Sermon by The Rev Sister Veronica Dunbar, 4/23/2023, Easter 3
In the name of God, who through the Word and in the Spirit creates, redeems, and sanctifies. Amen.
Today, we revisit the story of two sorrowing friends walking along the road together; they meet a stranger; they tell him about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. “We had hoped,”thesetwofriendstellthestranger,“Wehadhopedthathe was the one who would redeem us. ”Reading this passage this week, the word hope, here in the past tense, stuck with me. In their hour of darkness, amid the violent disintegration of the movement to which they belonged, these two friends had lost their hope. And a stranger comes along to rekindle it.
Human beings are creatures that have a deep and innate drive to make meaning of their experiences. Here we have two people trying to make meaning of the horrific crucifixion of their teacher and leader; they are struggling to make meaning because they have let go of their hope. This stranger who meets them on the road encourages them to think back over the narrative arc of the Hebrew scriptures, and to read it in a new way, in a way that speaks of hope. This stranger encourages them to make meaning of what they’ve experienced in light of a prophetic narrative of a liberating God who was willing endure the most inhumane response to Jesus’ message in order for God’s love to prove stronger than humankind’s rejection of it; stronger even, than the power of death. As the stranger recalls the stories of God’s love and longing for humankind to return to right relationship with their Creator, the hearts of these two sorrowing friends begin to burn with hope.
As these two friends and the stranger walk along, talking and listening, the day comes to a close; the two friends invite the stranger to stay with them, rather than walk on alone in the dark. They sit down to a meal together and suddenly recognize the presence of the risen Christ in their fellowship and newfound sense of hope. Christ breaks bread with them as a reminder, maybe not so much of the last supper, but of an earlier episode in his ministry, when thousands of disciples were miraculously fed with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. It is a reminder of the Good News that Jesus gave them, and gives us: that God is among us; that even if what we have seems very little, whether it be bread or hope, when it is passed through Jesus’ hands it becomes an abundance; that God’s presence is a sign of love so broad and so deep that we cannot even fathom it; that God’s presence is most easily recognized among us when the hungry are fed, when those without shelter are given a roof over their head, and when we sit with one another to listen and to make meaning of our experiences in light of the prophetic narrative arc of a liberating God.
When these two disciples recognize that Jesus has been walking with them, they now have a new way of making meaning of their experiences revealed to them. They are challenged to reimagine what God’s redemption of humankind means in light of the Good News of the empty tomb. They are challenged to return again and again to the memories they have of their time as Jesus’ disciples and find new meaning in the life and ministry of this prophet who was mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. These two friends must also learn the practice of reimagining hope in the face of the worst that humankind has to offer.
Jesus’ resurrection does not undo the horrific fact of the crucifixion; it overcomes that darkness, shatters its power with God’s overwhelming determination that the crucifixion will not be the last word in the lives of God’s children. We, in our own time, still face horrific acts of inhumanity; some were committed in the recent past, many are still committed daily. Like those two friends who welcomed the stranger, it is our call as disciples to BE the risen body of Christ in the world by carrying on the prophetic deeds and words that declare the Good News of a God of justice and love who longs to create with us a renewed world where the hope of justice and redemption is not lost; a renewed world where the hope of peace is not lost to violence or contempt; a renewed world where all are fed in body, mind, and spirit with the abundance of God’s creation.
Like those two disciples, let us be quick to get up and go out into the world sharing the Good News of the hope that is kindled in us, even in times of darkness; God is quick to be with us, to walk with us, to open our ears and burn in our hearts with the possibility of a world remade in the wholeness God intended from the beginning; and God’s presence among us, when we continue to learn to recognize it and rekindle our hope from it, can do more than we could ever ask or imagine.
Amen.