Third Sunday of Easter

April 6, 2008

Sermon by Pastor John Marboe

The Holy Gospel according to Luke. (Luke 24:13-35)

Now on that same day two of them [that is, Jesus’ disciples] were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then 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?” He 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, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But 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. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and 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. Some 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.” Then Jesus said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They 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?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made know to them in the breaking of the bread.

The Gospel of the Lord.

At first glance, this appears a playful tale, a playful tale. Jesus enters the journey of the two disciples as they trudge along in discouragement on their way to Emmaus. But Jesus appears incognito. They see him and talk to him, but they don’t recognize who he is and he plays along with that. At first glance, it seems a playful tale. Jesus pulled a Columbo on them. Do you remember the television series, Columbo? Colombo was played by Peter Falk, who was an unlikely homicide detective. His appearance was deliberately deceiving. He wore a rumpled coat, smoked a cheap cigar, and acted both absentminded and simple. He would bumble around, ask dumb questions, and pretend to be a huge admirer of the suspect, so that their guard would come down, and pretty soon they would let out the crucial evidence that he would use to catch them in their lies.

Jesus sort of pulled a Columbo here, not letting on to the disciples who he really was. The disciples are sad, very sad. Jesus inquires what are they talking about? They are amazed, and they say, “Are you the only stranger in all of Jerusalem who hasn’t heard?” He says, “About what?” “About Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in word and deed. But our chief priests and our leaders handed him over to the authorities, who put him to death.” They tell the whole story to this stranger. Listen to the disappointment in their voices as they do. They say at one point, “But we had hoped; we had hoped that he was the one.” “We had hoped.” “Moreover,” they say, “some women in our group went to the tomb and found it empty, and they came back telling that they had seen a vision of angels who said Jesus was alive. Hah.” At this point, Jesus becomes incensed with them—perhaps because they were so dismissive of the women and their testimony--but at any rate, he says, “You fools! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have written.” He proceeds to relate his interpretation of the scripture to them, how it showed the Messiah must suffer and die to enter into his glory.

Now, you would think at this point the disciples might be putting two and two together. But no, they still don’t recognize him. It’s late in the day and they’re about to turn in to their own place. They invite him to stay; he does. And at the meal, at the gathering around the table, at the breaking of the bread, it says, “Their eyes are opened.” And then—poof—he vanishes from their sight. They sit there, scratching their heads, saying, “Did you not notice something while he was talking to us on the road?” “Were not our hearts burning within us?”

It seems a playful tale, and I believe it is told somewhat playfully. But there are one or two serious themes in it. We need to remember that this is no longer simply the earthly Jesus that we are reading about. This is a story about Jesus after his death and resurrection. And apparently, apparently, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, he is no longer so straightforwardly recognizable. I think this is a very, very important point. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, he is no longer quite so straightforwardly recognizable. If you had asked those disciples, “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?” they would have said, “Well, yes, certainly. We know him.” But when Jesus actually becomes present to them, they do not recognize him.

Let’s recall some of the things that Jesus said. He said at one point to the chief priests, to the elders, and to the religious people in general, “The tax collectors, the prostitutes, and the sinners will enter the kingdom before you will.” Have you ever stopped to think just how subversive and revolutionary this saying is?

Jesus was constantly attacking appearances, undermining them. He would say at one point, “The religious people make a show of their piety,” he would say, “but their hearts are like a graveyard inside.” In matters of religion and religiosity, things are not as they appear. The way things appear is not necessarily the truth.

Some years ago, I went to my 20-year high school class reunion. One of the people who came was an old friend of mine who, when he was in high school, was a Roman Catholic, but since then he had converted and now had become quite an enthusiastic evangelical minister. And he was working the room. He was going to all of our classmates, everyone that he could talk to, and he would put this question to them, he would say: “Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” Well, being that it was a room full of Minnesotans, people tried to be polite, but word spread about him and people started avoiding him. But one person there did not try avoid him, another friend of mine, a woman who is full of pluck. She too had been a Roman Catholic but now just wasn’t so sure what she believed anymore. And as he engaged her, it came to this question, “Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” She looked at him and said, “No.” He was stymied. No one answers that plainly. He did not know what to say. She, on the other hand, turned and walked away. Now, I ask you, given what you know about the kinds of people Jesus preferred to be with, which of these people do you think Jesus would prefer?

It’s no sin to be uncertain. Certainty is the enemy of real faith. In that favorite old hymn of ours, Amazing Grace, there is a line that says:

“I once was lost but now I’m found,

Was blind, but now I see.”

There is a blindness more serious than the blindness of sin. It is the blindness of righteousness. When it comes to religion, appearances are usually deceiving. Martin Luther once said,

“They who shake their fist in anger at God

are closer to the kingdom than the pious in the pew.”

Those who claim to know Jesus the loudest likely wouldn’t recognize him if he was talking to them. The two disciples, who indeed would have said they knew Jesus, neither recognized him nor understood him on that road.

This is a passage not only about recognition, but it’s also a passage about disappointment, deep, dark, desperate disappointment. These disciples had given themselves fully to the cause. They had thrown their lot in with Jesus, and it didn’t work out the way they had expected. Their friend and teacher was dead. It looks like they were on the road to Emmaus in order to just go home. They were done, deflated, defeated, depressed.

It bothers me that in our culture we tend to regard depression as simply an illness. Sometimes, not always but sometimes, I think it’s a sign of health. It may mean that a person is actually alive to suffering, paying attention to injustice, feeling the loss that is real. I like more colorful language around depression. Some people call it ”The Blues”; and they sing it. In that culture, the blues are connected with wisdom and not illness. Sometimes depression needs treatment, but sometimes there is just a lot to be depressed about.

The two disciples on the road were depressed; they were heavy of heart. Listen, “We had hoped.” “We had hoped.” What about when hope departs us, what then? Well, these two are given a glimpse, just a glimpse of something new, something else. It doesn’t altogether cancel out their sadness. Jesus arisen is now a completion of the story. Think about it. Jesus appeared to them, but the powers, the people that had killed Jesus, were still in place. They had no idea what all this is going to mean. The world was still just as nasty a place as it was before. But now they’ve caught a glimpse of something else, something beautiful, something redemptive, something true, something marvelous—Jesus was not simply dead and gone.

This last week we observed the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. When he was assassinated, my heart did not break—I was too young to know what was going on—but maybe yours did. Or, maybe, like John McCain so humbly admitted this week, you had not yet learned to care. But on the radio they have been playing a certain portion of a speech, and in it is a line that is so moving, and it shows that he had the spirit of his namesake, Martin Luther, where he said, “I know that I’m a sinner, but I want to be a good man.” “I know that I’m a sinner, but I want to be a good man.” In the midst of his cause, he was aware that he was a sinner in need of grace.

It was only after his death that I was able to recognize the importance of this man and his cause. For many, it was only after his death that they had a change of heart and have come to realize the worth of his words. Death and new life. This is how life proceeds. It is the way God works in the world.

Death and new life. This story of Jesus’ appearance on the road to Emmaus has to do with what we recognize and when. It’s a glimpse of something else beyond hopelessness and tragedy. Resurrection doesn’t cancel the death. Hope does not cancel shattered hope; it just completes the picture. Jesus is dead and alive. Life and death coexist. Neither wins. We are given to live with both.

This world that God so dearly loves is both death and life. When death is overwhelming for us, God comes gently, maybe incognito, to say, “There is something yet beyond this. There will be new life again.” It may only be a glimpse, but that’s enough.

Amen.