus. Open the Scriptures to us, break the bread, reveal yourself to us, nourish your people, and send us out into this Good Friday world as your Easter people. Amen.
