SERMON—New life beyond the cross-roads
The ‘Church of all nations’ is located next to the Garden of Gethsemane. Inside is a section of bedrock on which it is believed Jesus prayed before his arrest. At the entrance a sign warns: ‘no explanations inside the church’. This was intended to discourage talkative tour guides and visitors from giving explanations about the Christian faith, disrupting the sense of occasion and wonder.
As we gather on Easter Sunday again, that sign makes a profound point for us too. The tendency is to view Easter as a commemorative anniversary that comes around once a year, to explain something that happened 2000 years ago. But the primary purpose for us gathering today is not to recall the story we have heard over and over again…but to meet the resurrected Christ, like the people of old.
It is interesting that in his ministry before his death, Jesus often withdrew by himself to pray. After his resurrection, he always appears with others. Perhaps the most moving occasion is the encounter Cleopas and another disciple have with Jesus on the road to Emmaus. The two disciples are in deep grief and confusion as they discuss what had been done to Jesus. They had such high hopes, but now they are in despair.
Last week I visited someone with significant health challenges. They felt like God was far away—far away from the world and far away from them. As we talked, they shared how they had come to faith, but their family were unbelievers, not being able to make sense of how a good God could be in the world with such horrific evil throughout history. They told me that they were now struggling with that same thought as they longed for their last day to come and be freed from their own frailty and suffering.
The timing of this conversation was incredible, given that it was so close to Easter. Because only Easter makes sense of a good God in an evil world. What God originally created as good and beautiful, human beings plunged into corruption, powered by hearts which are no longer set on God and his ways but in active opposition to him. So Jesus came from heaven to our broken earth and broken humanity, to humble himself, from the moment of conception wearing the same frail flesh as us, growing as an embryo in his mother Mary’s womb, born in the midst of mess in a stable because there was no room for Jesus—no room in the inn, no room for him in people’s hearts. But he ministered to people, he explained the scriptures to them, he showed the authority and power of God in freeing people from death and demons, healing, feeding, freeing, welcoming…bringing people to faith in him, that he might be the way to the Father for them.
Jesus humbled himself to the point of death even death on a Cross, to take away the sin of the world. On the Cross he conquered death by his death and made a public spectacle of the demonic realm. Because of the Cross there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. Then the risen Christ revealed himself to people walking in darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it, as he brings new life beyond the Cross-roads.
On my visit, we listened to Jesus talking with the two disciples on the Emmaus Road. Even though they did not recognise Jesus, Jesus drew near to them and walked alongside them. It was Jesus who took the initiative to enter their experience, to step into their world, and begin a conversation with them. He asked them: “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” Then he, who had taught with such authority in the synagogue in his hometown, explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. And after they reached the village in the shadows of the approaching evening, Jesus was at the table with them, took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them—then their eyes were opened and they recognised him, before he disappeared from their sight.
In the beginning, when the first people sinned, their eyes were opened, and they realised they were naked. For the first time, guilt, shame, and fear pierced God’s good creation. They made coverings from themselves and tried to hide from God. Now Jesus opens the eyes of the disciples to see that in Christ, God has turned back to humanity. Jesus is the gift from the Father who has washed away sin and guilt, covers shame with his own grace and is present as the risen Giver of peace. He shows himself to them as the One in whom divine mercy, favour and love is wrapped up in risen flesh and bone, body and blood.
Then he disappears from their sight.
Notice Luke doesn’t say that Jesus disappeared from them—but he disappeared from their sight. In the home I visited, we talked about that. We can’t see Jesus, only the problems of life, only a world trashing itself, only our own sin, brokenness, weakness, dying and death. Jesus may not appear to our sight…but he has not disappeared from his people. He has not absented himself from us, forsaken us, or abandoned the world.
God walks with his people even when we don’t recognise him, even when we can’t see him. He comes to us in his word, unfolding the scriptures to us. He first came to us by water and the word, where we were washed and made a new creation as God joined us to the death and resurrection of Jesus. And whether it is at a kitchen table, or hospital bedside, or here in the sanctuary, Jesus gives us bread and wine so that as we eat and drink his body and blood we are fed with eternal food—grace, favour, mercy and salvation from heaven, so that as we eat trusting in Jesus’ words we receive these blessings. In this holy meal we abide in him and he in us, as the evening falls, before the dawning of a bright new day at the end of time.
Easter, then, isn’t only a past event we recollect. It’s something we live and breathe, as the risen, living Christ meets us and transforms us with new life beyond the Cross-roads, in grace and truth.
A few days ago, I heard that the person I visited embraced the next morning with a completely different outlook. They have renewed hope and strength. They realise God is with them. They know he will never leave them. That’s not because of what I said or did, it’s because of what the risen Jesus said and did. Those little ‘aha’ moments, those times where we are able to piece together parts of the bible and see how they are woven together, those insights we see about God and ourselves…that is Jesus at work, explaining the scriptures to us as he walks beside us, and stays with us…and gives us new strength, new hope, new life.
Jesus is absent from our sight, but he is not absent from us. Through his word he calls us back to our baptism, so each day our sinful selves might die by the power of the Holy Spirit, and a new self arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever. Through the scriptures he walks with us, so that like the two disciples, we too might move from despair to hope, from confusion to clarity, and from blindness to sight. He is your unseen guest, who stays with you, overfilling your cup with his new life, bringing peace from heaven to you to be shared with others, even as we did again this morning.
As we follow Jesus on our Emmaus Road to our heavenly homeland, may we rejoice that we walk with him who has says: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). May this promise cause our hearts to burn within us, before we finally see the risen Jesus who has been with us all along—and share in the fulness of his glory with all the other saints, and the angels forever. Amen.
