When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday we are told that the whole city was in turmoil, asking who is this? And the answer came, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’ (Matthew 21: 10-11) Everybody knew that Jesus had arrived and was proclaiming a new Kingdom of God.
And when Jesus was crucified, he was led through the city, carrying his own means of execution. We are told people passed by and derided him saying, ‘You, who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself!’ (Matthew 27: 39-40) His death was purposefully a very public event. Everybody knew Jesus had died.
When Jesus asks the two men walking to Emmaus what they are talking about, one of them whose name was Cleopas answered, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in the last days?’ (Luke 24: 18)
But the resurrection is very different. The Resurrection is not a mass public event like the entry into Jerusalem or the Crucifixion. The Resurrection is an event revealed to individuals or small groups of people. Experience of the risen Christ is a personal experience not a mass event. It is a personal and precious thing. And belief in the risen Christ is something precious and personal that has passed from person to person ever since.
There are many things one could say about the revelation of the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus. This Easter I just want to draw your attention to a couple of things.
The first is that Jesus walks alongside Cleopas, a man whom we know nothing about other than he walked to Emmaus one day, and a mate of his whose name we do not know. We don’t even know today where Emmaus was, so that a few places in modern Israel / Palestine lay claim to be the Emmaus referred to in the Gospel. And so, Jesus appeared to two ordinary unremarkable people as they walked to an ordinary unremarkable place.
The second thing I want to draw your attention to is something these unremarkable people said after they realised they had been in the presence of the risen Christ. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?” (Luke 24: 32) This is how it feels to be in the presence of the risen Christ. Our hearts burn within us.
I think what this encounter on the road to Emmaus does is assure us that any of us can encounter the risen Christ. It happened to some bloke called Cleopas and another bloke whose name we forget. On the way to some place we don’t quite know where it is even. So we can believe that it can happen to us. And when it happens to us our hearts will burn within us.
Now some of the people we are remembering in our prayers this morning are people who have died in recent days, separated from their loved ones because of the virus. And their loved ones are mourning them now, carrying the pain of not having been able to be with them for their final weeks, days, and hours.
And taking part in our service this morning, there are people who are living on their own, separated from all physical contact from family and friends. Some people are finding this very hard and it is getting harder day by day.
And of course, we have all probably given some thought to what it might be like if we ourselves became one of the people who fall very sick and are left to struggle with the sickness on our own, without our loved ones around us, cared for by people wearing clothes and equipment that make any human contact very difficult.
So I want to say to you, that if that happens to you, please hold onto the expectation that the risen Christ will be alongside you. You will feel his presence. And in his presence you will not feel alone; you will feel your heart burn inside you. And your loved ones will also know that you do not feel alone.
Why would Jesus do that for you?
Well, he did it for some bloke called Cleopas and his mate whose name we forget as they were on their way to place that nobody has ever heard of.
And also because as small and insignificant we may feel we are, we are nevertheless ransomed, as Peter says, by the precious blood of Christ and the risen Christ has been revealed, and that revelation has been passed from person to person through the ages for all our sakes (1 Peter 1: 19-21)
During the Easter season, the Church of England uses a special seasonal invitation to communion. The priest says the words, ‘Alleluia. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us’. And the congregation responds, ‘Therefore let us keep the feast. Alleluia’.
Wonderful as it is to celebrate Easter, I actually miss the words of invitation that we use the rest of the year, the ones that begin with the words, ‘Draw near with faith …’
When I say those words from behind the altar I can feel that invitation going out to every single member of the congregation and especially when I say ‘the body which he gave for you’; ‘the blood which he gave for you.’; ‘he died for you.’
So today, I am going to say both invitations. As I invite you to join me at the altar, I hope that you will feel that personal invitation, I hope that your heart will burn inside you and I hope that you will know at that moment, that whatever happens, you will never be alone.
We stand now to declare our faith in the risen Christ who comes alongside us, whoever and wherever we are.