Sermon:
April 15, 2001
Easter Sunday
Sunrise Service

Scripture:
Luke 24:13-35

Last month, Pat and I traced again a portion of the journeys of the Apostle Paul in Greece and Turkey. We marveled anew at the columns of the magnificent Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, we walked the remains of the streets of ancient Corinth and Philippi and, for our first time, we viewed the excavations at Pergamum and Ephesus - how splendid those cities must have been in their time! The colonnaded streets, the temples and statuary, the great amphitheaters - structures that have set standards of line and proportion that have held for more than twenty centuries; and in addition to wondering and marveling at the glory that was Greece and Turkey, I found myself feeling the tragedy of a world that had fallen apart.

I had similar feelings a few years ago when I saw the television coverage of the burning oil fields in Kuwait and the repeated picture of that one highway leading into Iraq that someone labeled "the Highway to Hell." Bombed and abandoned vehicles in the aftermath of war, the twisted, smoking ruins of oil wells, the rusting hulks of tanks and armored vehicles - these would hardly leave the world any legacy equal to the monuments that we saw in Greece or Turkey, but those scenes, too, spoke eloquently of a world that had fallen apart.

But all of the worlds that fall apart are not covered by television or visited by tourists; nor does there have to be a war or an earthquake for a world to fall apart. Worlds come in several sizes. There are worlds within worlds and the devastation of one world may leave a world within it relatively untouched, while an event that leaves little mark on the larger context may utterly destroy a world that has been someone's life.

One senses something of that in this conversation between these two travelers on the road to Emmaus. Their attitude is reflected in their reply when the traveler who joins them asks them why they are so downcast. They do not know who this stranger is, and we can sense something of their anguish as they say to him: "Are you the only one in all Jerusalem who hasn't heard what has happened? Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in word and deed before God and the people, was handed over to be sentenced to death." Then come the words that reflect what had happened to their world: "We had hoped he was the one who would have set Israel free."

Can you feel the depth of the loss reflected in that statement? Can you catch a glimpse of their shattered world? "We had hoped..." How many descriptions of fallen worlds begin with words like these, words that reflect the shattering of hopes, the crumbling of dreams?

The larger world around these two disciples had not been touched. Caesar still ruled the Empire; Herod was still in the palace in Jerusalem; the High Priest still presided in the Temple; Roman legions still marched on Roman roads; Roman coins still paid the tolls and purchased bread. Nothing was changed in Carthage or Cairo or Rome or Damascus or Jerusalem; but their world had come apart.

"We had hoped..." It is the devastation of the world that we live in that impacts us, whatever happens in the larger world or the worlds that other people know. Such devastation does not require bombs or burning oil or earthquakes or even crucifixions on a hill. Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote:

When some beloved voice that was to you
both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
aches around you like a strong disease and new -
What hope? what help? what music will undo
that silence to your sense? Not friendship's sight,
not reason's subtle count; not melody
of viols, nor of pipes that Faunas blew;
Not songs of pets, nor of nightingales -
- nay, none of these. ⁽¹⁾

The death of a companion, or a child, or a parent, or a dear friend; the break-up of a marriage; the diagnosis of a devastating illness; the loss of a job; being passed over for a promotion - there are many ways in which worlds collapse. I am sure that we could go around our gathering this morning and hear accounts of several worlds that have fallen apart. We may not encounter any stories as awesome as the destruction in Kuwait or as imposing as the ruins of ancient Greece, but the greatest impact of even those calamities really comes down to the individual lives that they affect so tragically, does it not? To the individual worlds that have fallen apart? The refugees, huddled in their misery, the lines of the homeless and the hungry, the anguish on the faces of survivors?

So our question for this Easter morning is: Does the Gospel have something to offer us when a world falls apart?

There must be something here. We note that at the end of the story, the despair of these two disciples has given way to joy and we find them running back to Jerusalem to tell others what had happened to them. What made the difference? What was it that restored their faith? What renewed their hope?

First of all, let it be noted that hearing about the Resurrection of Jesus did not do it for them. They already knew about that. Did you notice that in the story? These were two who had already heard the news of the Resurrection! Notice what they tell the Traveler:

Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and did not find his body; and they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see. (Luke 24:22-24)

They had already heard about the Resurrection, not only from the women who had gone to the tomb, but from others who had gone afterwards and confirmed what the women had reported! So make a note: hearing about the Resurrection does not rebuild a world. They had heard that news and walked away, the taste of the ashes of their crumbled world still bitter in their mouths.

So what happened here? When we look at the story more closely, we discover that what seems to have happened was that Jesus introduced them to a greater world. Luke says: "And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." (Luke 24:27)

As critical and inescapable as our world may be, in itself, it is not the ultimate world for which we are made and to which we are called. It is easy to criticize the mistaken hopes of these disciples, to say that they were looking for the wrong things in Jesus; but we, like them, may need the lessons of Scripture concerning the difference between our world and the Kingdom of God. We often talk about Jesus coming to found a spiritual kingdom and not an earthly one, and we are quick to say how mistaken the nationalists of his day were to try to cast him in the role of a Political Messiah. But do we not often try to equate Christ's teachings with our way of life and link God's Kingdom with our wars and turn blind eyes to any discrepancies between our way of self-indulgence and Christ's call to self-denial? Are we not quick to voice our "Why me?" at tragedy, with the implications that somehow God's umbrella should have sheltered us from the storm a little more?

Some have dreamed a world built on human goodness or human systems. Communism did that for decades. Now, throughout nations where Christian churches were once confiscated and made the property of the state and where the Christian faith was ridiculed and its teaching forbidden, a world has fallen apart. Amidst the rubble of broken walls and iron rule, a new world is rising. Whether it will be a better world or simply another built on a different set of false hopes remains to be seen, but the world that points to true freedom is seen there, a world that is rooted in Easter.

When George Bush was serving as vice president under Ronald Reagan, he represented our country at the funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, the First Secretary of the Community Party. A portion of Mr. Bush's report of the event was carried in the Washington Post. He wrote:

An amazing thing happened at the funeral of Soviet Leader Brezhnev. Things were running to a military precision; a coldness and hollowness pervaded the ceremony - marching soldiers, steel helmets, Marxist rhetoric, but no prayers, no comforting hymns, no mention of God. I happened to be in just the right spot to see Mrs. Brezhnev. She walked up (to the casket), took one last look at her husband, and there, in the cold, gray center of the totalitarian state, she traced the sign of the cross over her husband's chest. I was stunned. In that simple act, God had broken through the core of the Communist system. ⁽²⁾

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that any time our world falls apart it is because it has been built on false or evil dreams. Worlds sometimes fall apart even when the dreams have been right in and of themselves. The two travelers in this story were not people who had opposed or rejected Christ; but the boundaries of the world into which they tried to fit him were too confined; their dreams were too restricted.

"We thought he was the one..." they said. Our world is sometimes as limited as the one that these disciples cherished; and we, like them, need the clearer understanding of God's Kingdom.

The lesson of this morning is the reminder that it requires the personal encounter of the Risen Christ to hold our world together. These men had heard about the Resurrection, but it had not become real for them. Then, in the breaking of bread and the sharing of Scripture, they met Christ on a deeper level and they glimpsed a wider world.

This is the glad surprise that comes to us when we begin to grasp the meaning of human life that the Gospel offers. They said to one another: "Did not our hearts burn within us when he broke bread with us?"

So with us. That understanding often comes to us as it came to these men - not in some mystic flash of light, but in the inner stirrings that sense his presence and continue in his fellowship. Some moment in church, some time of prayer or deeper thought, a sermon, an anthem, a hymn, a word from a friend, some touch of God upon our life and we begin to recognize that there is a world beyond what we thought was all there was, a world that hasn't fallen apart.

Several years ago, the Midland congregation sponsored a Laotian family. It was an extended family, and we ended up with about fourteen people. After a few years, the family relocated to another part of the country in order to be nearer other Laotians. Shortly before they left, Tong Lo, the senior mother in that extended family, gave me a piece of her cross-stitched handwork. Pat mounted it on a maroon background to make the stole. It is a lovely piece of handwork and many people have commented on its beauty. But it takes on an added beauty when you know the rest of its story. Tong Lo told me that she made it while they were in the refugee camp in Thailand. I wear it during Lent in memory of hurting people; and I put it on the pulpit this morning as a reminder that new life and hope can arise from the ruins of a fallen world. That is the continuing promise of Easter.

I did not include the last line of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's verse when I read it a few moments ago. She did not end her thoughts with the listing of the inadequacies of so many empty comforters; the words, "nay, none of these," were not her last words. She added one more line. Her verse concludes with this:

Speak Thou, availing Christ! - and fill this pause.

It is not the report of the Resurrection, but the experience of the Risen Christ that offers us a greater world. John Galsworthy proclaims that word in these lines:

Not what, but whom, I do believe,
That, in my darkest hour of need,
Hath comfort that no mortal creed
To mortal man may give; -
Not what, but whom!
For Christ is more than all the creeds,
And His full life of gentle deeds
Shall all the creeds outlive.

Not what I do believe, but whom!
Who walks beside me in the gloom?
Who shares the burden wearisome?
Who all the dim way doth illume, ........
And bids me look beyond the tomb
The larger life to live? -
Not what I do believe,
But whom!
Not what,
But whom! ⁽³⁾

This is the word of Easter for us today. Not the report of an event that happened, but the experience of the Christ himself, who touches our lives and give us a faith that will stand even when a world falls apart.

* * * * *

⁽¹⁾ Masterpieces of Religious Verse, p.201, #632

⁽²⁾ Reported in sermon by Rod Wilmoth, St. Paul's U.M. Church, Omaha, Nebraska

⁽³⁾ Masterpieces of Religious Verse, p.368, #1171