Monthly Archives: April 2012

29

Apr. ’12

On the Road with Jesus

Luke 24:13-35

The seven-mile-long walk home to Emmaus from Jerusalem must have seemed daunting for two weary travelers, one known as Cleopas. They had been in the city as it went into an uproar over Jesus of Nazareth, its people finally succumbing to political intrigue and a spasm of emotion that led to Jesus’ crucifixion.

Just before leaving, they also heard wild stories that only disturbed them more, tales of a tomb flung open, visions of angels, and a dead man walking. Yes, they would travel the seven miles home, but when they got there, could they even sleep? Which would win out, weariness or worry?

A man joined them along the way. We know the story; we know he was Jesus. It’s not clear why two people who had followed him could not recognize him. Perhaps it was their grief. Perhaps a resurrected body is different enough that it is not immediately associated with its mortal predecessor. Or perhaps God simply willed that their eyes be veiled for a time to enhance their understanding later.

The man, oddly enough, seemed ignorant of all that had transpired, despite traveling from the same place they had been. They explained what they had seen. He proceeded to make them feel ignorant.

“Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” the man asked. He began to explain the Scriptures to them—he worked from what we would now call the Old Testament, of course—showing them that what had happened had to happen.

We don’t know what he specifically cited. Surely he mentioned Genesis 3:15, the condemnation of the serpent for bringing temptation to the garden: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Also, the promise from God to Abraham in Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

They must have discussed Deuteronomy 18:15—”The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet”—and how Jesus’ role exceeded even that of a prophet.

And of course, they would have discussed prophesies from Isaiah 9, 11 and 53. It was, after all, a long walk.

Cleopas and his traveling companion must have been intrigued. And being good, hospitable Jews, the kind of Jews who would not leave a man to travel dangerous roads at night alone, they invited him into their home when they finally reached Emmaus.

The man must have seemed pushy when they sat down to share a little bread. He took the bread to bless it, a role usually performed by the host. And when he broke it—Jesus! They knew they had been walking with Jesus! And then he vanished!

A seven-mile-long walk back to Jerusalem should have seemed particularly daunting. The travelers should have been exhausted. They should have been fearful, for it was night, and bad things happen on the road at night.

But they walked back down that road anyway—when you’ve experienced the risen Christ, there is no fear.

I suspect they ran as much of the road as they could. When they paused for breath, did they laugh as they gasped for air? Did they discuss how crazy this all would sound once they reached Jerusalem?

Know that Jesus walks with you. See Jesus for who he is. Run and tell others. Living the Christian life can be that simple.

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24

Apr. ’12

The Hospitable Church

I would like to invite anyone reading this to a three-week class on biblical hospitality at Cassidy UMC. This is part of our Wednesday night program, with the class beginning at 6:30 p.m., right after dinner. We’ll meet in the Sunday school room off the fellowship hall. Here’s what’s in store:
  • Week 1 (April 25): The Biblical Basis of Hospitality. This isn’t about tea and cookies; biblically, being welcoming toward others is a matter of life and death.
  • Week 2 (May 2): Introducing LeChambon. I want to introduce you to a tiny French village that implemented radical Christian hospitality in a powerful way during World War II, saving thousands of Jewish lives. It is an inspirational and challenging story.
  • Week 3 (May 9): What I Dream. As your pastor, I want to share with you my ideas about what hospitality in a Christian setting could look like with the right kind of commitment.
  • And As a Special Bonus: Those of you in regular attendance at the hospitality classes will be invited to the parsonage for dinner and a chance to view the movie “Babette’s Feast,” a story built around the ideas of hospitality and grace.
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16

Apr. ’12

On the Beach with Jesus

When I studied what is known as narrative preaching in seminary, I learned to respect the text—to let the selected Scripture drive the sermon.

This approach can place me in a quandary, however. There are stories in the Bible that are so powerful that I find it daunting to try to expand or elaborate on them in any way. To do so is like standing before a beautiful painting and breaking the holy silence in the gallery by saying, “Note how the lines merge at this point.”

In this Easter season, I want to share with you such a text. It is, by the way, my favorite part of the Bible, the story I turn to for comfort. For me, it captures everything being revealed about God from Genesis to Revelation in one simple story.

And yes, I feel like I’m already over-explaining it.

As a reader, do me a favor. I know we often read blogs as part of our hurried lives, our eyes racing over the words while our e-mail and texts beep for attention. Don’t do that today.

Please, either slow down or come back when you have more time, and carefully read John 21:1-19 the way you would read a really good novel. There are characters in pain in this story; remember, the disciples know Jesus is alive, but they also know they ran and hid when Jesus needed them most. And most of all, there is the resurrected Jesus, bringing healing.

—————–

Now that you’ve read it, I just want to share with you a few of the thoughts this text has given me over the years.

  • Even when faced with miraculous evidence of God’s presence, the best of us, when confronted with our sinful weaknesses, may want to turn back to what we used to be.
  • Because of the resurrection, we are a people of abundance. We simply have to see and accept that abundance.
  • The resurrected Jesus is exalted and glorified, and yet he meets us where we are, with love, grace and forgiveness, even if the sin is abandonment and betrayal. (I wonder, had Judas lived, how would Jesus have offered him forgiveness?)
  • And of course, as we are restored by Jesus, there is a mission—perhaps a difficult one—but a mission that gives us purpose beyond our former lives.

Because of Jesus, we know we worship a God of love, a God who asks only that we return to him by accepting the free gift of forgiveness and salvation and then respond accordingly.

God forgive me if I just got in the way of a good story.

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08

Apr. ’12

Confusion and Clarity

It’s nice to understand why events have occurred a certain way, and what is to come because of those events.

I’ve certainly craved such clarity in my life, and judging from what I’ve read and heard, that desire is common to much of humanity. Different religions attempt to provide such clarity in varying ways; the Easter event takes us to the core of how Christians view God and the very nature of the universe from beginning to end.

In other words, Easter is about celebrating the unveiling of The Really Big Picture.

The specific Easter story I’m focusing on this year, John 20:1-18, can be read as a movement from confusion to clarity. (If you want to see this text dramatized, it is part of a video clip found here.) As we experience the story, we can watch Mary Magdalene, Peter and another disciple, simply called the disciple whom Jesus loved, move from panic to a dawning awareness of what has happened.

The story begins with Mary Magdalene, who clearly adored Jesus with a deep, tender love. She discovers the stone covering his tomb has been rolled away and immediately runs for help. When she announces what she has discovered, she triggers a footrace between the two male disciples back to the tomb.

After they see Jesus’ burial linens and leave, Mary Magdalene remains at the tomb, weeping.

Confusion clearly has a grip on Jesus’ followers early in the story. It’s a confusion brought on not by the Easter events, but by the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. They are horrified at what they’ve seen. They’re also mortified at their own cowardice and betrayal, and they fear the Jewish leaders and the Romans are preparing similar crosses for them.

Our individual circumstances are all different in the details, but I feel certain most people will recognize the general pattern Christ’s followers go through in this story. Somewhere there is a moment where life doesn’t make sense. What came before, good or bad, seems like part of an arbitrary universe; where you are headed can seem meaningless.

Oddly enough, it’s a feeling we can experience in the midst of worldly success or failure. Such confusion seems to walk hand-in-hand with youth. And often, old age can trigger a common question: “Is this all there is?”

At first, an empty tomb only magnifies the confusion of Jesus’ followers. It is interesting to me, though, how evidence of the resurrection almost immediately begins moving these disciples toward a clarity of thought that changes everything.

The open tomb and its unwrapped linens offer an answer: “There is something more.” The unnamed disciple in the story seems to at first hear the answer more clearly than Peter.

“Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in,” we are told in verses 8 and 9, “and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”

Belief, even when not fully formed, is much better than despair.

Mary Magdalene receives an even greater revelation—she is the first to see with her own eyes why the tomb is empty. Her mind cannot process the answer at first. Even after a vision of angels, she believes the man before her must be the gardener. But at the sound of Jesus’ voice calling her name, she cries out with recognition.

She then runs and preaches what is for all practical purposes the first Christian sermon: “I have seen the Lord!”

If you call yourselves Christians, I’m sure you remember that first burst of clarity in your life, too. God does provide us with answers. God has imbued a wandering, sin-filled world with meaning and healing, and that gift to the universe becomes a gift offered to each one of us.

Death has no power. Why? Because God walked among us as Jesus Christ, experienced death, overcame it, and then told us not to fear it. Even if we pass through death before Christ returns, the void on the other side has been filled by his loving arms.

Sin has no power, not even in this life, not once we turn our lives over to the risen Savior. Why? Because when God crushed death, he also smashed and subjugated its cause, the evil that has run loose in this world for a time.

When we sin as Christians, it is only because we have forgotten who is on our side. Christ trumps Satan whenever we call on Christ’s strength to sustain us. The one who will be destroyed cannot stand against the one who is eternal.

It should help us to remember that the disciples did not achieve complete clarity of mind all at once. The Really Big Picture came into focus gradually, as if through a lens slowly twisted. The resurrected Jesus had to spend time among his followers, strengthening the weaker ones with signs, reassuring them that even in their failures they were loved. Ultimately, they needed the Holy Spirit working within them to achieve perfect clarity and strength.

Clarity did come, however. Great works in the name of Jesus Christ happened and continue to happen despite the human fragility of those who follow Christ.

And best of all, we know what we move toward—the full and complete restoration of all Creation. He is risen, and that truth changes everything.

——–

I’ll spend the rest of the Easter season relating some of Jesus’ other post-resurrection appearances.

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01

Apr. ’12

City of the Blind

Mark 11:1-11

The story of Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem proves it is possible to celebrate the right person for all the wrong reasons.

Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a colt. People lined the road, covering it with their cloaks and palm branches and crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

In other words, they greeted him as a king. In our day, we know this was appropriate. As people who understand the full story, we know that God in flesh, the very source of salvation, rode before them.

But at the same time, we must remember that the cheering crowd and the disciples who walked with Jesus were blind. The people were blind to what was about to happen, to the way salvation would be made possible.

Their blindness didn’t happen because Jesus had left them in the dark. Three times he had told his followers the truth: that the Messiah must be condemned, mocked, humiliated and killed before rising from the dead on the third day.

No one wanted to see this picture he had painted, however. Instead, prestige, power and instant gratification were on the minds of Jesus’ followers.

Jesus told the truth about where the colt was leading him, but not long before the ride, James and John instead tried to maneuver themselves into seats alongside the earthly throne they believed Jesus would soon occupy. I want to scream across 2,000 years and warn them, “Open your eyes, see what’s coming—blood and violence and a cross splintered by nails driven through flesh.”

Jesus told the truth about the road ahead of him, but during the ride, the crowds that would abandon him in just a few short days cheered him onward, believing he would conquer both the corrupt Jewish leaders and their Roman puppet masters. If only they could have seen Jesus’ humiliation and suffering to come at the hands of these earthly powers.

Jesus told the truth about the need for the Messiah’s death and resurrection, but not long after the ride, even nature failed him. Hungry as he left Jerusalem for the evening, the creator of the universe rightly expected a part of his creation, a fig tree, to provide him sustenance. The tree failed to see to the needs of the one for whom it was made, and withered under the creator’s curse.

Everyone had something he or she wanted from Jesus, but no one for a moment seemed to consider what God wanted through Jesus. What God wanted was a complete and total solution to the problem of sin, a repair to the gap between God and the people made in God’s image. God didn’t want Jesus to storm a fortress. He wanted Jesus to retake and ultimately remake the universe.

This solution goes beyond earthly kingdoms, beyond who gets which title once Jesus takes control. It’s a solution no human could see because no human could imagine how far God was willing to go to redeem us and live in harmony with us.

We do know something of the mind of the man who rode that colt into Jerusalem. Philippians 2:5-11 helps. Here, we see the infinite mind humbled, reduced and emptied of any sense of entitlement.

The crowds cheered, but Christ knew he rode toward death. Did the trip into Jerusalem at any time give Jesus a clear view of Golgotha? The cry of “hosanna” must have contrasted sharply with the shout Jesus knew would come just a few days later—”Crucify him!”

But as I’ve said, the people lining the road and walking with Jesus could not see what was in the mind of Christ, and even his closest disciples refused to hear his words. They wanted what they wanted, standing as a cheering mass, thinking they knew everything but actually knowing nothing of God’s plan.

To understand, they would first have to wonder at a stone rolled away from a tomb and see a battered and broken body restored to life. Only the cross and the resurrection would allow them to “come to themselves,” to borrow a phrase from the parable of the prodigal son.

Let me ask you this:

Do you really grasp what God has done through Jesus? Do you know he rode to his death for you, for your sins, the sins committed years ago, the sins committed yesterday, the sins still to come?

Do you cheer and cry hosanna for the right reasons? Do you cry hosanna with every moment of your life, conforming yourself to the one who has saved you? Is your life now his?

Thank God for Easter Sunday and the blindness it heals.

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