I wonder how many of
us thought we would retire and travel and wine and dine in leisurely bliss. Now
we chuckle at the thought. Or maybe it’s
just me. I think of the energy it would take and sit for the moment to pass.
But we are travel minded folk. Many of us take our day trip, or the one night
stay, or occasionally a traditional vacation.
This morning’s travel
story began innocently enough. The men are on their way to Emmaus. It is an
easy day trip of roughly seven miles from Jerusalem. It is a road we too take
for it is the story of the Christian walk. It is the one where we encounter
life and are found along the way by the one we pursue, our Jesus.
These men in Luke’s
gospel were on their way, talking about the things they had heard about Jesus, the
one they thought would be their savior, and how things had gone wrong, and how
now they hear he has been raised from the grave. One day he was hanging on the
cross, and then three days later people they know said he had actually appeared
to them alive.
Then Jesus came along and
walked with them, though their eyes were kept from recognizing him. They were
on their road going about their going about when Jesus shows up. This innocent
trip is innocent no more.
Being so overwhelmed
with what was happening in their world, our men cannot stop themselves from
telling even this assumed stranger about their world. They did not know their
way down this road filled with worry, and concern, and lost hope was now Jesus’
way too.
This is where Jesus
always wants to be in our lives. Those places where our heart is broken and we
ache from the distress of life forcing life upon us. Jesus does not shy away
from such a road and he longs to go with us on ours as we unload what troubles
our minds and burdens our hearts. He walks with us listening as only one who
loves us listens. Just as likely, all too often it seems, like these two on
their way to Emmaus, we do not see Jesus either.
Yet, with this story
we hear there is hope for us. These two travelers ultimately recognized him. It
happened when he was with them at table. He blesses the bread, breaks it and
says, “Take, eat, this is my body, broken for you.” At these words their eyes
were opened to who he was. “This is our Jesus and he is breaking bread with us.
He was here with us all along. Oh, how blind we can be!”
Perhaps we do not need
to be reminded of how blind we can be. Sometimes Jesus is the last thing on our
minds. Sometimes we go all day long without a simple, “Hey Lord, what’s up with
you today. I’m a bit busy and I pray you hold on to us while I sort things
out.”
It is sad to admit but
our separation from Jesus goes largely unnoticed. I wonder how often we make
the ride to work, or stop at the store, or do our chores at home finding
activity and time steal our attention from everything but the task at hand?
How often are we blind
to the daily bread we pray for, not realizing in our activity and our longings
Jesus has been with us all along? But our eyes so often do not recognize him.
We seldom see nutrition and sustenance in the drama of our time, or our life,
or our daily tension. We actually feel starved time and time again not knowing what
really ails us is our desperate hunger for Jesus.
If we realize Jesus is
with us always, walking along the road we pave with our daily stuff, our Emmaus
wanderings even here in Austin, or wherever we may be, wherever we are going,
we give ourselves a chance to see with a new clearness and understanding. Our
faith can do that for us.
When we are struggling with life, Jesus will be the friend
who walks hand in hand and prays with us. When we are walking in the valley of
the shadow of death, Jesus will be the woman at the bank who helps us through
the red tape of wills, insurance, and safe deposit boxes. When we are anxious
about a new home, or a new health circumstance, Jesus will be the one who walks
with us to show us where our new store is or where our new support services for
health care are.
Dear ones, we do not
walk alone.
Life naturally unfolds
for us in ways unexpected and we find ourselves thinking, what has happened to
me. Like those fellow travelers to Emmaus we try and understand about life, and
our hopes, and dreams, especially when things go wrong. We dissect and rehash
and are in disbelief. How have things become so out of control? What did I do?
These are the times we
need a long walk and a long talk with ourselves. These are the times Jesus will
have things to say to us. These are the times Jesus feels what is deepest in
our hearts and knows what we do not know about ourselves or what we will not
admit to ourselves.
These are the times
Jesus shows up as a spouse, a friend, a trusted sibling, a pew mate, or even a
stranger. And we will know in our hearts his love has found us. We will feel it
in our very souls, Jesus is with us. Jesus is speaking through this other,
living through the one we lest expect, loving through the one loving us back.
With Jesus, we never
walk alone.
I suppose we need not
be reminded we find ourselves on such walks all too often. When we are not
walking it ourselves we fall in with someone else who is taking their turn.
Look around you this morning. See who is here and who is not.
We know, without
thinking twice, who has had to walk the road of despair, yesterday or today,
and we know for some it will be a day trip, and for others it will take longer.
We know too who needs us to fall in with them, so they will not walk alone.
Because we love one another, we do not want anyone to walk alone. So we fall in
with one another; you and me, and of course, our savior, Jesus falls in too.
Some of you may
remember seeing the movie, Schlinder’s
List. The movie is a powerful and extremely difficult story about the
Holocaust. It tells the story of Oskar Schindler, who was a wartime profiteer.
Yet, for reason even Schindler apparently did not understand he became obsessed
with the idea of saving as many Jews as he could. As a result, he saved some
eleven hundred of them.
The movie is filmed
almost entirely in black and white like a documentary or an old newsreel. But, every
now and then, usually in some crowd scene of children playing, or people
running, or being herded into freight cars, you see, flickering like a candle
flame in the dank grayness, one single touch of color in the form of a little
girl dressed in red.
Frederick Buechner tells us he believes, “that
although the two disciples did not recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus, Jesus
recognized them. That he saw them as if they were the only two people in the
world. He believes Jesus also sees us like that. In this dark world with little
hope, where we see so little because of our unrecognizing eyes, Jesus, whose
eye is always on the sparrow, sees each one of us as the child in red.
As Buechner says, hope
“is the word that on Easter Sunday is sounded forth on silver trumpets. And
when Easter is past and the silver trumpets have faded,” and we have sung Joy
to the World, hope “is the word that flickers among us like a red dress in a
grey world.”
In our grief we
cannot see enough to go looking for Jesus, so he finds us. He walks with us and
takes a place at our table where he opens our eyes to his presence. The filters
of life are stripped away – filters of disappointment, loss, isolation, and
fear and we recognize him.
That is what Jesus
does with us because he loves us. Breaking the daily bread, feeding our
fractured souls we now see our way to hope clearly.
Those two on that road
were right, Jesus Christ has risen indeed, and we do not walk alone.
Let the people of God
say, amen.
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