10 April 2005

Luke 24:28-35

Walking with Jesus

Todd Coget wrote, “A four-year-old and a six-year-old presented their mom with a houseplant. They had used their own money to buy it and she was thrilled. The older of them said with a sad face, "There was a bouquet at the flower shop that we wanted to give you. It was real pretty but it was too expensive. It had a ribbon on it that said ‘Rest In Peace,’ and we thought it would be just perfect since you are always asking for a little peace so that you can rest.”

How funny! Children are a delight. It is sad and yet funny to think the children did not know the bouquet they wanted to buy was really for funerals. Having said that, however, I think it is very clever of them to think the bouquet was perfect for their mother. “Rest in Peace,” seems to be the perfect phrase for Deena and I. Not that we want to die, but rather that we want to come home (one of these days) and rest without hearing a baby crying and a two-year-old screaming from the top of his longs, "Watch TV, please, watch TV, please. . ."

I am sure I am not shocking anyone or offending anyone if I say, sometimes Deena and I would like to leave our work and our children behind and simply disappear for a couple of days together.

Having said that, however, I do not know what I would do if any of my children died. I love them so much. If something did happen to them, I most likely would do what the disciples on the road to Emmaus did. I would quit my job and return to Chicago to be closer to family.

I believe this is what happened to the disciples. They found themselves in Jerusalem, perhaps hoping to meet the Messiah, the one that would bring salvation and liberation to their people. It is clear that they met him. They said on the road to Emmaus that Jesus was “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the peopleÉ” They, most likely, had heard him talk and teach. They probably saw him do miracles. They were probably there when he entered Jerusalem during the Passover feasts. Perhaps they were some of the people who shouted, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven.” Surely they were there during Jesus’ trial, conviction and crucifixion.

After their dreams and hopes were destroyed, they did what anyone of us would have done. They picked-up their things and went home, wherever home happened to be. How devastating was the death of Jesus to them? It was so devastating that they did not wait to see whatever happened to the body of Jesus. They knew the body was no longer at the tomb, the women and some of the male disciples told them the body was not there. Yet, they were emotionally destroyed, so much so that they did not stay to see if perhaps Jesus had risen from the dead. It is clear that they lost all hope. Again, this would have been typical of someone losing a loved one. When we face such crisis, all we want to do is returned to the familiar, to our roots, to our family.

This is what makes the story in Luke so interesting. We see ourselves doing the same thing. It is true to life. Frederick Buechner interprets Emmaus as “the place we go to in order to escape- a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, ‘Let the whole @#$% thing go hang. It makes no difference anyway.’ É Emmaus may be buying a new suit or a new car or smoking more cigarettes than you really want, or reading a second-rated novel or even writing one. Emmaus may be going to church on Sunday. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that men have had- ideas about love and freedom and justice- have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends.”

We have been there. We have said, “what is the point, it makes no difference.” In my life, there have been many times like that. When we look at our society, the politics of the day, and the North American Christian Church, it is easy to say “what is the point, it makes no difference. Our society does not seem to change for the good. And, the Christian Church seems to be asleep and/or irrelevant.”

Yet, just like the disciples on the Emmaus road we find ourselves unexpectedly walking with God. In the midst of our pain, despair and hopelessness we find that we are not walking alone. The mother who feels she is going crazy and finds herself with an electrical cord in front of her two-year is not alone, no matter how gloomy things might look. The man who finds his sixteen-year-old daughter in the bathroom with slashed arms and bleeding is not alone, no matter how gloomy things might look. The husband that leaves the birth-center with his newborn, but no wife, is not alone, no matter how gloomy things might look. The 85-year-old woman dying in a cold ICU room without a family member to hold her hand is not alone, no matter how gloomy things might look. The son that must pick-up his drunken father at the local bar is not alone, no matter how gloomy things might look. The mother who hears from military personal that her son in Iraq will not be coming home is not alone, no matter how gloomy things might look.

No, in the midst of all the ugliness in the world, we find a stranger who breaks bread with us and lets us know we do not walk alone. In the midst of it all, if we open our eyes long enough we might recognize the face of our Lord.

This is why I love the story so much. It is more than a historical account of the life of Jesus Christ. It is more than the story of some disciples who find out their Rabbi is no longer dead. It is more than a story full of ironies where the ones who claim to know what took place in Jerusalem, really do not. And, the man who seems to not know is the one who knows it all. It is more than that. It is God showing up in the midst of our pain, despair and hopelessness and say to us “fear not, I’m still here with you.” We can have the confidence and the assurance that the living God, the One who defeated death and sin, will see to it that no one who suffers, suffers alone. He was there as two devastated and hopeless disciples return home defeated. Jesus, in the same manner, will be there in the midst of our own devastation and hopeless situations.

I can testify that in the most devastating times in my life Jesus has walked with me. I have broken bread with him and recognized his face. And, we can probably spend weeks, if not months, talking and sharing with one another the times when our risen Lord has walked with us on our own Emmaus road.

This is, probably, the main reason I will not and can not stop sharing with the world what the Lord has done for me. Just like the disciples who found the risen Christ in the midst of their hopelessness, and run back to the place they left behind to testify what they saw and experienced, I too will testify. We, as the Church of Jesus Christ, are called to do no less. The disciples who experienced the risen Lord were never the same. They challenged and changed their society, and forever changed the world. I am convinced that many people found their Maker simply by hearing the testimonies of changed lives.

We live in a world in many ways no different than the first century. There are still those in power wanting to stay in power by any means necessary. Humans continue to do horrific things to each other. There is no peace, and war continues to be the top story in the news. It is easy, and in many ways understandable, to be pessimistic. We can look all around us and say, “What is the point, it makes no difference anyway.” We can throw our hand up in the air and say, “forget it. Enough is enough, let’s go home.” Yet, no sooner do we throw our hands in the air that we are reminded we do not walk alone. The God who created the heavens and the earth, the one who gave us life will not let us walk alone. In the midst of our life journey, in the midst of our pain, despair and hopelessness we find Jesus breaking bread with us, and we find new hope and new life.

Let us therefore, continue to walk, continue with our journey. We do not walk alone. We know and have experienced the love and power of our risen Christ. In the midst of it all, Jesus has been there.

Let us therefore, continue to testify what we have seen and experienced. Those who do not yet know the loving, caring, merciful God we serve need to hear what we have seen and experienced. They too need to know they do not walk alone.

Amen.