April 23, 2023

Woodstock Reformed Church

Passage: Luke 24: 13-35

On the Road to Emmaus

13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.

14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.

15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast.

18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

19 “What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.

20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him;

21 but 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 this took place.

22 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 told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive.

24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!

26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”

27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther.

29 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.

30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.

31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.

32 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?”

33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.”

35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

Prayer: This morning, Jesus, we come. May our eyes be opened, may our hearts burn within us, and may we know beyond all doubt that you live. May we recognize you on this journey as we walk alongside one another, and see you in all our companions and strangers. May we know that you are always with us. Amen.

Cari and I met a few years back when she stayed at the

Church of the Mountain while on her long-distance hike on the Appalachian Trail.

When she introduced herself before Worship began on a too-hot Sunday morning and I invited her to read the gospel passage for the congregation.

I love the way that God moves in our lives—

the web God threads through all things and time, bringing us to people and places we never

could have imagined.

So thank you for having me here today—

it is a privilege and one I feel honored by.

So I have a bit of humor for Cari:

“After lunch was over, a friend told me she was ready to get back on the trail, so I told her to go take a hike.” 

There is so much I want to share with you—

about our ministry to hikers—but I will give you

just give you a few details.

The church hosts the oldest hiker hostel on the Appalachian Trail. They opened it in the basement of the sanctuary in 1976, and we serve about 1400 hikers a year who stay with us for a night or two on their

2200 mile trek from Springer Mt., Georgia to Mt. Katahdin, Maine.

And, despite a shooting that happened in the hostel in 1996, the church of the Mt ladies decided to keep it going.

God gives us courage and endurance when we are faithful

to live out the calling upon our lives and the life of the church.

I assume Cari has woven her own journey and

revelations into her sermons as they are literally

written on her bones now, even the broken ones she suffered shortly after leaving our hostel.

Speaking of journeys, our Gospel reading this morning is all about a journey from life to death to life again.

So let’s dive in and start with an important question:

Does your heart burn within you? (and I don’t mean the kind you take medicine for).

Is your heart aflame with Christ?

Do you feel a holy fire within you when you speak of Christ, and when you journey alongside one another?

Does your heart burn within you when you are still,

when you immerse yourself in solitude, when you allow yourself to be overcome by God’s presence?

There is a fire within us—and that flame flares up when we recognize Christ in all the intersections of our lives, when we walk with others and speak about everything—

when we meet others along the way—

when we choose to be still and know that God is God.

Does the flame in your heart burn higher when you enter this sanctuary, when you serve one another?

How about when you are suffering, and you

know that no matter what God is bigger and

greater than any loss or sorrow?

That like Christ, we will one day move from

our suffering to glory.

At the truck stop where I’ve served as a part time chaplain since graduating from seminary in 2006,

one thing I’ve learned is how essential and powerful vulnerability is—the willingness to share our suffering

and enter into the suffering of others.

A driver, about to retire, told me that he was reluctant to do so. He had a wife, no children, but he told me he had never been close to anyone.

He said, the road was lonely, but he had gotten used to it. “I don’t even know how to be with people, even my wife sometimes,” he said. “Maybe I never knew how to be with her, maybe I never knew how to be with anyone.”

A few minutes later he said his uncle had been a chaplain and had murdered his son, not literally, but in every other way.

You see, he had sexually abused his son.

Then it poured out of him, a confession he had never given voice to in his entire life.

“My uncle sexually abused me too.”

He broke down, cried, right there over his meal.

He said over and over again, I can’t believe I told you.

I’ve been hiding that truth for more than 50 years.”

For that night, we walked alongside each other

and our hearts burned within us for the freedom

that truth brought forth.

A good friend of mine, Gail, died on Easter Sunday.

She made a great impact in this life—upon me and so many others because she was always willing to enter into other people’s pain, reaching out, bringing comfort

where she could, offering whatever she had to help—

her time, talent and treasure.

The day before she left us, I sat by her bedside and entered her suffering.

It was so hard to hold back that deep guttural cry of losing her—it’s still there in my gut…. it doesn’t go away.

I read Psalm 139 to her, how God knows all the days

we shall live… and is there with us in our inner being—

I read it to comfort the both of us.

That means that God heard that wailing inside of me.

God knows the agony of death.

I knew as I read this and held her that it would be the last day I would see her alive, would hear her breathing,

and feel her warm hands.

The last day I would see the light on her face.

I couldn’t bear it, but I did, because I loved her and I didn’t want to run from the pain because that pain comes from love and I don’t want to run from,

or hide from love.

She died while I was leading the sunrise service.

When I finally let the tears go—all my lost loved ones seemed to rush to the surface and there was nothing more I could do but fall on my knees and say Jesus—

Thank you for dying for us, thank you for this hope,

that one day I will be with all those I love again without pain because You rose again!

Jesus entered into the pain of the world,

he walked alongside the two companions on the road

to Emmaus—

he wanted them to know sorrow will never

have the last word—

and they, as we, are called to walk alongside others—

this is how we love and that is how Jesus loved and loves us now.

This is how our hearts continue to burn within us.

We are called to vulnerability on this journey.

When Cari broke her ankle on the trail—

others carried her out.

Walk alongside one another.

Consider, talk about everything, search and find;

Stop hiding from God or one another—

by trying to do it all alone.

Pull each other into the light as we are being pulled deeper into the light of God’s presence.

Deut. 6: 7 says to talk about the things of God over and over again. Talk about them all the time, whether you're at home or walking along the road or going to bed at night, or getting up in the morning.

Why? Because God lives and moves in the present tense—and we live and move and have our being in Him.

A couple of weeks ago a line came into my head that I couldn’t shake off.  “Let my heart stay broken.”

So this morning I say, let our hearts stay broken and

therefore open, no matter what, to Christ, to one another, to the suffering of the world.

Let us not entomb our hearts so it dies in darkness because we fear what others can do to us,

or fear the hurt they can cause,

or fear  our own failure,

or fear not belonging or of not being loved or cared for.

Instead—be fearless—reach out—don’t worry about being hurt—for in the giving our hearts regenerate.

Let our hearts stay broken—so they never forget the love and compassion that came from the resurrection—

the good news of life over death.

Let our hearts heal in pieces with scarred seams,

and let them be mighty with thunderous, awakened beats.

Let their chambers echo with the world’s cries

and rush with blood to the furthest extremity of

humanity, so that our ears will always hear—

and our feet run toward the wounded, the frightened, toward the broken, the lost, the unsure, the doubting,

the searching.

Let our hearts be without doors so that anyone may enter and then we will we break bread together.

Let our hearts stay open so that we will not

die before we die, but live.

Let our hearts burn within us—burn brighter,

with the love and presence of God because death has

been conquered and abundant life offered.

Salvation has come. The law has been fulfilled.

It is Christ who walks besides us.

Let us recognize him in ourselves, in the other,

in the stranger, the foreigner, and in our enemies—

for our struggle is not against each other, but against powers and principalities and darkness.

May our eyes be opened and our hearts—

never to close again. Amen