4/26/20
(Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Ps. 116:1-3, 10-17; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35)
We’re not in the same room, at the same time, you and I, right now; nonetheless, please allow me to say: Grace to you, and peace from God, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
If those words sound familiar to you, it’s because (with some slight variations) they are the words with which the apostle Paul opens pretty much every one of his letters in the New Testament. He does this because he’s writing to people who, in their emerging identity as the Christian church, in the Roman Empire of the first century, find themselves living day to day in circumstances that are much different than before they became Christians: circumstances that are unfamiliar; sometimes hostile. Paul greets them with these words because he wants to remind them all of the truth about God: that God is gracious; and God gives peace: truth which exists regardless of adverse circumstances, and is not affected by them at all.
Well, we are living now in a time that is unfamiliar: that can feel hostile. And of course it’s not this way just for Christians. The covid-19 pandemic threatens us all, everybody in the world (that’s one of the unfamiliar things about it.) And we know we’re going to get to the other side of it; but we don’t know how long that’s going to take, and we don’t know how differently that other side’s going to look.
But for us, just as for the people to whom Paul was writing, the truth remains the truth, now and always. The grace of God, and the peace that comes from God, do not change. And I want today to offer a couple of examples of something which, as Christians, we might keep in mind as we navigate our way through these choppy seas.
The name C.S. Lewis is probably less familiar to most people today than it used to be, but for several generations in the middle years of the twentieth century, Lewis was certainly the best-known Christian writer in the English-speaking world. He wrote books about many aspects of Christian faith, one of which was called Surprised by Joy. It’s the story of his own conversion to Christian faith, a process which took place over the course of several years. Lewis had been a confirmed atheist; he was a professor of medieval literature at Oxford University, and a very methodical, logical thinker (which probably had a lot to do with why it took him so long.)
The book is 238 pages long, and describes step by step his strenuous wrestling with religious belief, and with the whole idea of the existence of God. It’s about three-fourths of the way through that struggle – about page 200 – that Lewis arrives at belief in God. But it’s not until page 237 – the very next to last – that he comes to Christian faith; and he describes this final conversion in all of two sentences. Some friends had proposed an outing to a famous old zoo, about an hour from Oxford, called Whipsnade; and here’s what Lewis says of that trip: “I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.”
He gives no further explanation of his conversion: nothing about anything he suddenly came to understand, no specific connection that suddenly became clear to him. Instead of anything like that, he says: “It was more like when a man, after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.” And he remained awake –ever increasingly – for the rest of his life.
In truth, finally, there’s nothing that we can really say in logical explanation of why we believe in Jesus Christ. Because, in faith, we proclaim that we are standing in the presence of the eternal God, the Creator of the universe, and finally all we can say is (with the psalmist): “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them…?” (Ps. 8:4) And in Christian faith, we proclaim that is the loving presence of that same God among us; and we behold the risen Christ and, with the disciple Thomas, we can say, “My Lord, and my God!” MyLord. MyGod. The one who stands right next to me in this life – whatever the circumstances – and helps me find the way.
When I call myself a Christian, I’m usually aware of a slight discomfort. Because I know it would be more accurate to say that I try to be a Christian; or that I’m in the perpetual process of becoming a Christian. Because being a Christian means following a way. It’s not static, it’s active. We Christians follow the way of Jesus Christ, the way that leads to what Jesus called the kingdom of God. In this world God is always trying to draw us closer, to bring us home (that’s why we call it redemption.) Love wants to happen, in this world. It’s what we’re born out of, and, as Christians, that’s the way we’re on, to live into.
We see it in today’s gospel story from Luke, the resurrection story which happens as the two disciples are on the road – on the way – to Emmaus. They meet Jesus, but don’t recognize him. He stays with them, walking along, explaining the scriptures, talking about how God is alive in the world. And they still don’t recognize him, but the Spirit is growing in them as he speaks. They ask him to stay where they’re sheltering the night. And only when he breaks the bread with them at supper do they see that it’s Jesus, and just as instantly he disappears.
What strikes me about this story – today – is that, at the critical moment – when they suddenly recognize Jesus, and then just as suddenly he vanishes right before their eyes – they don’t remark at all on this utterly mind-boggling one-and-only-time-in-the-world physical circumstances. They just know that it happened; that it was the truth; and that they both saw it. And right then they turn around and go back to Jerusalem, which they had fled. Because the risen Christ has just shown them that that’s where the kingdom of God is happening, right then. They’ve seen a new level of truth, and they need to share it. That’s the way they’re on.
And that’s the way we’re on. Our world today may be way up there on the unfamiliarity scale, high on the anxiety-meter. But the message we carry – that the kingdom of God is within us and among us, now and forever – that message is the same, now and forever. And we carry it in how we live, loving our neighbors as ourselves. That’s the way we’re on. And that will never change. Thanks be to God.