Made Known to Us
Sixteen years ago, in a tumultuous season of separation and divorce for me and my family, when it seemed everything in our world was coming apart, as I was driving into DC for a class at Wesley Seminary, Jesus showed up in the passenger seat of my car. There was no audible dialogue per se – only these words - Love, grace, integrity, peace, authenticity...
I don’t know how to explain it. It was a “you had to be there” moment, but there was Jesus. Not so much in body but in undeniable presence and accompaniment. With clarity, gravity and guidance.
Love, grace, integrity, peace, authenticity...
These were the words Jesus communicated to me in that moment.
I pulled over and furiously scribbled those words down on the closest paper I could find, knowing that they were lifelines, afraid that they would slip away.
Love, grace, integrity, peace, authenticity…
The question that I had been carrying on that commute was nothing short of a cry from my heart – God, how am I going to keep doing this? How am I going to keep moving forward?
Had I not been carrying this question, I suspect the encounter might have landed differently. Maybe it wouldn’t have even happened.
What I know is that I experienced Jesus showing up in my car on River Road with an answer to the deep question in my heart.
You are going to move forward with love, grace, integrity, peace, authenticity…
I was with Jesus in that moment.
This I believe.
There were other moments in that season as well. Folks loaning me vehicles for moving. My parents showing up with boxes of groceries and their unwavering love and presence. Kids who loved the nights when dinner was rotel cheese dip and chips because that was all mama had capacity for.
And there was always, in the backdrop, that moment in the car on River Road.
And Love, grace, integrity, peace, authenticity…
Believing is a tricky thing – because it is not only a head thing or a heart thing or a gut thing. It is not just facts or just emotion or just intuition.
Believing has an element of encounter. That word stuck with me as I pondered our text for this week.
My favorite definition of encounter is “a casual or unexpected convergence.” I think believing involves a convergence of our knowledge with an expectation, or a hope, or a cry of the heart.
What do we know, what do we feel, what are we watching and hoping for, what does our heart need?
Stick with me.
The gospel texts that are read throughout the earliest Sundays of the Easter season offer different encounters with the risen Christ that lead people to believe in the resurrection.
And not just in the resurrection but in the things Jesus taught and did and claimed leading up to the resurrection.
In Matthew’s gospel, which we read on Easter here, the two Marys arrive at an empty tomb where they hear from an angel and THEN as they are fleeing the scene, run into Jesus.
Perhaps you are also familiar with the Easter text from John. Mary Magdalene arrives at the tomb alone and mistakes the man she finds there for the gardener… until she hears him speak her name. Jesus is revealed to her as he speaks her name…Mary…
Last week we heard about Thomas, muddled in his grief and in the shocking events of the prior week. He hears everyone else’s experience of the risen Jesus, but he needs to see the wounds for himself to believe. Jesus says, “Put your fingers here and see my hands…reach out your hand and put it on my side…” This is Thomas’ encounter with the risen Christ – wear his knowledge of the events leading up to Jesus’ death collide with what he can see when Jesus stands before him.
In today’s text from Luke, we are time traveling backward once again to the day of resurrection. On the road between Jerusalem and Emmaus, Cleopas and another unnamed disciple meet a stranger. As he travels with them, in their shock and awe, they recount the events of the past few days, amazed that he seems unaware and unfazed.
In their telling, they also express their disappointment…
“We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel…”
The man, still a stranger to them, chastises them, declares them foolish for what they have not understood, what they have not recognized in the events of the last days – how they have missed the coming of the one to whom the prophets had pointed and promised.
The stranger goes on to unpack for them all of the scriptures that pointed to the Messiah’s coming…beginning with Moses, the text says.
“He interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.”
We don’t hear the disciples’ reaction in the moment. We know that even as he teaches, they see a stranger, not Jesus. But they urge the stranger to stay with them as evening comes.
He does, and as they gather to eat, that stranger breaks bread…
And only then do they know him.
I wonder why they couldn’t see while they were walking on the road.
I wonder what became clear as Jesus took bread, broke and blessed it, and gave it to them?
Jesus’ followers – and many keeping tabs on their ministry around Jerusalem and Galilee – had hopes that a Messiah would restore Israel politically, economically and spiritually. They had hopes that a Messiah would free the oppressed and the marginalized from the bonds of Roman power. They had hopes that the Messiah would unseat the oppressor with force.
I wonder how their expectations of the Messiah prevented them from actually seeing the Messiah – who was about love and inclusion, not about judgment and damnation.
I wonder how their expectations of the Messiah prevented them from actually seeing the Messiah – who was about crossing boundaries and sharing life, not about power and enforcement.
I wonder how their expectations of the Messiah prevented them from actually seeing the Messiah – who was about eating with people, nourishing them with food for their bodies and with food for their spirit.
I have to think that after the events of the day and the walk from Jerusalem, set against the backdrop of the terror of the prior few days, that the men had to be tired, and hungry at the end of the day…
Hungry for real food for their bodies. Hungry for the nourishment their bodies needed to keep going.
I wonder what question was in their hearts as they gathered to eat. For what did they hunger?
I wonder what question was in Mary’s heart when she heard Jesus speak her name. For what did she hunger?
I wonder what question was in Thomas’ heart as he sought to see Jesus’ wounds. For what did he hunger?
I wonder what question is in your heart. For what do you hunger?
I wonder what question is in our shared heart for this community. For what do we hunger?
I suspect that if we are hungry for power, control, dominance, and easy answers, we will continue to be hungry, we will continue to have need, we will continue to miss understanding and knowing the resurrected Christ.
Because power, control, dominance and easy answers are not what Jesus is about.
But Jesus is about meeting us, knowing our hearts if we’ll let him, teaching us, and reshaping us. Jesus is about offering nourishment and living water. Jesus is about taking, blessing, breaking and giving.
We have the chance to meet Jesus everyday in simple experiences. But I think our meeting him relies on our openness, the questions and readiness we carry with us into each encounter with others.
Do we expect to meet Jesus at any turn?
Today, I want to create some space for you to consider what question is in your heart as you seek an encounter – an unexpected convergence – with the risen Jesus.
Today there is food. Real food – not sacrament, but sacramental, real nourishment and decadence. And Allergy friendly (no peanuts or tree nuts – just sunflower butter, grape jelly and white bread [plus a few gluten friendly options over here]). And silence.
And time to reflect.
I wonder what question is in your heart. For what do you hunger?
I wonder what question is in our shared heart for this community. For what do we hunger?
Welcome to a different kind of table. You are invited to come forward as you feel called in silence.
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