A Long Walk
There are many Christian traditions, some associated with Easter. Since the early church, Christians have greeted each other with "Christ is risen," and "He is risen indeed" in response. We used to have a Sunday School teacher, a precious Greek man, who taught us to say it in Greek (any transliteration here would be a mess), but the Greek version is actually "of a truth He is risen," which I like better.
Another tradition I think we should start is to take a long walk talking about spiritual things on Easter afternoon, as Christ did with the two "fringe" disciples. I was privileged to spend Easter in England in 1997, where I attended Eden Baptist in Cambridge in the morning and a vespers service at St. Paul's Cathedral in the evening. That had to be the most memorable, aside from the Easter I was baptized, I have ever spent. Interestingly (not ironically--people use that word incorrectly, as they do "literally"), both sermons were about the Road to Emmaus. It is one of my top five favorite passages in Scripture, along with John 11, Isaiah 53, Hebrews 11, and Revelation 5.
There are two lessons I get out of the story of that long walk on Easter afternoon. First, why wasn't Christ appearing to Herod, Caesar, great men, philosophers, the Sanhedrin, and huge crowds? He could have been a rock star, to use our parlance. Instead, He's spending a couple of hours with these two confused guys who don't even recognize him, but who are very candid and open-hearted. Not what I would be doing, to say the least. Thankfully.
The second lesson is how we can miss the obvious, but perhaps in their case they are to be forgiven. They had reason to miss identifying Jesus--they'd seen him crucified a couple of days before, and we're not trained to look for the dead walking alongside us. And apparently there were some supernatural reasons (as if the resurrection were not supernatural enough). But how we do miss the obvious. It is frightening how often we do, and in this case, how often we miss the presence of God walking along us even as we are voicing our misgivings, doubts, and confusion.
With this end of Holy Week I will try to return to posting more regularly and more about the original purpose of this blog, communication issues.
Another tradition I think we should start is to take a long walk talking about spiritual things on Easter afternoon, as Christ did with the two "fringe" disciples. I was privileged to spend Easter in England in 1997, where I attended Eden Baptist in Cambridge in the morning and a vespers service at St. Paul's Cathedral in the evening. That had to be the most memorable, aside from the Easter I was baptized, I have ever spent. Interestingly (not ironically--people use that word incorrectly, as they do "literally"), both sermons were about the Road to Emmaus. It is one of my top five favorite passages in Scripture, along with John 11, Isaiah 53, Hebrews 11, and Revelation 5.
There are two lessons I get out of the story of that long walk on Easter afternoon. First, why wasn't Christ appearing to Herod, Caesar, great men, philosophers, the Sanhedrin, and huge crowds? He could have been a rock star, to use our parlance. Instead, He's spending a couple of hours with these two confused guys who don't even recognize him, but who are very candid and open-hearted. Not what I would be doing, to say the least. Thankfully.
The second lesson is how we can miss the obvious, but perhaps in their case they are to be forgiven. They had reason to miss identifying Jesus--they'd seen him crucified a couple of days before, and we're not trained to look for the dead walking alongside us. And apparently there were some supernatural reasons (as if the resurrection were not supernatural enough). But how we do miss the obvious. It is frightening how often we do, and in this case, how often we miss the presence of God walking along us even as we are voicing our misgivings, doubts, and confusion.
With this end of Holy Week I will try to return to posting more regularly and more about the original purpose of this blog, communication issues.
Comments