Sermon 3 Easter A - April 6, 2008

3 Easter A - 6 April 2008
Acts 2:14a, 36-41; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35
James V. Stockton

“Madame,” I said; “if our God were a pagan god, or the god of the intellectuals – and form it comes to much the same – He might fly to His remotest heaven and our grief would force Him down again.” So reads The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos. It’s not a real diary, but a work of fiction. A lonely parish priest is ministering faithfully to his congregation and the town around them.

He is speaking at this point to Mme. la Comtesse, trying to comfort her; she is mourning the death of her young son. She believes herself angry at God, and certainly she has the right to characterize her feelings in the way she chooses. But the priest suggests an alternative. Her feelings are strong, yes. But “You [don’t] hate Him,” says the priest of Madame’s feelings toward God. Hate is indifference and contempt. Now at last you’re face to face with Him.” Whatever she feels toward God, she is hardly indifferent. She is passionate about it. And in this, so the priest believes, is sign of a hope that she has hope, a passionate hope, for something greater than the death that has claimed her son and claimed, as well, her faith in God.

If it’s difficult to remember, that’s all right; it is, after all, the third Sunday of Easter. We’ve been celebrating now for two weeks now God’s raising up of Jesus from the dead. But today the gospel reminds us of those first days before the first disciples ever know that there is something to celebrate. These travelers from Jerusalem on the road to a small town called Emmaus are mourning the death of a loved one. And maybe they know it, maybe they don’t, but either way: they also mourn the near-death of their ability to trust in God. It’s been three days since Jesus was crucified, and yet here are these two still talking about it.

‘He was a prophet mighty in what he did and in what he said,’ they tell each other. ‘We were hoping he was the one sent from God to set everything right again,’ they tell each other. ‘But somehow we must have been wrong. Our leaders didn’t see what we thought we saw. They didn’t hear what we thought we heard. They didn’t believe for a minute that Jesus was the one; of did they?!.’ They must have repeated it over and over in their minds by now; they must have repeated the story to one another many times over by now; but here they are still still trying to process it, trying to understand it, trying to make some sense of how they could have been so very wrong about Jesus. Hour after hour, day after day, these two, and probably every one of Jesus’ followers, are going over it. ‘What really happened? How did we get it this wrong? What did we miss?’

And literally what they miss is Jesus. I don’t mean that they miss him in the sense that he is gone and they are nostalgic for him and are feeling acutely the loss of his presence among them. Surely, this is true. But quite literally, the disciples miss Jesus. Right here, right now, he is with them. The irony is almost too much; even to these two disciples of Jesus, Jesus remains a stranger.

There are theories about how this is possible; people speculate. Perhaps there is something inherent to the resurrected body that causes Jesus’ appearance to be dramatically different from what he looked like before being raised. Maybe now that the resurrection has taken place, Jesus is using heavenly powers to cloud their senses. God has already won the victory, so, to do so now does not compromise the gift or the efficacy of the incarnation. But surely at least part of the reason that they don’t recognize Jesus standing beside them is that they do not expect to. The faith that tomorrow shall be better for the presence of God with them today has lain still for three endless days now. Their hope has died on the cross with Jesus. Their trust in God’s hand at work in the world around them has been buried with their Lord.

And so they miss him. And this is their problem. It’s the problem, I suggest, that remains from their age into our own. Too many people still are missing out: still missing out on the presence of God, still missing out on the celebration, still missing out on their own recognition of God, and missing out on God’s recognition of them.

‘[God] might fly [away] to His remotest heaven,’ says the priest to the grieving countess. ‘But you know,’ he goes on, ‘that our God came to be among us.’ [‘So,’] he tells her, ‘shake your fist at him, spit in His face, scourge Him, finally crucify him: what does it matter?’ ‘My daughter,’ says the priest, ‘it’s already been done to Him.’

Her son has died and no matter her disappointment, no matter her anger, no matter her grief, her passion for what might have been, for what should have been, remains. And in this, I suggest, God provides her the solution. As they walk with him, the disciples of Jesus do not recognize him. Yet as they walk along, something is happening. They will say it later this way: ‘our hearts were burning within us.’ Jesus has died, and yet no matter their disappointment, no matter their anger, no matter their grief, their passion for what might have been, for what should have been, remains. And in this, I suggest, God provides them the solution. For while their passion remains for what might have been, then God can stir it to a passion within them for what might yet be. If their passion remains for what should have been, God will stir it to become a passion within that will what shall yet be.

‘My daughter,’ says the priest to Madame la Comtesse; ‘you must be at peace. “And then,” reads his diary, “I blessed her. ….We exchanged no words. The peace I had invoked for her had descended also upon me. And it was so ordinary, so simple, that no outsider could ever have shaken it. For indeed we had returned so quietly to everyday life, that not [even] the most attentive onlooker could have gauged the mystery of this secret, which already was no longer ours.”

As in every age, so also still in our own, people continue along their way many in various forms of inward pain. Perhaps evident in their faces, maybe hinted at in their posture or their gait, people move along with their confusion over what they’d expected versus what happened instead. People grieve unfathomable loss, they rail against inexcusable injustice, and they are passionately afraid that their faith in the inevitability that goodness, truth, and love will one day make things right again is dead or dying. Plodding along to their own Emmaus, they cannot not look for Jesus; they don’t know where to search, anymore; and maybe they never did. Pressing on from what they try to leave behind to whatever by chance might lie ahead, they cannot come to Jesus; they do not know where to find him, anymore; and maybe they never did. But confounded, sad, or angry, indifferent they are not. Somewhere beneath the surface or somewhere deep within passion remains. And it is these toward whom Jesus still draws alongside today.

Christ is risen, and Christ still comes to us today. Wherever we are, in place or location, Christ still comes to us today. The stranger beside you, the stranger next to me, can be Christ in someway drawing near to ask us how we’re doing today. Wherever we are in mind or heart, Christ still comes to us today. The next unexpected interruption, the next distracted thought or daydream, may be Christ somehow speaking to you, to me, to explain for us a larger godly plan. And so we celebrate this third week of Easter, giving God thanks in word and deed for raising Christ to life and raising us to new life in him.

This third week of Easter let us give thanks by recognizing today or tomorrow, that person next to you or me who, confused and lonely, needs your smile or mine to keep them company along their way. This third week of Easter let us come alongside that person, sad and hurt, or broken and angry, or howsoever they choose to characterize what they’re feeling, let us come alongside that person who needs to recognize in us that passion of God’s own heart, burning for them through you and me.

Now may Almighty God, who by the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to us all, grant that we, being raised to newness of life, may live always in the presence of Christ Jesus and rejoice in glory everlasting; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2008, James V. Stockton