The Lord be with you.

A sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, based on Luke 24:13-35. 

I wrote this sermon a year ago, at a time of transition for myself and many whom I love. It was a time when a story about being 'on the road' resonated deeply in our experience. Still journeying that road one year later, I find myself similarly excited, exhausted and apprehensive and offer these words to any fellow travelers who feel the same.

Jesus, himself, came near…and went with them.

And when they didn’t realize who he was…he walked with them. When the anxious, grieving, perplexed, and weary disciples couldn’t recognize their friend and teacher…their Messiah, who they had been told was raised…who was standing right beside them…Jesus walked with them.

When they didn’t understand his eloquent interpretation of the deuteronomistic history, of the prophets…when their minds and hearts were too distracted or too tired…he still walked with them.

Jesus lovingly walked with his disciples through their wilderness of grief and ignorance…with the same patience he showed during his ministry when, time and again, they missed the point, lost their faith or were too preoccupied with other concerns to recognize the coming kingdom.

Jesus walked faithfully with his fickle disciples…just as God walked faithfully with fickle Israel. Though they abandoned the covenant time and again…God stayed with them, and embraced them when they returned. After betraying their Deliverer to worship a more convenient idol of their own creation, God walked with them in their wilderness, leading them and feeding them. Even once they arrived in the Promised Land, when they abandoned the law, God stayed with them, sending them leaders and prophets…time and again…to help guide them back to faith.

And this same faithful and patient God, this same risen Lord Jesus, walks with us today when we are anxious, grieving, perplexed or weary…when we are preoccupied or miss the point...even when we are unfaithful. Jesus draws near to us time and again in water and word, bread and wine. Whatever road we are on…whether it leads to Emmaus, Chicago, El Paso, Detroit or a place that is still unknown…Jesus comes near to us wherever we are and walks with us…even when we can’t recognize him.

Jesus is walking with us now, in this Easter season, at the end of this academic year for some, near the end of an internship year for others…when many of us are weary or anxious…or both…

The Lord of the universe has come near to us now.

The Lord is with us. The Lord is with you. The Lord be with you.

The Lord be with you.

We hear these familiar words in worship every week, and we need to…I think because we can be so much like the disciples – oblivious to Christ’s presence among us… even though God comes near to us now just like God has been coming near for centuries…for millennia…for… forever. We should know to expect it by now, but we still need to be awoken, reminded and prepared to recognize our Lord walking among us. So we speak and hear these words.

But I think we also speak these words because we have been like the disciples in another way – startled when we have recognized Christ among us, amazed when we have seen the miraculous things that God has done. The Creator of the universe has broken in to time and space and met us…small as we are…and…sometimes…we notice. In those moments: when the words of a hymn or the creed catch in our throat, when we learn again how much we are loved in the embrace of a friend, when surprising violets by the sidewalk bring an unexpected smile to our lips…and when bread is placed in our hand and for a moment, we feel and taste what it means to receive the eternal One, who offers himself to us in love, time and again. In those moments, we want never to forget…never to return again to the cold loneliness of anxiety, distraction, and oblivion.

Even the disciples on the road felt this yearning…from within their clouded consciousness…They urged Jesus, the stranger, to stay with them that evening. And then they were caught by surprise, when Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it…and they saw him for who he was.

We are like the disciples, yearning to be awake to the presence of God, even when we don’t realize it. And these words of the greeting in worship call us to attention and proclaim God’s promised presence. The assembly gathers…time and again, and when we gather the presider speaks the words of the apostle Paul, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” And the assembly responds, “And also with you.”

These words are not a just an antiquated way to say hello or the rehearsal of some distant hope. They are a statement of faith, a statement of fact, a recitation of our community’s memory – spoken one to another because we deeply desire to be awake from our ignorance…to recognize our Lord.

So eager are we, that we echo this declaration again when we approach the table and font…we say “The Lord be with you.” “And also with you.” These words are a tap on the shoulder…a further reminder of what God has already done…time and again…so we might be astonished once more to find God walking among us today.

How, then, might we respond to these words – believing them to proclaim the very presence of Christ here and now? We might receive them with a gracious bow of reverence and gratitude, as if we know our Lord and King is here. We might receive them with just a gentle or eager smile, as we anticipate meeting Christ our beloved teacher and Savior. We might turn our attention to the table and the font, where God has promised to come to us in the sacraments. Or maybe we might even respond to these words by scanning the whole room…as if God might be in here anywhere…in anyone.

If we did this, perhaps we would find other times to exchange this greeting with one another beyond when we are gathered for worship. We can say these words at other times of gathering, like the beginning of classes and meetings. For isn’t God with us there? We could say them at other meals, remembering how we have been fed at God’s table and how we are invited to see God at the other tables in our lives. We might even say these words and remember our baptism and God’s presence in water…while we wash the dishes with a spouse or friend, as we water the vegetable garden, or when we start a water fight when we are out canoeing. We might say them anytime we are startled into seeing the Lord among us.

How amazing to have such a God...an Immanuel…a God with us…whose tent is pitched among us…who dwells with us…and walks with us…who walked in the garden with Adam and Eve, who journeyed with the Israelites in the pillar of cloud and flame…who walked with Shadrach, Meshack and Abednigo through the fiery furnace…who comes and dwells deeply with us, as one of us, in Christ…who continues to walk among us now.

The Lord walks with you. And the Lord walks with me. And we are all on different journeys, to be sure. And as each year comes and goes…separates us or brings us together again…as we are spread across the country…sometimes on new and as yet unknown roads…and sometimes on well-worn and familiar paths…

Yet these words are a dialogue, declared one to another…and this is not just to remind each one of us of God’s presence in our individual journeys…

When we say these words we are reminded not only that God walks with each of us, but that we walk with each other. The very shape of this proclamation is a covenant of community…If the Lord is with me and also with you, then we are together in the Lord…When we say these words we agree to be with one another, as God is with us. We are called into relationship with one another – bound together by sharing in the presence of God.

We may be like the disciples, yes, occasionally too preoccupied weary to recognize the God who comes among us day after day, year after year. But, just as God has come to us throughout history in astonishing ways and brought us to astonishing places – dry on the floor of the sea, fed in a barren desert, safe in a blazing fire, held in the very embrace of God in Christ  – so God continues to surprise us and walk with us to places we would never imagine. God comes among us - bathing and drowning us into new life in Baptism, reforming us as Christ’s body in the Meal…and sending us back on the road and into mission. And we have been given words to proclaim to one another…time and again…so we might be ever awake and aware...astonished to recognize that we have a God who walks with us along the road.

The Lord is with us.

The Lord is with you.

The Lord be with you.

Amen.