Burning Hearts
Luke 24:1-49
I wouldn’t advise searching for the word Easter in your Bible, because you won’t find it. The resurrection story isn’t even originally found in the oldest gospel, the Gospel of Mark. But Easter, remains for Christians around the world, the core event, the moment that changed everything, the day that we as human beings were launched onto a different path and a new way. And yet even if we hold this truth, even if we can join our voices singing out that because of Jesus, we have life, it seems to me that Easter, for a lot of us, is simply baffling.
I have heard from one person after another that Easter can feel like a day that we keep our mouths shut for fear of pointing out the elephant in the room and the elephant is really the empty tomb. Instead of inspiring us to faith, Easter can send many of us running. Amen? We are sent into a theological tailspin as we wonder what really happened, how it was genuinely possible for the tomb to be empty and the body to be gone. Our post-Enlightenment minds tend to struggle with the First Century proclamation, Christ is Risen!
Whether the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an invitation or an obstacle for you, this morning, I would like to invite you to join me as we leave the tomb behind. Because it is after all, at the tomb, where a lot of us get stuck. We get stuck because we stare into the empty darkness and ask what happened and how? We get stuck because we look around and say, surely there is another explanation. But, friends, I wonder if Easter is big enough to hold us all. I wonder if Easter is more than simply believing. What if Easter is about what happens next?Because that is just how it was for the women who found their way to the tomb, that is just how it was for the disciples whose hearts were broken, that is just how it was for the two who were walking along the road feeling as if it wasn’t just Jesus’ life that had ended, but theirs too. So what if Easter is not the empty tomb, but the road beyond- how we live a life that bends toward Christ even when our plans unravel?
The Easter story in the Gospel of Luke begins at the tomb. It begins with that feeling, that heaviness that finds us all- that burden of lost hopes that weigh us down when our plans have fallen apart or our dreams have been shattered. That is how this day, this Easter morning begins. It begins with darkness and tears when the frightened women who called Jesus a friend go to the tomb to find that things are not as they imagined.
He is not there. Jesus is nowhere to be found and there isn’t a note explaining. There isn’t anyone there to comfort them; there is no evidence that their Jesus, was able to overcome the darkness that his life intended to outshine. They thought that this was the end, that their hearts would be forever broken because of the hope they tasted in him, the hope that was now lost.
Most of us can join these aching hearts at the tomb looking for life in the darkness. Most of us have sat at one tomb or another and felt the heaviness that finds us all- that burden of lost hopes that weigh us down when our plans have fallen apart or our dreams have been shattered. Most of us have sat at the tomb found by a hospital bed or a failed relationship. Most of us have sat at the tomb of an unexpected diagnosis or the loss of someone we loved so much that a piece of us died too. And most of us have longed for something to hold onto, some way to feel like we could keep on going, even when the tomb seemed like a safe place to stay for a while.
But as much as Jesus’ friends wanted to stay there, maybe they knew that the tomb, that the darkness, that the emptiness found there, is what the Empire wanted, what the world wanted, but not what He would have them do. Even if their hearts were broken, they didn’t want Rome to be able to claim victory over them too. So the scripture tells us that they left that place and with heavy hearts went on their way. They couldn’t handle the resurrection, couldn’t get their wounded spirits to see it, they couldn’t take in the heart of Easter and so they left it behind.
And that same day, the same day that they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, the same day that they went in and did not find the body, that same day, two of Jesus’ followers walked together on a long and dusty road. In the words of Barbara Brown Taylor, this Road to Emmaus, this walk into the unknown is, “The road you walk when your team has lost, <when> your candidate has been defeated, <when> your loved one has died – the long road back to the empty, empty house, the piles of unopened mail, to life as usual, if life can ever be usual again. Emmaus is the road of deep disappointment, and walking it, is the living definition of sad.” But they walked it anyway. They could barely breathe, barely think a thought that didn’t include him, but they didn’t know what else to do except to leave Jerusalem behind and return to the place that would have them, broken hearts and all.
And while they walk and talk, while they share in the sorrow of losing hope, a stranger approaches them. They are so upset, distraught and confused that they can’t help but to be a bit rude. The scripture reports that the two travelers blurt out, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” You must not be from around here. And perhaps because of the stranger’s ignorance, the two recount the story that forever changed them- the story that left them with nothing more than empty promises and an empty tomb.
They tell the stranger of Jesus, the prophet, mighty in word and deed, handed over, condemned to death and crucified. And then they say, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” We had hoped he was the one to redeem us. We had hoped that Jesus was the one to revive our hopes for a better life. We had hoped that Jesus was the one to redo our plans and rebuild our dreams. We had hoped that Jesus was the one to shatter our darkness and dry our tears. But we found that things are not as we imagined.
Then the stranger reminds them that following God requires all of us. He tells them that Jesus had to love his enemies to the end. He had to leave his sword behind. He had to do what he did to show them that the God he knows is a God who loves even on the way to a cross.
It gets dark and the stranger attempts to depart but they convince him to stay. This stranger who walked alongside them on the road, takes bread, blesses it and offers it to them. And they were so busy thinking about the tomb, that they missed the light beyond it. They were so busy lamenting how their plans had unraveled that they missed the new ones being forged before their eyes. They were so busy saying goodbye to the dreams they had held for so long, that they missed their wildest dream unfolding right before them.
The stranger walking with them was Jesus. And the Gospel of Luke says that “They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?…” They were longing for something to hold onto, some way to feel like they could keep on going, even when the tomb seemed like a safe place to stay for a while- and what they needed, who they needed, was walking with them all along and their hearts knew it.
Their hearts knew it because that is where he told him he would be, not forever with them in the flesh, but forever nestled within their hearts. So after their hearts burn and dance, and they realize that the stranger was not a stranger at all, but Jesus, they run to tell their friends. And Jesus appears again, but this time they know that it is he. There is so much he could have said, questions he could have answered, stories he could have told, but instead he says, “Peace be with you.” And I wonder if that is all he needed to say. Peace be with you! Peace is with you, what are you waiting for? I have shown you what you need to know. If you are waiting for me, if you are looking for me in the flesh, if you are waiting to understand all of this, if you are waiting for me to tell you what to do, you have missed the point. If you are waiting for answers to all of your questions, you are not who I thought you were. Your hearts were burning on the road; your hearts were burning beyond the tomb, because that is where you will find me, now I am wherever you are, now my peace is found in you.
So I wonder if Easter is more than simply believing because believing in a great mystery doesn’t ask much of us. If Easter is just about believing that the body was gone, then we can cross that off and go about our business. But if Easter is about what happens next, if Easter is about the road, the life beyond, then we are invited to follow with burning hearts. Easter isn’t supposed to be a prettied up day where we say Christ is risen and go back to what we were doing before. No Easter, the real Easter, is the life that happens when we leave this place. Easter is that day in and day out commitment to do what Jesus asks us to do, to look at the world through his eyes, even when we would rather sit in the dark and stay at the tomb.
Easter isn’t about getting our mind around something seemingly impossible; it is about choosing a life soaked in selfless love. Our hearts are burning, not because the tomb was empty, but because of the One who left the tomb behind. He left the tomb behind and now asks all of us to join him. He asks us to look for him, even on a long dusty road full of disappointment, the road that awaits us, the road of our lives, but a road that will never be the same because of this day. Christ is risen, Alleluia. Amen.