SUPPER WITH JESUS

Sermon by Judy Turner







Luke 24:13-35

This is a story of revelation where Jesus meets His discouraged, disheartened, despairing followers on the road. As He walks with them, He helps them see and understand what has happened. As a result, they step into a whole new Reality and start living with hope, purpose, joy, and excitement. The day began for these two disciples as a weary trudge from the city of Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, 7 miles away. They started the day with their hearts heavy and their eyes downcast. They end the day with hearts filled to overflowing, eyes wide with wonder, getting back to Jerusalem as fast as their legs could go, so eager to share the good news of their encounter with the risen Jesus.

Understanding the Scriptures

What did Jesus do for them that made all the difference, not only in their day, but changed the course of their lives? First of all, He helped them see the scriptures in a whole new way. They had read the scriptures all their lives but somehow missed the central message. They knew the scriptures contained God’s promise to send a Messiah to redeem Israel. And everything Jesus taught and did seemed to point to the fact that he was THE ONE: “Jesus was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.” But Jesus’ suffering just did not fit with their pre-conceived ideas of the Messiah. Their response to the crucifixion- disillusionment and confusion, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”
“But we had hoped”… Isn’t that a poignant phrase? “But we had hoped this marriage would work out, but we had hoped this business would succeed, but we had hoped our church would thrive, but we had hoped this child would live, but sometimes our hopes are dashed. We expect God to work in certain ways, and that usually doesn’t include any suffering. And we just don’t see God at work through our suffering. Even this morning, we might be right there with those disciples on the road, crying out in our pain, or simply expressing our confusion at what has happened to us, “But we had hoped..”

Jesus begins helping them see those Scriptures they were so familiar with in a whole new light. He helps them see that it was God’s plan from the beginning that the Messiah would suffer before he entered his glory. He showed them he is the prophet like Moses described in Deuteronomy, the royal Son of David described in the Psalms , the Suffering Servant described in Isaiah, the triumphant Son of Man described in Daniel. As Jesus helped them see himself throughout the Old Testament, it started all making sense. They saw how God works in a whole new way. They started walking in this new understanding. They later described the experience in this way, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?”

Do such encounters with Jesus through the scriptures happen today? In his book, The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel interviews Louis Lapides. Louis was born into a Jewish family and studied 7 years in the synagogue in preparation for his bar mitzvah. He studied the Old Testament scriptures, but they didn’t mean much in his daily life. As a young adult Louis went to fight in the Vietnam War. He experienced the horrors of war, and came back home into drugs and Eastern religions. Louis encountered a Christian who challenged him to read the Old Testament again, and look for all the prophecies of a Messiah. “Pretty soon, “ Louis says, “I was reading the Old Testament every day and seeing one prophecy after another. One day I was stopped cold as I read Isaiah 53: ‘But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.’ Then I started reading the New Testament, and it all fit together. I realized Jesus really is the Messiah, and my Savior.”

Strobel says that scholars have identified 48 prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament and asks Lapides whether it’s possible that Jesus merely fulfilled the prophecies by accident. “Not a chance,” is his response. “The odds are so astronomical that they rule that out. Someone did the math and figured out that the probability of just eight prophecies being fulfilled is one chance in one hundred million billion. The odds alone say it would be impossible for anyone to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies.” Lapides continued, “Yet Jesus – and only Jesus throughout all of history – did it!

Experiencing Jesus

But our questions may not be whether Jesus is the Messiah, the promised Savior. Our questions may have more to do with our own shattered dreams, disappointments, and suffering, or the pain of those people we know and care about . If God loves us, and God is good, why do we have to suffer? I think this takes more than an intellectual answer. It takes a continual experience with the living Christ. This is what we also see in the story of the disciples as they reach the town of Emmaus and they persuade this stranger to stay and eat with them. It was as they experienced Jesus with them around the table, as they saw him take the bread, give thanks, break it, and give it to them, that they fully knew who he was.

The Shack is a novel, a work of fiction, but it is striking a chord with a lot of people. It is a best-seller. Several women in our congregation read the book and asked if I would lead a discussion on it. Their request led me to re-read the book. On the first reading I was caught up in the story of an unspeakable tragedy. A 6 -year old girl is abducted and murdered. Her father, Mack, is devastated with the loss and is drowning in his grief. He was a church-goer, but did not have close relationship with God. But after the tragedy, he is so angry with God for letting such a thing happen to a beautiful, innocent child, he didn’t want to have much to do with God. God invites Mack to meet him at the shack, the very place where his daughter was murdered. But the ugly place of death is transformed with the presence of the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They appear to Mack in some very unconventional ways to break through his stereotypes of who God is. Then they give him some new ways of seeing the tragedy and seeing his life. He is given a vision of his daughter alive with Jesus in the spiritual realm. He catches a glimpse of the new heaven and the new earth and how God will ultimately fulfill his good purpose. He is not given all the answers. He is told there are some things we simply cannot understand from our limited human standpoint. During the encounter with God at the shack, Mack is invited into the circle of the love shared between Father, Son, and Spirit, and he realizes how in judging God to be unloving and untrustworthy, he has cut himself off from the healing and peace that is available to him to help him. Mack is put on a new path for living this life, in close, loving, trusting relationship with God. Although God deals with Mack’s questions, what changes his life is a profound experience of God’s presence and God’s love. The book is fiction, I have some theological differences with the author, but it is true to the fact that God’s love can totally change our lives.

Our Part in Experiencing Jesus

What totally changed the disciples lives at Emmaus was an experience of Jesus, real and alive and with them. But the risen Jesus no longer physically walks this earth. How can we experience him? Through his Holy Spirit who lives within us, we can have a real relationship with Jesus. Just as Jesus opened the scriptures for the disciples on the Emmaus road, his Holy Spirit teaches us, opens our eyes, makes the scriptures make sense and come alive for us. But our part is to devote ourselves to reading the scriptures and asking the Holy Spirit to teach us. Just as the disciples experienced Jesus present with them as they ate supper together, so the Holy Spirit makes us aware of Jesus with us in our daily living. We can discover him as a constant companion and totally trustworthy leader. But we need to continually turn to him throughout our days, seeking his direction, his wisdom, his perspective, his strength, and his love. When our hearts are broken and we have questions, we need to take those questions to him. It’s those times when we are most disappointed with God and most tempted to turn away that we must press in and pray.

And, if we really want to experience Jesus, we need to be faithful in coming together for worship and the Lord’s Supper. Jesus was made known to the Disciples at Emmaus when he broke the bread. Every week in this congregation we share together in the Lord’s Supper. Why do we do that? We have the Lord’s Supper because Jesus instructed us do this to remember him. We do it every Sunday because the first followers of Jesus observed his supper every time they gathered for worship. But most important, we do it often because it helps us grow closer to Christ.
Neither John nor I grew up in a church that observed the Lord’s Supper every week. In the churches we were raised in, it was usually a quarterly event. But now, having been in congregations that practice weekly communion, we miss it when we are in a worship service that does not include the Lord’s Supper. Why? We concluded that no matter what the worship theme or sermon text is, the communion service always puts the focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Often during communion we see a new dimension of the love of God. The cumulative effect of the frequent practice of communion is that we see Jesus in more and more parts of our lives - every day.
What does it mean for you?