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Please note: Sunday Worship from the Memorial Chapel, the University of Glasgow Presented by the Revd Johnston McKay JOHNSTON HYMN Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life (Tune: The Call) JOHNSTON Teach us by thy Holy Spirit what to believe, what to do, and wherein to find our rest. ALL: Amen HYMN Thou art the Way (Tune: St James) JENNIFER ALL (Incl. Jennifer & Johnston) Lord Jesus Christ, ALL We come to you, alone the Truth Lord Jesus Christ, ALL We come to you, alone the Life. JOHNSTON But on the day we call Good Friday, there was darkness, Matthew's gospel says, over the whole earth for three hours. But that darkness lasted much longer in the experience of those who had been closest to Jesus. READER: While they were talking, Jesus himself came near, and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognising him. And he said to them 'What were you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him: 'Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?' He asked them 'What things?' They replied: 'The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. JOHNSTON It was a Sunday morning, and I was standing beside the Scots Kirk and down below there was a busy road. The traffic was bumper to bumper. The shops were open. Businesses were doing business. And I was waiting to go into church. And suddenly what I ought to have realised long ago hit me with considerable force: When we are told that first Easter took place on the first day of the week. It means that when Mary went to the tomb early it wasn't the prelude to a day of rest; and when some other disciples made the discovery that the Lord was risen, it wasn't on a day of Sunday calm. The first Easter Day was a day when everyone was getting back to normal after the day of Sabbath rest. And maybe it was the fact that everything was getting back to normal which was too much for two of Jesus' friends, one of them was called Cleopas but the other isn't named... So they went for a walk to the village of Emmaus. They went for a walk, just like I have done when my mind was churning:
I went for a long walk. So often I could have been the unnamed friend on that road. And there's one phrase in Luke's story which completely captures the disciples' sense of disappointment and conveys just how disappointed and crestfallen they were. It's what one of them says to the stranger who joins them. "We had hoped..." "We had hoped"... You can almost touch the sense of disappointment. Its that kind of tangible heartbroken experience which Oscar Wilde was to describe in the Ballad of Reading Gaol, when one of his fellow prisoners is taken out of his cell to face the death penalty: "Something was dead in each of us And hope was dead for Cleopas and his friend as they made the dusty journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus. "We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel." And their hopes were dashed because what they had hoped for was
They had decided what form hope would take. But their sort of hope couldn't see them through the cross on the hill and the tomb in the rock. Because it was a hope which had imagined it could avoid pain and escape trouble and be free of all bitterness Whereas real hope, true hope, genuine hope finds a path through the undergrowth of pain, and struggles to make some way or another through the maze of troubles and fights free from the barbed wire of bitterness. But it never can if hope is forever looking back, believing that the future lies in resurrecting the past. Easter, resurrection is about something new. Something radically and differently new. So new that two friends of Jesus didn't recognise it as it joined them on the road. JENNIFER HYMN Haven't you heard (that Jesus is risen?) JENNIFER READER Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him. Then he said to them 'Oh how foolish you are, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. JOHNSTON On that first visit to the Holy Land, they were able to show me places that claimed to be the site of the empty tomb. They were able to take me up a staircase to what purported to be the Upper Room, where the disciples were hiding after Good Friday. They were able to show me the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is aid to have cooked breakfast for his disciples. But nobody could take me to Emmaus. Luke's Gospel says that Emmaus was seven miles from Jerusalem, but if you take a compass, and draw a circle with Jerusalem as its centre, and its circumference seven miles from Jerusalem in every direction, the circle passes through nowhere that might have been a village called Emmaus. Shrines everywhere else, but not at Emmaus. Which in a way is appropriate because Emmaus could be anywhere which is seven miles from the place which has become unbearable. As the great American writer and preacher Frederick Buechner puts it: Emmaus is wherever you go to put some distance between yourself and what has become intolerable. The poet T S Eliot wrote that 'human kind cannot bear too much reality'. And so when we have too much reality to bear, we set out for Emmaus. And on the way, all of a sudden there are footsteps on the road. We can escape for a time. We can get away from the experience which has left us wounded, or the longings which we were never brave enough to fulfil, or the potential we were too frightened to realise, or the dreams that we were sure would be dashed. We can escape for a time from the hurt we felt or the hurt we caused, from the guilt which still nags at us the disappointment that still rankles. But sooner or later we'll begin to wonder whether these experiences actually add up to anything, or whether they have just been pointless. And all of a sudden there are footsteps on the road. And even when we are tempted to give up the whole business of believing as futile, and join those who say it's just daft to look for any meaning or purpose to life because life has neither meaning nor purpose, somehow we can't shake ourselves free of the conviction that faith can't totally be erased, and hope is somehow worth clinging on to, and deep-down convictions about love still make more sense than flippant thoughts that nothing matters. And all of a sudden there are footsteps on the road. And so these two friends of Jesus discover that
And that is resurrection. JENNIFER HYMN Alleluya! Hearts to heaven and voices raise (Tune: Lux Eoi) READER But they urged him strongly, saying, 'Stay with us because it is almost evening, and the day is now nearly over.' So he went in to stay with them When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight. That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem and told what had happened on the road, and how the Lord had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. JOHNSTON He painted two pictures called "The Supper at Emmaus". The one I am thinking of shows four men around a table. As always with Caravaggio, light streams in from a source outside the picture and lights up the bright white cloth on the table. Jesus leans forward into this light and he is blessing the bread with his right hand. Two of the three men along with Jesus - the two disciples he had joined on the road - are very excited. They have recognised who it is blessing the bread. One of them is pushing himself out of his chair and the other's arms are spread out wide as if to embrace the blesser of the bread. On the table there are a dish, a jug, a loaf, a chicken, and, on the edge of the table, as if it is about to topple off and onto the ground, there is a bowl of fruit. And that bowl of fruit which is about to fall off the edge of the table draws you into the picture, making you want to stop it from tumbling over; and maybe disturbing the tranquil figure of Jesus as he blesses the bread, or the two disciples in their excitement. But there is a fourth man in the picture. To the right of Jesus and blocking off some of the light that streams in over this man's shoulder, is the cook. Unlike the two disciples he had not been with Jesus at the Last Supper when he broke bread. Unlike the two disciples he had not been on the walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. He had been here, cooking for two men, who are now excited... but he can't understand what Jesus is doing, blessing this bread; and he doesn't share the other two men's excitement. But he looks at what Jesus is doing, blessing the bread, with rapt attention. So Caravaggio's picture, by the device of drawing us into the picture to stop the fruit tumbling off the table, introduces us to someone like ourselves, in the form of this cook, who, like us, has never experienced what this moment of blessing is all about. So must this moment of Easter recognition be always denied to those of us who were not there: there, and then? Well, no. And to give you a hint of an answer to why let me mention two books I have been reading over Easter. The first is a novel, by Sally Vickers, called The Other Side of You, whose title comes from the poet TS Eliot: VOICE JOHNSTON And the evidence for resurrection isn't confined to stories in a book that Christian people treasurer. The evidence can be here and now. Which is the final message of the other book I have been reading: Approaching Easter by Jane Williams. She ends by quoting one of my great heroes, a gay theologian and monk called Harry Williams, who died earlier this year. Harry Williams wrote this: VOICE JOHNSTON ANTHEM: MY SOUL THERE IS A COUNTRY (Parry) JOHNSTON CHOIRMEMBER 1 SUNG RESPONSE: Come now, O Prince of peace (Tune: O So So) Come now, O Prince of Peace CHOIRMEMBER 2 SUNG RESPONSE: JOHNSTON SUNG RESPONSE: JENNIFER ALL: AMEN JOHNSTON:LORD'S PRAYER Now let us say the grace together: ALL HYMN Jesus is risen, Alleluia (Tune: Mfurahini Haleluya) ORGAN VOLUNTARY |