aster is the defining moment of
Christian faith. Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! That’s
the dramatic and bold word that the Church speaks during this
season. How boldly can we make this announcement? Well, since Easter
is a once-a-year event we want to do it right, so we celebrate the
season with ear-tingling decibels, white lilies and the spirited
hymns of the Wesley brothers. Some congregations may even throw
caution to the wind and bring on the Gaither’s folk tunes or turn
a Twila Paris song into a choral anthem. And why shouldn’t we?
Easter makes a bold statement: Jesus is risen from the dead. He
doesn’t half rise from the dead, nor do the women who
witness the empty tomb half announce the resurrection. Easter
is not about half anything, so we make the announcement as
dramatic and bold as we possible can.
Recently a young man stood in our congregation to give voice to
Easter faith. The story was a familiar one. He had been in church
most of his life, but “had never heard the gospel preached there.”
So he had dropped out of the church scene and became enamored with
the drug, ecstasy, plus alcohol. Through an unusual turn of
events-including dating a young lady who was very serious about her
faith-he ended up in one of those Easter-shouting churches. And
before long he had come to the altar and asked Jesus into his heart.
He concluded his testimony by inviting all of us to experience what
he had.
That’s the potential impact that the Easter story contains. An
encounter with the Christ of the Empty Tomb can leave us radically
transformed and headed down a new path. That nineteen year old had
experienced his own defining moment; his life had turned from
ecstasy and alcoholism to God and moved him to a Christian college,
presumably to seminary and on into full-time ministry. Easter can
hit us with just such upheaval and life-altering impact.
Do you share that story too? Especially the radical, upside-down,
inside-out whap, bang, was-blind-but-now-I-see part? Let me be
honest and admit that I don’t. Not that I haven’t tried to get
just such an experience. Every summer at church youth camp I would
walk with resolve to the front of the tabernacle each night to “get
saved.” Then I’d go into the prayer room on the right side to
really pray through. By actual count, I think I was born again about
eighteen times. The counselors got tired of me coming to have my
radical whap bang experience and would find a less willing soul to
work on.
“It’s in the Bible,” our friends tell us. “Remember
Peter?” He had a life-changing experience; and what about the
women who met Jesus at the tomb, and Mary and Thomas and of course,
Saul of Tarsus.” Even the Bible seems to point to a certain
normalcy of the instantaneous, whap bang conversion that my friend
experienced.
But not all the stories in the Bible do. I think
Luke must have figured that not everyone is quite the same in the
way they encounter God. So Luke in his final chapter suggests a very
different, almost quiet whap, bang that requires a different
temperament and much longer time. Neither Matthew nor Mark includes
this story; both instead include the women and record the
astonishment from angels and Jesus.
Two travelers meet a stranger and tell him about the remarkable
events of the weekend. They admit that they “had hoped” (verse
21). Not that they had completely lost all hope, because they were
still thinking and talking about him . What’s on the mind comes
out the mouth-so the stranger gets an earful.
Maybe that’s closer to our own reality. None of us want to
abandon total hope. But maybe we’ve given up hope telling
ourselves that we need to get on with our life.
I get that feeling of hope-lost-ness from a recent National
Geographic cover story about a young Afghan refugee that
captured the world’s attention on the pages of the magazine
seventeen years ago. To view her face is never to forget those steel
blue, piercing eyes. She peers from a torn shawl with those defiant
eyes. Her eyes reflect a remarkable determination to envision a new
Afghanistan. She would grow up to champion literacy programs for
girls, or maybe to influence the equal treatment of women. No one
knew what had become of the girl. Then several months ago a team
from National Geographic returned with photos and a report of
the girl.
When they found the girl-now seventeen years later-she was not
what they had hoped for. Remarkably she had survived. But the young
girl had grown into a fundamentalist that defiantly rejected any
education of women, refusing even to look at the men who had
searched and found her. She proudly wore the Bhati coverings,
praised the Taliban, and espoused a militant brand of
fundamentalism. Reality had defeated hope.
That’s what had brought the two travelers to the brink of
giving up on hope. Reality. They had the facts-Roman crucifixion,
death certificate, burial. But yet - several things confuse these
strangers-and us. Something about what they had heard suggested that
their realism might be wrong. Yet without empirical evidence they
had chosen to ignore any other possibility.
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus does not forsake these confused
disciples? He just sort of walks along with them and plays along
with their reality/hope struggle. But he doesn’t reject them. He
patiently leads them to the moment when their eyes are suddenly
opened and they sense that they are in the presence of the Lord of
the Empty Tomb.
Another thing. There’s some irony going on here. The travelers
are telling the Stranger about two women who had “seen” Jesus
and about others who had not “seen” him, while they themselves
were seeing him and yet could not “see” him! Only the eyes of
faith can see the living Jesus next to us. It’s not hard to have
buoyant faith when it comes from dramatic, crisis-conversions of the
whap bang variety. But it takes faith of a much different quality to
become aware of Jesus right next to us! Wasn’t that the Lord over
there? I must be mistaken; that’s just the gardener. I can tell
recognize that face anywhere-that’s Ron; comes in for his
methadone on Mondays and Thursdays. But yet . . . Gregory the Great
said that this passage is really a story not so much about
resurrection as it is about hospitality.
How do these travelers come to faith? Luke seems to remind us
that apart from unusual and extraordinary whap bang encounters with
Christ, most of us come to faith through very common and quiet
ways-through the reading and hearing of Scripture, through the
sharing of the Bread and Cup, and through the community of faith.
That’s how Jesus brings these disciples to Easter faith; he uses
the same means that most of us are nourished in our own faith.
Hope is never put to shame. After recognizing Jesus, the two
travelers forget how foreboding the dark and dangerous road is
because they knew where they belonged: with the brothers and
sisters! As one writer has said, “The diabolic danger of every
temptation is that it tries to alienate us from others, to sever us
from the fellowship of the church, to make us isolated and alone.”
So the travelers high tail it back to Jerusalem-with the sense
that their hearts burned within them, and that “he was known in
the breaking of the bread.” When they arrived, however, they found
people who were also rejoicing: “The Lord has risen indeed, and
has appeared to Simon!” Whap, bang. Amen.
