How to meet the risen Jesus. Text: Luke 24:13-35

Preached by Rev. James Murray at Dominion Chalmers United Church, April 26 2009

 Our oldest son Nathan is engaged to be married next year. The meetings with the future in-laws have gone quite well. It is quite a different experience this time around being the parents. And thankfully, the meetings were quite uneventful.

 When I first got engaged to my wife Christine, we made our obligatory trips to meet the future in-laws. We first went to meet her parents, which went well. On the Sunday morning, we went with them to their church, which is Free Methodist. It was a very beautiful service, with her two cousins playing the organ and piano. It was a very serious service with a rousing evangelical sermon. A few weeks later we went to meet my parents. And of course we went to church on Sunday. We sat in our family pew with my mother as my father was at the front leading the service. Sitting in the pew in front of us were several residents of a group home for people with emotional handicaps. They had been part of our church for years and they were all glad to see me back for a visit. But things were not all quiet and peaceful in their pew. George was upset because his girlfriend wouldn’t sit beside him that morning. She wanted to sit beside someone else. So in the middle of the service Georgee gets up to move in protest. But as turned around to make his protest known, he sucked in his stomach, and George’s pants fell off. We had a front row view, and we just about died trying not to laugh. The service continued on as if nothing had happened. I was so embarrassed that this was going to be Christine’s first impression of my home church. Afterwards, Christine said the thing she was most surprised about was how normal everyone took this incident to be. I explained how George and his housemates had been a part of our church for years. They were just part of the family.

 
There is an ancient Scottish prayer which speaks of the religious importance of welcoming such people in. The prayer says, “We saw a stranger yesterday, so we put food in the eating place, drink in the drinking place, music in the listening place. With the sacred name of the triune God, the stranger blessed us, our house and our dear ones. As the lark says in her song, Often, often, often, goes Christ in the stranger’s guise.

 We believe we can meet Christ in our lives because of Easter. It is because of the story of what happened on the Emmaus Road that we believe we can meet the risen Christ on the roads we walk every day.  The Emmaus road story serves as a metaphor for our spiritual journey of discovery. It is a guide. It reveals how we too can meet the risen Christ.

 
When we think of Jesus’ resurrection, we usually focus on the empty tomb.  A trip to the empty tomb is an easy thing to do. Guided tours will take you to that exact spot. By seeking him there, we know exactly how and where he can be found.  We know exactly when Easter happened, and we also know exactly when it is over.

There is an old tradition of going for a walk on Easter Monday in many countries. This walk in the country would be called an Emmaus Walk. Following a picnic lunch, they would spend the afternoon playing games, dancing, singing, and conversing. This tradition lives on in what we would call the Sunday School picnic. The purpose of this Emmaus walk gathering is to celebrate and enjoy the many ways we can experience the risen Christ in our world.
 

If we celebrate Easter by encountering Jesus on the Emmaus Road, Easter becomes much  more than a one day affair. Jesus can show up on any road we may be travelling on, whether we recognize him or not. He may be present in any meal we may be sharing in. Jesus can show up, and resurrection can happen, at any table, and potentially at every table. We have no way of knowing when where or how the risen Christ will bring us new life. When we walk the Emmaus Road, it is out of our control when resurrection will happen. We can’t just limit it to one day. Easter continues to happen on every road we travel as one meal leads to another and another and another.  

So who are the strangers you are willing to welcome into your life? Are you willing to let the stranger in, knowing you may be changed and blessed by the encounter?

The flip side of this question is much darker. For there are many kinds of strangers we are not willing to enter in to our lives. There are people we hate. There are people we don’t trust. When bigoted barriers of fear are erected, we end up separated from the very people we share this life with.  As a result, our society is separated. We are fearful of each other. We are kept apart on the basis of race; language; sexual orientation; economic class; physical and emotional handicaps. We discriminate against each other every day on the strength of such hurtful prejudices.

We experience the risen Christ as one who transcends all our limitations. The disciples experienced his presence in a radically knew way. He was now a new kind of reality in their lives. He wasn’t limited to one time or space like a living person was. They could find him any where, any time.  He could be experienced on the road to nowhere. He could be found on the road to Emmaus and he can be found on the road to wherever you are going.  

But such an encounter is much more than just a casual recognizing of an old friend. This encounter can inspire a change of direction. Those first disciples were running away to Emmaus. After meeting Jesus, they went back to face the challenges of being faithful in Jerusalem. This encounter inspires a change of attitude. Those disciples were downhearted, faithless, fearful. After that life changing encounter, they began to boldly tell everyone they met of what a difference the risen Christ is making in their lives.

 In the letter written by John, he says “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the Children of God, and that is what we are.” We are just like Jesus, who was God’s son. We are treated by God with the same regard God showed Jesus.

Just as God was at work in Jesus, God is at work in us. God says we are all part of the same family. And if we didn’t get it the first time, John says, “Beloved, we are God’s children.”