Christ Presbyterian Church Edina, Minnesota April 15 & 16, 2017 (Easter) John Crosby Emmaus Road Luke 24:30-31 The famous preacher Philips Brooks once taught a class of students that a sermon is thirty minutes to raise the dead, so tell a story. Thirty minutes to raise the dead. On Easter that s eighteen minutes to raise the dead and they re Presbyterians, so it better be a really good story. Jesus told stories all the time because stories showed that life is not what you think it is. Stories show that you don t know what s coming next, so He told all kinds of stories. My favorite is about a rich man who has a son. The son comes up to him and says, Hey dad, the reality is that I love money more than I love you. You think I can get my money? The dad gives him his inheritance and he takes off. What happens next? That s why you tell a story. Jesus wanted to make sure that people were leaning in, that things aren t the way that you think they are, so He told stories. On this Easter morning I d like to tell you a story and our tradition is that when the story of the Gospel is read we all stand together. This part of the story comes from Luke s book and it starts like this: 13 Now that same day [the day that the women went to the tomb and found it empty, that same day ] two of Jesus followers were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him. 17 He asked them, What are you discussing together as you walk along? They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? 19 What things? he asked. About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus. 25 He said to them, How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if Page 1 of 6
he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over. So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us? 33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon. 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. The Word of God. Thanks be to God. [Luke 24:13-25] I m not sure how that first talk about seeing Jesus went, but I m pretty sure it was not like this (shows cartoon). It was more alive. It was one person starting out saying, And then we were here! And then somebody interrupts and says, Well, what did He say? And somebody interrupts and says, What did you say? What happened next? What did He look like? What do you remember? That s the way a story gets told. What stayed with them out of that story? I just told you a story. As you go to lunch what are you going to remember? What phrases will you remember out of this story? If somebody asks you over pass me the ham, what was the phrase that stuck with you? What will you tell them? As I sat with this story this week, I thought of four phrases that stuck with me. The first is the most obvious. The most obvious part of this story was that Jesus comes up and is walking right alongside of them and they don t even recognize who He is. The first phrase is, We didn t even recognize Him. How could that be, really? How could you know somebody intimately for years and not even understand that they re with you? It would be as if somebody was sitting there right in the room with you and you didn t even know they were there because you were distracted and they didn t look the way that they usually look. All of a sudden right in that same room they move and you see that they re there. They d been there all along. Or you have somebody that you know a friend and you re opening up your heart to them, telling them your deepest truths, and all of a sudden they turn to you and they re somebody else. We didn t recognize Him. The power of the Easter story is that somehow Jesus is supposed to join you on the road. The most striking thing for me about the Easter story is that nobody recognizes Jesus. Mary thinks He s the gardener in the cemetery. Peter s out fishing. He thinks he s just some guy on the shore saying, Are they biting? Cleopas, here on the road, thinks it s somebody just walking along trying to pass the time as they walk the road together. I don t know if it s really that much different today. I don t know how the stranger on the road might first appear to you, but if it s Jesus, if that stranger is the Risen Christ, He will not appear the way that you expect, and most of that is because you have fairly clear Page 2 of 6
expectations of what God is like. We ve built this image of God from our childhood, our experiences, what we ve read, and what we saw in church. We know what God looks like and you re not like that at all. Part of it is we not only have a sense of God, we know what the God or gods are supposed to do. Right now Laura is preaching over in Shakopee and she s telling them Easter is like a huge mountain. Picture a huge high mountain and we re all stuck in a pit in the valley way, way, way below, and at the top of the hill there are the great religious figures of our world. There s Confucius, and there s Jesus, and there s Buddha, and Mohammad they re on the top of the mountain and they re calling down to us, look, if there s a path to the left... take... no, not that left, the other left. Take the path. No, turn around. No, don t push her down. Come up, come up. I ll throw you a note. It will show you the next step. The idea is they yell down to us, and then we can climb the mountain and meet them in heaven. That s what religion is about. Christianity is different than that. All the religious figures are up here. Christianity is the story of how God comes down from the top of the mountain, down into the valley, down into the pit, and rescues us. He doesn t give us a map and say see you at the top, but says I m with you all. I ll never leave you. His love and His presence give us new life. At Easter the risen Christ walks with us. He says there s nowhere that you can go that I haven t been. You can t get so lost that I won t be able to find you. The problem is: will you recognize Him on the journey? He s not up there; He has come down for us. The second phrase that strikes me is maybe the most honest one. Jesus says, Well, what s wrong? and the guy stops and says, Well, they crucified Him, but we had hoped that He was the One. We had hoped that He was the way, that He was the one that was going to redeem Israel. They re on the road to Emmaus. Now you guys know that they re on the wrong road, right? They re only seven miles from Jerusalem, but they re on the wrong road. If you listen to the stories when the resurrected Jesus appears, when the angels appear, they are told one of two things: either you are to stay in Jerusalem until He comes and talks to you, or go up into Galilee and He ll meet you there. The road to Emmaus is neither of those places. These guys are on another road because their hopes had been bashed. The road to Emmaus is a bad road to be on. What road are you on today? My friend who s the president of Princeton says, Emmaus is a place that people go to get away from disappointment. Emmaus is where we go when we have to get away because the person, or the event, or the thing we were counting on let us down. Maybe the road to Emmaus is that road back home and you don t want to go. Maybe it s the disappointments on the road to a new job or to work. Maybe Emmaus leads to a church that keeps letting you down. Emmaus does not have to be very far away. It s only about seven miles from your last disappointment. It s probably less than seven miles to your next disappointment. It s a road we all spend a lot of time on only we don t recognize Page 3 of 6
who s with us. One of the persistent myths in America is that you can get off that road and get onto the road to fulfillment. Ours is a culture of fulfillment. If you will just buy this, if you will just do this, you will be fine, you will be fulfilled. Wall Street spends trillions trying to show us what fulfillment can be. Hollywood spends billions trying to show us what fulfillment looks like. The problem is the church does the same thing. Christianity offers a road to fulfillment. Think about it this way... don t you get the idea that when you come to church you re only one book away from fulfillment? You re only one sermon shy of having it all together not this sermon, folks you re only one sermon shy, you re only one significant experience, or insight short of enlightenment. So, if you go to another church and you get slain in the Holy Spirit, or you go to a marriage retreat that s dynamite, or you go on a mission trip, or you get involved in a real church with real believers who have a challenging community, or you give more, or you pray more, then you ll be fulfilled. I think that s a myth. I think it s the road to Emmaus it s a lie. And the reason I think it s a lie is because I don t see fulfillment this side of the grave promised in Scripture. I see joy promised on the journey. I see peace being given. I see hope that won t let go. But, I also think that the road is supposed to include tribulation you can t avoid, soul-piercing sorrow. That s why the guy says, But, we had hoped and it didn t turn out. But we had hoped, and it put them on the wrong road because their hope was in the wrong place for the wrong thing. What are you putting your hope in today? The third phrase that hit me hard this week was Jesus Himself. The disciples give their tale of woe and Jesus says, oh, it will be okay, it will be just fine. No! He says, you idiots! He says, Oh you fools with slow hearts. You have to think that was a hint that it really was Jesus. He d been saying that for years to them, You have slow hearts. That means you re slow to realize that the Messiah s path is through suffering and not through triumph. Jesus reminds them that the promise of Moses, the promise of the prophets, was never that the Messiah was there to restore their dreams. That s a different story. The Messiah had not come to bring the good life to His followers. That s a different story. What is the story? Well, C.S. Lewis knows it pretty well. He said it this way to people who don t know much about Jesus. He said: The central Christian belief is that Christ's death (not His triumph, not His power, not His teaching, not His miracle) has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter. What all Christians are agreed on is that it does work. We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by His dying He disabled death itself. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. That is what Jesus was trying to explain on the road to disappointment. Oh you fools, you ve got slow hearts. I love that image because it leads to the last phrase. The last phrase contrasts slow hearts with this phrase: Didn t our hearts burn when He opened the Scriptures? The Apostle Paul says, I pray God will open the eyes, not of your Page 4 of 6
head, but of your heart. As you walk that road with Jesus today things are not what they look like, and instead of having a slow heart, didn t our hearts burn inside us? What s the condition of your heart today? I know some of you are softhearted you cry at the sight of a puppy. Some of you are hardhearted you kick cats. Some of you are brokenhearted, some are halfhearted, you go either way some of you are cold hearted. Many of you, maybe even most of us, have hearts that are on autopilot just going through the day. Does anyone ever think about how s my heart doing right now? If I stop what will my heart say to me? You re slow hearted. Jesus wants to make your heart beat a little faster; He wants to make our hearts start to burn. Paul says, I pray that God will open the eyes of your heart. Jesus wants to light your heart on fire so you don t live normally. Things are not as they seem. God could use even me. You are called to live with a burning heart; not perfect, not religious, but alive with hope, so that Jesus can walk along the road with you and together you might bless other people. Wouldn t you like to live like that for a change instead of being angry, or cautious, or fearful, or looking for what will work? Wouldn t you like to come to life? It s not often pleasant, sometimes it s very painful, but wouldn t you like to feel that your one and only life really means something? That it has eternal significance? Wouldn t you like to believe that the God of the universe is walking right next to you right now? He s saying to you, Hey! Things aren t what the seem. I love these stories. One of the things I like most is that they re so much more realistic than the stories that I told my kids to get them to bed. This story, for instance, ends with the disciples all gathering together back in Jerusalem and telling each other, I saw Him. No, I saw Him. No, I saw Him. All of a sudden they re talking about seeing Him and He s there right in the middle. He says, Peace be with you and they all scream like they saw a ghost. They re still not ready to see Him. As a matter of fact, Matthew tells the story: When they saw Jesus they worshiped Him, but some doubted. They worshiped Him, but some doubted. How about you? Do you ever struggle like that? Do you ever have doubts? Do you ever wonder if you re seeing the real Jesus or is this the Pez Dispenser American version of Christianity? Do you ever feel like somehow you re out on that road to Emmaus, disappointed with your faith? Or, what if your challenge really isn t in Jesus, it s with the church? You come here on rare occasions because you know it makes mom, or grandma, or somebody else happy that you re here. We ll see you at Christmas, but in-between you re not here because you wonder, is there really life here? I d like to address that for just a minute. Let me show you what it might look like, okay? [John shows a short video of the upcoming series: Jesus Sounds Good, But... ] Holy Jesus, thank You that You are here in ways that we cannot even see. Thank You that You want us to live and love forever and ever starting this Easter morning. Page 5 of 6
In the ancient world sometimes they were afraid to portray their faith, so they made little fish signs. But as more of them started to gather, they said, I can say who I am. I can say, He is risen. The person who responds to me will say, He is risen indeed! I ll see somebody else and say, He is risen and they ll say, He is risen indeed! Finally, I m walking down the road and I ll turn to a whole group of people and say, He is risen! He is risen indeed! Go. Go and live like that. The nature of oral presentations makes them less precise than written materials; any lack of attribution is unintentional, and we wish to credit all those who have contributed to this sermon. Soli Deo Gloria. Page 6 of 6