I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, May 1. The text is Luke 24:13-35; read it here.
I teach music to kids at a Presbyterian Church across town. This morning I started to work with them on a piece that we’re going to sing together with the adult choir next September. It’s a piece we’ll be singing for the 10 year anniversary of September 11.
And I said to them, Now, do any of you remember September 11?
And none of them raised their hand.
But then one said,
I was just a baby, but my uncle worked there,
and, he’s okay, because he went to work late that day.
And then suddenly, the hands of all the kids were up in the air, and they told me all these stories, about family members and friends, stories it was clear were told in their families and had become almost like legend.
They were stories of something that happened once,
before they could remember,
before they were even were alive,
but there was a sense about these stories --
that something incredibly important had happened,
the effects of which were still being felt
even by these 8 and 9 and 10 year olds who weren’t even there.
For these New York kids, September 11 was very close and very real.
The stories about Jesus’ resurrection are a little bit like that.
Accounts of something really big that happened,
so big that, even the folks who weren’t there sort of feel like they were.
And they stories that are told end up turning into a kind of family legend.
You can practically hear the stories rippling through Jerusalem and the surrounding towns.
People leaning over to one another, their voices lowered:
These women,
they said they saw him.
Two men on a road...said they walked along side with him,
didn’t even know it was him,
until they broke the bread with him,
and he was there.
During the season of Easter at St. Lydia’s, we’ll be reading different stories from all the gospels of what happens after:
all these different accounts of how Jesus appeared after he broke free from the tomb.
He starts showing up:
He shows up to two friends as they walk along the road,
then at the table, when they break bread together.
He shows up in an upper room, where the disciples have gathered,
even though the doors have been locked up tight.
He shows up by the seashore
as the disciples fish, and eats breakfast with them.
And these are just the stories that we have written down,
remembered in these gospels.
There are many other stories of Jesus showing up,
as suddenly and fleetingly as he does in the story we read tonight.
At first we don’t even know it’s him.
And by the time we recognize him,
he has, as tonight’s text tells us,
vanished from our sight.
Most often, I’ve found, he shows up in and through quite ordinary things.
The road we walk along.
The table we gather around.
The loaf of bread we break and share.
The people we break and share it with.
He showed up for me this morning.
After my kids had told me all their stories and I had listened to all the memories they had inherited, I said taught them the piece that they’re going to sing next September on the anniversary of September 11. The text of the piece is from Isaiah 43.
I sang it to them, and they sang it back to me:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name,
you are mine.
When you pass through the waters
I will be with you,
and through the rivers,
they shall not overwhelm you.
When you walk through the fire,
you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
In their voices, I heard Jesus’ voice, making a promise that I not only heard, but believed.
Christ is risen.
Risen and walking along side us, whether we know him or not.
Showing up in and through the most ordinary of things and people.
There are as many stories of Jesus appearing
as there are stars in the sky
and drops in the ocean.
We’ve told two of them tonight already.
And we’ll tell just a few more.
Where have you seen Jesus?
Where is Christ showing up?
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