Jesus Alive!
Sermon preached in St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrews on Easter Sunday (the 8th April 2007) by Rev Dr Jamie Walker
Readings: Luke 24: 1 - 12 and Luke 24: 13 - 35
Sermon:
The story of the walk to Emmaus is a wonderful one, fresh, vivid, powerful. With imagination, one can almost feel that we are present, that we can see, smell, walk the whole scene. There are many points we could dwell on, but the one I particularly want to centre on is near the end of the story, Were not our hearts burning within us as he talked to us on the road?
Many years ago, while students, a friend and I were in Jerusalem at Easter time. One day we decided to walk westwards to Emmaus - seven miles. It was a glorious sunny day, chilly at first, warm later, with a light breeze. The walk was mainly on tracks and paths by fields. For the initial part of our journey we were joined by a young Israeli who happened to be going our way. But for the most part we were on our own.
As we walked we talked of that story we have just read - wondering what it must have been like that burning feeling - something grabbing the two of them but just beyond their reach and comprehension. Something teasing at their minds, working its way deep into them, but on which they could not put a finger. Something tantalising, but just beyond their grasp. But they had the sense of something so important, that it felt like burning, like fire, like heat.
John Wesley, who founded the Methodist Church, had a similar experience. As he attended an evangelistic service in London, he found that his heart was, as he put it, 'strangely warmed'. He sensed such truth, such reality, in the story of Jesus. The story took such a hold; it no longer felt like a story but a real living encounter with Jesus. His life was utterly turned around, as he came to know Jesus in his life.
That however wasn't the case for the two on the road to Emmaus, when they first felt the burning. They had not yet realised that the stranger walking and talking with them was Jesus. They were intrigued by his words, fascinated, challenged, but they had no idea who he was. Maybe the sun was in their eyes as they walked west; maybe they were to distressed to realise; maybe they were kept from seeing him.
Whatever - throughout their walk, the two were in total despair. We have the sense hunched and stooped shoulders; trudging steps; eyes fixed on the ground, seven miles seeming endless. A stranger joined them and asked what they were talking about. They stopped in amazement, utterly 'sad'. The sense of the Greek word 'sad' is a 'deep, gloomy, sullen, desperately sad look' - an agony. A tormented and grief-stricken cry came from them, 'we had hoped he would have been the one to redeem Israel'. Now however all their dreams about Jesus were in tatters. The words, 'We had hoped' must be about the saddest ones spoken in Scripture. They are so wistful, full of bewildered regret. Jesus had seemed so incredible. All was on a roll, the kingdom of God was breaking in, lives were being changes, people were being healed, people were finding God - but all of that had come to an abrupt and shattering end. Hopes crashed. Longings were crushed. And so the two with weary steps were heading home. No point in staying in Jerusalem any more. No point is sharing the despair of the other disciples, both men and women. The dream had ended. They had fallen back down to earth with a thump.
Sometimes that is where we find ourselves, is it not? Back down to earth. Hopes shattered. How we have wished that God might have acted in a situation, that God might have - for once at least - sorted out the predicament we were in, that God might have healed a friend, that God might have renewed a friendship, that God might have saved a friend. Instead we are left utterly despondent. All our hopes in God have been dashed.
Total despair! And then the stranger began to speak!
Go on a few hours! To the two racing back to Jerusalem after Jesus had entered their home, after they realised the stranger had been Jesus. I would have loved to have heard what they said. It is all captured up in that phrase, 'did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road?'
I can hear them saying. Wasn't it wonderful we did not recognise him on the way? If we had, we would never have had that sense of warmth and burning. We would never have had that explanation of the Scriptures. We would never have heard him explaining what really happened in Jerusalem. We would never have heard the real meaning on the cross, the real story of the empty tomb. We would have missed such a lot, if we had spotted who it was. Wasn't it incredible that when the stranger took the bread, that our eyes opened and we could see! Thank God we never saw before!
The Bible story gives the sense of their talking like this all the way back to Jerusalem. The burning that they had felt in their hearts while the stranger talked, had now become a fire. The slow, drudging steps from Jerusalem towards Emmaus, had become a run, a sprint almost, a rush from Emmaus to Jerusalem! In no time at all, it seems, they were bursting in on the 11 disciples in Jerusalem, blurting out, We have seen the Lord, only to discover a like buzz among the disciples - Peter too had seen the Lord! The burning would soon become a flame in all their hearts!
One of the things that I love about this whole story is this, that even in those moments when life seems difficult and dark, God is always present, whether recognised or not. God goes with us in the difficult, frustrating times, never abandoning, but drawing near, and over time often helping us to understand. Often as we look back, we discover that in the difficult times, we were in fact held by God, the stranger was alongside, and our hearts are strangely warmed, strangely upheld by God.
There are moments when I am sure we have said - 'I felt abandoned, it was horrible. Only later did I realise that God was working things out, doing so in ways I could never have imagined'. And there may grow in us an inner peace that defies the way life feels. Somehow God seems to hide from us, in order to accomplish a deeper work of trust and revealing in us.
Now of course we must be clear that it is not always the case that the picture later clarifies - there are some things that happen that we will never understand this side of the grave. There are some things that puzzle and hurt, that crush and leave us bruised, and we cannot seem to make any sense of them. Even here, however, I find the thought of the stranger present to be comforting, even if he is nowhere felt. Yet he is there.
But what was it now that changed the two walking to Emmaus from utter gloom to exuberant joy. Back to the burning again! So real had the burning been on the journey to Emmaus, that when they arrived at their home in the late evening, they could not bear to let the stranger go on his way, as he clearly seemed to intend. We read that they urged him strongly - literally, they laid violent hands on him. There he was, about to head off, and the two grabbed him, forced him almost, refused to take no for an answer, and virtually propelled into their house. That's the sense of the text. The burning was such that they felt they needed more time with him - and the stranger recognising their need, agreed. He refused to barge in where he was not wanted - instead he waited for their invitation.
Swiftly a meal is prepared! Seven miles is a long way to walk and they realised just how hungry they were. They sat down to eat, and the stranger took some bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Suddenly the two saw! Light dawned, dramatically, clearly, spectacularly! Their mouths fell open is astonishment; they leapt to their feet, incredulous. Then Jesus disappeared. What I wonder must have been on their faces as they looked at one another, as they gasped, as they pinched each other to check it was real, as they whooped with delight, as they grabbed their cloaks and headed fast for Jerusalem.
This story of Jesus alongside the two troubled people with their own collapsed hopes continues to intrigue, precisely when things are tough in life. It is like a fire burning away. Sometimes for us it feels like are embers or a tiny flame at other times the flames are vigorous and real, with a certainty of the risen Jesus. The risen Jesus may be met in all kinds of ways - through a friend perhaps, through a kind action, through a sense of the wonder of creation, through prayer, through worship, through communion and the struggling flame is fanned into a white heat again.
Sometimes as we meet the risen Lord it is like a slow heat, a heart warming, gently simmering, nothing dramatic, but real for all that! At other times the risen Lord is met as, like the two in Emmaus, we lay, to use Luke¿s words, violent hands on him, in the sense that we want to take him into lives, that we are desperate that he does not pass on by, that we do not want to miss out on him, that we want him with us now and so we invite him to come in. And we discover then we are part of a great fellowship of people who share a common experience and a common memory of their Lord, a people in whom the Lord lives.
When the two met up with the others in Jerusalem and began to exchange their stories, we read this. While they were talking among themselves about this, Jesus himself came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you'.
It is my prayer that over this Easter season that all of our hearts may burn within us, as we too meet the risen Lord!