May 8 sermon

Text: Luke 24:13-35
Preached May 8 at Gol and Hegre


Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

The political and religious authorities of Jesus’ day thought they had taken care of him on that Friday we called Good. They knew he was dead, and that should have been the end of the Jesus story, shouldn’t it? But, as we know, it wasn’t the end of the story, and that’s precisely what we celebrate during this Easter season.

Somehow, in spite of their best attempts, Jesus’ enemies couldn’t silence him. The large stone and the Roman guard couldn’t keep him in the tomb. The locked doors of the disciples’ gathering room couldn’t keep him out. Jesus just keeps showing up! God’s activity doesn’t end with Jesus’ death. God’s activity doesn’t even end with Jesus’ resurrection.

God’s activity continued on the road to Emmaus on the evening of Jesus’ resurrection, when two disciples encountered the risen Christ. They gathered together, they heard God’s word, they shared a meal, and they set out to proclaim their transformative news.

God’s activity continues today as well. Here in this place, we gather together, we hear God’s word, we share a meal, and we are sent out to proclaim the good news. Here in worship, we encounter the risen Christ.

As we gather together, we leave behind the outside world to step into a space designated for the sacred. We step into this space to listen for what God might say to us. But we are not fully separated from the rest of the world, are we?

The disciples were walking to Emmaus on the very day that the empty tomb was discovered. Naturally, they were “talking with each other about all these things that had happened.” They were immersed in the situation around them. They were astonished and bewildered at this mysterious turn of events, and they didn’t know what to make of it all, so they were thinking through it together.

In the same way, we don’t shut out the news of what’s happening in the world when we enter this place. We know that today is a day to celebrate mothers, and that’s a big deal. We know that Osama bin Laden was killed this week by U.S. forces, and that’s a big deal too. In the midst of such news, we come together with our brothers and sisters, who can help us think and question and pray and try to make sense of it all.

We do not shed the joys or burdens or fears we carry with us. We come to lay them at the foot of the cross, to hear how God will address them, to see how God is present in the midst of them, and to learn how God might work through us for the good of others who have joys and cares and burdens of their own.

As the disciples on their way to Emmaus “were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them.” So Jesus comes near to us as we come together. As we gather for worship, we encounter the risen Christ.

What does Jesus do when he joins the disciples on the road? He speaks to them. “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” Jesus preaches God’s promises, fulfilled and yet to be fulfilled, assuring the disciples of God’s love and faithfulness until their hearts burn within them.

In his holy word, God speaks to us most directly. We can see God at work throughout our lives—in the beauty of nature, in the wonder of a newborn baby, in our relationships with others (maybe in our relationships with our mothers)—and God is most certainly at work in these places.

But in these places, God does not address us personally. God doesn’t speak directly to us and God isn’t explicitly for us in these places—just ask those who have experienced the wrath of nature along with its beauty. Hearing God address us directly through his word, and hearing that God is truly on our side, allows us to better recognize God at work elsewhere in the world.

And so, just as Jesus opens God’s word to these disciples, he opens God’s word to us. Jesus is God’s incarnate Word—the Word made flesh who dwelled among us—and it is only through Jesus the Christ that we can rightly understand what God would say to us in his word as it is written or proclaimed.

Jesus’ presence in God’s word is so compelling that, even without realizing yet that this stranger is Jesus, the disciples on the road ask him to stay with them. “As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’”

As we hear God’s word read from scripture and proclaimed in preaching, it makes Christ present for us and creates our faith anew. In hearing God’s word, we encounter the risen Christ.

After the disciples got to the village, they came together to share a meal with Jesus, still a stranger to them. “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him….” Finally, the disciples recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. The action of the meal is what opens their eyes.

It’s quite a simple, everyday activity in which Jesus makes himself known, isn’t it? After he emerges from the tomb, raised victoriously from the dead, he doesn’t go around Jerusalem triumphantly showing himself to the religious and political leaders who sought to silence him.

In fact, the disciples feared that perhaps Jesus wasn’t the Messiah after all: “But we had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel,” they say, no longer sure that their hope was well-founded, because Jesus appears defeated. But, the disciples learned, Jesus is found in the ordinary, among those who have eyes to see him.

We, too, gather to share a meal. And in this meal, Christ comes to us in a form we can recognize. Christ confronts us in the physical form of the bread and wine—a form we can see, smell, touch, and taste. Christ gives us his very body and blood, strengthening us for whatever lies ahead and uniting us with all God’s people, including these two disciples who first recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread.

Like these disciples, we remember by doing. We become part of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection by enacting it in this meal of which he commanded us to partake. The apostle Paul tells us, “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” [1 Corinthians 11] and we respond: “Christ is died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” This is God’s great promise, and by celebrating this meal, we are enacting this promise and all the others God has given us.

As we share in the meal, we encounter the risen Christ.

Finally, after they had gathered together, heard God’s word, and shared a meal, the disciples changed course: “That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together.…Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” These two set out transformed. They headed back to Jerusalem to share the good news of their encounter with Jesus.

Now you have encountered Jesus. You have been called by the Holy Spirit to gather in this place. You have heard Christ speak to you in God’s word. You have received him—time and again, if not today—in the bread and wine. You have clearly experienced his promises for you.

You are part of a community of saints here who can help you discuss “all these things that have taken place.” They can help you think and pray about what it means to encounter Christ. They can help you discern where God is at work in and through you. So now you go forth to look for Christ wherever else he might be.

And now you know that Christ is not found where we expect to find him. He is not found in triumph and glory, in the showmanship of this world’s boasting. No, this Christ, who has won the ultimate victory over sin, death, and the devil, chooses humility over showmanship.

This Christ is found in the ordinary—as in the breaking of bread. He is found in the painful—in sorrow like that of the disciples who thought their Messiah was dead. In the darkest valleys you will travel, there Christ is found, walking alongside you and suffering with you.

Christ is found in the person of your suffering neighbor—the loved one who needs your care and support more than ever, or the unknown person who crosses your path unexpectedly and inconveniently, but who, nevertheless, needs your care.

So you go forth to look for Christ in these places, now that you’ve been reminded how to recognize him. And not only do you go to look for Christ, but you also go to show forth Christ for others who need to encounter him.

You go and proclaim the good news that Christ has a word for all such people—a word of forgiveness and new life. You go to your suffering neighbors and share the good news that Christ is found in their pain too, suffering with them and upholding them in the darkness.

As we are sent out to share our transformative news, we encounter the risen Christ.

One of my favorite Easter hymns says, “Lo, Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb; lovingly he greets us, scatters fear and gloom.” And that is exactly what Jesus does as we gather together with our cares and burdens. That is exactly what Jesus does as we experience the word and the meal. And that is exactly what Jesus does as we return to the everyday travels of our lives.

Even after Jesus’ death, he is not silenced. No, Jesus keeps showing up, transforming us, igniting new faith in us, empowering us to love and serve God and neighbor. This is what worship is about. It is our encounter with the risen Christ, who has won the final victory, who reminds us that God is for us, and who shows us that nothing in all creation can separate us from his love. Thanks be to God! Amen.