Dave Johnson Sermon: We Had Hoped that He Was the One (Luke 24:13-35) May 8, 2011 Today I m preaching about Luke s account of two disciples encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus, particularly as it relates to hope. On the afternoon of Easter Sunday Cleopas and an unnamed disciple are walking about seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus, talking about Jesus trial and death and the rumors about his resurrection, trying to process everything that had happened over the course of the preceding few days. Luke tells us that as they went Jesus himself came near and went with them. There is no mention of Cleopas and the other disciple praying or asking God to show up. They were simply out walking and talking, and Jesus took the initiative and came along side them as they went. In Bill Bryson s hilarious book, A Walk in the Woods, he recounts his adventures hiking the Appalachian Trail with his buddy Katz. Bryson describes how one evening after they had set up camp someone came along the trail and joined them: We were sitting in a nice little clearing beside the trail when a plumpish, bespectacled young woman in a red jacket and the customary outsized pack came along. She regarded us with the crinkled squint of someone who is either chronically confused or can t see very well. We exchanged hellos and the usual banalities about the weather and where we were. Then she squinted at the gathering gloom and announced she would camp with us. Her name was Mary Ellen She talked nonstop, except when she was clearing out her eustachian tubes by pinching her nose and blowing out with a series of violent and alarming snorts of a sort that would make a dog leave the sofa and get under a table in the next room. I have long known that it is part of God s plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth, and Mary Ellen was proof that even in the Appalachian woods I would not be spared (p. 72-73). Bryson and Katz were not expecting to be accompanied by Mary Ellen on that leg of the Appalachian Trail, and neither were Cleopas and the other disciple expecting to be accompanied by the risen Lord on their walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Sometimes we sense the Lord s presence with us when we least expect it. As the three of them walk along, the two disciples share with Jesus about their dashed hopes. After recounting Jesus trial, suffering and death, they tell Jesus, we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. 1
Although Cleopas and his friend are not named along with Peter, James, John and the rest of the disciples, Luke still points out that they were in fact disciples, which means they had been among those who had followed Jesus for quite some time. And although they had heard rumors that day of Jesus being raised from the dead they did not know what to think and were still completely undone by his suffering and death. They felt that since they had lost Jesus, they had lost their hope as well: we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. It is a common experience among all of us to lose hope about a given situation from time to time, to say along with Cleopas and his fellow disciple: we had hoped that This happens when cancer is no longer in remission we had hoped this course of treatment would have worked; or when someone reverts to their addiction of choice we had hoped that the rehab program would have helped. This happens when a relationship or engagement ends I had hoped he or she was the one; or when a prospective job does not pan out I had hoped to get the offer. This happens when a marriage enters yet another dry season I had hoped we had turned a corner; or when a broken friendship appears to be restored when it has not been I had hoped we had reconciled. It is not uncommon for people to feel hopeless when things in their lives do not appear to be working out the way they had planned, when they feel stuck in reverse. In her beautiful song, Hope for the Hopeless, Alison Sudol (also known as A Fine Frenzy) sings: Making the best of it Playing the hand you get You're not alone in this As fickle human beings we can lose hope rather easily. And the greater the significance of that for which we hope, the more devastating it is when it does not appear to be working out. In Shakespeare s play, All s Well that Ends Well, one of the main characters, Helena, speaks about how devastating it is when hopes are dashed, especially when the thing for which we hope is really important: Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it hits Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits (II, i, 145-147). And that was exactly where Cleopas and his fellow disciple were that Easter afternoon: their hope was the coldest and their despair most fit, their hope for their own redemption and the redemption of their entire nation was gone we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. 2
As the three of them continue walking toward Emmaus Jesus meets Cleopas and the other disciple right in the midst of their hopelessness and teaches them about how the entire Old Testament is fulfilled in him. Imagine being personally taught the Old Testament by the one who inspired its writing in the first place. When I was in college I took a statistics course, which really challenged me. The professor was a gifted teacher and in fact was one of the authors of the textbook for the class she literally wrote the book and yet I still had a hard time following along because apparently the subject of statistics was not in my gift cluster. And apparently understanding that the Old Testament found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ was not in the gift cluster of Cleopas and the other disciple, for even as Jesus, the one who wrote the book, explained to them how the scriptures pointed to him, they still did not get it. It was not until God later opened their eyes that evening that they recognized their companion as the risen Jesus, not until Jesus had vanished that they said, Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening up the scriptures to us? This was nothing new in Jesus ministry, either before or after his death and resurrection, for at one point in John s account of the gospel Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for their studying the Scriptures as an end in and of itself: You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life he told them, and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life (John 5:39-40). This still happens today. People can spend countless hours studying the Scriptures, attending Bible Studies and conferences, listening to sermon after sermon and teaching after teaching, reading blog after blog, even going to seminary; trying to learn and do all the right things and still miss the main point of the gospel that God in Jesus Christ has saved us from our sins through his death and resurrection; that we are completely known, unconditionally loved and totally forgiven; that we are saved solely through faith in Jesus Christ, not through any of our own efforts. When I lived in South Carolina a good friend of mine had a fourteen-year-old son who watched a world s strongest man competition on ESPN and was inspired to emulate a certain event which involved tying one end of a rope around one s waist and the other around a tree and then pulling the tree up by its roots. When my friend arrived home from work one evening he found his son exhausted, attached to a rope that connected him to a small tree in their front yard. All around the tree the lawn had been torn up by his son s desperate attempts to pull the tree out by its roots. Trying to earn God s favor on your own does not work, and it can ruin your lawn too. As was the case with the disciples only God can open our eyes to recognize the truth of the gospel and open our hearts to respond with faith to that gospel. When this happens it is often something that, like Cleopas and the other disciple, we feel in our hearts: Were not our hearts burning within us? 3
And when God opened the eyes and hearts of the disciples he reawakened their hope, because Jesus is indeed the one who was to redeem Israel, and not just Israel, but all of us. Because their hope had been in Jesus we had hoped that he was the one when their eyes and hearts were opened to truth that Jesus had been raised from the dead, their hope was raised from the dead as well. And that changed their lives from that point on. Luke writes that within an hour of recognizing that their companion on the road to Emmaus was in fact the risen Jesus, Cleopas and the other disciple got up and returned to Jerusalem walked the seven miles back to Jerusalem in order to meet with the other disciples. The Lord has indeed risen! they said to one another. Their hope had been restored. Having one s heart opened by God to the truth of the gospel, having one s hope restored, is often a turning point in someone s life. This was certainly the case for John Wesley (1703 1791), the great eighteenth century Anglican clergyman. Wesley pinpointed his conversion experience to a date when he was in his mid-thirty s and had already been ordained for about seven years. In fact, for twenty-five years, since the age of ten, Wesley had been trying to attain right standing with God through his own efforts. He wrote about this in his journal: And what I now hoped to be saved by was, 1) Not being so bad as other people, 2) Having still a kindness for religion, and 3) Reading the Bible, going to church, and saying my prayers I set apart an hour or two a day for religious retirement. I communicated every week. I watched against all sin, whether in word or deed. I began to aim at, and pray for, inward holiness. So that now, doing so much, and living so good a life, I doubted not but I was a good Christian. Can any of you relate to this idea of trying to do all the right things in order to gain God s favor? The Bible refers to this as trying to be saved by works. It does not work. It never works. It did not work for Wesley and it does not work for us. In fact, several years after being ordained Wesley sailed across the Atlantic to Savannah, Georgia, where he spent over two years doing mission work. (There is a statue of Wesley in downtown Savannah commemorating this). But Wesley failed and nearly burned out in the process. He sailed back to England, not with riveting accounts about how much God had blessed his ministry, but instead feeling defeated, depressed and discouraged, like Cleopas and the disciple on the road to Emmaus. Listen to how Wesley described his ministry in Savannah: All the time I was at Savannah I was thus beating the air I sought to establish my own righteousness, and so labored in the fire all my days. 4
Shortly after returning to England Wesley had his burning heart experience just like Cleopas and the other disciple. It occurred on Saturday evening May 24, 1738, and he famously recounts this in his journal: In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. John Wesley s burn-out ended on the spot, because God had opened his eyes to the truth of the gospel that we are saved solely through faith in Christ, and not through our own efforts. Wesley s hope was restored, and he realized that Christ s righteousness was more than enough for him, that he did not need to beat the air or labor in the fire anymore. He went on to preach the gospel for over fifty years until his death in 1791. So what about you today? Perhaps like Cleopas and the other disciple your hopes have been dashed, perhaps you are in the midst of a we had hoped that season in your life; or perhaps you are like John Wesley and have spent years and years trying to follow and serve God only to feel like you have been beating the air and laboring in the fire to no avail. The good news is that there is hope for the hopeless, that in the same way Jesus came alongside Cleopas and the other disciple he comes alongside us, and meets us right in the we had hoped that places in our lives. The good news is that the same God who opened the disciples eyes to recognize Jesus can open our hearts to receive his grace anew. The good news is that we do not have to try and earn God s favor; God has already given us his favor in Jesus Christ. We do not have to beat the air or labor in the fire anymore. And one day that same Jesus will return and open all our eyes once and for all to recognize him as our redeemer, to assure us once and for all that our hope has not been in vain. In the meantime, in the midst of the things in our lives that don t appear to be working out, where our hope is the coldest and despair most fits; and in the midst of dealing with the Mary Ellen s in our life and making the best of it, playing the hand we get; we can be comforted by the one who comes alongside and restores our hope, our redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen. 5