The Reverend John E. McGinn, Rector
Saint John’s Episcopal Church
Sandwich, Massachusetts 02563
April 6, 2008
3 Easter
Today’s sermon is taken from
the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 2.
Most of you at this service
have heard Lance Lambros read the lessons that he
just read last week; and I think also most of you at this service have seen Jim
Webb who usually, at stewardship time, gives a PowerPoint presentation about
the needs of the parish. An interesting
thing happened when Jim Webb first came to the parish, and I knew Lance quite
well (at least I thought I knew him well); but if you notice, they look a lot
like each other. One day as Lance was
approaching me, I said, “Hello Jim.” And
another time when Jim was approaching me, I said, “Hello Lance.” If you have seen both of them you can
understand how easily I made the mistake of not recognizing them.
But how do you explain Mary
Magdalene at the empty tomb not recognizing the risen Christ? And how do you explain the two disciples on
the road to Emmaus, walking and talking with Jesus for many miles that same day, and they did not recognize him?
Now, you remember the story
that I just read. It was on the first
Easter Sunday, and Jesus had been resurrected but had not shown himself to all
of his disciples.
Two of them were headed out of Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus,
about a seven-mile journey. They were
talking to each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things
with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them, but they
didn’t recognize him.
The living Bible says that
God kept them from recognizing him. Now
that is interesting. Was this some kind
of test? Jesus asked them, “What are you
discussing together as you walk along?”
The two disciples stood still, their faces downcast, and one of them
named Cleopas asked, “Are you only a visitor to
Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these
days?” “What things?” the stranger
asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they
replied. “He was a profit powerful in
word and deed before God and all the people, and the chief priest and our
rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. We had hoped that he was the one who was
going to redeem Israel. And what is
more, it is the third day since all of this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed
us. They went to the tomb early this
morning but didn’t find his body. They
came and they told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was
alive. And some of our companions went
to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they didn’t see
him.” The risen Christ said to them,
“How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the profits have
spoken. Did not the Christ have to
suffer these things and then enter his glory?”
And beginning with Moses and all the profits, he explained to them what
was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. And as they approached the village to which
they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him
strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening, the day is almost
over.” So he went in to stay with them
and had a meal with them. When he was at the table with them, he took the
bread, and he blessed it, and he broke it, and he gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they
recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. And they asked each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and
opened the scriptures to us?” They
returned at once to Jerusalem, and there they met the other disciples who told
them, “It is true. The Lord has risen
and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two
told what had happened to them, and how they recognized Jesus when he broke the
bread.
Now, there are several things
that seem obvious to me in this story.
First of all, here is additional evidence to support something that I
noted on Easter Sunday. The disciples
were not expecting Jesus to rise from the grave, and even though he had tried
to prepare them for this event, they didn’t have a clue. They were confused, they were grieving, they
were starting to scatter perhaps out of fear that their lives might be in
danger too. The two disciples in the
story for today were leaving Jerusalem; they were defeated, their dreams lay in
dust. It was time to get away and to
reflect on their future. And what were
they to do with their lives now? Go back
to fishing or farming or whatever they had done before Jesus called them? The last thing they expected was to meet
Jesus on the road to their new destination.
But that happens, doesn’t it?
Just when we think the world has caved in on us and there is no point to
it all, we encounter Jesus.
Some thirty years ago I was
struggling with the idea of going to seminary.
I had thought about it, I had talked with my priest about it, I had
talked with my wife about it, but yet I was struggling with it. I had a good job, I had a nice home, we had
two children, we were happy where we were living and everything seemed to be
going well; but there was something inside of me that said, “You ought to go to
seminary.” That meant giving up
everything that I had. I was sitting in
church one Sunday, and I was thinking about all this, and the rector’s sermon
stirred me. It was a sermon
in which Jesus speaks to the disciples, and he calls those first disciples, and
he says, “Follow me.” And essentially,
he was saying to them to follow me and to not fear. And you know, I heard those words from the
preacher’s mouth, but they were more than that for me; they were really the
words of God saying to me, “Follow me.
Do not fear.”
Perhaps you have had a
similar experience, less dramatic perhaps, but an experience in which God spoke
to you. You might have been at the end
of your rope and hanging on for dear life, and then a friend says something, and you realize this
is a message from God. Or you heard a
song, or you read a story, or it was as if Jesus was speaking directly to you
about something important in you life.
This most often happens to those who are believers. Notice that after Jesus’ resurrection, he
showed himself only to those who believed in him. And that’s true, I think, in our lives. If you have surrounded yourself with a veil
of skepticism, you might not hear God speak.
But if in your time of trial or your time of opportunity, you ask God
for strength and for help and for guidance, you will be surprised how often
that prayer will be answered. God is not
dead. God is not buried in the
ground. God is alive, and God is with
us. That’s what the disciples discovered
on the road to Emmaus. They were
discouraged, they were downhearted, they were defeated; and just when they were
ready to give up, they encountered Jesus.
In 1972 NASA launched an
exploratory space probe called Pioneer 10.
The mission of Pioneer 10 was to fly to Jupiter and take pictures of
the planet and moons and send back data about the atmosphere of the magnetic
field and radiation belts. Many
scientists did not think that this would be possible because they feared that
the probe would be destroyed in the asteroid belt. Up to this point, no probe had made it past
Mars. But Pioneer 10 completed its
mission in November 1973 and continued to travel into space. By 1997 the probe had traveled six billion
miles from the Sun. In spite of the
great distance, scientists are still able to pick up radial signals from the
probe that they can still decipher. And
what is more remarkable than that, is that these signals are sent by an
eight-watt transmitter, which is only as powerful as a night light, and it
takes the signal nine hours to get from the Pioneer craft back to Earth.
It is always amazing to me
that a generation that takes for granted the wonders of science is so quick to
dismiss the power and purpose of the Creator who set it all in motion in the
first place. God is alive. God is personal. God cares about you, and God desires to be
revealing to you, just as Jesus revealed himself to those disciples on the road
to Emmaus.
Of course, the place that
this is most likely to happen, I think, is in worship.
Notice how this morning’s
Gospel story ends: “Then their eyes were
open and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other,
‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and
opened the scriptures to us?’ They got
up and returned at once to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and those with
them and assembled together and saying, ‘It is true. The Lord has risen and
then has appeared to Simon.’ Then the
two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them as
he broke the bread.”
Notice they recognized Jesus
when he opened the scriptures to them and when he broke the bread. It would be impossible to ignore the link
between this experience of the disciples and the preaching of the Word and the
taking of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in worship. Where do you most often find God? Where the Word is preached and the Sacrament
is served.
Oh, the eternal
question: Can I not find God on a golf
course? Of course, you can find God on a
golf course. And maybe you will get
struck by lightning, and you will be in God’s presence immediately (I’m just
kidding about that). But here in this
church, in the presence of other believers, when the scriptures are open and
the Word is preached and the bread is broken; this is where you are most likely
to encounter Jesus.
One of the great preachers of
the twentieth century, the late Harry Emerson Fosdick,
Pastor of the great Riverside Church in New York City, identified four motives
that people have for attending church:
-some go to church because
they think it is the decent thing to do;
-some go because they are
fans of some part of the service: The
music, the choir, the Sacraments, if it
be Baptism, or maybe even the preacher;
-some go because they think
church attendance is a good thing and may help one’s
reputation in the eyes of others;
-and then some people are
motivated to go to church because they think of worship as some form of glorified medication that guarantees peace of mind.
Now Fosdick
concludes there is some good to be found in each of these reasons, but I think
there is a better reason for going to church.
It is to find God, or better yet, to open ourselves to the God who is
searching for us. I believe that people
come to church hoping to hear some word from beyond themselves. And I hope that’s why you are here this
morning: To hear some word from beyond yourself. It’s all right if you are here because you
like music, or if you think it’s the thing to do, or if you are here because
it’s good for your family or personally for you - that’s all right. But in St. John’s Church are the echoes of
eternity, and when the scriptures are read and when the Word is preached, and
when the bread is broken, and when we bow in supplication before the throne of
God, God is here. Let us open ourselves
to God and hear God speak to our hearts.
Amen