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Henri Nouwen reminds us of something we often forget - that Jesus' Resurrection was not a dramatic, public event. It was hidden from view and altogether unspectacular. "Jesus did not rise from the dead to prove to those who had crucified him that they had made a mistake or to confound his opponents," Nouwen says. "Nor did he rise from the dead to impress the rulers of his time or to force anyone to believe. Jesus' resurrection was the full affirmation of the Father's love. He showed himself only to those who knew about this love. He made himself known as the risen Lord only to a handful of his close friends. "Probably no other event in human history has had such importance while at the same time remaining so unspectacular. The world did not notice Jesus' resurrection; only a few knew, only those to whom Jesus had chosen to show himself and whom he wanted to send out to announce God's love to the world just as he had done." (Our Greatest Gift, 1994, pp. 107-108) Consider the accounts: Mary Magdalene and some other women undertake an errand as common in Jerusalem as each day's sunrise. They go to anoint the dead body of a friend. At his tomb Jesus appears to them, and at first Mary thinks he is the gardener. Later, the disciples are fishing on the lake. Jesus appears on the shore, and the disciples think it's just a passerby. This morning, two disciples are walking along a road, and the risen Jesus joins them and discusses the Scriptures with them all afternoon. But they don't recognize Jesus until he sits down for dinner with them; on the road he was just a stranger walking along with them. There is a story Jesus told before he was crucified that might have prepared us for the unspectacular, hidden resurrection, if we had been listening at the time. There was a very rich man, Jesus said, who lived in the finest house in town. He wore the finest clothes and ate the richest food. Outside the rich man's gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores from head to foot and who longed just to have some of the scraps from the rich man's table. Before long the poor man died, and he was carried away by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man died, too, and was buried, and he found himself in hell. The rich man looked up and saw Abraham a long way off, and he saw the poor man Lazarus resting in the bosom of Abraham. So the man cried out, "Father Abraham! Have pity on me! Send that poor boy over with some water to cool my tongue, because I'm in agony in these flames!" But Abraham said, "My son, you had all sorts of good things in life: a mansion to live in, lots to eat and drink, and fine clothes to wear, plenty of signs of the goodness and mercy of God. But this poor man had little, and all he wanted was a little of what you had left over. Now he's being comforted here while you are suffering there. But that's not all. Now there's a great chasm between you over there and us over here, so that no one can go from here to there, or from there to here. The rich man said, "Then Father Abraham, I beg you to send Lazarus back to my father's house to warn my brothers so they won't make the same mistakes I made and won't come to this place of torment like me." But Abraham replied, "They have plenty of people to tell them about the ways of God with his world and his people - about God's love and mercy, and about his justice. They have eyes and ears. They have Moses and the prophets. Let your brothers listen to them." But the rich man said, "Oh, no, Father Abraham, no one listens to prophets. Nobody pays attention to them anymore. But if you would send back someone from the dead, they would listen to him." And Abraham said, "If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead." Some people ask, "But what if God had done it differently? Wouldn't it have been more effective if Jesus had made a big show of it? What if, instead of just appearing to the disciples, what if Jesus had splashed out in the middle of Jerusalem with all the CNN cameras rolling? Wouldn't everyone have had to believe then? No, they wouldn't. Think about it. The Resurrection is simply not possible for the cynical. How is it possible to see the risen Christ if one has eyes only for what the world considers reality? What would Pilate have done if the risen Jesus had appeared to him? Or Caiaphas, the high priest, if Jesus had appeared to him? Jesus alive, in whatever body, is a threat to high priests, and to Caesars. All they would have said is that the execution hadn't worked, like the authorities in Florida a few years ago who failed in their first attempt kill the man with the electric chair. "We've got to do it all again," Pilate would say. "And make sure that you get the job done right this time!" Caiaphas would add. If Pilate and the priests couldn't see the ways of God in Moses and the prophets, who were available to anyone with eyes and ears and hearts to hear and see, they wouldn't be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead. Nor would we. Jesus appears only to those who are searching for the love and mercy of God in the first place, because it is not the way of God to force people to believe, but only to be available to confirm what's already there in the minds and hearts of those who are looking in the right place to begin with. We have Moses and the prophets. And if the reports of Moses and the prophets make no impression on our lives, if what they tell us about the love and mercy and justice of God make no difference in our lives, then some report of Jesus' resurrection, even if delivered by Jesus personally in bodily form, will be just another report to file away somewhere with the reports of Moses and the prophets. Think about it. Would it make any difference if the risen Christ appeared to you right this minute, so that you, like Thomas, could reach out your hand to touch his wounds? The late Archbishop of Recife, Brazil, Dom Helder Camara, related a story, a true story, one of his priests had told him. The priest confessed to the bishop that one day he was studying the very Gospel reading we heard this morning, and he was finding it difficult to believe that after three years of living with Jesus, the disciples failed to recognize him when he joined them on the road to Emmaus and spent a whole afternoon talking with them. When there is a real friendship with someone, he reasoned, we should be able to recognize him by the way he walks, by his voice, by his expressions and mannerism, even by the way he coughs. While the priest was meditating on all this, there was a knock at his door. It was a poor, wretched man from his parish who needed to unload his troubles to him. But the priest, intent on his contemplation, said that it was not a good time, that he was very busy. The priest gave the man some money, and he asked him to come back later when he would have more time. And then he went back to his Bible study. Suddenly it dawned on him that he had done exactly what the disciples on the road to Emmaus had done. "Christ knocked on my door," he realized. "I saw him, I talked to him, yet I failed to recognize him." Like many of us, he was so preoccupied with trying to recognize the Christ of the Bible that he failed to recognize the living Christ when he was standing right in front of him in real life. The Bible - the Holy Scriptures which Jesus explained to the two disciples as they were walking along the road - is not an end in itself. The Bible is God's word about God and us, God's word about God's presence among us in real life. The priest in Brazil had got it upside down. He was looking for God in the Bible rather than hearing God's word in the Bible about the presence of God in life. Jesus is here today. That's the truth of Easter. Perhaps he's sitting right next to you. Perhaps as some have entertained angels, you are entertaining Jesus, unawares. Christ, like angels, like resurrection life, has a way of meeting us on the road unawares. On the road to Emmaus, on the road to Denver. On any road. If one is not open to seeing the signs of Christ in the world, what good is one more sign or wonder going to be? Seeing is not believing; believing is seeing. Even Thomas's belief after he saw the risen Jesus was made possible by a deep, fundamental faith he already had. It was Moses and the prophets, it was Thomas's being already aware of the story of the ways of God in the world, that made it possible, when Jesus appeared, for Thomas to say, "My Lord and my God!" It has been the Church after Jesus that has tried to convert the world to belief in Jesus, sometimes, regrettably, by force. Jesus himself never expected that everyone would believe in him. Jesus appears only to those who can see, precisely because they are searching for the reality of God. Jesus appears to the women at the tomb. He appears to Thomas and Peter and the others who were fishing that night in Galilee. He appears to the disciples on the road to Emmaus who were grieving his death. He appears to Saul, who had searched Moses and the prophets all his life, looking for God. He appears to those who gather and walk in the name of God. And when Jesus appears, he simply points them, once again, to Moses and the prophets; he simply explains the story to them all over again, and then accepts their invitation to dinner. What do you see when we come together for this meal here today? Or when others gather over at St. Paul's or down at Broadmoor Church or in thousands of other, similar places around the world? Do you see just so many groups of folks getting together in yet another club or organization? Or do you see, with the eye of faith, the signs of the Body of Christ raised, his Body even now alive, offering fellowship and prayer to the world in God's name? And what do you see when you make an offering? An offering to this parish, or to Westside Cares, or to those driven from their homes by poverty or need south of the border? Do you see just another handout slipping from your pocket? Or, with the eye of faith, do you see Father Abraham calling across the chasm to us here, calling us once again to listen to Moses and the prophets? The hard reality is that there were no witnesses to the Resurrection itself, only witnesses to the risen Jesus alive after the event. No attempt is made in the New Testament to describe the Resurrection itself. In terms of proof there just wasn't any. And there isn't any. Resurrection isn't the kind of reality cable news can cover. Jesus, in his Resurrection, does not reveal himself unambiguously for all to see down at Tinseltown. Jesus just appears from time to time. He appears the way Father Abraham appeared to Dives - across the chasm that separates us from heaven. He appears in closed rooms, at the lakeside, in the garden. He comes suddenly into our vision and into our consciousness, not as though he has come from "somewhere," but as though he had been there all the time and was taking this means of helping his friends to realize it. And when, mysteriously, he just as suddenly disappears, it does not mean that he has gone away, but only that eyes other than the eyes in one's head are required to see him. So what does this third account of the risen Christ mean for us today, the one we read this morning, the one where Jesus appears to the disciples on the road to Emmaus? It means at least three things. First, it means that resurrection happens to us in the real world. Jesus comes to the disciples on the road somewhere, because the road is where people live and work, and he reveals himself in the breaking of bread, because at table is where people eat. It is a mistake to spiritualize the Resurrection as something that happens only later, after you die. It happens wherever. In the physical world. Wherever life is. It means the renewal of life, not escape from it. Second, it means that resurrection often happens in the way it happened to the disciples - in an hour of doubt or grief, or at a time of difficulty, at times when, like the disciples at the lake, we may "have caught nothing,"or when, like Saul, we've given up on our own attempts at self-salvation. It happens when we are ready to receive. Third, it means that Jesus reveals himself to those, like Thomas and the disciples on the lake and on the road, who love him, and to those, like Paul, who are searching Moses and the prophets for the life of God. That's why the Gospel is a mystery. Only those who are open to God in the first place, only those open to Moses and the prophets, can see resurrection at work. Those who do not believe, do not see - and cannot - for mystery is closed to the cynical, closed to those like the rich man in Jesus' story, closed to those who have eyes for no life beyond what they see on their own table, or at the mall and the movies, or on ESPN and MTV. That is why "proof" can never be part of the Resurrection story. Because faith, like love and hope, can never be proven, only received and lived. What do you see here today, in this place where we come to pray? Equally important, what will you see tomorrow, in the places where you work and live? In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. |