Freeville/Homer Ave. UMC's - Third Sunday of Easter/Native American Awareness Sunday - 05/04/14 Sermon - “When you have you walked and talked with Jesus?"

Sunday 05/04/14 Freeville/Homer Ave UMC’s

Sermon Title: “When have you walked and talked with Jesus?”

Old Testament Scripture Lesson: Psalm 116: 1-4, 12-19

                                            

New Testament Scripture Lesson: Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Gospel Lesson: Luke 24: 13-35

                            

Brothers and sisters, welcome once again on this the Third Sunday of this our Easter Season, or Eastertide, and this our Native American Awareness Sunday.

While we all continue through this season towards the day that Jesus will ascend to heaven, and to the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit will be poured out powerfully filling the early disciples, today we will hear of another post-resurrection appearance of the Risen Christ.

Further, this Sunday is also a Sunday in the United Methodist Church that we remember our Native American brothers and sisters. The United Methodist Church has many Native Americans in it, some of which worship even to this day on reservation churches. Some of the history of this country and the sufferings of the Native American people is something that continues to stain our country, like slavery does. As a result, today, let us remember our Native American brothers and sisters, both past and present, who are Americans, and some of whom like us are followers of Jesus Christ.

As I said then, today however, we will hear another story of an appearance of Christ after he was resurrected, or post-resurrection. Last Sunday if you remember we heard about the “Doubting Thomas” story, and just how human Thomas was. How Thomas had the courage to show us all that at times we all have doubts. That sometimes through doubt, and through our trials and our tribulations, our faith can grow much stronger.

You see brothers and sisters, even though the original twelve Disciples of Christ walked with him and talked with him, they still had times of doubt. In this Easter Season or Eastertide, the disciples struggled to understand Christ’s resurrection. Some had even doubts over who Jesus was.

I mean after all, Jesus Christ the Messiah had just been crucified. He was brutally beaten, mocked, whipped, spat upon, and crucified, and as a result, most of the disciples were shaken up by this. Perhaps this is not what they expected. Perhaps they did not think that Jesus would truly meet his end like this, and soon fear, doubt, and worry set in on them. They might have talked with each other and asked, “what if he wasn’t truly who he said he was?” Another might have asked, “What if he was just a nice guy, and not the Son of God?”

I can imagine that if the mighty King David was brutally murdered, that his devoted soldiers would have had their faith in him shaken. They might have asked, “If King David is truly so powerful and mighty, how could this have happened to him?” Now King David was not brutally murdered, but I think that you get the idea here.

In this way, the disciples didn’t fully get the “big picture” yet, as some were doubting and questioning who Christ was. It would seem that some of them almost thought that Jesus had a “fall from grace,” when they crucified him. Since Jesus often spoke in parables or stories, the early disciples were still sorting out all that Jesus taught them, all that he said, and all that he was. They also had a sense of lowliness, and there Lord was gone.

Realizing that his disciples had all of these feelings, Christ appeared to his followers at different times in this Easter Season or Eastertide to encourage and embolden them. In many ways, this is exactly what the community of faith does today. We pray, we follow Jesus, but we embolden each other to grow in faith. We call upon the spirit of God to fill us, and God works through us to fill each other.

This morning then, we will hear about the famous gospel story that is often known as the “road to,” or the “Walk to Emmaus.” In this story, Jesus walks with two of his followers, and they cannot see who he truly is until later in the story. This walk of faith is such a popular story, that in the United Methodist Church we have a spiritual retreat program called “Walk to Emmaus,” which is named after this story. The purpose of this retreat and the youth version of this retreat, is grow faith, grow understandings in Christ, and grow leadership in the church.

Given all of this then, the question that I have for all of us to be thinking about this morning, is “When have we walked and talked with Jesus?” When have we taken a stroll and been chatting with Jesus? What if we “walked and talked with Jesus,” and were so caught up in our own thoughts, that we neglected to realize that the Lord of life was right next to us all along?

          In our Old Testament reading from Psalm 116 from this morning it says, “I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my supplications.” How many of us this morning feel like you have recently heard from God? How many of you feel like you are still waiting to hear on what God would have you do next? Keep praying, keep seeking Him.

          Throughout this whole Psalm, the Psalmist speaks about trusting God, having faith in God, and about serving God. The Psalm even ends with “Praise the Lord!” Yet despite this, much like the early disciples, many of us today have struggles, and sometimes we have doubts.

          In our reading from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, or Acts, the reading picks up just after the Pentecost story that we will hear about on Sunday June 8^th. This scripture picks up with the Apostle Peter being filled with the Holy Spirit. You see at this point, the Apostle Peter finally shed his doubt, his fear, and his worry, and preached boldly to the people of Jerusalem. Peter told the people of Jerusalem, “let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Remember though that Peter denied Jesus three-times, that he abandoned Jesus on the day of crucifixion, and in the “Doubting Thomas” story from last Sunday, he was still in hiding “for fear of the Jews.”  

          When the Apostle Peter did this in this reading from the Book of Acts however, it said that the listeners that heard Peter preach, “Were cut to heart.” Peter then told the people to repent of their sins, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and to put their faith in him. The Book of Acts reading from this morning ended by saying, “So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.” So in one day, “three thousand” new followers of Jesus Christ. This is what can happen we when we overcome fear, and worry, and doubt. “When have we walked and talked with Jesus?”  

          In our gospel reading from this morning, as I said earlier, two of the early followers or disciples were walking on a road to a village called Emmaus, which was about seven-miles from Jerusalem. On this road, the two were discussing Jesus with each other. The gospel then says, “While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”

          So the two disciples are now walking to the village of Emmaus discussing Jesus, and Jesus then joins the two in their walk, but they cannot recognize who he really is. Then Jesus says to the two disciples, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” At this point the two disciples, “stood still, looking sad. Then one them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” Jesus then says, “What things?” The two then “replied, “the things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.”

          The next thing that they then said, is statement of real doubt, real worry, and real fear. The two disciples then told the unrecognizable Jesus, “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.” You see, these two disciples were doubting, were saddened, were not yet fully convinced, as they said that they “had hoped” Jesus would be the Messiah. It is similar to us saying, we had hoped for a better day. We wouldn’t hope for a better day, if it were already a good day, the way the two disciples wouldn’t have truly believed that Jesus was the Messiah, if they only had hoped he was the Messiah.

          Further, the two disciples then say to unrecognizable Jesus, “Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.” Yet many did not see the resurrected Jesus, they told unrecognizable Jesus. As they continued to walk, Jesus then explained who the Messiah is and why he is important. He explained how the Messiah came to suffer and die, so that we may have life.

          When the two disciples and the unrecognizable Jesus were approaching the village of Emmaus, Jesus started walking ahead of them, as to walk on without them. At this point though, the two disciples said to the unrecognizable Jesus, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.”

          The unrecognizable Jesus agreed to stay with the two disciples. As such, the three sat down to eat dinner. At this dinner, the still unrecognizable Jesus “took bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them.” The gospel then says, “Suddenly their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.” Then the two said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

          These two disciples then “got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” The two disciples then told them “what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

You see my brothers and sisters, the early disciples in this Easter Season had doubts, had fears, and had worries, yet Jesus showed them who he truly was. For as Jesus was sitting at the Last Supper with the disciples, he said that they would not share food with him again until the Kingdom of God has come. Yet by Jesus breaking bread with these two early disciples from the gospel reading from this morning, he not only proved he is the Messiah, but that the building of God’s Kingdom here on earth, has come indeed, and we are still building it, even today.

I would like to close this message this morning with a poem called, Christian Assurance, by B. Killebrew. Here is how is goes, “When we accept our Savior, and let his Holy Spirit in, we are shielded by His grace from falling into sin. With the Holy Spirit in us, we never walk alone, no matter where we’re walking, or how far away we roam. Christians have assurance purchased on the cross, that accepting our salvation, will prevent eternal loss.”          

So “When have we walked and talked with Jesus?” By the way, if Jesus is the Prince of Peace, is it any wonder that he was revealed and seen when the two from the gospel showed him hospitality, by inviting him to eat and stay with them? For we often don’t truly see Jesus in our anger, or in our hostility, or in our violence, or in our greed, rather we often see the face of Jesus in our love, in our charity, in our mercy, in our prayers, and in our hospitality. “When have we walked and talked with Jesus?” Amen.