Experiencing the Risen Christ

For example, many of you remember the first Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Colon Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf were household names then. Little did we know that the epoch would be marked by the events of 9/11 that set into motion the second Gulf War. It is only with the help of hindsight that we see 1991 as a significant event, but 9/11 as a transitional moment in our history, and epoch. In 1984, two computers were launched: the P.C. Junior and the Macintosh. At the time, the PC. Jr. was celebrated as the transition of the PC from workplace to home and the Macintosh was relegated to a footnote. It’s only now, thirty-five years and about a billion iPhones later (not to mention iMacs, MacBooks and iPads) that we see and understand the Macintosh as the doorway to the new epoch and the pc. Jr as an interesting but unsuccessful sidenote. Knowing the difference between important or significant and epoch making is critical.

There is no question that the events of Easter morning were the beginning of a new time, a significant moment of transformation, one of the very few unquestioned epoch marking events. Here we have a different question: just what was it at Easter and the resurrection that was so transformative. For many, the resurrection of Jesus is another part of a confessional faith, something we need to theoretically believe in order to be the club we call Christianity. One recent survey (a Rasmussen poll) found that 77% of North Americans believe that Jesus rose from the dead, while another study found that only 1/3 of adults believe in a personal resurrection. That is, we have an easy time believing in resurrection in the big picture or theoretical sense, but really struggle to make it personal, to think that Jesus resurrections changes anything for or about us.

Make no mistake about it, the events of Easter transformed Jesus followers. They went from a group of people who had been discouraged and beaten, hiding in the shadows to a group that would turn the world upside down. It was the resurrection, the fourty days after the resurrection and Jesus ascension into heaven which produced that transformation. If Jesus’ resurrection could transform them, it can also transform us. This morning, I would like to take a close look at Luke’s narrative about the Journey to Emmaus and ask a simple question: what was it that transformed these two followers of Jesus, and how can it transform us today?

Our gospel text follows Luke’s narrative about the women who went to the tomb early on Easter morning. In Luke’s gospel, the women were Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Joanna “and other women.” These women encounter an empty tomb, and from their story we learn our first important lesson:

The Empty Tomb Didn’t Transform Jesus’ Followers

You know the story: the three women go to the tomb early on Easter morning. They find the tomb open, the stone rolled away. In Luke’s version, they look into the empty tomb and encounter two men standing beside them. The angles ask:

Luke 24:5 NRSV

The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.

The angle goes on to remind them about Jesus teaching: Luke 24:6-7:

Luke 24:6–7 NRSV

Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

Here you have the women, two angles and a specific reference to Jesus’ teaching. You would think that would be enough to set the world on fire, and you would be wrong. Obeying the angles, the women go back to the rest of the disciples and tell them what they have seen, heard and experienced. The rest of the group was underwhelmed: Luke 24:11

Luke 24:11 NRSV

But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

These worlds of promise and hope, the empty tomb and the angles and the teaching, all of it was summed up as “foolish” or “empty tales.” Luke’s version of this is fairly kind. At least in Luke the women believed the angelic announcement. Mark tells a similar narrative with a few small changes. In Mark’s version, the three women encounter a single angle who tells the women to go back to the disciples (especially Peter) and tell them that Jesus would meet them in Galilee. Mark’s Easter story ends on a sour note: Mark 16:8

Mark 16:8 ESV

And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

At least in Luke, its the other disciples who aren’t impressed with the empty tomb and the angelic announcement. In Mark, the women are so frightened they head home gripped with fear.

The reason that the empty tomb doesn’t change much, the reason so many of us believe in an empty tomb but have great reservations about our own resurrection is that you can explain an empty tomb. Read through the resurrection stories: the guards moved the body, the disciples came and took it. Even today, lots of explanations for the empty tomb: Jesus swooned on the cross. Now it is true that in John’s gospel, the apostle John does believe when he sees the empty tomb, but he’s really alone. The empty tomb by itself transforms very few.

This takes us to the Emmas road narrative, the story of Cleopas and friend. They have more on their mind than just the empty tomb. They are trying to place the empty tomb into the larger story of Jesus. From them, we understand something very important:

Knowing Jesus’ Story Doesn’t Transform His Followers

They are apparently returning home after the Passover holiday, talking between them about the momentous events of the last week. Jesus joins them, but they don’t know its him. That happens in the resurrection narratives. In John 20, Mary Magdalene will look right at Jesus and not know its him until he says her name. They are walking and he joins them, asking about the events they’re talking through: Luke 24:18-19

Luke 24:18–19 NRSV

Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,

They go to talk about Jesus’ death and the rumor of an empty tomb, angelic visions and reports from other men about the tomb being empty. Ultimately they were sad though. Look at the end of verse 24, “but they did not see him.” They knew the story, or at least its big parts. But that knowledge didn’t transform them. Jesus responds to them, Luke 24:25

Luke 24:25 NRSV

Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!

Being changed, transformed is about more than knowing Jesus story. It takes the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit) to come and help us make connections, to see Jesus and what the resurrection means in the story. For example, those two disciples knew about the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53. They knew that the prophets spoke about one who would take the sin of everyone upon themselves, the one who’s suffering would save everyone. They also knew about the one spoken of in Isaiah 61 who would proclaim the Year of the Lord’s favor, the year of Jubilee. What they didn’t know, what no one before Jesus understood what that both figures would be fulfilled in the same person. The question isn’t “how much of the story do you know”. Its much subtler than that:

The Experience of the Risen Christ Transforms Jesus’ Followers

They come to Emmaus, and the two disciples invite Jesus to spend the night with them. Then it happens, they sit down for a meal. Look at Luke 24:30

Luke 24:30 NRSV

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.

We absolutely should connect this breaking and eating with the Lord’s Supper. Same ritual, same sequence. Watch what happens: Luke 24:31

Luke 24:31 NRSV

Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

Verser 16 (Jesus coming along side of them, but their eyes were prevented from understanding who he way) strikes us as hard to understand. Verse 31 is equally hard…simple bread and prayer and suddenly their eyes are open and they see. They came to understand that Jesus was with them, they came to experience Jesus in a real and tangible way the same way we do, in the sacraments, in the special things we do. How bread a wine (or in our case juice) can be the body and blood of Jesus is a mystery. But how Jesus can rise from the dead is a mystery, and how one person can be both wholly man and wholly God is a mystery. There is logic to Jesus coming to them, to their experiencing Jesus in the bread and cup.

Worship, and very specifically the sacraments in worship, isn’t just a program or a ritual. C.S. Lewis suggested that worship, and particularly the Eucharist was a place and a time when the veil separating God and us is particularly thin and oblique. In the sacraments, in the holy things we do Lewis says:

Here a hand from the hidden country touches not only my soul but my body. Here the prig, the don, the modern , in me have no privilege over the savage or the child. Here is big medicine and strong magic…the command, after all, was Take, eat: not Take, understand.

In the resurrection accounts, it is the experience of the risen christ which transforms people. In Matthew, the women encounter the risen Christ just outside the tomb, and they are changed. In Luke, these two disciples and Peter encounter the risen christ, and are changed. In John, Mary encounters the risen Christ and is transformed. Again and again, that experience happens at meal with bread and prayers.

There are many reasons to come to church. We gather because many of us are friends and have relationships that span years if not decades. Many who gather each Sunday have done so most of their lives. People often say to me that missing church just doesn’t feel right, its a tradition, a habit. Some of you are passionate about supporting the church. We honestly have conversations every now and then about being here too often attending too many committee meetings. But here is the thing: Christian worship has always been about a single thing: experiencing the risen Christ.

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