St. Paul's On-the-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

Easter 3; April 6, 2008

Luke 24:13-35

SEEKING JESUS IN REALITY

Seeking, Empty, Encountering, (Jesus) Keeps close, Invite him, Greet him

The two disciples have given up. They have left Jerusalem. They are sad. They are depressed. They are empty.

They had been seeking the truth all their lives. They thought they had found it, in Jesus; the voice of God, the voice of truth, the only one who had made any sense of their lives and had spoken with love to them. And he was dead.

It was back to reality for them. You really can't fight city hall. You really can't oppose the powers that be. You really can't fight the government – in this case, the Romans. You really can't fight institutional religion – in this case the Temple authorities.

Jesus was gone, dead, executed.

They were empty of hope.

And so they were leaving Jerusalem, perhaps to start a new life, perhaps to get away from persecution, perhaps just to get away from everyone for a while.

In that emptiness, they encountered Jesus. Or he encountered them. In that emptiness, he came seeking them, and finding them, when they had long since given up on him.

They didn't go looking for him. They were no longer seeking him. They were no longer seeking love, looking for love – in all the wrong places or all the right places! They were no longer looking for faith and hope. They'd had enough of that. They were trying to get away from all that – false faith, false hope, false dreams.

What happened to these seekers who had given up, was that Jesus came seeking them. Hope came looking for the hopeless. Love and faith came looking for the loveless and the faithless. And in their emptiness, it found a home.

Love, Life, God, Jesus – began talking to them, once it or he had found them on the road. It began talking to them, and opening the Scriptures, and explaining all the stories they had learned in Sunday School or Temple School.

But still it wasn't enough.

Sometimes our childhood faith is not enough. Sometimes the faith we learned from our parents and our ancestors is not enough.

We need our own encounter with God. And that encounter begins in emptiness – where love can find a home – and not in fullness – where none is available. So sometimes we need to seek our emptiness, not our fullness; for that is where Jesus comes.

Jesus keeps talking. Still they don't believe. He gets angry at their lack of faith. Still they don't believe.

He acts as if he's going to leave.

They ask him to stay. They yell to him as he starts down the road, “stay.”

Why do they ask him to stay? “Stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past,” says a prayer for evening that comes from this scripture, “be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts and awaken hope, that we may know thee as thou art revealed in scripture and the breaking of the bread. Grant this for the sake of thy love.”

A hymn we will sing in a minute also comes from here: “O gracious light, Lord Jesus Christ, in you the father's glory shone. Immortal, holy, blest is he and blest are you his holy son” - we sing in that yearning prayer for the presence of Christ that we don't quite feel in our hearts, but want.

We want faith. We desperately desire it. We yearn for the presence of Christ, of Life, of Divine Love in our hearts; but we don't quite have it. So we ask for it in our emptiness. 'Stay!'

And Christ – Life, Love, God incarnate – responds. He stays. They have dinner. He disappears. They realize it was him all along. They run back and tell the other disciples; who tell these two that Christ had appeared to several others as well.

Christ was there all along. He was there with Mary by the tomb – when she opened her eyes and recognized him. He was there with the disciples in the upper room, even though they were afraid. He was there with Thomas, when Thomas came. And he was there with these two on the road to Emmaus, when they invited him to dinner and broke bread with him, and even before that.

They just didn't recognize him at first.

Jesus seeks us, stays with us, all over the place, even if we don't seek him, or recognize him at first.

That's the meaning of the Resurrection – that he seeks us and keeps near us wherever we are, before we seek him. He is not just in the government sanctioned or religiously sanctioned places. And to see him, we just have to invite him into our presence. Actually, we just have to invite ourselves into his presence, for he is already here – by the road, in the office, at school, in the house, by the tomb – and not just in church.

He's already here. He's been Resurrected. Reality, or what passes for reality, could not exclude him, or kill him. It could only fool us temporarily into thinking that it had. But that's why we have our Sunday School faith and the faith of our parents – to know that what passes for Reality talks a good game and is very persuasive – but is eventually wrong; just plain wrong.

So when we walk on the street, just trying to get away from our troubles and our sadness and our misfortune – like these two disciples – understand that Jesus keeps nearby, for he was raised; and invite him into our presence, or invite ourselves into his.

And when we're in the office or at home, and joy and love and peace and truth are nowhere to be found; understand that Jesus is nevertheless right at our elbow, and a simple invitation to him will bring him close. Or a simple invitation to ourselves will wake up our minds so we will realize that he is close, and we will feel his life and his presence.

Grace before meals is a simple enactment of what the disciples went through on the road to Emmaus – a simple invitation to us to realize that Jesus is present in every meal among people; and to look for him there.

Jesus is present in every part of the world, not just the church; and in every meal, not just communion.

The purpose of church and communion and friends and prayer here, is to remind us that Jesus is present in the world and in other meals and other friends and other prayers there – and to look for him there. All of this – food, friends, fellowship, prayer – is a sacrament and a symbol and a sign of all of that – food, friends, fellowship and prayer. We show how God is present in all of this, to remind us how God is present in all of that.

And having found Christ in all of that – because now we remember to look for him there, in those other friends, meals and situations good and bad, happy and hopeless – we come back here to church, with these other disciples and say: 'you'll never guess where I found Jesus' – back there in the places that pass for Reality. He's there too, for he is Risen and could not be killed by it or excluded from it. He's there too. Not just in church, or in heaven, but in the world. Heaven is an afterthought, a necessary place. But when he rose, he spent a lot of time in the world showing us he could be here too, anywhere, at any time, because he wants to be with us.

There is a story of a simple,working man named Joe, who used to come into a city church every morning for a while and sit there. Then he would gather up his things and leave.

After a few weeks, the priest came up and asked, “Joe, what do you do when you sit in church?” Joe said: “I pray.”

The priest said: “How do you pray?”

Joe said: “I say: 'Hi Jesus, it's me, Joe.' And Jesus says: 'Hi Joe, its me, Jesus.' And we just sit together for a while.”

When you walk by the road, or sit in your office or at school, or lie in bed and feel particularly empty, its a particularly good time to encounter Christ, or for him to encounter you, for he keeps near you, and all you have to do is greet him to invite him into your presence, or to invite yourself into his.

Then you say: “Hi Jesus, its me, Joe” or whatever your name is. And he'll say: “Hi, its me Jesus.” And he can do that, for he is all around, no matter what Reality says. For Resurrection has trumped Reality. And Jesus is here.

Amen