Acts 2:14a,36-41; Psalm 116:1-3,10-17 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35
I had a discussion about faith with a distraught person during a Cursillo weekend years ago. They told me about a heart-breaking loss they had suffered in the last year, the suffering and horrible death of a beloved sister who was also a beloved wife to a loving husband, and a mother to loving children. This person told me how meaningless the death of this loved one had seemed. This person told me how God’s mercy seemed random, saving some and denying healing to others. This person told me how some good folks suffered and some bad folks thrived.
As a trained Spiritual Director I had hoped I would have the answer, that I would be the conduit through which God would send the elusive answer this soul sought. All the education and experience I had, all those years of training and practice. I prayed that God would give me words to heal this person of their pain and especially their disappointment in God. I had nothing for him but silence.
This person went on to tell me about the relationship they had with a parent, one that was strained, distant, and painful. As their parent approached death words were said by the parent to the child that should have been spoken years, decades before. In the midst of those longed for but never spoken words from a distant father, “I love you”, this person felt only confusion… a need to respond, a desire to answer, but no feeling in the response, “I love you, too”.
This person looked at God and saw the same thing they saw in their own life, an absent father. They were angry at a God who seemed always just out of reach, at a God who appeared to some but not to others. They saw in God as Father the absent Father they had experienced in their own life, a God who showed up once a long time ago and then ran off somewhere, rarely to be heard from again. They were angry at God the parent who would allow the world to be filled with pain, suffering, and abandonment; at God the parent who in ages past and for children past seemed to act with power and vengeance against all enemies of his loved ones, but for this child and for others today God seems as a parent that is worse than absent, worse than ambivalent, completely heartless. They felt abandoned by God as a Father who would leave his children to the violence and the ravages of the world and offer no protection.
This was a person struggling to be faithful, surrounded by faithful people who seemed to see something that this person was begging for in vain – to see some proof, any proof that God cared about them and about creation. This person prayed bitterly to see God, to feel God, to sense that Father, God in any form; sight, sound, smell, taste, touch.
I babbled, looked for something to grab onto, for any point of reference I could use to help this lost soul. But as I talked and offered encouragement I knew that this person was looking for the one thing that I couldn’t give to them, that they could only receive this gift from the true Giver; the truth is that God comes to us in His own way and on His own time, only God could reveal Himself to this person, and hard as I try, I don’t heal – only god brings healing in due season.
In our Gospel reading from Luke two other believers are struggling with feelings of abandonment, the feeling of children whose father has given them false hope and then ripped that hope away.
These two of God’s children have witnessed the horrible events of the Passover in Jerusalem, and now that three days have passed since their apparent savior’s death with nothing changed, they make the long, sad journey back to the world in their home town of Emmaus. Their journey is even longer with the knowledge that, despite his apparent execution, God in Jesus has supposedly appeared to some at the empty tomb, but not to these two.
But as only God can, the resurrected Jesus appears to them on that hot and dusty road, even though they don’t recognize him at first. And God in Jesus knows what these two wandering souls need to experience in order to see God. So beginning with Moses and all the prophets Jesus opens scripture to them, explaining how God has from the very beginning prepared creation for the salvation that would come with the long-expected Jesus the Christ, and how Jesus the Messiah was to glorify the Father and glorify himself through his death, resurrection, and ascension. How God the now seemingly absent father had been present all along, loving his children and planning for the celebration to come on the day of their salvation.
With their hearts burning at this stranger’s words on the road, these two disciples insist that the one who has given them such hope not wander off into the night, but rather share a meal and shelter with them. There’s something very special about this apparent stranger, and these two don’t want to let it get away too soon, they want to hang onto it, they want to cling to it.
And just like the God of scripture makes a habit of doing, Jesus hangs around just long enough to celebrate communion with his hosts, and as he breaks the bread these two faithful people glimpse the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes, and then Jesus is gone from their sight. That is SOOOO God.
And now, having seen exactly what they needed, just enough and no more, these two disciples, their hearts now bursting with joy, run the seven miles back to Jerusalem in the dark of night to share their news with the others still mourning in the Holy City. Some will receive this sighting with newfound faith, others, like me, will have to see the risen Lord with their own eyes.
As I watched the person I was counseling walk away after we prayed for their vision of the Risen Lord to be made real, I felt like I had failed. Nothing I said to them brought an immediate answer to their need. Nothing I said gave them a vision of our resurrected Lord. I felt impotent and frustrated, pretty much useless as I ran our conversation over and over again in my mind while struggling to sleep that night. But when I was finally able to let go of my own ego, I reminded myself of my own struggle to see our Resurrected Lord, how I had tried in vain to make my faith happen, how I had prayed for what seemed like years to steal a glimpse of the Transfiguration so that I too could “see” for myself. But the fact is that God showed himself to me only when I let go of my demand that He show himself. God chose the time and the place, not me. I couldn’t see the God in Jesus with my mind, with my logic; like Thomas the doubter I had to see our resurrected Lord with my own eyes. And God didn’t hold it against me.
A few weeks after our conversation I saw the person I had failed to show God to through my words. They looked different. Something had happened earlier during our time apart, something I had nothing to do with. They looked like their heart was aflame, ablaze, like a bush that was burning but was not consumed. I overheard them telling others about how God had gotten into their heart in a way that they had not expected, and with a power that they will never forget.
God comes when God comes. The God who spoke His name to Moses, I Am what I Am, or I will be what I will be, God comes when He comes.
The Good News today is that God does not come to us in our moments of strength, or in our moments of power, or in our moments of brilliance; God comes to us in our moments of deepest vulnerability, when we are filled with fear and panic, in those times where our hearts are laid completely bare, when we seem to have lost all hope. It’s a painful paradox. Only when we are able to completely abandon our faith in this world does God show us his power to save. And then we only have to believe what we have seen.
If you have seen our risen Lord, let’s all rejoice together. Like those first disciples on the road to Emmaus, Easter is the time to share your resurrection story with everyone that will listen, because we all need to hear a good resurrection story.
If you haven’t seen our Resurrected Lord yet, don’t worry. Sooner or later all who gaze into that dark and empty tomb will turn around to find that Jesus has been standing right next to them the whole time. Sooner or later all those who walk roads of despair will realize that they are not alone, they have never been alone in their journey because God never abandons. Joined on that road by a friendly stranger, He who was dead but is risen will make God’s plan of salvation real to you. Sooner or later all who break bread around the Lord’s Table will glimpse our Risen Savior in our midst, and know that he is the founder of the feast, the Way to the Father, and the Author of our Salvation.