Easter Day 12th April 2009 - Choral Evensong

Ezekiel 37:1-14 & Luke 24:13-35

Disappointment and Hope

They were disappointed, deeply disappointed; confused and perplexed. Their expectations had been raised and then dashed. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” But now OUR chief priests and OUR leaders have had him put to death. What’s gone wrong?

What do we do when we are dealt a blow? What inner resources do we draw on when our hopes are dashed, when tragedy strikes, when we are left confused and bewildered? Having a religious faith may even make it harder. Wasn’t God supposed to protect us from this kind of thing happening? Why has He allowed it? Here was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. Now he is gone. How can we make any sense of this?

How did the first followers of this unorthodox teacher from Galilee understand what had happened? His teaching was mighty and his deeds were powerful. And He spoke about Yahweh with such love and intimacy – how could that God have let him down like this? If God was able to deliver our ancestors from the hands of the mighty Pharaoh, why not now? Have we not just been celebrating this deliverance in Pesach/Passover? And when our ancestors returned from exile in Babylon did He not make us a great nation again? (Events that, in fact we still sing of today, as the choir did for us this evening, with Psalm 105).

How can the unfair conviction of such a good man, such a godly teacher - his flogging, humiliation and tortured death, how can all that make sense? And make sense especially in the light of what this Jesus taught us and showed us of God’s character of love and care?

The two travellers, Cleopas and another, were talking and discussing, but could not make sense of it. How could they?

Well, the answer is that they couldn’t. There is no sense to make of the suffering, the passion of Jesus, except in the light of what follows.

Throughout lent some of us have been doing what those two walkers to Emmaus were doing – talking and discussing about the events of the passion. To help us we have been reading this book: “Passionate Christianity” by Cally Hammond, an Anglican priest and Dean of a Cambridge college. She says that our attempts to make some sense and meaning of the Cross, and the events of the Passion can only work when looking back through the Resurrection. (Cf p.55). This was the perspective of the early church – that they understood the Cross only through the Resurrection. For Cleopas and his companion, the only sense came when He drew alongside them. Allowing the risen Christ to travel with them, and open their minds to a new understanding of the Scriptures they thought they knew well – only then did their hearts burn with new hope and excitement and energy.

Only in the light of the Resurrection – of the astonishing realisation that he defeated death and evil for all time, can our hope be renewed and our understanding transformed.

Let us pray…