Luke 24:1-12: Easter is Seeing the Unseen

When we celebrate Easter, we celebrate the reason for our hope.  Despite the yearly reminder of Jesus resurrection, we are often tempted to look for hope elsewhere.  Easter forces us to ask the question anew, with each passing year, where is our hope found? 

Sometimes upon asking the question, we realize that our hope is placed in things other than God.  We are tempted sometimes to look for hope in our rulers; kings, prime ministers, presidents, rulers of nations and shapers of our world.  It makes sense, at least according to how the world thinks.  After all, rulers have power.  They can conquer other lands, defend us from our enemies, build the roads, schools, and hospitals we need, and create laws to govern our society.  If we have a problem, surely they can find the solution.  This is sound logic until we realize that even good rulers are mere human beings.  To put it plainly, they die before they finish their work.  Alexander the Great conquered much of the known world, only to die before he could reign over his consolidated empire.  Our own history provides its own examples.  Abraham Lincoln was assassinated before he could bring the Civil War to an end, and guide us through Reconstruction.  FDR died before the war in the Pacific was concluded, leaving Truman with the decision whether or not to use “the bomb”.  We can even find examples in our Bible.  Think about how much the early church leaned on the apostles for a direct line to Jesus teaching.  The Gideons’ were not on the street-corners passing out Bibles in those days, so the first Christians relied on the apostles, those who walked with Jesus, to pass on his teaching.  It must have been terrifying for them to think of life without these leaders, as the church witnessed one after the other suffer martyrdom.  Even in the church we tend to put too much stock in our leaders.  We would be wise to consider the words of the psalmist, “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.  When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.” (Psalm 146:3-4)

Maybe we have witnessed enough politics, both in Washington and in the church, that we no longer put a lot of trust in our leaders.  That does not mean that we don’t have other idols in which we seek hope.  How many of us place our wealth above all else?  If we simply see wealth as the ultimate source of security, that is enough for it to supplant God as the center of our universe.  On one level it makes sense.  After all, money buys us food, clothing, shelter, and helps provide the medicines many of us rely on for good health.  But Jesus warns us in that most famous of sermons, the Sermon on the Mount, that when we trust in riches, we trust on something that is temporal.  He reminds us, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  (Matthew 6:19-21)  And it is not just that money is temporary, but that it also seeks to control us if we allow it, by making it too much of a focus in our lives.  Paul would write to his young disciple Timothy, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” (I Timothy 6:6-10)  If our hope is in our wealth, then sooner or later we will be worshiping our wealth as the god of our life. 

Maybe we don’t trust in our leaders, or in our wealth.  Maybe we trust in our own power, whether it is ours individually or collectively.  Power does have a way of making us seem less vulnerable.  In Jesus’ day, there was something referred to as the Pax Romana, or “Roman Peace”.  In essence, it was a way of referring to the internal stability, and security from external threats that was a result of Roman military might.  In a post-Cold War, pre-9/11 world, American citizens had much the same feeling of peace and security.  However, a group of determined terrorists showed that no matter a nation’s military might, no country is invincible.  There are other issues with seeking hope in our own strength.  For instance, what happens when power is in the hands of the unrighteous?  Right does not make might, and often it is the righteous who lack the power.  Even if power is in the hands of the righteous, if such a group exists is highly debatable, power is never permanent.  There was a time when no one envisioned a world without the Roman Empire.  There was a time when the “sun never set on the British Empire.”  History tells us that if the Lord tarries, there will almost certainly come a day when America is no longer the world’s super-power.  If we live to see that day, will all hope be lost? 

David writes that “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” (Psalm 20:7)  Chariots and horses were the tanks and fighter jets of ancient times.  It would be easy to try to amass as many as possible as a source of strength.  And yet, David reminds us that the Lord our God is the only one capable to giving us hope.  He is the only one in whom we should trust. 

So what does all of this have to do with Easter?  We have looked at a lot of things that claim to provide hope.  Leaders, wealth, and even power are seductive options when considering where to put our trust.  The Resurrection however, reminds us that real hope is in seeing the unseen.  Our hope is found in what the women don’t see in the tomb.  The word find is used twice in the story; once it refers to a stone that has been rolled away, and once it refers to what they did not find- a body.  It was simply referred to as the body of Jesus when Joseph of Arimathea asked for it from Pilate, but when it cannot be found in the tomb, it is suddenly referred to as the body of the Lord Jesus.  Jesus has conquered death, and his lordship is now beyond dispute.  It’s a scene that transforms the women into angels.  The root word for “told” is the same as that of angel, which is from the Greek word for messenger.  While they don’t have wings, harps, or halos, these women return to the disciples to speak a word worthy of announcement by an angelic chorus.  It’s a word that sends Peter running to the tomb to see, or not see, for himself the truth of what he has heard.  Our encounter with the risen Lord must be a personal one.  Our faith cannot be sustained on the testimony of others, so like Peter we run to the tomb each year, to discover all over again that it is indeed empty.  It is true that unlike Peter, we cannot see the scene for ourselves, but then again, that has never been the definition of faith.  We have read our Bible from an early age, and whether it has sunk in or not, we have been told that faith is different from knowledge.  The author of Hebrews would say that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)  In some sense this makes it difficult for us, even more difficult than it was for the apostles.  Jesus acknowledges as much when he tells “doubting” Thomas, “You believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

The Resurrection invites us to enter the story of God’s goodness and work in our world.  It invites us to find our place in God’s story.  It challenges us to read the Bible, the story of Jesus Christ not as a history book, but as our story.  John Steinbeck provides some insight into how that might be done in a passage from his book The Winter of Our Discontent.  He writes:

“That Saturday morning seemed to have a pattern.  I wonder whether all days have.  It was a withdrawn day.  The little gray whisper of my Aunt Deborah came to me, ‘Of course, Jesus is dead.  This is the only day in the world's days that he is dead.  And all men and women are dead too…But tomorrow.  Just wait until tomorrow.  Then you’ll see something.’

I don’t remember her very clearly, the way you don’t remember someone too close to look at.  But she read the Scripture to me like a daily newspaper and I suppose that’s the way she thought of it, as something going on happening eternally but always exciting and new.  Every Easter, Jesus really rose from the dead, an explosion, expected but nonetheless new.  It wasn’t two thousand years ago to her; it was now.  And she planted something of that in me.”

Easter reminds us that God’s work is something happening eternally, always exciting and new.

The challenge of Easter is to see Jesus’ resurrection not just as an event that happened 2,000 years ago, but as something that is happening now, and to take that way of viewing the world, and to plant it in as many other people as we can through the way we speak, through the way we act, and through the way we love.  

Mark 16:1-8: the end that is still being written

How do we tell the Easter story, the story of Jesus’ resurrection?  The varied ways of telling the “greatest story ever told” are evident by the contrasting ways that the gospel writers tell us of the same event.  In Matthew, we read of an earthquake, terrified guards, and Jesus meeting the women after they leave the tomb.  In Luke, Peter is shown running to the tomb, disciples encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and then that same Jesus appears to a larger gathering of disciples.  When we read John’s gospel, we see a Thomas full of doubt, and Jesus meeting with the disciple by the seashore.  We place Mark’s gospel next to all of these, and we discover that we aren’t even sure where the gospel in fact ends.  The only common thread in all these various accounts is the visiting of the tomb by the women.    

Despite its brevity when compared to the other gospels, Mark’s resurrection story does teach us some important things- not only about Jesus, but about our faith as well.  First of all, the women who visit the tomb are seeking the crucified Jesus, rather than the resurrected Lord.  This is more than understandable, as they were there for Jesus crucifixion.  These three women all saw the death of Jesus (Mark 15:40), and the two Mary’s were there for Jesus burial (Mark 15:47).  Despite their confidence in what they have witnessed the young man, who is most assuredly an angel, instructs them that they are looking for Jesus in the wrong place.   His statement that Jesus “was crucified” has the ring of a Christian confession, as the crucifixion is now in the past.  More than that, the testimony continues beyond Jesus recently endured crucifixion, to state that “he has been raised.”  Jesus death been overcome by life, by resurrection, and it is God who has accomplished this, as is made clear by the fact that “has been raised” is cast in the passive. 

Where do we seek Jesus?  As important as the crucifixion is for us, for our redemption, it is firmly in the past.  The cross is important, even vital to our spiritual lives, but the power it possesses to shape us comes not from Jesus death, but from His resurrection.       

Of course, that power is only relevant if we believe the word about Jesus that we hear.  In the words of the author of Hebrews, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)  To that end, there is no dispute that the tomb was empty.  If Jesus’ body had remained in the tomb, stating that fact would have been the easiest and most logical way to undercut the power of the Christian message.  After all, as Paul would tell the Corinthians, “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” (I Corinthians 15:14)  In other words, if Christianity’s early opponents could discredit the resurrection, they would have all but discredited the entire faith.   And yet, with that being the case, in all the early Jewish polemic against Christianity, the empty tomb is never disputed, nor is Jesus’ body produced. 

The real thrust behind the news of Jesus resurrection is not just the indisputable fact that the tomb was empty.  The power lays in the fact that Jesus’ followers saw in this action, in Jesus’ resurrection, a fulfillment of what God had promised to do all along.  The prophet Hosea would foretell the event centuries earlier, when he said: “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” (Hosea 6:2)  Jesus himself hints at an interpretive lens through which we should we view both the crucifixion and the resurrection, when he says as he hangs on the cross, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  By quoting the first verse of Psalm 22, a psalm that begins with such anguish and pain, he is pointing us forward to the end of the psalm, to an ending characterized by renewal, and even resurrection.    

Like the women, we are left with an empty tomb.  The question is, what will we do with it?  Will we believe that word of revelation that interprets the empty tomb, and infuses it with meaning? 

Embracing that word of revelation is more than a mental or intellectual exercise.  The women are told to go and tell the disciples and Peter, the news of the resurrection.  In short, they are to take the news to those who need to hear it the most.  Those who abandoned and even denied Jesus are rehabilitated.  The lack of closure in the gospel is intentional and draws us into the story, giving us the task of interpreting the rest of what has, and indeed what will happen.  In essence, the gospel tasks us with writing an end to the story through our own faithfulness.  D. English would write that “our first century forebears in the faith were not naturally superior (or inferior) to us.  Neither did faith and discipleship come any easier for them.  Yet despite all, they went on believing and laid the foundation for us.”  The question is, like them, will we embrace faith and discipleship in spite of the cost?  Will we build on the foundation laid by them, a foundation grounded in the blood of Jesus Christ, and the power of His resurrection?

Mark 14:43-52: Inauthentic Discipleship

The words “you Judas” have become synonymous with “traitor”.  He is portrayed as the arch-villain in the gospels, and for good reason.  The authorities needed some way of identifying Jesus.  Faces, even famous ones, weren’t as well known in ancient times, prior to the advent of mass media.  Judas provides that means of identification, and even tells the ones looking to arrest him where he can be conveniently and quietly captured, away from the volatile crowd.  He hails Jesus as “rabbi”, and even greets him with a kiss, outward signs of respect and obedience from an inwardly treacherous heart.  The Greek verb used for kiss, kataphileo, means to kiss with every show of affection, which only highlights the duplicity manifested by Judas’ actions. 

But there are other ways we fail Jesus.  It is true that sometimes we betray him, like Judas.  Some of us do it even while we extend our hands upward in praise, or bow our heads in prayer.  Other times though, our failures are far more discreet.  Maybe we don’t betray Jesus, maybe we simply flee like the young man in our story, refusing to stand with Jesus when it matters most.  Or maybe we just sleep, napping through life like Peter, James, and John dozing in Gethsemane, all the while oblivious to the fact that our discipleship is being tested.  We don’t have to be duplicitous to be inauthentic disciples, we can also be half-hearted. 

And yet, our failures only have power over us if we allow them to define us.  We should be reminded that when it comes to others and their faith, we can’t judge a book by its cover.  Judas seemed loyal, he to the extent that he was trusted to be the treasurer of the disciples, but he turned out to be a traitor.  Meanwhile, the three who seem incompetent, Peter, James, and John; they ultimately prove to be loyal in the end.   They prove to be loyal because Jesus’ arrest is not the end of the story.  Back in Mark 14:28 Jesus says, “after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”  Jesus reference forward to his resurrection points beyond Mark’s gospel, and the words “go before” describe the action of a shepherd.  Jesus enters death before us, like a shepherd leading the flock, with the promise that because he emerges out the other side into life, so will we.  Like the disciples, who so often struggled, we must embraced that promise, and allow the spirit of Christ to transform us, all the while dying to ourselves, so that we might live for him. 

Almighty God,

We come before you as people who can identify with the disciples, especially with their failures.  Some of us are sleep-walking through life, not realizing how our faith is being tested.  Others of us have fled from your presence to chase the things of this world.  In some way, all of us have betrayed you.  And yet, you point us forward, to the light of your resurrection.  Allow the same Spirit that restored your disciples, making them men of faith and conviction, to work in our hearts.    We pray that we will not be defined by our failures, but by our faith in you.  We ask this in the name of the one who’s suffering redeems us, and makes us whole, Jesus Christ.  Amen.  

Mark 12:18-27: seeing the world through God's eyes

We all come to God conditioned to believe, or disbelieve certain things.  If we are honest with ourselves, usually we are coming to God not to grow or to be challenged, but to have our existing beliefs confirmed.  Before we are too harsh with the Sadducees concerning their failure to believe in the resurrection, perhaps we should examine ourselves and ask if we aren't also guilty of some degree of blindness when it comes to God's power to work in our world, even today.  This story brings us a word from God precisely because we find ourselves more often than not identifying more with the Sadducees than with Jesus. 

So, when we read that the Sadducees came to him, those Sadducees who do not believe that there is a resurrection, perhaps we should reserve our judgment.  Rather than shaking our heads at their disbelief, maybe this is a chance to ask what baggage we bring with us when we come before Jesus.  “That man came to Jesus, the one who thinks that others sins are worse than his own.”  “This woman came to the Lord, the one who refuses to believe that she can truly be forgiven.”  “A child came to Jesus, a child who cannot understand what it means to call God Father, because they’ve never had an earthly father love and care for them.”  We don’t just bring our ideas and our beliefs, we brings our experiences, our insecurities, our prejudices, and even our judgmental attitudes with us when we come to hear a word from the Lord.  They blind our eyes to the power of Jesus, and more often than not prevent us from being able to see the world through the lens of the gospel.  We cling to these beliefs and ideas, even constructing our faith around them, so that we spend most of our time trying to score intellectual points, rather than trying to transform our world.  The entire story made up by the Sadducees is concocted to try to disprove the resurrection.  They aren’t asking Jesus a question to find out the truth, the come thinking they know the truth, and are trying to force Jesus into agreeing with them

The Sadducees idea of resurrection was raising up an heir for a brother.  A man might not live on, but his name and reputation will live on through his children.  Jesus idea of resurrection is raising the dead themselves.  It sounds silly to us, as Christians we would never deny the resurrection.  And yet, as we profess God’s ability to raise the dead, at the same time we fail to believe that God can transform our lives, our communities, and even our world into the one he envisioned all along.  God does more, is doing more, than we could ever imagine.  Sadly, like the Sadducees, we fail to see it, or fail to believe it.   

Sounds pretty depressing doesn’t it?  It would be, except for the fact that even in our disbelief Jesus meets us where we are, and tries to build our faith.  The Sadducees only believed in the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, so Jesus pulls a passage from there that demonstrates the power of the resurrection.   “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6)  There is a small grammatical detail that is often overlooked, one that Jesus is quick to point out.  God says I am, not I was.   God is not regulated to the pages of history, a forgotten deity worshipped by those long dead and gone.  If we open our eyes, we will see in the world around us a God still active, still working, still worshipped by those alive, as well as by those who are dead but who will live again. 

That’s why it is important that we come to Christ, willing to be formed according to God’s truth, not our preconception.  Why?  Because God’s plans for us are often bigger, grander, and far more marvelous than we could ever imagine.  

 

Mark 10:32-34: the cross and the resurrection, you can't have one without the other

Whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not, the person of Jesus of Nazareth demands a response from each and every one of us.  Whether we realize it or not, each of us responds to him by the way we live our life.  As we see from these three verses in Mark 10, Jesus’ very presence invokes amazements from some, and fear from others.  Both, in some combination, are probably appropriate responses for each of us.  Fear in the presence of the almighty, amazement at the idea of God becoming flesh.  The author of Hebrews would pick up on this response of fear and amazement, while also addressing Jesus’ prediction in these verses of the suffering he would endure:

“But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.  For it is fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.”          – Hebrews 2:9-10

And again, after recounting all of the heroes of faith we find in the pages of the Bible, the Hebrews’ writer seeks to spur on their own audience to similar feats of discipleship with the following words:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” – Hebrews 12:1-2

The epistle of Hebrews refers to the fact that Jesus’ “endured the cross, despising the shame”, and in so doing it readily acknowledges that Jesus did all of this knowing very well what he was getting himself into.  He did it “for the joy that was set before him.”  In other words, Jesus knew the long-term, permanent victory that would result from his near-term, temporary suffering.  If you wonder exactly how much he knew about what he was to endure, consider his following statements from this passage:

·         He states that the “Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes”, and in Mark 14:53 we see that “they led Jesus to the high priest.  And all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together.”

·         He predicted “and they will condemn him to death”, which was proven to be correct in Mark 14:64 where the high priest says “’you have heard his blasphemy.  What is your decision?’  And they all condemned him as deserving of death.” 

·         Jesus knows that these same authorities who condemn him will “deliver him over to the Gentiles.”  It takes place in Mark 15:1, where we read that “as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council.  And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate.”  It’s a sign of the contempt they had for Jesus, that they would turn him over to the occupiers of their land, the oppressors of their people whom they also reviled. 

·         Jesus was well aware that “they will mock him and spit on him.”  The fulfillment is related in Mark 15:19 where we see that the guards “were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him.”   

·         It couldn’t have been easy for him to think about the fact that they would “flog him and kill him.”  We see it happen in Mark 15:24, “and they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take.” 

It’s not all bad news though.  As we saw in Hebrews, the promise of a happier ending is what enabled Jesus to endure, knowingly endure, all of the things just mentioned.  He did it “for the joy set before him.”  That joy is what he refers to at the very end of this passage, when he says that “after three days he will rise.”  It’s a story we are all familiar with, especially on the heels of Easter:

“And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.  And he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed.  You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has risen; he is not here.  See the place where they laid him.’”
 - Mark 16:5-6

Some would say it’s bad form to write a post about Jesus’ suffering less than a week after Easter.  This is supposed to be the time when the church is joyful, when it revels in the victory that Jesus has won for us over sin and death.  And yet I wonder if the two can be separated so easily.  Can we truly embrace the resurrection without casting an eye back at the cross?  Can we truly endure the pain and suffering we find in this world without at least a hopeful glance into the future, where resurrection awaits?  If we are going to be disciples of Jesus, then we desperately need to understand what he understood, that the cross and the resurrection go together.  Our victory is not in the fact that the cross was abolished, but in the fact that Jesus has ensured for us that the cross never, ever, gets the final word.  Resurrection will always have the final say.  

Luke 24:13-35: recognizing Jesus

I talked a little bit in part one of this post about how Jesus is hard to recognize sometimes.  His disciples, who spent three continuous years with him, failed to recognize him at first on the road to Emmaus.  Eventually though, their eyes were opened to the identity of this stranger in their midst.  What led them to recognize him?  They recognized him in the breaking of the bread.
How fitting that Jesus' disciples recognize Him as they are gathered around the table.  This happy coincidence allows us to actually participate in the story, for we to gather around a table regularly with Jesus present.  I would suggest that we can learn a few things from the disciples experience with the resurrected Christ that can inform our own efforts to discern Christ in the breaking of bread.

• First of all, the fact that they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread implies that in some way His actions were familiar to them.  Perhaps it's the way he prayed.  Some suggest that the very actions of taking, blessing, breaking, and giving bread recalled to their minds Jesus' miraculous feeding of the 5,000.  Others suggest that it evoked in their memory a much more recent event, when the disciples had gathered together with Christ to celebrate the Passover.  Regardless of what it was that triggered their memory, it seems to me that the existence of those memories is the key.  In other words, the disciples had spent a lot of time with Jesus in the past three years and despite their failure to recognize Him at first, it was those memories of their time shared together that eventually reminded them of who he was.  It begs the question, how much time do we spend with our Lord?  At some point in our lives we will all fail to recognize our Savior.  Do we share enough time with Jesus to ensure that even in our weaker moments, eventually our eyes will be opened to who he really is?  
• Each week when we gather at the table, we are reminded of the characteristics of Christ, of His very nature.  We are reminded that we serve a God who will give everything, who has given everything, to redeem us.  Not even His own body and blood are too steep a price for our reconciliation.  Some might argue that we diminish the power of the story if we tell if every week.  I understand their concern, but I would suggest that we don't celebrate Communion every week, rather we do it every seven days.  It may sound like six of one, half a dozen of the other, but I think how we approach our time at the table contributes to how meaningful that time is.  I like to compare the Lord's Supper and its spiritual necessity to water and its physical necessity.  Many see water as being a rather dull beverage.  Indeed, when I am just sitting around, I want something that tastes a lot better than water.  In those times, I am not looking for something to replenish me, I am looking for something that dazzles my taste-buds.  However, in those times when I am really working out (which isn't as easy as it used to be), nothing will do but water.  There were many a day in high school when all of us would gather around the water fountain after a long run or a tough track work-out.  We didn't want sweet tea (shocking I know), and we didn't want Coke.  Oh, those are good when all you want is something that tastes good, but I wanted something that would really quench my thirst, I wanted something life-giving.  If we find our time around the table dull is it because it is in fact dull, or is it because our lack of spiritual exercise has us looking for something that delights the taste-buds, and not something that replenishes the soul?  
• Finally, I think it's appropriate to note the disciples travel itinerary.  We find them at the beginning of the story leaving Jerusalem heading towards Emmaus.  And yet, after their encounter with the resurrected Christ their plans change, and by the end of the passage they are returning to Jerusalem.  An encounter with Jesus quite literally changed the direction of the disciples lives.  Little did they know that very soon God would unleash the Spirit on Jesus' disciples gathered in Jerusalem.  It is true that our change of direction will not be physical in nature, but it should be just as real.  When we encounter the risen Lord, does it change our plans, does it completely reshape the way we live our lives?  Or, after our experience with Jesus do we continue walking down the same road, in the same direction that we were headed all along?  

It amazes me all the ways that we can relate to a simple story about Jesus' disciples and their interaction with a Messiah who transforms death into life.  It was an event that led them to Jerusalem to fulfill their calling as the first messengers of the good news of Christ and His resurrection.  Do you recognize Jesus when you see Him, and if so, where is your encounter with Him leading you?

Luke 24:13-35: when Jesus is hard to recognize

I must admit that I struggled for some time trying to pick the right text for this past Sunday.  It is true that Easter helps narrow it down a little bit- something about the resurrection would be good.  But as ministers we are faced with a unique challenge when it comes to Easter and Christmas.  How do we bring an expected story in unexpected ways?  It was this struggle that led me to choose Luke 24:13-35 as the basis of my sermon.  It's a text about resurrection to be sure, but probably not the usual suspect when it comes to what the people are expecting to hear.  No empty tombs or angels arrayed in white here; simply a journey on a road leaving Jerusalem, with nothing but disappointment and disheartening experiences over our shoulders.
As I discussed my passage selection with another friend of mine in the ministry, he said something that confirmed my suspicion that perhaps there is something in this text that we as Christians need to hear, especially at Easter.  He said "most of us who have grown up in the church have had road to Emmaus experiences instead of road to Damascus experiences.  When we look back we see the Lord."  I think he's right.  There is something about this text that speaks to us because it reminds us that after the resurrection there is life to be lived, and work to be done. 
As the story goes, a pair of disciples are leaving Jerusalem after the events of the crucifixion and "rumored" resurrection.  During their journey to Emmaus the disciples fall in with a stranger, who unbeknownest to them, is actually Jesus.  In a bit of irony, the disciples express amazement at this strangers apparent ignorance of the recent days events, and they begin to actually recount to the risen Jesus all the things that have taken place in Jerusalem over the past week.  Their story is riddled with dejection, as they describe the high hopes that they had for their crucified master, even suggesting that he was the prophet like Moses that Israel had been waiting for, that he was the one who was to "redeem" Israel.  It seems to me that the disciples failure to understand God's working in the events that they describe is twofold.  First, they embrace the promise but not the pain of God's plan.  A brief glance at the career of Israel's prophets would show that while they brought words of hope (and sometimes judgment), they also paid a steep price to do so.  While it's easy for us to see their mistake, and perhaps even ask how they could be so blind, it isn't as easy to ask ourselves honestly whether we are guilty of making the same mistake ourselves.  Do we, like the disciples, embrace all of the promise but none of the pain that comes with following Christ?  The popularity of the "prosperity gospel" with so many Americans tells me that we do.  When we do embrace the blessings, all the while completely ignoring the pain that comes with discipleship, we only set ourselves up for crisis' of faith that loom on the horizon.  Make no mistake, ignoring pain does not abolish its existence as a reality in our world.  For that reason, we are better off to always remember that Jesus' call to take up our cross and follow him is a call composed of both promise and pain.  The difference, and this is the thing that makes the gospel the gospel, is that the promise will always outlive the pain. 
When I was a runner in high school, there was a saying that was popular in cross country circles.  The saying was "pain is temporary, pride is forever."  In other words, while it may hurt to push that extra little bit in practice, that pain will never outlast the pride of running faster than you have before (and hopefully faster than whoever you're racing that day).  I mention this because it leads us into the second mistake that the disciples made.  They associated Christ' crucifixion with permanent defeat, even seeming to give His death on the cross as the reason why he in fact would not be the one to redeem Israel.  There's that irony again.  The very thing that has led to the disciples deep depression over Jesus seeming failure to redeem Israel is in fact the very method by which Jesus would do just that.  Perhaps if I could borrow and edit the old phrase that was so popular when I was a runner, we could say that "the cross is temporary, but resurrection is forever."  Jesus sacrifice on the cross was an event fixed in time, and yet its salvific effects that find their expression in the resurrection are eternal.  We should note that the cross did have a major role to play in God's plan, and our instruction to take up our crosses and follow Christ ensures us that at some point we to will be made to suffer for our faith.  And yet, our pain will always be swallowed up in the victory that is Christ's resurrection. 
I can't really blame the disciples for not recognizing Jesus.  Never in their wildest dreams did they imagine that they would be following a crucificed Lord.  The question for contempory Christians is do others recognize in us their crucified Lord?  Do they see through our actions a God whose love is demonstrated in sacrifice?  Like the disciples who came before them it might not be what they are expecting, but I guarantee you it's what they need. 

Ephesians 2:1-10: the biggest "but" in history...

Scandalous title huh?  Hopefully you noticed that there is only one "t" in the but. 
There are two things that I think are very relevant for contemporary Christians in the first part of Ephesians 2.  The first, is the honesty with which Paul addresses the Ephesians.  There is no sugar-coating the past of the Ephesians on Paul's part. 
He gives it to them straight: "And YOU were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-" (Ephesians 2:1-2)  I doubt any of the Christians in Ephesus cared to be reminded of their sordid past, and yet, Paul underlines their sinful past so that his teaching on grace to really sink in.  It would be hard for any of them to stake a claim as being righteousness of their own accord after Paul's dredging up of their not-so-righteous past.  Sadly, too many of us stop there in forming our own approach towards others, particularly others with checkered pasts.  We use Paul as our blueprint in forming our attitudes, without taking the time to read all of what Paul has to say.  All we need to do is read the very next verse and we will see that Paul's attitude is actually one of empathy, rather than judgment.  "Among whom WE ALL once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind."  (Ephesians 2:3)  As I was driving back from visiting someone in the hospital in Pineville today-shocking, but the metropolis of Glenmora doesn't have a hospital- I was flipping through the radio stations looking for something to listen to on the way home.  I came across what sounded like a sermon, so I stopped.  Normally I flip right on through anything that sounds like a radio sermon, because so many of them sound angry and belligerent.  However, for some reason this time I stopped to listen for a minute, and I am glad I did.  The preacher (not sure who he was) was talking about what it means for Christians to be meek, and he said something I thought was really insightful.  He said, "evangelism is not about someone who knows a lot teaching someone who knows little or nothing at all, rather it's one beggar telling another where he can find bread."  What a great way of describing our calling as Christians.  We are all beggars in this world when it comes to our need for grace.  When we remember that, when we recall the hunger pains we once felt deep in our soul when we walked according to "the course of this world", how can we not but share with others where the bread of life can be found?

Now to that huge "but" I referred to earlier, which is the second thing that is extremely cogent for contemporary Christians.  Paul spends the first three verses of Ephesians 2 painting a crystal clear picture as to our own righteousness.  It doesn't exist, at least not when we are left to our own devices.  Here is where that "but" comes in, and it's a huge one.  You see, normally we associate the word "but" with bad news.  Sometimes it comes in the context of a relationship; "I have a great time when I am with you, but I think we should just be friends."  (Not that I have ever heard that one before)  Sometimes we hear it in the workplace; "we appreciate the work you've done for us, but the company is going through a tough time economically, and we are going to have to let some people go..."  Or perhaps the scariest of all scenarios; "we ran all the tests and everything looked good, but then we found a spot..."  When we get to verse four of Ephesians 2, Paul gives us the good news we have been waiting for using a word that we have become accustomed to associating with bad news: "BUT God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2:4-6)  I think that's just the way it should be written, an appropriate way of relating in writing what God does in our world.  He takes things, including people, that we have become accustomed to viewing in a negative way and injects them with new life, and a new image.  As Paul goes on to say, it's all because we are now "alive together with Christ."  Through God's grace our fates have been tied together with that of Christ, and that can only mean one thing, resurrection.  The Son of God was once dead, as were we all; but now he lives, and because of that we have life through Him. 
It's amazing how big one little "but" can be...

            

Ephesians 1:15-21: Paul's Prayer for the Ephesians

As a began preparing for my first sermon at a new church, I didn't have to think long before I knew where I had to start.  In writing to the Christians at Ephesus Paul addresses not only the church as a body, but also the individual disciples that together form that body.  Specifically, Paul is interested in seeing that they embrace the promises rooted in the present that come with Christ's resurrection.  In his prayer for the Ephesian church, Paul specifically asks that they "know the immeasureable greatness of His power toward us, that He worked in Christ Jesus when he raised him from the dead." (italics mine)  It's easy to miss at first, but when we slow down and actually digest what Paul is saying here we are struck with the immensity of God's grace.  A grace bound up not only in some future hope of eternal life, but also in the ability to experience Christ's resurrection in the present, as God disentangles us from our past life of sin and death.  Indeed, I would go so far as to say that if we think that resurrection is only about eternal life, then we have missed the point entirely.  Resurrection is about being alive to to God, which in turn launches us into a relationship rooted in eternity.  Living eternally without God, without the hope of redemption and unconditional love, is no life at all.  I guess the point I am trying to make is that this passage has helped me to see that the resurrected life, the life we are promised through Christ, as everything to do with quality of life rather than the quantity of our years.  Only the years illuminated by God's presence are worth enjoying in perpetuity.      
When the understand the power that resurrection has not only for our future, but also for our present, it is easy to understand why Paul prayed so fervently for the Ephesians to embrace that reality in their lives.  While Paul's prayer was grounded in the historical context of the New Testament church, its power to shape and inspire us is not limited to the 1st century.  In fact, in some sense Paul's prayer will only be answered if we, almost two-thousand years later, lift up the same petition, our words prompted by a longing for Christ and the power of His resurrection to invigorate our churches once again. 

"May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, give us a spirt of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. 
May He enlighten the eyes of our heart, that we may know the hope to which we have been called, that we may know the riches of our glorious inheritence in the saints, and what is the immeasureable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might that He worked in Christ Jesus when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.
Amen"