3rd Sunday of Easter 2020

In this time when we cannot leave our homes, because we are unwilling to spread around a virus that is killing thousands in our country, in this time we might feel a little jealous of a couple of disciples that get to go somewhere.  But if we look closer, we see that they had been on a different road before, following Jesus, learning from him, witnessing his miracles, traveling from town to town sharing the good news of God’s love and healing powers.  Suddenly that road came to a dead end, with the arrest, humiliation, torture, and killing of their gentle and powerful leader and friend, the one they hoped was the Messiah, Jesus.  So, with no Messiah to follow, they head home, disappointed, afraid, confused, and grieving. 

We, too, had been on our path.  We had our plans.  We had our activities.  In an instant, it seemed, that was gone.  Now, we don’t see our friends.  We don’t visit our parents or grandchildren.  Dawn, our childcare director was supposed to be at her son’s wedding this week.  It got cancelled over a month ago.  Sue Rudebusch was supposed to be in Europe.  Nobody is going anywhere.  Even those of us who still have jobs, have a completely different way of doing things and every moment is concentrated on ensuring that we and those we serve stay safe.  We too might be feeling a whole range of feelings, disappointed, afraid, confused, grieving. 

Although our eyes may be prevented from seeing it, Jesus is walking with us.  Jesus is walking with the nurses who don’t have enough personal protective equipment.  Jesus is walking with childcare workers giving children a sense of normalcy in a mixed up world.  Jesus is walking with kids home from school and their parents trying to teach them.  Jesus is walking with the unemployed and hungry.  Jesus is walking with people protesting the shut down.  Jesus is walking with immigrants without ID who don’t get a stimulus check.  Jesus is walking with us all.

He opens the scriptures to us.  He shows us all the stories in the Bible of people getting sick—that it’s not a sign that God has abandoned us—stories of lepers, mental illness, miscarriage.  He shows us all the stories of vulnerability and God working through unexpected people like King David, Zaccheus, Mary Jesus’ teenage mother, and Jacob—the  younger brother.  He shows us all the stories people being blind to God walking with them—the Israelites in the desert, Jonah refusing to do God’s work, even the disciples arguing about who is the greatest.  He shows us all the stories of how God saves the people and teaches them a new way to live—the story of Ruth and Naomi, of Joseph and Pharaoh, of Revelation. 

And Jesus invites us, as he invited the disciples that very first Easter day, to tell our story.  He draws out of us, the story of our broken expectations and disappointments.  He draws out of us our confusion and weakness.  He invites us to lay it all out for him—what we’ve been going through, what our greatest fears are, what we miss most about gathering, all our unknowns.  It feels good to get it out there—to say it out loud.  Maybe we’ve been afraid to because it’s so overwhelming, or because we don’t want to complain—there are so many people worse off right now.  But to say it, to give it expression, is to look at it realistically and see that it is affecting us.  We are burdened.  We are grieving.  We are hurting.  And to say it, in words or art or song or however, is to see it for what it is—temporary.  Jesus walks with us to share our burdens.  I hope you are offering up all your burdens to him in prayer during this time of isolation.  It does help to say it out loud.  It helps give clarity about where we’ve been putting our hope and where we hope to in the future.  It helps to think about what we want to do differently going forward.  It helps us reshape our expectations going forward and to adjust our expectations of ourselves, to give ourselves and others grace.

And as we walk, we come to our home, our destination.  It is late.  We are tired from our grief and from walking all these miles.  Our friend, the one who listened and revealed, is walking on.  But we aren’t done hearing from him.  Our curiosity causes us to invite him.  I hope we will listen to our curiosity.  Our curiosity may be asking us to call someone that we haven’t heard from in a while, or to check on a neighbor, or to call someone we don’t think gets many phone calls.  I hope this virus doesn’t have the lasting effect of making us ignore our curiosity and pay more attention to our fear.  We need each other more than ever, just from a distance. 

So Jesus accepts their invitation, as he does ours.  And he joins us at our meal, in our home.  He becomes in our homes the host of the meal, he breaks the bread, the wounds still visible on his hands, and in the breaking of the bread, he is revealed, our eyes are opened and we recognize him.  Today we celebrate communion in our own homes and Jesus is with us.  He is our guest and  host.  What we could not understand from any explanation, now makes sense when all 5 senses are involved.  What our brains couldn’t comprehend our hands and mouths and noses and ears get through to us at a deeper level.  Jesus is with us.

Now in the story Jesus disappears.  Now that we have recognized him, we can’t hold on to him and put him on the shelf or keep him for ourselves.  He’s on the move, on the road with other disciples, revealing himself all over the place.  And the disciples don’t stay put either.  They run back the 7 miles they’ve already come because they have a realization that is worth sharing with others who might not yet know the healing, the peace, the vulnerability, the love of Jesus.  And although we aren’t going on any actual road, that is our path.  We’ve got good news to share.  Maybe it is in the form of a donation of food for those in need or towels for Lutheran World Relief.  Maybe we have an extra mask to share.  Maybe we are cultivating a garden to share.  Maybe we are picking up litter on our walks.  Maybe we are calling someone who is lonely.  We have good news that we can’t keep to ourselves, our cup runs over and pours God’s blessings to all who walk in grief, all whose hearts are burning.