Comfort food is where it begins.
Let me say a few words about our theme...
We are getting ready for Pentecost.
The next few weeks will be a preparation. Not unlike what we just went through for Lent, these days between Easter and Pentecost are also a time of preparation. In Lent, we went without something for 40 days. We went through self-denial and left ourselves open to what God wants to change. In these 50 days between Easter and Pentecost, you will be encouraged to stick to your guns. Keep up what you have already experienced. Let the focus be not on ourselves, but on Christ.
We enter the scene with the disciples just having come through a horrifying experience.
Their Savior has been taken away. He was put to death, buried in a tomb and now word comes that the body is missing. John's gospel says that Mary Magdalene saw him, talked to him, hugged him. Luke tells us of two men walking along a road to the village of Emmaus that saw him and spoke with him.
Those two men have made their way to the disciples and are in the midst of explaining what they have just encountered when Jesus, Himself, appears in the room.
The next few weeks will be a preparation. Not unlike what we just went through for Lent, these days between Easter and Pentecost are also a time of preparation. In Lent, we went without something for 40 days. We went through self-denial and left ourselves open to what God wants to change. In these 50 days between Easter and Pentecost, you will be encouraged to stick to your guns. Keep up what you have already experienced. Let the focus be not on ourselves, but on Christ.
We enter the scene with the disciples just having come through a horrifying experience.
Their Savior has been taken away. He was put to death, buried in a tomb and now word comes that the body is missing. John's gospel says that Mary Magdalene saw him, talked to him, hugged him. Luke tells us of two men walking along a road to the village of Emmaus that saw him and spoke with him.
Those two men have made their way to the disciples and are in the midst of explaining what they have just encountered when Jesus, Himself, appears in the room.
Luke 24:36-49
New International Version (NIV)
Jesus Appears to the Disciples
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
You might have been eyeing that title on this message from the start.
Maybe you have even taken the initiative to go look it up. (You should feel that freedom by now.)
It's a Latin word. As I was planning out my next few weeks and months for the pulpit this word jumped out at me. I have had the pleasure of working with a 4 gospel parallel on the internet from the University of Toronto. All 4 books are neatly posted with links to parallel passages that are found in one or more of the other gospels accounts. As we approached the week of Easter I began the scroll past those passages and pondering where do we would go from there.
The section title above this morning's scripture read as such:
Jesus Redivivus in Jerusalem
And I did what many of you might have done as you looked in your bulletin. Huh???
This word jumped off the page at me and I knew where we would be headed today.
I also had a premonition that I might have bitten off more than I could chew.
Which, of course, instantly made me look it up.
Definition of REDIVIVUS
: brought back to life : reborn —used postpositively
Hmmm. "Reborn" was linked up in blue and I just had to click on that too.
Definition of REBORN
: born again : regenerated, revived
Ok, something really began to gnaw at me the longer I stared at these words.
Isn't this what Jesus was talking to Nicodemus about back in John chap 3.
"You must be born again" Huh. Hey, 'regenerated' and 'revived' were highlighted in blue also.....
Definition of REGENERATE
1: formed or created again
2: spiritually reborn or converted
Now, every word we have looked up so far in an adjective. A description word. It says something about the person or thing it attached to in line. But, notice the lay of the land on this last word...
Definition of REVIVE
intransitive verb
: to return to consciousness or life : become active or flourishing again
transitive verb
1: to restore to consciousness or life
2: to restore from a depressed, inactive, or unused state : bring back
3: to renew in the mind or memory
Ok, every other time I have looked up a word, in preparation for a sermon, and it has been a verb and it has had transitive and intransitive properties attached to it, the transitive side is always laid out first. Usually because the side that is used most predominantly would get it's part of the definition laid out first. But, for some reason here on this word, the intransitive side is listed first. I had to wonder why that was.
There's really only two moments in scripture when a mass of people are resurrected all at once. Ezekiel at the Valley of Dry Bones and at the cross when several people got up out of their graves. The power of God moved so mightily in a moment that the Veil in the Temple was torn, the sky was darkened, thunder and lightening rolled, Jesus says "It is finished!"
And, for some, they most likely thought that it was.
So, now, we are here in Luke 24. Last week was the road to Emmaus. Jesus appears to two men as they are walking. He open the scriptures. He shares and teaches. Then they sit down at a table to enjoy a meal.
It is here that Jesus is revealed to them. He breaks bread. Their eyes are opened. Then he is gone.
The rest of the disciples back in Jerusalem are told next. These two men go back and tell them about their experience on the road and at the house. And, out of nowhere, Jesus appears.
Notice the discourse is so similar in the two passages. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus spends however long the walk is sharing the scriptures and opening their minds. Then comes the food.
Back at house where the disciple are hold up, Jesus appears just as he disappeared at the Emmaus house.
A long discourse on the scriptures is not needed here. He cuts right to the chase. He calms their fears.
38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”Explanation was needed in one instance. Physical evidence in the other. And, then came the food.
41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”At Emmaus, he took the bread and broke it. At the house with the disciples, he takes some fish and eats.
In both instances food is present. (C'mon now, you had to know. Who's message are you reading?)
Let us take a bare boned look at what's happening here.
The thing I that stood out to me in both passages, the Emmaus road, and now this one is that food is present in both of them. Now, why would food be important to all this?
In a narcissistic way, I could imply that God knew all those millennia ago that one day my theme would be comfort food and he neatly set this all up, just for me. (Isn't that convenient?)
Food. We go to it when we need something. Comfort. Peace. Solace.
Sometimes it works too. Food can revive us. It can give us strength. It can soothe us.
The men on the Emmaus road had been walking for a while. They got back home. They are hungry.
We need to see the plain and simple here. They were not sitting down to have what we call "communion".
They were sitting down to eat. And, to start the meal, they need a prayer. Jesus had been sharing all the truths of the kingdom of God during their walk. And, for these men, here comes a new one.
Jesus is alive! He is Redivivus.
Brought back to life - reborn - born again - all the definitions read to you earlier apply.
But there is one that we should pay close attention.
Sometimes you have to dig a bit to find what you want. Remember we kept digging until we got to the word "revive". Lets look at those 3 lines on revive. It plays significantly into what is presented today.
intransitive verb
: to return to consciousness or life : become active or flourishing again
transitive verb
1: to restore to consciousness or life
2: to restore from a depressed, inactive, or unused state : bring back
3: to renew in the mind or memory
His followers are restored from a depressed state, inactive because of fear, unusable because of the ugliness of their sins. Maybe now they would understand.
John 10:11-18
New International Version (NIV)
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
Jesus wants his followers to know it is real. He actually touches bread. He actually eats fish.
He speaks the same words of comfort and relief he has been speaking all along.
John 6:25-58
New International Version (NIV)
Jesus the Bread of Life
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[a]”
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me,but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[b] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent meand I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
Be revived. Believe. Take and eat. Be nourished.
And, get ready. There's more to come.
