Based on Acts 2:36-42, 1Peter 1:17-23, Luke 24:13-17, 28-32
The Bible tells the story of how God’s great love will one day return all of us to a new Eden through a Messiah. Specific books of the Bible deal directly with how the Messiah will look and what that Messiah will do on earth to be recognized – to be revealed. These narratives are known as “apocalyptic” – from a Greek word that means “to reveal” or “to unveil”. To be clear, apocalypse in the biblical sense has little to do with end-of-times Armageddon battles and nothing to do with zombies! Apocalyptic biblical teachings are all about how God reveals God’s-self to humans and how people learn to recognize God at work in their lives and in their world.
During the “Great 50 Days of Easter” we are telling the story of how the Risen Christ showed up unannounced in believer’s lives. We heard another such story just now in the narrative of some disciples on the road to the small town of Emmaus. In these post-resurrection stories, Jesus is never recognized at first – he must always reveal himself in a way that his followers will notice and understand. It may be a warming of the heart, it may be a sense of peace, it may be at a meal or in a teaching. This understanding of Jesus wandering around our world in disguise is important for us as we learn how to live out his teachings while looking out for him.
Christian author, sociologist, and Evangelical Baptist pastor Tony Campolo, told of an encounter he had with the Risen Christ as he was walking in downtown Philadelphia in the 1980s. He told the story this way, “I noticed a bum walking toward me. He was covered with dirt and soot from head to toe. There was filthy stuff caked on his skin. But the most noticeable thing about him was his beard. It hung down almost to his waist and there was rotted food stuck in it. The man was holding a cup of McDonald’s coffee, and the lip of the cup was already smudged from his dirty mouth. As he staggered toward me, he seemed to be staring into his cup of coffee. ‘Then, suddenly, he looked up and he yelled, ‘Hey, mister! Ya want some of my coffee?’ ‘I have to admit that I really didn’t. But I knew that the right thing to do was to accept his generosity, and so I said, ‘I’ll take a sip…’ We’ll pause the story there for a moment while we delve a bit deeper into how our scriptures for today fit into Tony’s experience.
The writer of the letter we know as 1Peter tells beleaguered believers that they are to set their hope on the unconditional love of God that will be fully realized when Jesus the Christ is revealed at his second coming. He further goes on to tell them to “be holy in all you do” and that the revelation of Jesus as Messiah allows us to believe in God’s power to raise us as God resurrected Jesus.
The writer of Acts finishes Peter’s first sermon. Peter offers baptism in the name of the Risen Christ to all those to whom Jesus had not yet been revealed. Through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, Peter and the other disciples baptized about 3000 people in one day. To these people, the salvation of Jesus was revealed in the washing away of their sins and their rebirth from a life of corrupt living to one of living in the gospel.
Our reading from the Gospel according to Luke occurs in the afternoon of that first Easter. Two of Jesus’ outer ring of disciples were making the seven mile walk from Jerusalem to the town of Emmaus. To pass the time while walking, and to process the events of the last few days, they likely discussed all the happenings, their feelings and their hopes. A stranger began to walk with them and asked them what they were talking about. The men were incredulous that this person was clueless about all that happened to Jesus of Nazareth, including that his tomb was empty earlier in the day. The unrecognized Messiah spent the rest of the walk revealing all that scripture taught about the Messiah. When the three men arrived in Emmaus, the disciples invited Jesus in to share a meal. Jesus broke bread with them, was immediately recognized and then disappeared. The men said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Jesus not only revealed himself to those first disciples, he’s continued to reveal himself across the last 2000 years. The Risen Christ is revealed to us in many ways – through spiritual writers, theologians and spiritual leaders, when we engage in missional activities and support missionaries, when we do the things that Jesus taught and spend time with those who are hurting, lonely and isolated, marginalized, demonized, down-and-out, putting the unconditional love of God we receive to work in the world.
This is what Pastor Campolo discovered in his interaction with the homeless man that cold day in Philly. We pick up the story after his sip of coffee, ‘…As I handed the cup back to him I said, ‘You’re getting pretty generous, aren’t you, giving away your coffee? What’s gotten into you today that’s made you so generous?’ “The old derelict looked straight into my eyes and said, ‘Well, the coffee was especially delicious today, and I figure if God gives you something good, you ought to share it with people!’
‘I thought to myself, Oh, man. He has really set me up. This is going to cost me five dollars. I asked him, ‘I suppose there’s something I can do for you in return, isn’t there?’ ‘The bum answered, ‘Yeah! You can give me a hug!’ (To tell the truth, I was hoping for the five dollars.) ‘He put his arms around me and I put my arms around him. Then suddenly I realized something. He wasn’t going to let me go! People were passing us on the sidewalk. They were staring at me. There I was, dressed in establishment garb, hugging this dirty, filthy bum! I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what to do.
‘Then, little by little, my embarrassment changed to awe and reverence….’”
The Risen Christ was revealed to Tony Campolo as he walked to a meeting that cold morning in Philadelphia. Tony was dressed in a suit and tie, probably had on dress shoes and a heavy coat. He would have showered and shaved that morning and probably had a haircut not too long before this encounter. All-in-all, he looked a lot like you and I do as we have gathered here this morning. Tony, for all that he wrote and spoke about Jesus, was not looking for Jesus that day – I’m quite certain he was thinking about the events of his day and his upcoming meeting. Even if he had been looking for the Risen Christ, I wonder if he would have been looking for him in the dirty, disheveled persona of the homeless man with the great tasting coffee?
Notice also that Tony didn’t see the Risen Christ in the man, even after the generous offer of a sip of hot coffee on a cold morning. Instead, he thought only about what this “bum” might want from him. It wasn’t until the man asked him not for money but for a moment of intimate human touch – something which is missing from the lives of those who are unhoused – that Tony “little by little” recognized that he was in the presence of God Almighty. The Risen Christ broke through the busyness and barriers that had come between Tony and another of God’s beloved children and touched his heart, mind and soul.
This is what the Emmaus Road narrative tells us about the way that the Risen Christ comes into our lives as well. Christ is revealed to us not in the powerful, the politically connected, the wealthy, the prominent, the religious elite. The Risen Christ comes disguised, as in the parable from Matthew 25, as those who are hungry, thirsty, unknown, naked, sick and imprisoned. That is where we are to look for the Risen Christ – that is where he will be revealed to us. That is why it is so very important for our spiritual health and development to be in direct service to those in need. Because when we care for the lonely stranger, the naked, those who thirst, the sick, the prisoner, those who hunger for compassionate human interaction, then we experience first-hand the Risen Christ. When we focus our hearts, minds, and lives on actually living out the teachings of Jesus, then the Risen Christ will be revealed to us. Thanks be to God for continuing to reveal the Christ to us in unexpected ways! Amen!