Easter 2020 Message
Luke 24: 13-35
Keep Walking
Walking is good for you. Walking is one of those things that people have been doing for ages. It is part of our very identity. Our first steps is a momentous occasion and our last ones the source of sadness. Walking used to be our main mode of transport and people are now rediscovering it as a healthy and eco friendly way of getting from point A to point B. I don’t know about you but the fact that I could go on hikes was one of the saving graces in this season of lock-down.
I once watched a program about an American family who went and lived with a primitive Kenyan tribe. As they moved along adapting to their strange lifestyle, their children had trouble adjusting. They threw temper tantrums regularly. An elder of the village would then take the child and go on a long hike. The child would return with the elder after some time all calm and collected. The parents on their return to the United States, decided to keep using this technique and did so with great success.
At the time I had many people coming in to see me for pastoral counseling. I found that when I sit at the other side of a desk facing them, some find it difficult to open up. They would even remark that it reminds them of being called into the principle’s office as children. I then decided to rather sit next to them on a chair than opposite them but one day I took it a step further and went on hikes with people. That worked even better. I think the fact that you are moving forward and looking ahead with a guide alongside rather than a sage on stage reminding you that you haven’t arrived yet, helps one to open up.
And maybe this is why one of my favourite images when I think of Jesus, is a picture of Jesus walking alongside people, opening up their hearts as he does so. If you are looking for a story to feed this kind of imagery in your imagination, there is no better one than the one of the Walk to Emmaus in Luke 24.
Here is Jesus, not just ordinary Jesus but I’ve-been-to-hell-and-back-and-defeated-death Jesus, all-authority-on-heaven-and-on-earth-have-been-given-to-me-Jesus and what does He choose to do? Do a power parade like the Roman generals used to do after a battle? No. Bathe Himself in luxuries and adoration? No. Argue with religious leaders? No. He choose to walk alongside two people who were so ordinary that Luke didn’t even think to tell us both of their names and the other gospel writers left them out altogether. When do people feel the need to give a display of their merit and power? When they feel its being contested. Why do you answer any phone a two-year-old hands you? Because you are not threatened by the two-year-old, you want to use your power by not using it and to lovingly empower the child. This is who we see in action in this passage…a risen Jesus who knows His power is uncontested and that there is no need to scare people with it.
So, when the people on their way to Emmaus asks him if he is the only stranger in Jerusalem and if He didn’t hear about the things, He took the telephone and plainly and simple asks: “What things?”. Boy, can this conversation teach us helpful things about the risen Christ and how He works with us?
The risen Lord likes to give us questions before he gives answers
Jesus doesn’t start his contact with Cleopas and his partner with a statement, a correction or a rebuke. He starts it with a question. He follows it up with another question: “What things?”. Then they go on and on, expressing all their hopes and disappointment and then after a short rebuke Jesus in verse 26 asks yet another question. Only after that he moved into statements.
We tend to think about Jesus as Someone that gives us answers. Maybe we should start to think about the resurrected Christ, not only as Someone that gives answers (he does that) but also as someone that teaches us what questions to live with. See these people were walking about with the wrong question occupying their mind. The question was: What do we do now? How could this happen? And Jesus stepped into their lives and changed the questions they were preoccupied with be introducing new ones like how should we frame what happened here? How is hope still alive?
How would you know you are maturing in your relationship with Jesus and increase in your understanding of Him? You will begin to ask new questions. Where you once asked: What can I get?, you now may ask: “What do I have to give?”. Where you once asked: “what now?” you begin to ask: “What can I do to help?” Difficult times, especially unforeseen ones seems to be the season in which Jesus sows new questions in our lives.
I want you to ask yourself this: What questions are driving my life? And “what new questions could I approach life with?” You know it was proven that people’s problem solving skills actually increased when they formulated problems as questions. It had a way to kickstart their brains and even subconsciously set in motion problem solving thinking. Instead of stating: My kids are out of control!?ask : What can I do to discipline more effectively?”. Instead of crying out: “I have lost my job!” ask “What new opportunities might arise for me from this?”. Instead of saying to yourself: I am losing my faith! Ask: “How can I discover new dimensions in my relationship with God?”
And then, we all have people close to are hearts that are far from the Lord. People we would love to come to faith or at the very least people we do not want to scare away further from faith. We want to bring them truth. Maybe questions rather than statements are the most effective way to do it. Jesus used it with these people on their way to Emmaus, ready to give up on their faith. I think I have said it before, but it is much better to ask your atheist in what God he or she does not believe in than to tell them their wrong. It is much better to ask somebody what do they like about the Bible than to state that the Bible is the infallible Word of God to someone who feel that he cannot believe that.
Make this time a fertile ground for God to plant questions in your life. Questions to ask yourself and questions to ask others. Asking good questions is very important for our well-being and the resurrected Jesus seems to know the very best ones.
The risen Lord likes to warm up hearts before he opens eyes
It is notable that when these people reflect on their initial encounter with Jesus, they do not say that they were impressed or afraid or even that they felt enlightened. They say: “Were our hearts not warmed when He spoke with us?” Jesus opens eyes by warming hearts first. What warms hearts? Hope. What gives hope? Resurrection gives hope. Look at people’s faces when they see a classic car restored or a cancer survivor telling her story or a former drug addict giving his testimony. What will you see in people’s eyes? You will see resurrection hope. Those people will go home and look at the realities in their lives in a new hopeful way.
We often want it the other way around. We want people to open their eyes and educate their minds before everything else can happen. Jesus shows us that that is not the correct order. We should be constantly asking ourselves how we can warm hearts. Followers of Jesus is in the heart heating and hope giving business.
How wonderful it was to partner with not only SUMS and Cove but also with the City of Surrey and people from all kinds of backgrounds to warm hearts with food. Isn’t it interesting that these people’s eyes made the connection with their hearts when they shared a meal with Jesus? In Revelation its says:
“If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they will be with me”
In Matthew Jesus says to people: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat” teaching us that when we attend to the needs of those less fortunate, when we share our food, we are in actual fact dining with Jesus. Every high school kid in North America will tell you that at school, you become, you take on the identity of those you eat with. That is why it’s such a terrifying choice for most teenagers when they dished up in the cafeteria. Isn’t it wonderful to think that Jesus shows us in this passage that we have a place at the table with a heart warming, eye opening and transformative Lord? Because we get to eat with Him, our hearts are warmed, our eyes are opened and we become like Him. Remember that this table you have a seat at is big and that there is more than enough for everybody. When the Emmaus travellers got up from that table, they went and invited others to the feast and so should we!
The risen Lord is on the move and no one can contain Him
As ordinarily as Jesus joined them, so supernaturally He disappears from their sight. He let them invite Him in, He allowed them to talk to Him and dine with Him but He did not allow them to contain and control Him. The resurrected Jesus’s body does not have the limits His pre-resurrection body was subject to. The resurrected Jesus is an unrestricted, uncontainable and on the move Jesus.
But the reaction to this was not sadness, it was a missional response. These people wanted to witness to His resurrection straight away. As they were walking to Emmaus they were walking towards where the sun was setting. Now, they turned around and headed back in the direction to where the sun was rising. That is what an unrestricted resurrected Jesus does. He turns lives around. He redirects us. They thought they were at a graveside and a dead end. Jesus showed them that they are not at a tomb but at a womb, witnessing the birth of a new creation. They were not at a dead end because Jesus turned it into a new beginning. Especially during Covid season, this is still the hope we carry. People cry that the end of life as we know it is here. Christians whisper that the beginning of something new has arrived. People say the economy is over. Christians believe that God still provides for his children.
Jesus is not restricted by Covids and lockdowns. He defeated death and transformed the tomb into a womb.
Close
A professor in probability theory once took all the facts surrounding the resurrection and estimated the probability of Jesus being resurrected from the dead. If I remember correctly, he estimated it at more than 99 percent. Pretty convincing!
But what convince me even more is not what happen long ago, the empty grave and the rapid growth of the movement we call church. What convince me is not that Jesus has risen from a grave long ago but that He still rise from the ashes of peoples lives and the stones their hearts has become. What convinces me is you sitting here in this difficult time, holding on to Jesus. Like the Emmaus travelers you testify that Jesus is not only risen but is still alive today.
Keep walking. Jesus is walking with you
Amen