E-mail: lowell“at”revlowell.com

  Date:      Third Sunday of Easter, Year A

Texts:

Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Psalm 116:12-19

1 Peter 1:17-23

Luke 24:13-35

  Theme:      Jesus invites us to be “eastered.”

  Subject:      Christian life

Burning Hearts in an Icebox World

On  the  first Easter, they walked the road to Emmaus, the hot and dusty  road.   They started  out  with  confusion and  bewilderment.  They arrived  with  hope and  fervor.  When they  set  out, they  had problems—they were  bits and  pieces  of the  problem.  When they  arrived, they were part of the solution.  At the beginning of  the road,  they had nothing to look forward to but more road.  At the end, they had everything!  We don’t know exactly where Emmaus was.  Most ancient manuscripts of the Gospel of  Luke  place Emmaus  7  miles from Jerusalem, but others  prefer 20  miles.   A town named  Emmaus  did exist at the latter distance. Twenty miles—a good  day’s  walk -- plenty of time to mull over and discuss the events of the previous week.  There  are  four important characters in the drama of the road to Emmaus  --  an un-named  disciple  (I think it was Luke, the author of the account), Cleopas  (about  whom we know  nothing),  the unrecognized Jesus, and Simon Peter  (who  remains offstage during the entire scene). So our little play is set on the way to an unknown place and its cast is comprised of two nonentities, a mystery figure, and an absent coward.  We don’t know  where  we’re going  and  we don’t know who is going  with us.   And  we don’t know  what  awaits us when we get there.  It all sounds familiar.  It is just like  our  own lives.

Luke reports that the unnamed disciple and Cleopas were having a heated conversa-tion.  Then  Jesus  joined them and asked what was on their minds.   We  discover  that, like  most of  us,  they  were  sharing with  one  another their  misunderstandings  and misconceptions.   They thought of Jesus as a prophet, a wonder worker, and as a  politi-cal  liberator.  He had seemed so powerful in word and deed, but he  had disappointed their  expectations by proving so utterly powerless that the ruling elite had been able  to kill him.

And  now  there were confused and contradictory reports that his  tomb  was empty, that angels had told some of Jesus’ women followers that he was alive.  What was going on?   Had his  body been stolen?  Were the women seeing  things?  Could  Jesus’  death have just been a bad dream?  If he were alive, where was he and why hadn’t he started to set up God’s kingdom?

We  live as they did in the midst of confused and contradictory reports.  We want  to do  what is  best for our families, our society, our world, and ourselves.  But it  is all  so foggy,  nebulous, and  ambiguous.  We aren’t even sure how we should  feel about  the threats,  challenges, and  opportunities that surround us, let alone what  we  should do about  them.   And no matter what we do, we make mistakes. We flee from  one  set of problems to the next—from one unsatisfactory relationship to another, from one thera-pist  to another, from one job to another.  We do exactly what these two disciples  did  -- we head for the suburbs!  But the tranquility we find there is leavened with pain, suffer-ing, and  uncertainty.   There is so little time and so much to do, so  few  good  friends.  There is  so  little money for the special schools, the  activities, the  hundred-fifty-dollar sneakers,  the  orthodontia our children need. There is such an abundance of  what  we don’t need—loneliness, fear of the future, heartbreak.

They Knew Him in the Breaking of the Bread

And  then  this stranger  told them the truth about suffering,  death,  and glory.   No pain, no gain.  No cross, no crown.  He broke bread and gave it to them.  In the process, he  shared  his brokenness with them and they shared theirs with him.   And they  rec-ognized him. 

For  us  today, Jesus  is  known in  the breaking of  the bread.   He  is known  as  we remember the  breaking  of his  body  and the outpouring  of  his  blood in  the  Lord’s Supper.   The  disciples wanted easy answers to their problems.  Jesus  offered  them a church  service, complete with an exposition of the scriptures, a prayer of thanksgiving, and  a  sharing of the bread and wine to remind them of his death  --  as these  elements have reminded Christians for two thousand years of his death.  Our  church  is not  a  memorial to a dead hero. It is a  place  where he  lives  and is known through word and sacrament, through the open Bible and the broken bread.  He  gave thanks and they recognized him. Whenever we are grateful to God for  his gifts  -- for the material things that sustain us or for the spiritual gifts that give our lives nobility  and meaning, Jesus emerges.  Whenever we assemble in his name to honor  his teachings and his example, he is here.

Jesus  is  known as  his  body  is broken, again  and  again,  in  the sufferings  of  the wretched  of the earth—our brothers and sisters with whom we are one.  Whenever we respond, sharing our lives and substance, caring enough to live as examples,  concerned enough to speak from the heart, committed to making a difference in the lives of others, Jesus is known.

Jesus is known in our own brokenness—in our hurt and suffering.  Being a Christian is  not being  given a free pass through life’s afflictions.  Being  a Christian  is  knowing God in the midst of contradiction and sorrow.

The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins has written of Jesus:

Let Him easter in us,

be a dayspring to the dimness in us.

In the words of one commentator:

The  living  Christ easters  our sorrows, our tears  (especially  on the  days  that

have  limped so badly that we are glad to spank them and put them to bed and be

done with them), our loneliness, our hopes, our humanity.  In the  calendar  of the  liturgical year, there is not one  Easter  Sunday but  seven  -- today is  the  third.  The calendar seems to preach that Easter  no  more  happened  once than  it happened  once upon a time.  As surely as  lengthening  days,  warming temper-atures,  and the emergence of flowers herald the coming of spring, so, day by day,  does the power  of God within, the healing of distressed minds, the budding of  loving  rela-tionships,  the  reconciliation of adversaries, the growth of caring communities,  the  re-emergence  of conscience in an all too amoral world.  All these are signs that  Jesus lives and that we are being eastered.

He Has Appeared to Simon

He  has  appeared to Simon the unstable—not to Peter the Rockman.   We note  that according  to Luke’s  account  in the  second chapter of  Acts, it  was  not  “Simon”  but “Peter” who spoke to the crowd in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost.  In the six  weeks between  the crucifixion of Jesus and Pentecost, what had happened to this man?   What had  transformed  him from coward to hero?  from discredited, ineffectual buffoon  to  a determined and forceful leader?

He  had  lost the fear that had made him Simon who denied Jesus.   He had  lost  the fear of  death.  He had encountered one who had triumphed over the  grave.   As Peter preached about Jesus a few weeks later, “it was impossible for death to keep its hold  on  him” (Acts 2:24).  Peter had been eastered.  The living Jesus had become the  dayspring, the  dawn, to  the darkness in him.  The light of the world had flickered but  it had  not gone  out.  The  darkness in Simon’s heart could not overcome it.  The  darkness in  our hearts can never extinguish it.

The  Lord  has appeared  to  Simon! Simon did  not  conjure him  up  through  some correctly  performed  religious rite.  Simon did not earn the privilege of  beholding  him.  Simon’s sorrow, contrition, and repentance had not won him the right to see Jesus.  The Lord has appeared to Simon! The initiative—as always—is God’s. Simon  the braggart who had sworn never to forsake Jesus, Simon the show off  who waved  a sword in the face of those who came to arrest his Lord, Simon who  could not get  away  from danger  fast  enough, Simon who had thrice  denied his  master  -- this Simon  was crucified and dead with Christ.  Yet as Peter the rock he was alive,  his  faith and faithfulness so firm that the gates of hell could not prevail against them.

Years later, Peter would write in his first letter:

.  .  .  it  was not with perishable things such as  silver or gold  that  you  were re-

deemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but

with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18).

Now  that  you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so   that you  have

sincere  love  for your brothers, love one another deeply, from  the  heart” (1  Peter

1:22).

Jesus  had  turned on Peter’s heartlight!  Jesus had  turned  Peter’s  whimpering  and whining into dancing!  Peter had been eastered!

A Sunday Like Other Sundays

For  the  disciples on the road to Emmaus, it proved to be a Sunday like  the  Sundays that  have  come and gone for two thousand years.  It was a Sunday like  this  Sunday  -- here  and throughout  the  world.  There  is the word  and the   sacrament.   There is  a yearning  for God’s  message to our hearts and lives.  There is a passion  within us.   As the prophet Jeremiah exclaimed: “. . .  if I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my  bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9).

But  it  is not only a Sunday.  Jesus is known by his disciples not in a miracle  such  as the feeding of the multitudes but in the simplest of all human acts—talking and  eating.  We tend  to look for Jesus in the unique, the wondrous, the inexplicable.  We  set  aside Sunday  to  seek him.  And sometimes we forget that he is beside  us  Monday through Saturday.   He is present as we earn our daily bread, as we share it, as we are  nourished and nurtured by it.

The test of our faith as Christians is not whether we can recognize him for an hour on Sunday but  what we do with the other 167 hours of the week.  An hour  of worship  is painless  and easy. Walking with Jesus—responding with the fullness of one’s being  to those in need; discerning what is right and wrong in a world  perpetually out-of-order; being  there  for the  hurting, the unloved, and the unlovable --  is  neither painless  nor easy.

So why bother? Why not just be laid-back Californians and go with the flow?  Because we  are eastered again and again.  Jesus dawns in our lives  and dispels  the dimness  in us. He appears to us not because we want him to or ask him to  -- certainly not because we merit his appearing.

In the words of Methodist pastor R. Benjamin Garrison:

Jesus  comes  knocking at the door—of the bereaved and lonely, of  the  hopeless

and helpless. But he does not force the lock.

He walks with us!

Jesus  comes  knocking at the door of our homes, of our places of  work  and recreation, and  of our hearts.  When I was a child, the most exciting words I could hear were  those of  a pal: “Can Lowell come out and play?”  And the most important request that any  of us  will ever hear is God’s summons to come out and live.  He invites us to  be eastered.  In  the midst  of an icebox world, he invites us to let our hearts burn with  our  love for him and for one another.

Amen.

·       LDS

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