“EMMAUS ENCOUNTERS”
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A sermon preached at the Reading: |
“Jesus
himself came up and walked with them (Lk 24:15)
If you know the
movie comedy “Bruce Almighty”,
you will recall how at the start of the picture, Jim Carrey
has the most awful day - everything that could go wrong does go wrong -
he loses his job, he gets mugged,
his dog does what most dogs do at the lamp-post,
but does it all over the living room hi-fi system…
Carrey turns into a sort of letter day Job - railing at God -
It is all God’s fault, he says -
God could sort my life out in 5 minutes, but he is just ignoring me!
He ends up having a
great row with his partner and roars off in his car,
still fuming and ranting at God
“OK God, you want me to talk to you?
Then talk back!
What should I do? Give me a signal!”
He is so busy
ranting he does not even notice a huge illuminated flashing sign,
flashing in large letters alternately “Caution”, “Ahead”, Caution”, “Ahead”,
But he just keeps on
driving and ranting -
“God, send me a sign!”
A lorry pulls out in
front of him, in the back stacked high with road signs -
obviously en route to or from a highway maintenance depot somewhere -
you can see a whole lot of them in the back of the truck -
“Dead End”, “Do not enter” “Wrong Way” “Stop” -
Jim Carey is much
too preoccupied to notice what is in the lorry -
he is just furious that someone has got in his way,
and swerves out to avoid the lorry and pass it -
He shouts at God, “I need a miracle - reach into my life”
Next thing (perhaps
not surprisingly) he has crashed into a lamp post -
he jumps out of his now seriously dented car,
still railing at God for yet another injustice -
“You’re the one who is not doing his job - Answer me!!”
At that very moment
his mobile rings -
he glances at the number on the display - 555 0123 -
“Sorry don’t know you - wouldn’t call you if I did” he shouts,
and shoves the phone unanswered back in his pocket.…
It is of course God
on the line, but he doesn’t answer,
any more than he recognizes the signs….
How easy it is to journey through life
and fail to see the signs,
and hear the voice of God speaking to us -
especially when we are in the deepest trouble and need him most!
The final episode of
the BBC series “The Passion”
shown on Easter Day depicted several appearances of the risen Christ -
by the empty tomb,
in the locked room with the disciples,
and on the Emmaus Road.
The director did
something which I initially thought was rather strange -
he used a variety of different actors to play the risen Christ -
sometimes the actor who had played Jesus during his earlier ministry,
on other occasions other actors altogether.
Initially I thought that was odd -
but the more I thought about it, the more right it seemed.
The Risen Christ appears to us in many different guises,
and indeed as many different people.
Sometimes his
presence is very clear and unmistakable to us -
on other occasions things are much more ambiguous and uncertain.
How often do we walk to Emmaus,
overwhelmed by our own cares and woes,
unaware that the face of the one next to us is the face of Christ?
The Emmaus disciples were tired and
disappointed - their hopes crushed.
They were confused. What had gone
wrong and why?
They were probably also frightened - might a stranger on the road
be a Roman informer looking for
followers of Jesus?
Why did they not recognize the
Lord?
§
Maybe their eyes were full of tears
& so they mistook him in the gathering gloom.
§
Or maybe their lack of vision had a
deeper cause than that -
- maybe as the light failed,
and the cold bitter night wind blew in from the darkening hills,
all their hopes and dreams just died with the last embers of the day
- maybe they had just given up looking, expecting the Lord
And so often it is precisely when we
most need the Lord -
when we are at our lowest and most vulnerable -
that God seems furthest away,
and we feel ourselves to be most God forsaken.
But of course, Christ was on the Emmaus
Road all the time.
So if you are down and nearly out -
if you are lonely, bereaved, dying, guilty, confused or lost,
Well, maybe you do not realize it,
but the Lord is there with you, every step of the way.
Jesus said to his disciples “I will be
with you always”
“There is no such thing as
a Christ-empty day.
No such thing as a god-empty situation.
The God of Jesus was there on the cross. There in the sealed tomb.
There in the garden on the Sunday morning.
There on each road that a person travels” (Bruce Prewer)
Christ is on every road: whether from Jerusalem to
Emmaus,
from Pinhoe to Heavitree, from St Thomas to
Alphington,
from Egypt to the Promised Land, from Harare to Bulawayo,
from London to Beijing, from cradle to grave….
Do we see him there?
The movie “Blood Diamond”
is very different from “Bruce Almighty” -
it’s a grim and often violent action thriller set in the 1990s
during the Sierra Leonean civil war.
There are plenty of evil people in the film -
not least the ruthless rebel militia
recruiting and brutalizing boy soldiers.
But the ultimate villains of the piece
are actually those running the diamond trade,
bringing diamonds to the classy shops here in the affluent west,
and in so doing injecting cash for guns into the conflict zone -
diamonds paid for with blood money.
The story centres around Leonardo di Caprio,
who plays a freelance diamond smuggler.
When we first meet
him he is purely self centred and amoral -
but gradually his values change.
In the end, he looks at the mess
which he and others have got the country into, and says
“I sometimes wonder if God will ever
forgive us
for what we do to each other -
then I realize that God left this place a long time ago”
Wrong.
God never leaves.
Whether you are in Sierra Leone or
Zimbabwe,
in Tibet or Gaza, in Washington or Exeter,
I am sure that
neither slave traders nor transnational companies,
nor warlords nor armies,
nor dictators clinging desperately to power,
“nor death, nor life, nor angels, nor
rulers,
nor things present nor things to come,
nor anything else in the whole of
creation,
will be able to separate us from the
love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-9)
But still, as on the Emmaus Road of old,
people turn to their neighbours and say
“It’s no good! What can we do?
We had hoped for so much,
but now everything seems to be going wrong….”
And still the Lord replies - for still
he walks with us -
“How slow of heart you are
to believe all that the prophets have told you!”
God shall have the ultimate victory,
Life shall prevail over death,
hope over despair,
justice over oppression.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life” -
and
“I am with you always, to the end of time!” (Mt 28:20)
And the Emmaus bound disciples
suddenly found their fear and despair was gone,
their hearts were burning within them -
they had met the Lord,
and tired no more, they returned at once to Jerusalem
6 or 7 more miles was nothing now,
for there was news to spread and work to be done….
So, what are we waiting for??
Isn’t it time we got going too??
Order of Service
10.30 a.m. Morning Worship led by Rev Andrew Sails
Hymn 191
“Good Christians all”
Prayers
All Age Ministry - Fay Priestley
Hymn
525 “Kum ba ya”
The
Peace
Leader: Let us share the peace
Adults: The peace of the Lord be with you
Children: And also with you
Leader: Go
in peace
[Young
people leave for their own sessions]
Readings: Psalm 23 (p555)
Luke 24:13-35 (1061)
Hymn 552
Lord of all hopefulness
Sermon:
“Emmaus Encounters”
Hymn “Onward
Christian pilgrims” (Tune 718 St Gertrude)
[Michael Forster, © Kevin Mayhew Ltd CCL Licence
58752]
Offertory
Prayers and Lord’s Prayer
Leader: …….Lord, bless us and all your children
People (sing) Bless the Lord, my
soul,
and bless God’s
holy name
Bless the Lord, my
soul,
who leads me into
life.
[© Taize
Community NHAWS 381 Calamus Licence
1613]
Hymn 209 “The head that once was crowned with thorns”
Blessing