EMMAUS: THE SEQUEL
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Text: Luke 24:35-49
After the movie Friday night, we went for a walk around the neighborhood. Daniel Ramirez was telling me about some classic books he had read. Our conversation moved to movies. First, he was giving me his analysis of the “Star War” movies and how he enjoyed fantasy. I told him how much I had liked the “Lord of the Rings” cycle. Then he shared that his mother’s favorite movies are the “Rocky” series. From his own imaginative memory, in a way that only Daniel can, he began to tell me his version of the whole series – Rocky and all 57 of its sequels. I have to confess that somewhere along the way I got lost in Daniel’s telescoped version of the Rocky saga. Still, I was impressed with the creativity and passion of his account.
This morning’s sequel is perhaps less complicated but probably more challenging. We all know the moving story of the road to Emmaus – how Jesus encounters Cleopas and his comrade walking the long, dusty road to their home, deep in grief over the loss of their friend and teacher; how the pair doesn’t recognize him as they travel along together, even when he unfolds the scriptures for them; how it is only in the intimate setting of their small house, in the breaking of bread around a common table, that they recognize him; how they race back to the city to share the good news with the other disciples. It is among the most beautiful and meaningful stories of Jesus’ post-Resurrection encounters.
Thanks to Mike for the lovely graphic representation on the cover of today’s bulletin. Here we see the close encounter of a new kind between Jesus and his followers. In the midst of their grief, he comes to them, wraps his arms around them and accompanies them on their journey. Three short days from his own brutal execution on a Roman cross, here he is reaching out to comfort his friends in their grief. He is exceedingly gentle with them. He does not come on them with some flash of glory. He simply meets them where they are and travels with them until they are ready to see the miracle that is unfolding before them. “What wondrous love is this, oh my soul?”
I asked Jo to begin today’s ancient word with verse 35, even though it is not officially the start of the lectionary reading. I did this because today’s text is so clearly linked to the story of the Emmaus Road. Here are Cleopas and his partner, already back in Jerusalem, standing breathlessly in the locked room with a truly amazing tale. The others are speechless, filled with wonder, doubt, questions, glimmers of hope, incredulity. How about you? Can you imagine how you might have felt in their sandals on that first Easter evening? What sort of thoughts and feelings would have raced through you as you listened to the improbable story of your friends from Emmaus?
Of course, we have the advantage and, perhaps, the disadvantage of this story being shared over and over again for the past 2000 years. We know that this is not the only post-Resurrection story. We know that a whole earth-shaking revolution has grown from this ancient story. We know that there is a great world religion that was spawned by this story and others. It cannot come to us with the same dizzying impact it had on those first followers.
And Emmaus is not the only story told, for indeed, here we find the disciples, gathered in dazed confusion, already shaken by the women’s account of the empty tomb and Simon Peter’s claim to have seen the risen Christ. Now they are listening, incredulously, as Cleopas and his friend tell their tale, when he appears among them, from nowhere discernible. Quietly, gently, he is just there, in the room. “Shalom, my friends. Peace be with you.”
But peace is not at hand for them, at least not immediately. They are startled, terrified. The think they are seeing a ghost. I don’t know how many of you have seen a ghost or even believe in ghosts, but it is certainly a lore with which we’re familiar. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” How often have you heard that colloquial response to someone who appears to have been frightened or had a traumatizing experience. I doubt that you or I would have reacted much differently than those first disciples. This is why some scholars believe that what follows with Jesus showing them his wounds and then eating broiled fish is so important to the writer of Luke. It is a means of showing that, indeed, Jesus was no ghost, but a living, breathing being not altogether unlike those beings gathered in that room. “Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
But, perhaps more importantly than proving the reality of his existence, he challenges their fear and uncertainty. “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Here I am in your midst as I told you I would be. Here, let me explain it to you one more time.” And he sits with them, again patiently unfolding for them how he himself is the very fulfillment of the law and the prophets and the psalms. How human is their response. How like us they must have been – joy mixed with doubt, disbelief and wonderment were the order of the day. How can this be so? How can Christ be among us? How can he come so quietly and gently to those ancient disciples in a locked room? How can he come to us today in the guarded chambers of our own lives? What do we have to learn about repentance and forgiveness? Can he yet touch our lives, yours and mine, where they are broken and make us whole?
One obvious way that he offers to them as well as to us is the coming of God’s holy spirit of empowerment, that which God has promised, that which will turn their lives around and turn the world upside down. Our Resurrection faith assures us again and again that he will come among us - a gentle, loving, comforting, affirming presence; that his gracious holy spirit will blow around us and in us, empowering us to share the good news of the risen Christ to the ends of the earth. The challenge for us is to be open to that gentle presence, that empowering spirit. If our hearts and minds are closed, if we cannot look up to see who is walking with us on the journey, if we let ourselves be overwhelmed with fear and disbelief, we may miss out on all that is available to us as disciples of the risen Christ.
Of course, it’s not just personal comfort that he brings. As our Words of Preparation challenge, "If we – people like me and perhaps you – really believed in resurrection, believed it not just in theory but in our bones, we would have no choice but to risk all that we have by taking action for justice. Bone-deep knowledge of resurrection would take away the fears that some of us presently use to justify our cautious, self-protective lives. Death-dealing fear would be replaced by life-giving faith, and we would be called to do God-knows-what for God-knows-who” (Parker Palmer, Work, Creativity and Caring.)
I wonder what kinds of things get in the way of our seeing and hearing and experiencing the risen Christ. I suppose questions about the literal resurrection of the body might trouble some. Clearly, the writer of Luke wants us to see the very human side of Jesus, even after the Resurrection, so we get the flesh and blood and wounds and fish. But we also get the sudden and amazing appearance of Jesus in the room. How could this have happened? How does a man who was certified dead, executed on a Roman cross, suddenly appear in a locked room 3 days later? Though there may be scientific and rational explanations, it is the wondrous mystery of God at work in the world that draws me into this ancient story. As the old shaman said, “I don’t know if it actually happened this way, but I know it’s true.” I know it because of the moments when I have felt the comforting hand on my shoulder, when I have sensed the reassuring presence in my fearful heart, when I have heard the gently affirming voice speak to my troubled mind, when the spirit has moved me to repent, to turn completely around on some destructive path, to change my unhealthy ways. Perhaps you have had similar encounters in your own lives.
What else might get in the way? Cleopas and his partner were so caught up in their grief that they couldn’t see. Their eyes must have been glued to the ground as they shuffled along, kicking up the dust. What they wanted most was right there with them and they couldn’t see. “I’m so sad. I’m too busy. I’ve got too much on my mind. I’ve got to get this work done. I’m too self-absorbed with too many problems to work out. My brother is sick, my wife is dying, my child is disabled. I’m just so tired, so sick, in so much pain. My memory or my joints or my heart or all of the above don’t work the way they used to.” There are so many things in our lives that can fill up the entire screen and take all our attention, that can leave us alone and distant from the very spiritual nourishment we so desperately need and want.
Still, on occasion, we may yet be startled, even terrified as something or someone mysteriously pierces our veil of distraction, saying “Shalom, my friend. Peace be with you. I am here with you, for you, to show you a better way, God’s way.” Kate Huey says that “The risen Jesus enters our lives and turns us around, too, when we're jaded and critical and judgmental and closed-off in heart and mind. On a dime, as quickly as you can say the word ‘but,’ everything is different. It is enough to move one to tears, every time” (Kate Huey, SAMUEL, Easter 3, 2009, at ucc.org.) And don’t we feel joy right along with our tears and disbelief and wonderment when such grace and such hope, such amazing possibility is made available to one like me?
The truth friends is that we do not have to look hard or far. As the song sings “In this very room, there is quite enough love and joy and hope and power” for you and me, for us, yes, for all the world, “for Jesus, [Christ] Jesus is in this very room.” Take a moment, in silence, close your eyes or open them wide and look around. See if you can’t sense that very presence richly here and available for you and me and all the world.
I will tell you I met Christ this week. I found Christ present this week in the powerful preaching of a young New Testament scholar with a special needs child. I found Christ in a group of people wrestling with conflict transformation. I found Christ in fellowship with a group of committed pastors. I found Christ in the heart-felt sharing of Daniel Ramirez and the gracious way Thelma Parodi said good–bye to Ernie and in the helpful hands of Mike and Javier carrying old couches up to the youth room and in the thoughtful consideration of the Lois and Lionel and Jane as we met as the Pastoral Relations Committee and in Eleanor, Thelma, Diane, Laura, Mary and Don caring for our FaithZone kids and in the collection for a soccer for field for some beleaguered kids in Gaza that has grown well beyond our goal and in a group of people deeply concerned about nuclear weapons and in my friend Diana as she goes off to Washington to witness for peace in Iraq. None of these examples is spectacular. These are simply examples of the grace and love, the power and possibility of the risen Christ in our daily lives. I suppose some might question this theology as too simple, maybe even sentimental, but that’s how it is for me and it has the power to turn the world right side up!
Emmaus: the sequel. There it is - ongoing, eternally possible in our daily lives – in our individual lives, in our family lives, in our neighborhoods, in our faith community, in Palo Alto and Washington and to the ends of the earth.