GPC Sermons

"For Those Who Missed Easter"
Luke 24:13-35
Sunday, April 15, 2007
The Reverend Dr. Deborah K. Meinke


            Holidays can be the most miserable of days for some people.  There are all kinds of reasons why some people would like to crawl into a hole (a tomb), stay in bed with the covers pulled up tight, and wait till the celebrating is over.  Christmas gets top billing as the most dreaded holiday, but surely Easter would be another tough time, especially for Christians who are feeling God's absence acutely, hurting and doubting.  


            "Were you there when he rose up from the grave?" goes the last verse of the old spiritual "Were you there?"  We sang this hymn to close our Maundy Thursday service, in anticipation of Easter Sunday.  Of course, the final answer is that no one was there to witness the resurrection personally, and instead, there were varying responses and interpretations given to the discovery of the empty tomb on Easter and beyond.  When we delve into the Bible's resurrection stories, we find that some hearers exploded with joy, but some who were right there in the heart of Jerusalem, missed the Easter good news.  Missing out were all of the named male disciples, for example, as Luke wrote that they did not believe the women's breathless announcement – words that seemed "an idle tale to them." (Luke 24: 11)
 

            What about you?  Did you miss Easter this year for whatever reason?  This is not a question about your presence here in church or checking up to see whether you attended another church out of town and certainly not an inquiry into whether you cooked the traditional ham, dyed the eggs and hid them out in the yard for the grandkids.  My question has to do with whether or not you felt the good news of resurrection stirring in you.  Just like some of the puzzled "in-group" of disciples, we could have been right here in church, the center of our religious world, and still missed Easter.  Maybe hearing the choir's lovely anthem did not touch your heart.  Maybe the triumph of God's "yes!" seemed foreign to you.  Maybe Easter rose up in you in church, but somewhere on the way to Monday, you lost the joy.  This sermon then is for you who missed Easter this year.  If Easter Sunday was a brilliant revelation for you, and you experienced the resurrection in a new and different way, that is terrific news.  Keep up your resurrection joy and witness, carry it for the rest who are still waiting to hear the Easter message. 


            So this morning we turn to the pair of disciples walking the road to Emmaus to seek more truths about the Easter news.  Their story is the second installment of Luke's long Easter day remembrances, and as the story unfolds, we learn that these disciples indeed missed Easter in Jerusalem.  They had stayed through Jesus' death, had been present with the others during the grief-filled Sabbath.  They even heard the empty tomb story, but it did not make enough of an impression to roll back their grief.  Perhaps they thought his body had been stolen or moved.  These two were trying to put some distance between themselves and Jerusalem, to clearer country air, where their heads might clear.  Even out of the claustrophobic city, far from forgetting, Cleopas and his companion (perhaps his wife) were going over and over the happenings they had seen and the stories they had heard.  The memories were so vivid that, like a lot of the grief-stricken they turned inward at this stress-filled time.  They could not imagine how anyone, like this stranger who materialized suddenly at their side, could have missed Jesus' crucifixion and death, Consequently, how could they convey to the stranger how completely they had invested their hope for freedom through Jesus, yet how unbelievable the news sounded that he was alive.  They were not looking for Jesus to be there beside them, just as Mary Magdalene in John's gospel, did not see Jesus before her, she saw the gardener who might know where Jesus' body had been taken.  And Peter and Co. who go back to their previous occupation of fishing for fish, not people, were not looking for Jesus to be present on the lakeshore, grilling breakfast, to welcome his friends from their all-night fishing expedition.
 

            But the good news is that Jesus the Christ understands those who missed out on Easter.  Cleopas and Co. are not left to their own devices, wandering aimlessly.  Instead Christ meets them (and us) wherever we are on the road and he offers himself.  He does not offer the greetings of angels or dazzle them with a crown of glory.  Our incognito Jesus slips up behind the travelers without drama.  He appears beside them on the road in dusty robe and sandals and enters their conversation.  Entering the depths of their discouragement – "we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel" - he places their fragments of memories into the context of Moses and the prophets, into the traditions of Israel and her rocky road traveled with God.  Pieces of story formed into a lovely mosaic like those Dave and I saw in Florence, Italy.  The story that had become their story had life and beauty breathed into it again by the stranger Jesus.  Even then they did not recognize him.  The good news is that Christ appears and waits to be invited and he participates in our ordinary lives while he waits for us to see him.  He understands the confusion and despair of shattered dreams.   He comes to us when we are plunged into chaos and conflict.  He prays for all of the anxious ones who have no words left for prayer.  Jesus the Christ understands those of us who missed Easter and he does not keep his distance waiting for us to catch on, but he comes to us where we are, the hospital, the classroom, the office, the basketball court.


On our trip home from Florence, I chatted briefly with the young woman seated next to me, before she zoned out in a Dramamine-induced sleep.  She had been to the Holy Land, which had been a life-changing pilgrimage, giving her Christian faith a whole new luster.  Now, I, like the majority of Christians, have never taken one of those grand tours following Jesus' footsteps through the Holy Land, especially the trek through the Passion Week destinations.  During different historical periods, Christians have embraced pilgrimages as ways of demonstrating faith or doing penance, by traveling the ways of saints or of Christ.   At other times (e.g., the Protestant Reformation), the church has been skeptical of the value of such travels, and has discouraged this devotional practice.  A pilgrimage can be useful for deepening one's faith and experiencing historic traditions.  But woe unto those who use the privilege of pilgrimage as a tool to exclude or as a measuring stick of one's faith, so that those who have not been on the trip feel disqualified from believing what they have not seen for themselves.  Such eyewitness-type experiences are never the central element in Christian faith.


            So Christ understands and appears in all circumstances, regardless of our preparedness, maybe it is even more likely that Christ will appear when we are least prepared.  The pair of disciples reach their Emmaus destination; and Jesus moves on ahead, but they extend a hospitable invitation to be safe and fed for the night.  Though preoccupied with their own grief, they remember that most important of Israel's traditions - of offering hospitality to strangers in their midst, so those strangers are not traveling at night on dangerous roads far from home.  Like Abraham entertaining angels (God) unaware, Cleopas and his companion reveal their faithfulness to this long tradition of hospitality.  This long tradition of hospitality climaxes in Jesus' life and ministry and becomes the tradition of hospitality that we declare to be sacred in Holy Communion. 


Jesus the Christ sits at their table as guest and upon taking the bread in hand, he becomes the host who "took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them." In these simple, sacred actions, "their eyes were opened and they recognized him." I expect that at that very moment, their lips moved with the words from the Lord's Supper "This is my body, which is given for you."  An ordinary evening meal shared among friends and strangers apparently has the characteristics of the Eucharist, of Communion.  So, even for those who missed Easter, Jesus Christ can come to be a living breathing reality.  The good news then is that Easter may not come at the same time or in the same way for all of us.
 

And our experiences of the risen Christ help us to understand our own lives and encourage us to live as Jesus would live.  "The Bible bears witness to a consistent correlation between meeting Christ and achieving a measure of self-understanding," says Rev. Welton Gaddy, President of the Interfaith Alliance.[1] This self-understanding came to the pair at Emmaus, and in that instant of clarity, they also knew that they were seeing their Lord, the risen Christ.  The whole dinner event that climaxed in Jesus' breaking bread and their recognition of him finally showed their own faithfulness, their deep understanding of hospitality even in circumstances when they might have been suspicious and rejecting of a stranger.  Thus, they could remember and look forward to their new Christian community of hospitality as they rushed back to Jerusalem to share the news.

 

It may seem odd that Jesus vanished as quickly as they recognized him.  But this appearance is not meant as a demonstration of Jesus' special resurrection powers.  Instead, the brevity expresses our reality that the risen Christ seen in our earthly lives is fleeting.  He is both the hidden and the revealed one of God.  So our after-Easter experience is not one long unbroken alleluia, but still filled with the ups and downs of our daily lives.  Christ is hidden there always, and sometimes uncovered in a flash of recognition – a meal shared, a bear hug of silent caring, a helpful or a needy stranger at the door.


            Our Easter season spans 50 days until Pentecost, when we celebrate the church's official birthday.  Maybe this morning Easter will come for you, maybe it will take longer.  Maybe, you will be surprised by the Easter good news of resurrection life somewhere on the road, outside these protective walls.  I pray that you will listen still for God's great "Yes!" to come to you and that you will meet the risen Christ and accept his call to travel on, to break bread, and to live his way.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 


[1] ÒFor Those Who Missed Easter,Ó sermon by Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, April 2, 2005. I have borrowed my own modified sermon title from this piece by Rev. C. Welton Gaddy.