The Words After That

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Luke 24:13-25

April 7/8, 2012 (Easter) • Portage First UMC

INTRO VIDEO

It was about 10:30 a.m. Pacific time this past Monday when a 43-year-old former nursing student walked into the building of Oikos University in Oakland, California, took a receptionist hostage and walked into a classroom. “Oikos” means “family,” and One Goh had been expelled from the “family” earlier this year, due, some say, to behavioral issues. Apparently upset that his career plans had been derailed, Goh went looking for a particular female administrator at this small predominately Korean Christian college. When he learned that the administrator was not there, he went into a room and told former classmates to line up along the wall. “I’m going to kill you all,” he said, and began shooting. Seven people were killed and three were wounded before Goh left in a victim’s car, which he then drove to a grocery store in Alameda. There, he surrendered to police. In the midst of the usual statements from the neighbors about how he wasn’t a bad guy and he was good to his parents, and the usual statements about gun control and the senselessness of it all from politicians, we were again faced with a horrible tragedy, seven senseless deaths, and a reminder that despite appearances to the contrary, our world is in fact filled with dangerous and dark places. What do we say to situations like that? How do we respond when death seems to push in on us?

In many ways, that’s the question that the two disciples who were walking to Emmaus were dealing with. Death had surrounded them, and they were left confused, hurt, and hopeless. Their discouragement had really began three days ago, on Friday, when they watched one they had hoped was going to save their people die on a Roman cross. They had come to Jerusalem, most likely, to celebrate Passover, a normal part of their year, and yet this year, their celebration, their normalcy was interrupted by a brutal, senseless and tragic death. Jesus of Nazareth had died and been buried, and all those who thought he was the Savior had gone back and spent the last two nights mourning his death. What else was there to do? It was the Sabbath, the day of rest, so they couldn’t travel home. Walking the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus was considered “work,” so they stayed in the city until Sunday.

On Sunday morning, some of the women had left very early, while it was still dark (John 20:1), to go anoint the body of Jesus. That was something that was usually done before burial, but the quick approach of the Sabbath had prevented them from finishing the job. So they went to the tomb, and I cannot emphasize enough that, despite what they had heard Jesus say repeatedly about him being raised, they did not go looking for a resurrection. They went to anoint the body. They went to take care of their dead friend. No one in the Gospels expects Jesus to be anything other than stone cold dead (Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 260). So when these women come running back to the place where Jesus’ followers are staying, when they say the tomb is empty, and when they claim that an angel told them Jesus had been raised from the dead, it sounds like “nonsense” to everyone else (24:11). In fact, Luke, being a doctor, uses a medical term here; he actually says they think the women are “delirious” (Card 261). I imagine the women got all sorts of questions, centered around the fact that just because the tomb was empty didn’t mean he was raised. It just meant the body was missing. Even Peter, who Luke says goes to check it all out, doesn’t decide right away that Jesus was raised. He wonders to himself what happened (24:12). No one expected a resurrection.

And so these two disciples, who are probably husband and wife (Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 293), decided it really is over and begin the journey home. Seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Seven long, endless miles. What do you talk about on a journey like that? Well, Luke says they were discussing what had happened over the last few days, perhaps how disappointed, discouraged and depressed they had become. I mean, if Jesus really was the Messiah, the Savior, he should have been defeating the pagans, not dying at their hands (Wright 294)! Everything they had hoped for died on the cross. You know how discussions like that go, but in the midst of this one, a stranger approaches them and joins their journey. Actually, he’s not a stranger, but Luke says they were “kept” from recognizing him (23:16). That’s an important theme in this story: who and when and how do people recognize Jesus, the stranger? The word means to “know, to perceive, to understand.” Luke isn’t talking so much about physically recognizing this stranger as Jesus (though we have evidence in other Gospels that Jesus looked at least a little different from the way they remembered him, and yet he still retained the scars in his hands and side from the crucifixion). Instead, Luke is talking about seeing beyond the physical to the core of who a person is. They failed to realize this stranger is Jesus largely because they weren’t looking for him. As I said, they had zero expectations of ever seeing Jesus alive again (Card 262). They had stood near the cross. They had heard his final words. They listened as he cried out, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (23:46). And they watched as he died. So when this stranger comes up to them and asks what they are talking about, they are surprised he doesn’t know. How could he have been anywhere near Jerusalem in the last few days and not know what had happened there (24:17-18)?

So they tell him their perception of what happened, and how their hopes and dreams had been nailed to the cross with Jesus. Everything they had given their lives for and everything they had dreamed of was gone. “We had hoped,” they say (24:21). One time, so long ago, we had hoped. But now we’ve given up hope. He’s dead, and so are our dreams. Have you been there? Have you walked to the road of disappointment? David and Helen did. They had met in college and looked forward with excitement to being missionaries in India. David had been raised in India, his parents having served long terms there as United Methodist missionaries. They got to experience their dreams coming true when they arrived in India with their one-year-old daughter and began the work they had been preparing for so long. About a year later, David had passed his language exam and was scheduled to go on a preaching tour. This was shortly after their son, David Jr., had been born, and just as David Sr. was preparing to leave, Helen had a dream. She dreamed that they were burying their son, and she begged David not to go on the trip he had planned. But Davey was healthy, and so his father chalked it up to still adjusting to a new culture and nothing more. He kissed a healthy Davey goodbye and left on his trip. But the very next night he received a message that Davey was seriously ill with dysentery. By noon the following day, they were burying their son. The dreams they had for their family and their ministry came crashing down around them (Seamands, Living With Your Dreams, pgs. 39-41). We had hoped…but it was not to be. That’s what Cleopas and his wife are telling Jesus. We had hoped…we had hoped.

And we expect Jesus to respond compassionately, to say, “I understand how you feel. It’s okay to feel that way.” But that’s not what we get. Instead, Jesus turns to them and says, “How foolish you are!” (24:25). In essence, he says, you’ve got it all wrong. You’re looking at things through the wrong lens. And instead of comforting them like we think he ought to, he begins to explain the Scriptures to them. Luke says it this way: “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (24:27). Now, do you see the problem here? I get frustrated every time I read that verse. Here is the Son of God giving a Bible lesson, explaining the entire Old Testament, and Luke doesn’t think it’s important enough to record what he says! Not one word of Jesus’ teaching is captured here. The greatest Bible lesson of all time, and it’s not written down. Wasn’t someone taking notes?

No, because that’s not Luke’s point. Luke’s point is that the first glimmer of recognition, the first hint that this stranger is someone they might know is found as they begin to rightly understand the Scriptures. They first encounter the risen Jesus in the words of the Bible. And that’s even more true today. John says Jesus is “the word made flesh” (John 1:14) and the words of the Bible point to the one who is the Word. To truly encounter Jesus, to know who he is means we have to intentionally engage with the Scriptures. There are a lot of false assumptions and a lot of bad teachings roaming around out there. The real truth about Jesus is found in the Scriptures, and if we’re not studying this book, we’re only guessing. And it’s not enough to just rely on what you get on Sunday morning. We read a couple of passages here, but that’s only a glimpse of the whole story. And so around here, we have tried to make many opportunities available for you to study, to grow, to learn, to develop your faith and your picture of Jesus. This week, we launch a brand new one, an opportunity to deal with difficult questions in a safe place. That disappointment, that discouragement, those wonderings…on Wednesday evening at 6 p.m., we will launch Alpha, which is a place you can bring those things and know that they will be dealt with honestly, fairly and openly. Alpha is for everyone who struggles, whether you believe in Jesus at this point or not. Take a listen to this to get an idea of what Alpha will be like.

VIDEO: Alpha Questions

Alpha is fully and firmly based in the Scriptures, and it’s a place where thousands of people have first begun to recognize Jesus, because he’s found in the Scriptures.

After the Bible lesson, they arrive at Emmaus, the home for Cleopas and his wife, and Luke says Jesus pretends to be going further, even as they offer him a place to stay for the night. It was expected, in that culture, to offer hospitality to the stranger; Jesus himself had emphasized and endorsed that. It was also a custom, on the part of the stranger, to at first refuse such hospitality, to pretend to be going somewhere else. It was sort of a dance people did, knowing all the while that the stranger would accept the offer of hospitality (Liefeld, “Luke,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 1053-1054), which Jesus does. And yet, once inside the house, when the meal is prepared Jesus assumes the role of host. He takes the bread, he offers the prayer, he breaks the bread and gives it to them (24:30). Immediately, they know fully who he is, the recognize him, because when is the last time in the Gospel of Luke bread was broken and blessed and offered? It’s in the Upper Room, at the Last Supper. Jesus was the host, then, too, and he told them that bread would always remind them of his body, which was broken on the cross (22:19). And while what happens at Emmaus is not a communion celebration—it’s a normal table meal—in the breaking of the bread, they suddenly recognize Jesus for who he is. Was it because he lifted up the bread and they were able to see the wounds in his wrists? Was it in the way he said the prayer or the way he tore the bread? Was it his tone of voice, the spark in his eyes, or the burning in their own hearts (24:32)? Whatever it was, Jesus was known to them—recognized by them (24:35)—in the breaking of the bread. And though, as I said, this is not a communion celebration at Emmaus, I think Luke fully intends us to see in this breaking of the bread that earlier breaking, and he wants us to know that Jesus is known when we gather together, when we break the bread and drink the cup as he told us to do in remembrance of him (22:19).

Word and table. Scripture and sacrament. The reason these things are the shape of Christian worship is because it is here, in these things, that we encounter the risen Christ. Jesus’ final words from the cross were not really the last words at all. He spoke words after the cross because he was raised to life and in those words, he invites us to come close so that we, too, might share in his resurrection. If we learn nothing else from the cross and the resurrection, we have to learn this: the worst thing is never the last thing. The cross was not the end; the grave did not have the final word. Jesus did, because he was raised and lives forevermore. The worst thing is never the last thing. David and Helen learned that. Even in the midst of the devastation of losing their son, they found their bonds strengthened and their faith growing. They had a great impact on India, and when they returned home, David both pastored and grew churches while later teaching countless seminary students how to care for their congregations—students including me. Out of David’s broken dreams and seeming hopelessness came a ministry of grace and healing for countless people who were living with broken dreams of their own. The worst thing is never the last thing, even in Oakland, California. I love the way the churches responded there, allowing Jesus to shine through. The Korean Methodist Church in particular responded right away by providing space for mourning and praying. Even in the dark place where a student kills fellow students, the worst thing is never the last thing. Even in the darkness, Jesus still comes to us in bread and cup and word and worship.

We’ve spent the season of Lent studying the final words of Jesus, and this morning we’ve looked at some of his words after that, but the really final words of Jesus come at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, where he gathers his disciples together and gives them their mission. In Matthew 28, Jesus says, “Go and make disciples of all nations…and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (28:19-20). Jesus’ final final words are both a challenge and a promise. The challenge? Share the love of Christ and the power of the resurrection through the whole earth. After 2,000 years, we’re still working on that one, and while the whole earth might be a bit intimidating for us sitting here this morning, what about your whole neighborhood or your whole family? Start there. Jesus calls us to share with everyone the good news that the worst thing is never the last thing and that there is hope and salvation found in him. It’s the sharing of that good news that compelled us to begin PF Hope just about a year ago, to share the good news with people who might not otherwise hear it. That’s our challenge, and it’s never enough just to say someone else will do it. If we call ourselves Christian, we’re all commissioned by Jesus. That’s the challenge. And the promise? He doesn’t promise us wealth or health or power. He promises us his presence. He will be with us. Because he is risen, he goes with us into the world so that we can share that good news. He will be with us, no matter what comes. He is present here, and he will be present with you at work tomorrow, and in the hospital waiting room, and at the graveside, and when you’re contemplating which decision to make, and when your child is born, and when that same child makes choices that unsettle you…he will be with you. He is with you, and his presence is always a reminder that the worst thing is never the last thing. That’s the good news and the hope of Easter.

Word and table. Scripture and Sacrament. Having heard the Scripture, this morning, we’re going to come to the table, and experience the presence of Jesus in the breaking of the bread. For some of you, perhaps it’s been a while since you’ve taken communion. Let me assure you that in the United Methodist Church, the communion table is open to all who love Jesus or who want to love him. It’s his table, he is the host, not myself or Pastor Deb or anyone else. Jesus is the host, and he invites us to come, to find him in the bread and in the cup and to allow being in his presence to make a lasting difference. For some of us, maybe coming to church on Easter is just an obligation, something we do to make someone else happy, or we come because we think we ought to. But Jesus calls us to more than just showing up for the music and the flowers. Jesus invites us to encounter him, and to allow him to change us, to make us new, to make us right with him. He wants his presence to be part of our lives. And so as you come to the table this morning, what will your response to him be? Will you walk out of here unchanged, essentially the same as when you came in? Or will time in his presence cause your heart to burn within you? Will you see the resurrected Lord in this place and allow him to live in your life every day from now on? He invites you—come to the table. He awaits you here.