Worship
for the Lord’s Day
April 26,
2020
A Note
before we begin this day’s worship:
Today, in our scripture reading, Jesus
encounters some followers of his on the road to Emmaus. They do not recognize him and are talking
about all the events that just took place in Jerusalem. One of my own favorite pastimes is
travelling. I often encounter Christ in
those travels. Christ could be in
another person with whom I encounter.
Christ could be in a situation in which I find myself. Or Christ could be in what I see. They are often ah-hah moments, moments of
reflection and transformation. As you worship
today, an idea might be to think about or put before you a picture of some
place you have been. A place that brings
you comfort, joy, solace, peace. A place
where, perhaps, you also encountered Christ.
For
me, one of those places is the mountains and in this case, a particular
one. I was 15 years old at our hunting
lodge near Lock Haven. There was a
crevice in the rock of the mountain that overlooked the river far below. On the days and hours that we weren’t
hunting, I would go there and pray. It
was one of my personal sacred places.
And it was here that I encountered Christ in my heart, my mind, my
soul. I don’t have a physical picture of
that spot, but I can envision it clearly in my mind. For today’s worship focus on your own
picture, whether it be a physical one or a mental one.
Let’s
begin:
Opening
Prayer
Sometimes
God, good things are right in front of us and we don’t see them. Our fears and our prejudices blind us. Help us open our eyes today to see the
goodness of You, O Lord. Open our hearts
and speak to us. May we, like those on
the Road to Emmaus, find Your words burning with hope in our lives. Strengthen us and give us courage for the
journey ahead. Hallelujah! AMEN.
This is
an upbeat, country rendition of this sacred hymn. For a more traditional rending of the hymn,
go here.
Prayer
of Confession
Lord,
You are so patient with us. You brought
us through Easter when we rejoiced at the news of the resurrection of Your Son
our Savior. You were with us in the Upper Room when we remained hidden out of
fear, sharing with Thomas our doubts and anxieties. Now You come to us on the road. You come to us in our everyday lives, moving
out of safe sanctuaries and into the real world. But we aren’t always read for You and don’t
always see You or feel Your presence. We
let so many things crown in on our lives and these intrusions blot out our
awareness of Your presence. Forgive our
blindness and our stubbornness. Help us
keep our hearts open to You, to see and tell the good things You have done in
our lives. For we ask this in Jesus’
Name. AMEN
Words
of Assurance
Even
though we have not seen Jesus, one on one, you have assurance of His presence
and His love for you. The promises of
God are always true. God is with us, in
the resurrection of Jesus, in our journeys, in our lives. Praise be to God. AMEN
Pastoral
Prayer
We are
often in doubt, O God. We allow fears to
enter our very soul and we crumble in anxiety.
We need to believe. For it is too
easy for the empty promises of this world to dazzle our eyes. And so we come to you, Lord, with all of our fears
and doubts, our joys and our sorrows, our longings and our dreamings. We bring these things to You in hope that You
will hear our prayers and respond to our cries.
We bring to You the names of those people whom we love, for whom issues
of loneliness, pain, suffering, grief, and loss seem to abound. We bring to You the names of people who have
rejoiced in new found faith, who have reconciled with loved ones, who have
survived tragedy and sorrow, who are happy; and we want to dance in celebration
for their good fortune. Hear us, heal
us, bless us, O Lord. For we ask these
things in the name of the One who was raised that we might have eternal life.
I lift my own prayers up to You now….
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever.
AMEN.
Scripture
Readings
Old
Testament Reading: Psalm 116
1I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my
supplications.
2Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him
as long as I live.
3The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold
on me; I suffered distress and anguish.
4Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I
pray, save my life!”
12What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to
me?
13I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of
the Lord,
14I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all
his people.
15Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his
faithful ones.
16O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the child of
your serving girl. You have loosed my bonds.
17I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the
name of the Lord.
18I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all
his people,
19in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O
Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!
New
Testament Reading: Luke 24:13-35
13Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called
Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14and talking with
each other about all these things that had happened. 15While
they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with
them, 16but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17And
he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk
along?” They stood still, looking sad. 18Then one of them,
whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem
who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” 19He
asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth,
who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20and
how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and
crucified him. 21But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem
Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things
took place. 22Moreover, some women of our group astounded us.
They were at the tomb early this morning, 23and when they did
not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a
vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24Some of those
who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but
they did not see him.” 25Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish
you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have
declared! 26Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer
these things and then enter into his glory?” 27Then beginning
with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about
himself in all the scriptures. 28As they came near the village
to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29But
they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening
and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30When
he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it
to them. 31Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him;
and he vanished from their sight. 32They said to each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road,
while he was opening the scriptures to us?” 33That same hour
they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their
companions gathered together. 34They were saying, “The Lord has
risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” 35Then they told
what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the
breaking of the bread.
This is
the only YouTube video of this song that I could find.
It has
meant much to me over the years. Here
are the lyrics:
I will
run to the cleft of the mountain and wait for You
Will You come
and meet with me?
I will
wait in the cleft of the mountain for You to pass by
Will You
come and meet with me?
Oh, what
a joy it would be
Just for
a moment to lay at the feet of the Lord
Oh more
than anything that’s what I long for
Oh, what
a change it would bring
Just to
look deep in the face of the King who have all
You gave
everything so You could meet with me
Will You
meet with me?
Sermon
Luke’s
story of what happened on the road to Emmaus is one of only seven post-resurrection
stories in the gospels, and like all the rest of them it is a little ethereal
(much like our current situation). Due
to this: I find myself often asking, Is this real? Are we in a dream or a movie? What day is it? What’s going on? After Christ’s death, I think that the
disciples might have been in a “fog”, as well.
For anyone who has ever lost a loved one, we might ask those questions,
too, on a daily basis for a while.
The
crucifixion stories are not like this.
They are one hundred percent solid.
Jesus is nailed to the cross with a nameplate tacked above his head,
where he dies in front of a hundred eyewitnesses. No sudden appearances and disappearances like
after his resurrection. His death is
real.
His
resurrection, on the other hand, can be stated as largely rumor. All of the accounts that surround the story
of his resurrection contradict one another.
There are mysterious sightings and vanishings. Someone said that they heard that someone
said his tomb was empty, but that could mean anything. Maybe his body was stolen. Maybe he revived and walked away. Even those who saw him in the flesh had a
hard time convincing anyone else that it was true. Thomas didn’t buy it, not until he had seen
for himself. Jesus did not appear to
everyone before he ascended to heaven, which left plenty of people to weigh the
evidence for themselves, to listen to the testimony of those who were there and
to decide if and what they would believe.
That,
in a nutshell, is the situation of the post-Easter church. It was the situation faced by Luke’s church, and
the churches of the other gospel writers.
It was the situation Paul addressed in his letters to the churches of Asia Minor. And it
is our situation today. None of us was
there, for the real death or the rumored resurrection. So, all of us have a decision to make about
the truth of what we have heard. But if
it is at all true, then we have more than hearsay to make up our minds. If the Lord is risen indeed, then we may base
our decision on our own encounter with the living God. The question really is then, what is that
encounter for you?
For
Luke the answer is pretty simple: that encounter is somewhere on the road
between here and Emmaus. Luke is the
only gospel writer who tells us the story of what happened on the road, but
everyone has walked it at one time or another.
It is the road you walk when your team has lost, when your candidate has
been defeated, when you feel lonely and afraid, when life is simply out of
control, when your loved one has died – it’s that long road back to the empty
house, the piles of unopened mail, to life as usual, if life can ever be usual
again. For us today, it will be that
long road back for the entire world to reclaim all that we’ve lost due to a
virus and a displacement or reconfiguring of our expected futures.
It
is the road of deep disappointment, and walking it is the living definition of
sad, just like the two disciples in today’s story. It took two hours to walk those seven miles,
and that is how long they have to talk over the roller coaster events of the
past three days in Jerusalem. There was the trial, the crucifixion, the
silent procession to the tomb. And then
the women’s vision of angels, the empty grave.
Real death. Rumored
resurrection. They have not seen him,
but have heard that he is alive. Should
they believe?
They
are talking it all over when this stranger comes up behind them and asks them
what they are talking about, so that they stop in their tracks to look at
him. They are incredulous, “Are you the
only visitor to Jerusalem
who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” Cleopas asks him, but the truth is they are
both glad for his company and so they walk with him, matching their stride to
his as they tell him everything they know.
They
tell him how things had looked so promising at first, when Jesus impressed
everyone with his eloquence and mighty acts, and then how things had gone
wrong, bad wrong, so that there was finally nothing left for them to do but to
go back home, dragging their feet in the dust and wondering, wondering. What did it all mean? What purpose was there now in life when their
greatest hope had become their greatest disappointment?
“We
had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel,” they say to him, admitting
their defeat. “We had hoped.” Hope in
the past tense, one of the saddest sounds a human being can make. We had hoped he was the one. We believed things might really change, but
we were wrong. He died. It’s over now.
No more fairy tales. No more
illusions. Back to business as usual.
When
Tyler was very young, we were in the car about a year or so after he had come
to live with us. I was tired of
listening to the radio. I wanted silence
in the car. But after a moment a thought
came to mind for me to ask Tyler
something. I said, “Tyler, who do you think God is?” On most occasions when confronted with a less
than obvious question, he normally had two responses; the first one is “Um…I do
not know.” I used to have to coax
answers out of him, by asking more grounded or concrete questions. Or his other typical response was hesitation.
“Um…Um…Well…Um.” until I made it clearer what I was looking for.
But
not this time. There was no hesitation,
no confusion at all. Immediately he said
from the back seat of the car.
“Hope. I think God is hope and
love.” A nine year old, with a difficult
past, who knew nothing about God or Jesus less than two years before this had
grasped the essence of God’s character in just a couple of words. And mostly that first word, “HOPE”, clear and
bright without hesitation from the backseat of the car. Adults spend most of their lives searching
for God or the meaning of God. As a Dad,
regardless of how difficult life might become for him – and believe me, I know
that it has; if I have done nothing else, my own hope is that I have instilled
in this one child – the true character and meaning of God – hope and love. That is indeed the true nature of God.
No
wonder Jesus gets mad at his walking companions. He explodes at them. “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of
heart!” he says to them. Or in other
words, “You idiots!” If you had read your Bibles, none of this would come as a
surprise to you. It is right there in
black and white: the Christ is not the one who wins the power struggle; he is
the one who loses it. The Christ is not
the undefeated champion; he is the suffering servant, the broken one, who comes
into his glory with his wounds still visible.
Those hurt places are the proof that he is who he says he is, because
the way you recognize the Christ – and his followers – is not by their muscles
but by their scars.
Which
means that they are not to despise the painful parts of their lives
anymore. Which means that they are not
to interpret their defeats as failures anymore.
Which means that they are not to fear their enemies anymore, not even
death itself. Why? Because God is Hope and Love. Contrary to all good common sense, they are
to follow their leader into the scariest, most dangerous places in the world
armed with nothing but a first aid kit, because they, like him, are not fighters
but physicians – wounded healers – whose credentials are their own hurt places.
Starting
with Moses and working his way through the prophets, the stranger opens the
scriptures to them and they hang on his words.
He is a gifted preacher, but it is more than that. They are wounded, and what he is telling them
is good, good news. It is hope. Maybe they aren’t losers after all. Maybe the rumors are true. Maybe there is reason to resurrect their
crucified hope.
So
when they arrive at their village and he shakes their hands goodbye, they will
not let him go. They have not gotten
enough of him yet, so they invite him to stay with them and he does. He is an odd guest, though. It is their house, their food, their table,
but when the three of them sit down together, it is he, the guest, who acts as
host, who reaches out, takes the bread, says the blessing, breaks the bread,
and gives it to them. Maybe it is the
oddness of the act that makes the shingles fall from their eyes, or maybe it is
the familiarity of it – something they have seen him do before on a green
hillside with five loaves and two fish, in an upper room with unleavened bread
and Passover wine. He takes, blesses,
breaks, gives – and through those torn, fragrant edges of the loaf he holds out
to them, they look at him and know who he is, one moment before he vanishes
from their sight.
The
blindness of the two disciples does not keep their Christ from coming to
them. He does not limit his
post-resurrection appearances to those with full confidence in him. He comes to the disappointed, the doubtful,
the disconsolate. He comes to those who
do not know their Bibles, who do not recognize him even when they are walking
right beside him. He comes to those who
have given up and are headed back home, which makes this whole story a story
about the blessedness of brokenness.
Maybe
that is only good news if you happen to be broken. But, Jesus
seems to prefer working with broken people, with broken dreams, in a broken
world. If someone hands him a whole
loaf, he will take it, bless it, break it, and give it, and he will do the same
things with his own flesh and blood, because that is the way of life God has
shown him to show the rest of us: to take what we have been given, whether we
like it or not, and to bless it – to say thank you for it – whether it is the
sweet, satisfying bread of success or the tear-soaked bread of sorrow. To say thank you and to break it because that
is the only way it can be shared, and to hand it around, not to eat it all by
ourselves but to find someone to eat it with, so that the broken loaf may bring
all of us broken ones together into one body, where we may recognize the risen
Lord in our midst.
Luke’s
story of what happened on the road to Emmaus is a perfect example of how we
should orient our example to the world.
First there is the closeness of the two disciples on the road, and then
their kindness to a stranger. Then there
is the way their hearts burned within them when he opened the scriptures to
them, and how they knew him in the breaking of the bread. Count them – fellowship, hospitality, word, sacrament
– all the ways Christ has promised to be present with us, which also happen to
be the everyday activities of the church.
Not the building, or the institutions, but the people of God – us – who
attend to one another, to strangers, to God’s word and to the sacraments as a
way of life.
A
lot of it happens other places, but the breaking of bread, the sharing of a
meal can break you right open with loved ones and strangers alike. There is a scene in the movie, Latter Days
about a young man who learns what true friendship and love are all about. He had been rejected by his family and found
a group of people to call his own. The
last scene is the Thanksgiving table with this motley crew of strangers who
have become family/loved ones. The
matriarch of the group raises her glass and says something like, “No matter
where you are in the world, no matter what has happened to you, you are always
welcome at my table.” It is like the gates to your heart have opened
and everything you have ever loved comes tumbling out to be missed and praised
and mourned and loved some more. It is
like being known all the way down to the core of your being and your soul and loved
unconditionally. It is like being in the
presence of God for just a moment. At
once you grasp him and the next you don’t .
One moment your eyes are opened and you recognize the risen Christ, and
the next he has vanished from your sight.
Take
heart. Do not fear. You cannot lose him for good. He promises to meet us again and again. AMEN.
Benediction
People of
the Road, rejoice, for God is with you.
Bring God’s love and peace to all whom you meet. God in peace now and forever. AMEN.
