Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
How’s your faith doing today?
Some of you might think that’s an inappropriate question to be asking of those who are gathered together in a sanctuary on a Sunday morning to worship God.
But the fact is, even those who come every week, sometimes more than that, can have moments of weakness in their faith.
There are times when we are so affected by things of this world; illness, relationships gone wrong, unemployment or underemployment, war, famine, pestilence, death, that we begin to wonder if God really meant it when He said, “Never will I leave you; Never will I forsake you.”
Most of us know those words were written in the book of Hebrews, the 19th book of the canon of the NT, but they actually had their origin in the OT.
In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses was addressing the people of Israel. They were nearing the end of their wandering in the desert and Moses was nearing the end of his life. He knew that there would still be struggles and battles ahead for the people whom he had led to the brink of the Promised Land, and he spoke these words:
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."
Joshua was God’s next chosen leader. He was to lead the people of Israel into the land promised to their father Abraham. In the first chapter of the account of Joshua’s leadership of this chosen people, God addressed this son of Nun. He said: No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.
In the book of I Kings, Solomon had just dedicated the new Temple he had built to the Lord. He then blessed the people of Israel with these words, remembering God’s promise: May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us.
In the prophet Isaiah’s inspired words, in the first Servant Song recorded in chapter 42 we hear the pre-incarnate Christ say: I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.
God has made this promise to those who have faith in Him.
But Pastor, you may be thinking, you just said that sometimes our faith is weak. What about then?
To answer that, we turn to the words of St. Paul in his second letter to Timothy. He writes: Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
So I guess that brings us to the real heart of our question that I posed at the beginning of the message: How’s your faith doing today?
How can we know?
To start with, I guess we really have to have an understanding of what faith is.
How do you describe faith?
I’ve said many times that faith isn’t something that you can go down to the store and look for on the shelves. You can’t go out and purchase a can of faith. Faith isn’t like Jolt. You can’t drink a bunch of it and expect your faith to go soaring.
Faith isn’t a decision. It’s not as though, when you’re having a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, or a bad year in your life, you can sit down and say: “That’s it. I’m just going to have more faith!”
That may work for a little while. Then you start to wonder: “Is my faith strong enough? Things still aren’t working out God.
Come on Man, how much more do I have to pray, go to church; how much more to I have to give of my wallet or of myself before I can truly feel like I’ve given enough?”
So faith isn’t something we decide we’re going to build up on our own.
So what is it?
We see a real good example of faith in today’s Gospel text.
This is the famous story of the two disciples who are returning to their home after the death of Jesus.
Talk about two guys who are down in the dumps.
What a roller-coaster their lives have been during the past week.
Remember, it was only a week ago when they had undoubtedly been a part of the throng that had witnessed Jesus’ triumphant arrival in the Holy City. People had been cheering Him. They had shouted, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"
They had witnessed Jesus’ angry reaction at the Temple where he had overturned the tables of the merchants and moneychangers, saying to them: "It is written," `My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it `a den of robbers.’ "
Perhaps they had even been gathered in the upper room when Jesus had washed the feet of those who followed him. They had maybe heard Jesus say those words at the supper when he took the bread and said: "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." And then with the cup he had said: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
Those had been high and glorious moments in their lives. They had faith!
But then, just a few short hours later, their world had been turned upside down.
One of Jesus’ own disciples had betrayed him and he had been arrested.
They had scattered, just like all of the rest. But it was impossible not to follow from a distance the things that had happened next.
This man they had followed had been put on trial before the Herod, the Chief priests, and finally, before the Roman governor, Pilate.
The crowd which only days before had wanted him to be king, now jeered him and mocked him and in a final blow, had demanded that Pilate crucify him.
His body had been nailed to a cross and, with two common thieves, he hung there. He didn’t show any of the miraculous power they had known him to have.
He was just a man. He had died and they had taken his body to a tomb and buried him.
It had been three days and now; they were headed home. To what, they didn’t know. It felt as if their lives had ended along with his while he had been hanging there.
Do you know that feeling? Have you experienced the seeming bottom of what life has to offer?
I know I have. I’ve been riding high only to have my legs chopped out from under me. A lot of the times, it’s of my own doing. I’m the one that makes the stupid move that puts me in a hole. It can actually be great for a while. Pity parties can be fun. You can find all sorts of people to blame. You can get mad at God. Heck, you can even sleep in a couple of Sunday’s and show Him how much He’ll miss you now that you aren’t there.
But soon reality crashes in and you realize that there’s really no one to blame but yourself.
There are other times, when it’s not your fault. You are an innocent bystander, living life, maybe giving glory to God, and like a punch to your gut, something happens that sucks the wind right out of you.
It’s times like this when we can relate to the words of the psalmists.
It was King David who cried out to the LORD in Psalm 22: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.
And again in Psalm 69 we hear this plea from David: Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. Come near and rescue me; redeem me because of my foes.
It is times like this when we, as Christians, begin to doubt our faith. We wonder about picking up our cross. We wonder if we have it in us to “fight the good fight”; to “run the race.”
This had to be the feeling of those two disciples as they walked that lonely road to Emmaus.
But something happened!
A stranger appeared beside them.
They didn’t really want to talk to anybody else. They were doing just fine commiserating by themselves.
But this guy! He had no clue as to what had been going on. One of them finally said: "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"
So they told him the story.
It was a faithless story. It was a story filled with sorrow and regret. It was story capped with disbelief.
They told this stranger about reports from the women who had gone to the tomb that morning, only to find it empty. They said they had seen a vision of angle who told them that Jesus was alive. Some of the disciples had even returned to the gravesite. It was empty, just as the women had said, but – no Jesus.
He was gone. He had left them. He had forsaken them.
Suddenly out of the mouth of this stranger came these words: "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?"
And then this stranger did something that ought to inspire each and every one of us. He took these two men into the Scripture. He taught them (or maybe it was just a timely refresher course) all of those things that were written about the Christ. From Moses to the Prophets.
Today, we refer to that teaching as the “Golden Thread.” The thread that can be traced back to the Garden of Eden; through Noah and Abraham; through Isaac and Jacob; through Rahab and Boaz and Ruth; through Jesse and David and Bathsheba; through Solomon and Hezekiah; through Zerubbabel and Eleazar;
through Jacob to Joseph and his wife Mary who had given birth to Jesus, who is called the Christ.
Do you remember what was said of these two disciples when this stranger first encountered them? “they were kept from recognizing him.”
At first they must have thought that he was either incredibly naïve or stupid. They were reluctant to share the story of Jesus. Their faith in him had been shaken.
But it seems the more this stranger talked, the more they listened. When the neared their village, the stranger acted as though he were going to go on.
But suddenly their attitude changed. Our text says: But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over."
I really like the KJV of this text a little better. It says: But they constrained him…
They didn’t want to let go of this stranger. They wanted him in their presence.
And the stranger stayed.
They gathered around the table to partake of dinner and the stranger took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.
And two miracles happened.
First, their eyes were opened. And then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, the stranger was gone. He disappeared.
But the disciples didn’t fall back into their melancholy state. They didn’t go back into their faithless attitude.
Instead, they looked at one another and said: "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"
The end of this text is really just the beginning. Because they got up and headed back to Jerusalem.
They didn’t know anything else had happened, but they knew that they had to tell the Good News. They had to go back and let the others know that Jesus was alive. They had seen Him! He had been in their presence.
He had not left them; he had not forsaken them. He was risen!
What had Jesus done to cause this change?
Was it merely in the breaking of the bread?
I remember when I heard this story as a child in Sunday school, I, or one of the other little inquisitive kids asked this very question. How did they know it was Jesus?
And I remember the very inadequate answer we got. We were told “it was how he broke the bread.”
My friends, they knew it was Jesus because their faith had been restored. Jesus took them through the Scriptures and showed them that God the Father is a God who keeps His promises. Through the hearing of the Word their trust in God was restored.
All that He said He would do had been accomplished through the birth, life, suffering, and death of His beloved Son.
And now that very Son of God had been raised from the dead. He was alive and still present with them.
And brothers and sisters, He is present with us still.
He is present in the Word and in the Sacraments.
It is through these God-given things that our faith is renewed, restored, re-invigorated.
It is through our firm belief in the promises of God, shown to us through the Holy Scriptures, that we can TRUST in all that God says He will do.
Because God keeps His promises.
Regardless of where you are in your life; if your faith is soaring or if you are weak, trust in God.
Know that He will never leave you nor forsake.
Remember the words, the promise, of our Lord as He spoke to His disciples before He ascended into heaven: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
So, How is your faith today? Do you trust in God? Do you believe IN God? Do you believe IN Christ?
Are you ready to follow the example of the disciples from Emmaus? Are you ready to have your eyes and hearts opened? Are you ready to share the Good News that Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is risen? Are you ready to speak of His presence among you?
I urge you strongly…no, I constrain you, to open the Scriptures, join us for Bible study. Hear the Word of the Lord and then share it with everyone you can.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
