Bethel Lutheran
Church, Herman, MN
Dedication of
Sacristy
Easter 3/April 30,
2017
Luke 24:13-35
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
‘Stay
with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’
It isn’t every day that we entertain unexpected company
in our home—and beg them not to leave!
Not that we’re inhospitable, mind you—it’s just that we’re
not exactly in the habit of offering spontaneous invitations like the one
Cleopas and his fellow disciple extended to this mysterious stranger. Here, they had only met the man earlier that
day on the short 7-mile trek from Jerusalem and Emmaus—and they wanted him to
become their house-guest? Really?
‘Stay
with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’
Maybe the two disciples simply feared for the
stranger’s safety in the dark. Lots of
skullduggery happens after the sun goes down.
In the deepest, darkest hours of the night things always seem more
uncertain, more fearful, more foreboding.
Or perhaps Cleopas and his companion had some other
reason, or maybe just some impulse of the moment that caused them to blurt out
this surprising invitation.
‘Stay
with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’
I believe there was something deeper here than fear of
marauders or the “chemistry” of this chance encounter.
Something in their 7-mile journey together, something
about this stranger had gotten under their skins—gotten way down deep, under
their skins!
In the few hours they were together Cleopas and his
companion noticed a hunger in themselves, a gnawing hunger that reached right
down into the very core of their being.
Only later--when the stranger was no longer strange to
them--only later did Cleopas and his companion admit it to one another: “Were
not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while
he was opening the scriptures to us?”
THAT….that
“hearts burning with us” hunger is what caused Cleopas and his companion to
beg, to implore their visitor to remain with them. They did not want this encounter with him to
come to an end: ‘Stay with us, because it is
almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’….stay with us, because
time is fleeting and precious, and we haven’t yet had our fill of what you are
offering us. Stay with us, friend, until
we have our fill, until our hunger is satisfied.
Of such deep hunger are spontaneous invitations made. Out of such deep hunger do people actually begin
to rearrange the circumstances of their lives so that this encounter, this
relationship, this saving, rescuing connection never ends.
Little did Cleopas and the other disciple realize what
they were bargaining for: not just
another few hours with this mysterious but compelling stranger--but a whole new
life with him that began on that road to Emmaus and would never, ever end.
This same hunger, my friends, is what draws you and me
to this Beth-el, this Bethel, this house of God—because here we’ve found the
epicenter of encounter between us perpetually hungry ones and the Lord of life,
who is always most clearly and unmistakably making himself known to us in the
breaking of bread.
It’s a gnawing hunger that brings us back to this
house of God, again and again and again.
It’s hunger for release from all that threatens to
undo us.
It’s hunger for being untwisted, untied, cut loose
from our waywardness.
It’s hunger for our lives to have significance, it’s
hunger for purpose in our lives.
It’s hunger for hope in a world that’s so wretchedly messed
up.
It’s hunger for forgiveness, for a fresh start, and
for a future without end.
In short, it’s hunger
for Jesus that draws us to this holy place, hunger for Jesus that springs
to our lips whenever we whisper:
“Stay with us. Because it’s almost evening, and the day is now nearly
over…”
And, thankfully, Jesus delights filling us up,
assuaging our hunger.
We come here to meet Jesus—and Jesus never disappoints
us. Jesus keeps coming with us, to us,
for us….wherever his story is retold….wherever the baptismal bath washes over
us….and surely, surely wherever we hear his “for you” and taste the bread and sip
the wine and believe once again that our Lord has stooped down to lift us up.
So it is only appropriate on this Third Sunday of
Easter—the season in which we bask in our Lord’s firm promise never to abandon
us, always to remain with us….it is good and right and salutary, that we tend
with great care, this place of our deepest encounter with our Lord Jesus.
Nowadays a growing number of small-membership
congregations in our part of the world are pondering the possibility of closure. But they never rush to embrace that
possibility.
Rather, they sidle up to it gingerly, carefully,
slowly, thoughtfully…..and often the sticking point in such discussions
revolves around this question: if we close,
what shall we do with this place, this building, this house of God?
When I’m asked to advise such congregations
considering closure, I sometimes find myself growing impatient with that
question—a little voice inside me reminding me that a church building is only
bricks, boards, stone and mortar after all—isn’t it?
But over the years I’ve learned that it’s not merely nostalgia
that makes it difficult for Christians to close up shop and abandon their
church buildings.
It is, rather, their deep and abiding sense that places
like this one are holy because God has made it so, because God has caused holy
things to happen here, because God has shown up here, for us and for our very
salvation and for our hope in the life of the world to come.
So today-- appropriately enough!--we dedicate the sacred
space, the “sacristy” where the precious means of Jesus’ Real Presence among us
are lovingly and reverently prepared for our most profound encounter with the
Lord of Life: here at the altar where
Jesus meets us once again, even on this April morning.
And just as surely as we keep coming here—again and
again and again!—we also leave here, with haste (like Cleopas and his
companion!).
Even if our time is short and the world’s darkness is
foreboding, we suck it up and brave our way back out into this troubled world, breathlessly
eager to tell others: “We
have seen the Lord!”
Sometimes when we poke around in the Bible, the
stories seem so distant from us in time and place and circumstance…
But other times, the narratives of scripture enfold
us, as this one does….setting forth so memorably, so unmistakably the way that
we simply know it, the way we simply feel it deep in our bones that this one, this Jesus, is alive,
nevermore to die again….and he lives for us and in us in the bread and the wine
and the community we are gathered into….not just for own sake, but for the life
of this world and the life of the world to come.
“Stay
with us, because it is almost evening, and the day now is nearly over.”
So also we plead with Jesus to be near us forever.
And thanks be to God, that’s a prayer Jesus always
answers, granting us not just a wonderful promise, but lavishing us with his
presence, giving us himself, his very body, his true blood, for us and for our
salvation….and also, for the sake of God’s mission in the wider world, now and
forever.
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
