GENESIS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Monday, May 5, 2014

04 May 2014 Our Journey Luke 24:13:35

  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.


050414.gpc

No comments:

Post a Comment