When Did Jesus
Become More Than Just A Name To You?
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 4/27/2014
Based on Luke 24:
13-35
John
Denver once said, “He spent a week one day in Toledo, OH.” It’s a funny joke that speaks about
perceptions, especially perception of time.
The interesting thing about perceptions is that over time, perceptions
influence our expectations. For example,
we all would agree that time seems to be speeding up. Not so long ago time seemed less
fleeting. Take for instance as a very
young child the perception of how long it took Christmas to come each
year. Then once you were in school, how
long those lazy summer breaks were. By
the time you entered high school, it seemed that those summer breaks were over
before they even began.
With the change of
our perception of time, our expectations as to the amount of energy we are
willing to give to any given period of time also changes As an example, with the advent of recording
machines, which can record T.V. programs for viewing at ones leisure, I find
that I am more frequently becoming impatient with having to wait each week for
the next installment of a favorite T.V. program, especially if it is a program
that has captured my imagination. Like a
book that one becomes enthralled with and can’t put down, certain programs on
T.V. have the same effect on me. I don’t
want to spend eight weeks or so watching episode after episode, I want to watch
it from beginning to end in one day or so and be done with it.
One such new series
has had this effect on me, titled “Resurrection”. The basic premise is this: in
a small town in America, people are returning from the dead. The first to return was an 8 yr old boy who
had drowned 32 yrs ago, the second person to return was a forty something
father who had been dead for about 10 yrs, and the third person to return in this
first season was woman just into her twenties who had died about 20 yrs ago. The DNA testing of the boy matched that of
the boy who had died 32 yrs ago. With
the influence of Jesus’ resurrection and the empty tomb, we would expect that
the graves of these people would also be empty, but in this story there was no
empty casket of the young boy. When the
authorities had exhumed the casket, the body of the boy was still in his
casket, hence providing a part of the mystery to this story line.
One of the
struggles that is presented by the parents of the 8 yr old boy who returned
from the grave, is that of accepting the person for who he says he is and
appears to be. The mother seemed to have
little problem accepting this young boy as the son she lost 32 yrs ago. The father on the other hand is the one who
was having difficulty in turning loose of the reality that his son had died 32
yrs ago and able to accept what seems to be a second chance of being with his returned
son. By the end of the first season,
finally the father was able to turn loose of the loss of 32 yrs ago and opens
his heart to recognize that this boy is truly his son.
This series truly
has Easter Sunday overtones. I think
this program is bringing forth some very deep theological questions that we as
twenty-first century humans try to avoid.
Questions such as, “is it possible
to come back from the grave”, “is there more mystery in the world that we do
not understand and are uncomfortable with, that requires us to just accept on
faith because it cannot be rationally explained”, and ultimately as
Christians “how do we experience the
story of the Jesus’ resurrection?”
One of the opening
questions that Quakers often use in their meetings is, “When did God become more than just a name to you?” When does something become more than what its
name describes to you? When does “life”
become more than just the phrase, “go out and live life?” The implication is that of perception
intersecting experience in some way differently than previously experienced. The same question could be asked of those of
us who call ourselves Christian, “When did Jesus become more than just a name
to you?” For a Buddhist, it could be “When did Buddha become more than just a name
to you?”
This morning’s text
about the two men walking home from Jerusalem to their home in Emmaus presents
a beautiful platform for such a discussion.
Here we read that these two men who knew Jesus and must have been
followers, walking home with broken hearts over the death of their Rabbi. So grieved, we are told that they did not
recognize the traveler on the road joining them to be that of their dead Rabbi,
until they sat down together at the dining table and once Jesus gave thanks for
their meal, they suddenly recognized that Jesus had been with them during their
7 mile journey home.
The key element of
this story comes in the fact that they had already received the news that Jesus
had risen from the tomb by way of the women who had discovered the empty tomb,
but when they met up with Jesus on the road to Emmaus they did not recognize
this stranger to be Jesus, even after receiving in-depth teaching about the
prophets by him. In essence the
resurrected Jesus was nothing more than a story to them, until they sat down at
the dinner table. At the point of the
blessing of the meal, suddenly something spoke to their hearts that changed a
story of the resurrection into a factual experience. When did Jesus become more than just a name
( a story of resurrection) to them – at the blessing of that meal.
Many of us don’t
give the story of the resurrection very much thought, for if we did, we might
be compelled to write it off as fictional, yet I would like to share with you
how I have come to understand through this story of the road to Emmaus and how it
has helped answered some of my questions of the report of the
resurrection. I grew up in the era of
the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s, reading about, listen about, and
watching T.V. news of the man Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. I saw on T.V. the violence that was acted out
by Rev King’s message of equality, I heard adults around me speak about the
evils that Rev King was doing in this country, often calling him a communist
supporter. I also heard the truth of
what Dr King was speaking about and admired him for many decades for his
bravery and saw his murder as an act of the evil which he fought against.
Rev King was for
many years a great man in my mind, but once I started examining my life and how
I differed in my sexual orientation from the majority of humanity and how that
difference had been used to oppress my spirit, I began to see Rev King as more
than just a name. I have grown to know
Rev King as a great prophet that God has blessed America with, in my
lifetime. Like the two men on the road
to Emmaus, I had experience through television and the community, in which I
lived as to Dr King. I had witnessed the
news of his death and watched his funeral.
I know that he had died, yet Dr King lives today – in my heart and it is
through my heart, my passion and my understanding that Dr King’s work still is
expressed this morning.
During this season
of Easter as a resurrection people this is the question that I think each of us
needs to ask ourselves, “When did Jesus become more than just a name to
us?” For it is through that
transformation that we are able to grasp hold of Jesus’ message about
distributive justice, of mercy and of justice for all, of love our neighbor in
its truest form. It is what gives us
the courage, the energy, and heart to share with a world that doesn’t
understand these values. It is what
gives us the assurance to say, “It is true! The Lord has risen”! Amen
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