May 8, 2011 -- Jerusalem UCC (Palmerton PA)
 |
| The Child by the Church Door |
Cleopas and his wife were confused. They were walking to the town of Emmaus, trying to sort out what had happened the past few days. In deep conversation they were, and then this stranger joined them -- seemed to come from out of nowhere -- and not only that, this stranger seemed to not know anything about the big news coming out of Jerusalem.
Little did they know that this was Jesus. Jesus was the stranger who had joined them on their walk to Emmaus. It’s a funny thing: Cleopas and his wife knew all about Jesus. They knew he was a man of God, a prophet, powerful in deed, amazing teacher, God’s own, popular with the people. They knew that Jesus had been tried and sentenced to death and was crucified. They knew -- and they were confused -- that some women -- that very morning -- had found an empty tomb where the body of Jesus should have been and now were claiming that angels had said that Jesus was alive. Yes, Cleopas and his wife knew all about Jesus; they may even have been with Jesus just a few days before; but when Jesus joined them on the road in a new day, they didn’t know Jesus.
Imagine having Jesus walking along beside you, talking to you and asking questions, and even teaching them everything there is to know about the very history of the Messiah -- and still -- not being able to recognize Jesus when Jesus is right there!
The only thing worse would be to stop expecting Jesus to show up at all. I almost gave up -- years ago -- encouraged by my Sunday School teachers -- or I should say DIS-couraged by some of my childhood Sunday School teachers. You see, as a child, I had no trouble believing the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I had the faith of a child -- a faith that said if God decided to raise Jesus from the dead, then it was done.
My urgent question was: “Where is he? Where is Jesus? If Jesus is alive [as I knew he was] then where is he NOW?” The answer: “He’s in heaven” didn’t help me out. I was old enough to have some sense that this heaven where Jesus was, was somehow different than the sky. But … but … more than that, I knew that, if Jesus was alive, he wasn’t out in space hanging out on some faraway planet somewhere. I knew -- somehow I knew -- that Jesus was a lot closer than that because Jesus loved me -- THIS I did know. I also found out that there are only so many of those hard questions that a Sunday School teacher will tolerate before she loses her cool. I grew up somehow holding onto “Jesus Loves Me” even when, at times, my Sunday School teachers seemed to have run out of love in the form of patience.
