Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. David Inglis April 10, 2005

Luke 24:

“You’ll Never Walk Alone”

Let’s zoom in on these two followers of Jesus who are plodding down the road to Emmaus. Their feet feel heavy because their hearts feel like lead. Their stomachs are churning. And their minds are swirling with a confusion of images. They remember what Jesus’ face looked like when someone would cry out for a touch, a healing or a blessing. No matter what else was going on, he would turn and focus his whole attention on them. His eyes were always so clear and penetrating and filled with light. His face was so open, like a pond that registered every breeze or raindrop. His voice was so reassuring and confident and warm. Something powerful happened to everyone who received his attention like that. God seemed so real when you were with Jesus, and it filled you with faith and hope.

But there are other memories swirling around in these two travelers’ heads. That awful mob scene in front of Pilate’s palace, where the chief priests’ lackeys were shouting for his death. The sounds of the scourging whips ripping through his flesh, and the heart-rending view of Jesus afterwards. Their knees buckled as they watched Jesus try to stand. And then came the gruesome scene of Jesus hanging helplessly on the cross, his life slowly but surely draining away.

And then this morning, Mary Magdeline, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James burst into the room with a wild story of Jesus’ body being missing from the tomb and a vision of angels. Nobody could make any sense of it.

So the two travelers walk on in their heavy cloud of confusion, wondering why the sun is shining and the birds are singing, and why everyone else on the road seems to look as if life is going on as usual and everything is okay.

Have you ever gone through a time like that when everything you thought you could count on got shaken apart, and you didn’t know which way was up? There are many here who have lost a dear friend or a spouse or a child, or who have lost a marriage or a job or their health or their trust in the world. You know what it’s like to have a heart that feels like lead, and a belly that won’t stop churning, and a mind that swirls with confusion. If you haven’t had that experience yet, I hate to say it, but it’s probably just a matter of time before you do. The castles of security that we spend our lives building around us are really little more than sand castles against the tide of time.

So listen. This story about the two travelers to Emmaus can really help us learn how to get through those times.

The first thing we see happening is that those travelers are walking and talking together. When a bombshell hits our life, our first reaction is shock, numbness and paralysis. We can hardly move. But it’s important to not let ourselves stay in that shut-down, withdrawn, immobilized state any longer than we have to. Grief and loss are not permanent states of being, but processes to move through, and so we have to start moving, start putting one foot in front of the other, and start talking about it, start crying about it, start yelling to God about it, to get the process started. That’s what those two travelers were doing as they walked to Emmaus; and that’s one thing we can do when we can’t do anything else. Start walking, and start talking.

When we do that, we just might find Jesus walking along with us–although, like these two travelers, we might not recognize him as Jesus. Jesus might appear to us as a listening ear–that doesn’t judge us or try to fix us, deny our grief by telling us it’s time to move on or to “just have faith and everything will be okay,” but that just listens. It could be a person who does this for us, or it could be a journal, or it could be God as we shout and cry and ask why, and on some level know that God is big enough to take it.

And like the two travelers, maybe we’ll find the scriptures being opened to us, so that we can find our place in them. For example, if you read the Psalms, you quickly realize that others have walked along this hard road before. Psalm 60 says,

You have caused the land to quake;

you have torn it open;

repair the cracks in it, for it is tottering.

You have made your people suffer hard things;

you have given us wine to drink that made us reel.

Or listen to Psalm 22, which Jesus began praying from the cross:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me,

from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;

and by night, but find no rest.

You see, you can hear Jesus’ voice echoing even in your cry of despair. Now isn’t that just something? Right at the place where you feel the most powerless and godforsaken, and the least faith-filled and “spiritual,” you find that Jesus has been right there too, crying out to God just like you are. He understands what it’s like for you. You know, I’ve never found Jesus joining me on my walk when I was trying to be strong and pretend like I had faith that I didn’t. But I’ve found him right there with me when I’ve been just totally real, with all my pride and pretense washed away, and nothing to hold onto but the raw unadulterated truth. That’s where Jesus always shows up with hope, guidance, and strength that come from not from our coping abilities but from Christ’s healing abilities.

Jesus said to the two travelers, “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” And maybe we begin to realize, Is it not necessary that I should suffer these things in my walk through life? Maybe the purpose of my life isn’t to somehow pass through life untouched by loss and pain and hardships and mortality. Maybe the purpose of my life has something to do with letting these things be like a refining fire that burns away my short-sighted attachments and fearful clinging to what is fleeting, so that I can learn to shine with a light and a love and peace that nothing in this world can take away. Isn’t that how I will be prepared to enter into my glory?

And so, when the scriptures are opened up to us, we might find ourselves saying with Paul, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.”

And we can say with the psalmist,

Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there,

If I take the wings of the morning

and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me fast. (Psalm 130)

When you go down that long, hard road, with your heart so heavy and your stomach churning and your head spinning in confusion, you can feel so lost and alone. But take heart. There is someone far greater than you who has walked this road before. And he walks it now, looking for travelers who are plodding along, trying to find their way through the confusion. He quietly draws up beside them, urging them to talk about what has happened. He invites them to look at the scriptures, and to find the places where they can see themselves in its words of sadness and loss and death, and of healing, and hope and life. And he makes himself known to them at a table where they will be fed with the gift of his life, where we will meet him shortly.

Jesus cannot promise that we will never walk down that hard road of pain. But he does promise us this: we will never walk alone.

COMMUNION: Words of Institution and Words of Invitation

The two travelers’ eyes were opened to Jesus in the breaking of the bread. This experience was so powerful that it became a sacrament that we participate in right here today. And the reason this sacrament is so powerful is because it is all about brokeness. The bread comes from wheat that is cut down, threshed, ground up, kneaded, and baked in a hot, hot oven before being put on the table, where it is taken, broken, bit off chewed up, and digested--broken down into its most basic elements so that it can give us life. The wine or juice comes from grapes that are picked off the vine, crushed and squeezed, fermented, and then poured out, so that it can be swallowed and broken down to give us life.

Jesus was fully aware of these elements of brokenness when he took the bread and broke it in front of his disciples, and said, “This is my body, which is broken for you.” And in like manner he took the cup and said, “This is my blood which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins”--for forgiveness of all the ways that we have broken our relationships with God and with each other. “Do this in remembrance of me,” he said. Do this remembering the way my body was broken so that you might have life, remembering the way my life was poured out in a flow of endless forgiving grace.

This sacrament reminds us that it is only the life that is poured out for others that is truly alive, because all of life is ceaselessly changing in an endless flow of giving and receiving, of endings and beginnings, of dying and being reborn. This sacrament reminds us that it is not our losses and our mortality that are most to be feared, but rather it is our fearful clinging to life as we know it that deadens us.

So all who are willing to enter into this ever-flowing stream of life with Jesus as their traveling companion are invited to this sacrament of brokenness and of healing, this sacrament of sacrificial giving and receiving, this sacrament of death and of new life. At this table, we are welcomed by an abiding Presence that nothing in this world can take away.