1th April 2010 - "Cleopas and friends"

Colin Hull - St Mary's
Isa 52:13 – 53:12
Luke 24:13-35

St Ignatius of Loyla pioneered a way to read the bible by immersing yourself in the gospel texts as if you were in the story as one of the characters. So tonight I want us to do something like that as we look back at the reading from St Luke.  Cleopas and another unnamed disciple walk along the road and meet a stranger. It’s just the sort of text that invites you to become the unknown disciple, viewing the scene. Trying to live the story and see it through his eyes and also see how it affects your own feelings and thoughts.

But have to start from the point that we know very little about Cleopas or the other disciple or how they came to be followers of Jesus. How do you know Cleopas? Are you a relative or a friend? Why have you been following Jesus?M aybe you had first heard John the Baptist and have been looking for God’s immediate kingdom to come. You have seen some of his miracles and have been wondering “Is Jesus the Messiah that John was proclaiming?

Or are you are a religious nationalist, fed up with Roman occupation in your land and looking to God’s promises of a free Israel. Or maybe you are just seeing so many things in the country that are upsetting and just praying for a better world to come.

If you live near Jerusalem maybe you only met Jesus in the fateful week after he rode into Jerusalem on the donkey. You saw him in the temple overturning the tables of the corrupt moneychangers and sellers of sacrificial animals. Perhaps you even joined in! Can you picture the excitement and the chaos? You’d been thinking “this is it. God’s kingdom is coming!” Here is the Messiah we have been waiting for.

But then your hopes were horribly dashed. The devastating let-down – The Master is betrayed, arrested, put on trial and executed for sedition against the state. Jesus was made an example of in that cruel and degrading way that then Romans used to treat treason and political opponents. You had seen it happen at a distance. How could this have happened? How could we and other disciples have been so wrong? Had Jesus been a false prophet after all? Had we been putting our faith in a false hope, were we deluded?

Can you identify with this? The end of a happy dream met with devastating let-down? Have there been other devastating let down’s in your life? Smashed hopes and dreams as what you wanted failed to happen.

We don’t know how Cleopas and the other disciples kept the Sabbath, that terrible day after. Depressed and bewildered. Maybe you spent the time just talking about your dead teacher
What he had been like and then wondering if you could have done something more
Could any of you have done anything to prevent his death?

But then on Sunday morning there is something strange and disturbing. After breakfast some of the women disciples bring news of an empty tomb and a vision of angels saying Jesus was alive. Does it seem far fetched? Hysterical women with deluded dreams?

You and Cleopas decide it is time to go back to Emmaus. “Let’s go home and try and pick up the pieces of our shattered lives and dreams. Get back to work and try and try to pick up the old life we have known before.”

So we set off, sorrowful and grieving for our dead friend and teacher, and our mistaken and broken hopes. While on the way we meet a stranger who does n’t seem to know what’s been going on. How could he not know? But of course maybe there were many people who did not know. Many who may have not heard or known this man Jesus our friend and teacher to whom we had dedicated so much of our time.

So we tell the Stranger about Jesus and what happened to him. We speak of your broken dreams of God’s kingdom coming on earth. The Stranger tells us off – we have not read the scriptures properly or taken account of the master’s words he himself had tried to tell us.
We had not been really listening because we were too wrapped up in what we wanted of Him, not what He had intended to do.  

Is that what we often do? We want God to fulfil our plans and our dreams rather than accepting His plans for His kingdom and church in His way.  Is our discipleship on our terms or His? Is our life in the church for what we want or for what He is calling us to do?

This is the crucial challenge of this story. We’ve all been getting it wrong because we wanted Christ for what we wanted and not for what He was doing and going to do. Despite whatever we wanted, the Stranger explains it had been bound to happen as it did – it was in our scriptures all the time.

The Stranger tells us of God’s covenant with Moses and how God would not desert those who loved His ways. He tells us the story of Daniel’s dream. Of a Son of Man who had been set upon by the pagan beasts but who God raised up to give authority and power.

Yes- we remember now!-Jesus has called Himself the “Son of Man”. Jesus is the Son of Man who is persecuted and raised up again by God, given God’s dominion and power.

Then the Stranger tells us of some prophesies of Isaiah, of One who is abused and rejected, who is killed. When the Rejected One is killed people thought it was right and proper. But that actually it was His death for all our sins and failures. He had died carrying our sins and offenses. “The Lord laid on Him the Sin of us all”

So -Jesus had to suffer. It had been there all along. He had tried to tell us but we had not really listened.

We’re home. “Dear Stranger, are you going on? No – do come in. “I’m sure we can find something for us to eat together and what you have been talking about seems so interesting we want to hear more”.  We put the plates and the bread on the table. We find some wine and add at little water.  We find some olive oil and a few herbs to dunk the bread in. We unpack some of the leftover lamb we brought back from Jerusalem.

We pour out the wine into the goblets.  Cleopas is about to say the mealtime prayer when the Stranger takes charge first. He lifts up some of the bread and recites the prayer “Blessed are you Lord God of our Forefathers for you give us bread to eat”  

This is very strange! We heard for the first time a familiar tone and inflection of his voice...something very familiar to us. We noticed the way he held the bread that made us feel we had seen these actions before exactly as he did it. And then we see them- some marks on his wrists that looked as if they had been pierced with sharp objects. We notice under the fringe of his hair what looked like scratches on his forehead. It’s Jesus! But then he fades from our sight. It was Him! Of course that’s why His words to us on the road were so hot and inspiring, while even as he berated us for our unbelief he spoke as someone so familiar and good.

We cannot keep this to ourselves. We know it’s late and will take us a few hours in the darkness to journey back to Jer. But we must go and tell the others. What the women said was true. He was dead but is now alive again. Our hopes and dreams were not in vain after all, they just needed to be adjusted to what He was really about and not what we thought we wanted and needed. Our footsteps on the way back are joyful even though it is late and we are tired. We go to the house we had last seen the other disciples. Peter and John are still there and talking with great joy to Mary Magdela.

“Jesus is not dead” shouts Peter to us excitedly as sees us come in. “I have seen Him. Mary has seen Him”. Tears of joy roll down his face. Then he asks “But what are you doing here again. We thought you’d gone home back to Emmaus. Cleopas replies “We did but we met Jesus on the road.”

Then we tell them how we had met Him and He had expounded the scriptures to us and we had recognized Him when we ate with us and lifted up the bread. He was no what we expected. It was not our original dreams that came true. He gave us something better, more than our material dreams. Not the kingdom we thought we wanted, but a better one than we can imagine.

So now- What a story we have to tell. Jesus IS the Messiah, The Christ for the world. Jesus is The Christ for everyone. How can we keep this from anyone? Surely we should be able to speak about this boldly for all to hear! Why are we hiding away? We have met with the One who died of us yet lives. All He said was true. All must hear His words of life.

He is Risen! Allelujah!