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"When Will We See Jesus?"
Luke 24:13-48
A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
April 7, 2002
University Baptist Church
Minneapolis, MN
The sacred harp hymn Bound for Canaan asks the question, "O when will I see Jesus?" This is the question we ask on the other side of Easter. This is the question of the people needing hope, needing encouragement, needing a new way of looking at and responding to the world. This is the question of us as we look at a world where people are bent on destroying each other; where might seems to make right for a while until all the walls come tumbling down like so many Jerichos. We sing, we plead: "When will I see Jesus and reign with him above and from the flowing fountain drink everlasting love? When shall I be delivered from this vain world of sin and with my blessed Jesus drink endless pleasures in? I’m on my way to Canaan to the new Jerusalem." The new Jerusalem. The new place of peace.
The original folk who sang sacred harp music connected with Jesus’ message of new life for people without any seeming hope. Many of them were rural folk. Back country folk. Good Baptists, many of them, who knew that no church leader or no government could or should stand in their way of connecting with the eternal hope that they experienced in the story of Jesus. For 200 + years, this music, in this form has been sung as a leaderless and egalitarian way of modeling what the world ought to look like. When we gather to sing this music on Tuesdays or Sundays in one of the upper rooms of this church, there is no leader. There is no theological statement admitting one person and excluding another. There is no musical litmus test to being able to sing or listen. The only thing you need is a love of music, a need for camaraderie, and an hour or two to be transported to a place where we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. People have sung the same song in the same manner, bucking the trends of acceptable religion for centuries. Plenty of water, a big dose of humility and some self-deprecating laughter help a lot, too. Some come looking for Jesus, some do not. What we find is a new sense of community and that is what Jesus was after.
When will we see Jesus? When will we embrace the community we need? When will we look at the world in a new way? When will we be welcomed and affirmed? When will we see someone who says that the ways of this world are not the final answer—that there can be another way to address our sisters and our brothers, even those with whom we disagree—a way that is not violent, but calls us all to a new community?
When will we see Jesus so that we can just touch the hem of his garment so that we might be healed. Where is that garment anyway?
Many of us long to see Jesus. We long to see redemption in this world. We long to see evidence of the resurrection. We long to see examples of hope. That’s one of the reasons we go to movies. The theme of resurrection is a common one in movies. Think of the Christ figures in the movies: those who give their lives so that others might live; those who sacrifice so that others might have a more abundant life: Neo in The Matrix; Bethany in Dogma; Kyle in Terminator I; The Terminator in Terminator II; Andy Dufrane in The Shawshank Redemption; Barbara Hershey’s character in Beaches;
The Iron Giant; Cool hand Luke; ET the extraterrestrial. We watch these movies because we need to believe in a Christ figure. We need to believe that some force out there can overcome this world, because the alternative is too full of despair.
When will we see Jesus? It depends how hard we look.
You just never know where Jesus might show up. I imagine people 2000 years ago walking the road out of Jerusalem, filled up with Passover matzo and a little hungover from too much Manischewitz, grumbling about how Jesus just wasn’t who they thought he would be.
When Jesus appeared to the two people on the road to Emmaus, they were on their way back to business as usual. Oh, how easy it is to walk that road. They wanted to retreat to the time before they had known about Jesus. "We had hoped that he would be the one to redeem Israel". But he wasn’t, they reasoned. The messiah hadn’t come. They would just get back to their lives.
Jesus appeared to the people and nonchalantly asked them to tell the story. He listened to them moan and groan about Jesus’ brutal death. Jesus walked with them and gave them his interpretation of the scriptures. Whether they bought his theology or not we don’t know, but they did stay on their journey together. They continued to head back home with this stranger by their side. Everything changed at dinner time. Jesus took bread and broke it. And there, they recognized that the broken body of Jesus was remarkably similar to the brokenness of the bread. They remembered their own brokenness. They remembered that Jesus came to repair the breach, to mend the brokenness, to name the evil of the world and to proclaim the love of God. When they recognized all of that, Jesus vanished from their sight.
And the people, we know had heartburn. When our hearts burn like that the only logical thing to do is to share it with someone else.
The decisive moment of Easter happened not when Jesus met the people on the road. It happened not in the interpretation of scriptures. It happened not in the telling of the story. It happened not even in the breaking of the bread. The decisive moment of Easter happened when the people turned back to go to Jerusalem.
The scripture tells us that they rose in the middle of the night and returned to Jerusalem in search of the other disciples. The safe road of the familiar would never again define their lives. It was a new life they sought amidst their heartburn. They needed the other witnesses. They needed to be with the other disciples in order to begin their new life. They needed a community. They could no longer simply go to the garden alone to encounter God, they needed to seek out God with other people.
As Nancy Myers was telling her story this morning, I couldn’t help but think of the sacred harp hymn Odem. The words go:
"Wonderful things of men are said when they have passed away.
Flowers adorn the narrow bed over the lifeless clay.
Give me the roses while I live. Something to cheer me on.
Useless the flowers you may give after the soul is gone.
Life is the time for words of praise, hands clasp with friendly smile.
Blessings to cheer a pilgrim’s days are always well worthwhile.
Give me the roses while I live. Something to cheer me on.
Useless the flowers you may give after the soul is gone."
Jesus appeared to the people on Easter and in the days and weeks following so that we might break out of our hopelessness and give roses to people while they live, realizing that there is hope when people are gathered together. A community on the other side of the wilderness is a powerful community. It is the body of Christ. It’s where we see Jesus.
The resurrection happens not at the empty tomb.
It happens not on the road to Emmaus.
The resurrection happens when the community sees itself in a new light.
The resurrection happens when the community becomes the church—the people seeking to live like Jesus.
The miracle of Christian community is that it can happen. And when it does, Christ rises and empowers. But it takes all of us committing ourselves to seeing the world through new eyes. Eyes that see both the suffering of the world and a way to overcome it. With hearts that sing songs of hope we are transported to a place of acceptance, of love, of nurture and of ecstatic joy.
The point of Easter is that life can be different. It will not be easier. It will be more confusing in some ways. But what was and is absolutely essential was and is for the people to pull together in order to spread the word and do the work which Jesus started during his life. See, he goes before us into Galilee. Go, tell the disciples. Go, tell Peter. Go together and believe that the Good News is here and available to all of us.
When will we see Jesus?
When people work together.
When people sing together.
When people pray together and hold each other up and don’t abandon each other when the chips are down.
When people come together and say that the way this world is running is ignoring the very people Jesus came to: the poor, the destitute, the outcast, the nobodies. This Jesus calls us all somebodies and shows us how to work together to create something beautiful. And I look here and I see apart of that. Do you see it? If you do, then you might just be seeing Jesus.
May we experience anew the power and presence of Jesus, the living Christ who beckons us to turn around from our solitary grumbling and to embrace the community called together to spread the message of love, justice, mercy and peace to all the world.
When will we see Jesus?
When we join the saints and sinners on a journey to Canaan.
"I’m on my way to Canaan
I’m on my way to Canaan
I’m on my way to Canaan
to the new Jerusalem."
Amen.