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| Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, Iowa |
I've attached a copy of the sermon manuscript to the bottom of this blog post.
Here are some more photos of Woodlawn Christian Church in Lake City, Iowa.
God's Blessings!
Roy
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| Woodlawn Chrisitan Church, Lake City, Iowa |
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| Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, Iowa |
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| Chapel Mosiac at Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, Iowa |
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| Window in the Chapel Woodlawn Christian Church, Iowa |
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| Chapel Window Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, Iowa |
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| Chapel Window Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, Iowa |
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| Chapel Window Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, Iowa |
Good morning, I really cannot possibly tell you all how pleased Gail, Maddie and I are to be here with you. It's been a long process for us in searching for a church to serve, and I know it's been a very long process for you all in finding a settled pastor as well. Praise God that he has brought us all together and I pray that ours shall be a long and mutually beneficial as well as an enjoyable relationship. Gail and I look forward to growing spiritually here with you all, and to developing many deep and loving friendships as well.
During the time that I have been searching, I've maintained a blog called “The Path to the Pulpit”. Well, the path has led me here, and what an incredibly beautiful pulpit the Lord has led me to. What an incredibly beautiful Church, and what wonderful Christ-filled people. I am so looking forward to celebrating with all of you the wonderful heritage of this congregation as we celebrate together 150 years of service by the Woodlawn Christian Church here in Lake City. It's a remarkable accomplishment and one that is worthy of a grand celebration.
As I said I have maintained, and I'll continue to maintain a personal blog. If you're interested in looking at it please feel free to do so. I've left some of my old cards along with some of my new cards by the back door leading to the hallway to the fellowship hall. Please feel free to grab one or more of either or both cards. My old cards have the address to my blog printed on them. I will normally post the manuscript of my sermons on the blog, and you can go back and look to see how far I strayed in my presentation. Perhaps you'll find yourselves saying “If only he'd have stayed on script, it would have been a decent sermon...”
Now... before I get into our sermon I should tell you a bit about my general style of preaching. First of all I don't consider myself an eloquent nor polished speaker, but I do preach from the heart. I have and will always consider myself to be more of a teacher than a preacher, and therefore generally my sermons contain some element of teaching within them. I will also try in my sermons to leave you with something that you can use in your faith walk, or perhaps something that as you ponder it, will draw you nearer to the Almighty.
But, before I dive too deeply into this sermon... let's go before the Lord in a moment of prayer, please bow your heads and open your hearts...
O' God we desire your presence with us here today. Lord, still our restless spirits, that with quiet minds and reverent hearts we may hear your voice and genuinely worship you.
Prepare our minds and hearts O' God, that through your word, read and proclaimed, Christ may come to dwell within us, and ever rule over our thoughts and affections as the Lord of our lives. AMEN
All right now... today we're going to be looking at a passage in the Gospel of Luke. Luke is of course one of the three synoptic gospels; Mark, Matthew and Luke.
Most scholars consider Mark to be the oldest of the three, likely written after the destruction of the Temple in 70 ad. Matthew and Luke were most probably written somewhere around 10 years after the writing of Mark. John is considered the most recent of the four gospels that we find in our New Testament and most likely penned just prior to the end of the first century.
The author of the gospel of Luke is unknown though Church tradition assigns it's authorship to the physician Luke who traveled with Paul. Nearly all scholars agree that whoever it was that wrote Luke, that person also wrote the book of Acts. Luke and Acts contain what is regarded as the second best Greek in the New Testament. Which book contains the best? Well as strange as it may sound, that would be Hebrews. But we'll go into that on another day in another sermon.
I will tell you that the gospel of Luke is my personal favorite of the four Gospels, and I like to call the author of Luke the 'Peace Maker'. There are a number of reasons for this and I'll share them with you as we go from sermon to sermon. Just realize that just like today the early church was made up of people, and where you have people you occasionally will have discord. There were differences of opinions in the early church, just as there are today. Reconciliation was a key part of this author's motive for writing these two books and soon enough you'll learn that reconciliation is a key part of my own personal theological beliefs.
Today we're going to be looking at the story in the 24th Chapter of Luke concerning the two people that are traveling back to Emmaus from Jerusalem. They encounter Jesus along the way and in what is one of the more surprising verses in Luke, they don't recognize Christ even though they were apparently, close followers of his ministry.
How can this be that they don't recognize him? And if you're like me and you suffer from a bit of an attention deficit disorder mindset, and your mind likes to make big jumps then, one of the things that pops into your busy mind is well... I wonder what Jesus actually did look like?
The New Testament tells us virtually nothing about Jesus' appearance. We can surmise though that as a first century Jewish male he wouldn't have been overly tall, he would have had a darker complexion than we normally portray him as having, he would almost certainly have had brown eyes and dark brown hair. The fashion for Jewish men at the time was to wear their hair short and to have a short to moderate beard. He would have likely had a beard more like mine, or a bit longer than say a beard like the fellows in ZZ Top.
Though it is worth noting that as I told the children the earliest depiction that we can identify as being of Christ shows him with short curly hair and no beard.
We know that Jesus was a carpenter, but the Greek word for carpenter can also mean a stone worker and given the region where Jesus lived it's much more likely that he worked with stone. Now these wouldn't have been little stones, they would have been stones that were physically challenging to work with. Therefore, it's a reasonable assumption to think that Jesus would have been a fairly muscular and well-built man.
Now I said that there is virtually nothing about Jesus appearance in the New Testament and that's true. But there is one place that just might, just maybe, and it's a long drawn out maybe, tells us something about his appearance.
That verse is found here in Luke in Chapter 19. Do you remember the story about Zacchaeus, the short little tax collector. Remember that he heard Jesus was passing by, and in wanting to see him he climbed a tree... he climbed a tree we are told 'for he was short'. Well, in this passage where the Greek tells us that 'he was short' it is impossible for us to know if it's telling us that Zacchaeus was short or that Jesus was short. So just possibly, Jesus was shorter than the average male in the first-century Jewish population.
At any rate it doesn't seem that Jesus' appearance was of little concern to the writers of the New Testament, it is obvious that Jesus' appearance... was of NO concern to these writers.
This also reveals to us just how charismatic Jesus must have been. It doesn't seem that he drew people to him because of his rugged good looks but rather because of his message and how effectively he delivered that message.
Now let's take a look at the scripture verses.
Luke 24:13-35
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
The Walk to Emmaus
13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” 19 He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” 25 Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
So now, let's break this down just a little bit. What do we have going on in this story. Well, the first thing that stands out to me is that we have another in the long line of stories in the Gospels about not seeing, or not seeing correctly. These two who are identified as 'two of them' in other words two of Jesus' followers don't even recognize the Christ when he's walking along with them. This is a continuation of an ongoing theme, tales about the healing of the blind men, the Disciples even Peter not understanding what Jesus was all about, and Peter drawing a sword in the garden, because he did not understand how the Kingdom was coming to be. Blindness, an inability to see or understand. Now here we again have two of Jesus followers blind to what is right before them. They were in the very presence of Christ and did not realize it.
One of my commentaries tries to explain away this 'blindness' as being caused by the fact that they were traveling west and into the sunset. They go on to proclaim that since it was resurrection day the sunset would have been particularly brilliant and this brilliance blinded the two followers. Well there are several problems with this, first of all we don't actually know where Emmaus was located. There is speculation as to what village it identified, and even the distance quoted in the scripture is debated, so we don't know if it was east or west, north or south of Jerusalem.
Frankly, trying to explain away this blindness as being something mechanical is done at the cost of the deep theological meaning that it is meant to portray in the scripture. These followers are blind to the significance of what has transpired and it is through the instruction of Jesus himself that their 'eyes' are opened to him. This 'sunset explanation' also totally misses the point that they have gone inside and they still don't recognize Christ until, he breaks and blesses the bread.
Which brings us to the second point, here we also have another of a long line of dinner or food oriented stories. There is so much power in the sharing of a meal, in breaking bread and the act of community that comes from this act. I can scarcely believe that the very first sermon I am to give as a Pastor in a Disciples of Christ Church is this very passage of scripture. These verses that essentially underline, mark in bold letters, and draw a great big red circle around the importance of the last supper. The importance of this remembrance as an ongoing and regular act and not as an occasional sacrament.
William Barclay in his well known and often utilized commentary says that this meal at Emmaus isn't a sacrament like the Last Supper but just a normal meal. I really, really could not disagree with him more. The scripture says “whenever you eat of the loaf or drink of the cup”, it doesn't say that whenever you sit down for communion in Church. We need to bear in mind that in Paul's letters to the church in Corinth we learn that this meal originally was an actual meal, and not just a symbolic remembrance. And in Acts the community is actually living together and taking all their meals together.
It's my opinion and you're completely free to disagree, but I'll ask you to consider that we're supposed to 'remember' Christ, his life, his ministry, his repeated emphasis on meal ministry whenever we sit down together with fellow followers of Christ and 'break bread'. Unfortunately, it our modern rush, rush, rush world we've really forgotten this remembrance.
We've forgotten to remember the miracle at the wedding, the feeding of the 4 and 5 thousand. All of the meals with sinners and tax collectors. The meal with Zacchaeus, where his eyes were opened and he came to see Christ and his ways. His ways which would become “The Way”, as Christians were first identified. This shared meal where Zacchaeus was forever changed.
It is here at this table that these two followers of Christ discover him for who he is, just like Zacchaeus before them. The very reason that this table is such an integral part of our way of worship here as Disciples, is because it was such an integral part of Jesus ministry. This meal that we share weekly is one of the ways through which Christ reveals himself to us. But please consider that it isn't just during this meal, taken here as one body when we are to remember Christ and his work. Rather I feel, it's in every meal that we share with fellow believers. In each of these meals we are re-enacting the meal ministry of Christ. Let us do this in remembrance of 'Him'.
We also need to bear in mind that this brings another meaning to these meals. It's not just about the blood and the body, but also about the community. We are all together one body, we are together in Christ. Let us always remember this in our actions and interactions with each other. We are all connected parts of one body, the followers of the way of Christ.
As I told the children, we as believers carry Christ with us each day. He lives, he lives within our hearts. And our eyes and our actions should display this living Christ to each other and to the world at large. I see him alive and well as I look out across this loving congregation.
As I said earlier, too often in today's world we're so focused on our busy, busy schedule that we forget our fellow travelers. We're so very focused on this journey, this journey to Emmaus. We're focused on getting to Emmaus and we all too often don't recognize just who we're traveling with. Let's try and pay less attention to the road and more attention to our fellow travelers. Look around you, do you see Jesus in the hearts and eyes around you? It's never about the destination, it's always about the journey... and we're taking this journey with Jesus. Praise God!!
Let us close with a word of prayer, please bow your heads and open your hearts and minds.
Dear Father, Abba, we come to you humbly, and freely accept the grace that you provide to us, grace given despite our sins against you in thought, word and deed. Lord, we thank you for your love and forgiveness and we cherish above all else our relationship to you, we also thank you for the relationships that you have blessed us with in our families, our friends, our fellow believers and all our fellow human beings. Truly, all are a part of your grand design and creation. Dear God, let us always be mindful of your directions in this world and let us be your hands and feet in this place. Father, we look forward to the day when through your direction all shall be reconciled to you and to each other.
We pray this in your most Holy and Blessed name, AMEN.
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