“Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to
snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of
heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about.”― N.T. Wright (retired Anglican bishop)
So what good does it
do us to be "born again" if we do not earnestly turn away from our
old lives? Why are we not immediately
whisked away to Heaven? How much hope
can there be for, say, a 10-year-old who is "saved" or confirmed in
the faith but will most likely live to see the age of 80 never having been
offered religious education and worship only sometimes? There is a lot of temptation in those ensuing
years, temptations that will challenge us, test us, and often overwhelm us to
the point of surrender - and our lives are changed ... but not for the better.
If we think this is somehow
not true, we need only to think back to the last time we cursed or helped
spread gossip about a neighbor, an enemy, a preacher, a fellow church member,
or even someone in our immediate family.
Or when we had an opportunity (and, undeniably, we always do) to help a
stranger but chose not to. Or we could
take a second look at the first few verses of Luke's gospel reading. These
two guys were on the road to Emmaus when a "stranger" suddenly joined
them. They seemed to be having a private
conversation when this "stranger" walked in uninvited.
How would we respond
to a total stranger who came to us as we were on an afternoon walk with a
friend and having a conversation, and this stranger got near enough to dare ask
what we were talking about?? How likely
would we be to share the details of our conversation rather than to say
something like, "This is private if you don't mind."
And if this
"stranger" persistently tagged along after he had also told us how
"foolish" we were for not seeing what perhaps should have been
obvious (vs 25), would we welcome this "stranger" to join us - or
would we change directions? Or just stop
talking? Or might we feel
threatened? It is a safe bet that, at
the very least, we would not be asking this stranger to stay with us in our
homes! And we think we are
"saved" from sin and death?
Who's going to save us from ourselves??
We have been
conditioned over time to be leery of strangers, and we have certainly taught
our children not to talk to strangers.
We have every reason to be cautious when dealing with people we do not
know, but how do strangers become acquaintances who become friends? It happens the same way "enemies"
become friends (we talked about this last time) - when we not only allow them
in but actively engage them in a hospitable and Christ-like way as if they are
of truly "sacred worth" - just as we are; created in the same Divine
Image as we are.
We are being shown
something in Luke's passage we often
overlook because we become focused on the presence of the Resurrected Messiah. Jesus has a clear role, of course, but we
forget we have a role in this story as well.
Often in this particular passage and its wording we have become a little
too fixated on verse 16; "their
eyes were kept from recognizing Him" (NRSV).
There has been a lot
of thought and discussion on why our Lord would have deliberately
"kept" them from seeing Him (and it is strange how this is so written),
but becoming too focused on something so insignificant has caused us to look
past what really matters. We may be a
little too concerned about why Jesus cast a "spell" on these two men
without realizing these men could easily be us today under similar
circumstances - only we would not likely be quite so hospitable.
Being witnesses to the
resurrected Messiah who is very much alive is huge, of course, but I also
wonder how this matters to us. The grave
is no longer a threat to the faithful but is still not quite the point of what
it all means. That we have the hope of
"going to heaven" is compelling, but it is still not quite what is
being revealed in the Scriptures.
Notice the singular
focus on those two simple observations (the grave, and going to heaven)? No matter how we slice it, it is still a
conversation about ... death! Even if we
say there is Life beyond the grave - and this is indeed our hope! - we are
still being forced to first think in terms of death. It is as if Messiah has no real meaning for
us ... until we die; because this is largely how we live.
For all we think we
know or believe about Messiah and Heaven, we cannot escape the current reality;
and contrary to secular opinion, the Bible does not compel us to think about Messiah
and His Resurrection strictly in terms of death - as if a life worth living and
leading in faith and hopeful
obedience does not matter until we are dead - if it matters at all as in our
arguments about faith vs. works. Why
this is important to the Church is often overlooked or downright ignored: while
the Bible is written for particular audiences or communities, the Church is
established primarily for non-believers who are not yet a part of a faith
community! "Pre-Christians",
some say.
And this is how we
must change the way we think and
the way we work - IF Christ matters. We
may consider this to be "our" church that is established and funded primarily
by us and for ourselves and our own purposes; but the Truth which is Christ (John 14:6) must necessarily insist that
we look closer - for the Truth is often illusive especially when we are not
looking for it! And for all the talk
that was going on while traveling on the road to Emmaus, the Truth virtually
bit them on the nose and they did not see it - until well after the fact!
In The Wisdom of Solomon (10:6) it is
written, "Wisdom rescued a
righteous man when the ungodly were perishing; he escaped the fire that
descended on the Five Cities". The author
went through a whole discourse throughout the Redemption Story, beginning with
Adam, in illustrating how YHWH was actively engaged in the life of His people -
NOT so they could "get to heaven" but so they could move with purpose
and with dignity from Tuesday to Wednesday - and SEE the Lord so engaged!
I think the reason a
lot of "pre-Christians" do not "get" Christianity is
because we Christians do not quite "get" what a life of discipleship
is about. We get a little too fixated on
wrong things, distractions that do not quite measure up in terms of what is
truly important in the here-and-how.
It is good that these
two men on the road to Emmaus finally had their eyes opened, even if what they
were seeing had already been removed from their presence; but their
conversation was focused almost strictly on death and not on the Promise. It is not unlike what we witnessed in this
latest round of tragic storms when surely the God of Life was being called upon
to spare those in the storm's path. It
is not unlike the constant yammering about the issue of human sexuality when we
are being challenged and tested - and all we can see is the "devil"
in the details.
I think maybe we take too much for granted and
assume too much as "given" - because Christ is not primary in our
day-to-day lives. This is perhaps a
greater challenge to those who work and those who still have small children,
for instance, when we consider the mad morning dash to get ready for work and
get the kids ready for school. How busy
we truly have become! So busy to the
point of distraction that all we see and all we hear - and consequently all we
are focused on - revolves around death and destruction ... and the devil! This is when our attention is solely focused
on the Lord.
No wonder the Church
today is running on empty!
It is time to fill up
our spiritual tanks. Some say running a
car's fuel tank so close to empty for too long can wreak havoc on a car's
engine; imagine the potential damage to the soul running on empty for too long! So just as the car's fuel tank cannot be
filled unless we get right next to the fuel pump (gasoline is not going to jump
in the fuel tank only when we need it!), so much more so that we get up close
to our Lord through Prayer and Worship and Fellowship and
the study of the Written Word and through our neighbors. It is only when we dare look closer will we
find the Truth starring us right in the face!
And we will find He
was there all along.
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