"Membership 101: A Community Celebrating Life"
Luke 24:13-35
Main Idea: Belonging to a church means being included in a community that continually celebrates life through the symbols of Resurrection.
Introduction: Virtually all of us during this Easter season will share in some, if not all, of the common traditions of Easter. It may be a dyed egg or an Easter ham but somewhere the common cultural traditions of Easter have crossed your path. It may come as a surprise to you that virtually all of the common cultural traditions and symbols of Easter have little to do with the symbols of Christianity. Let me give you some examples:
It’s strange how the symbols our culture uses to celebrate life have been comfortably accepted by us, yet are poles apart from the realities of the resurrection as a celebration of life. The world uses things that are soft, tender and fragile—bunnies, eggs, flowers—while the events of the resurrection are violent, harsh and grim. The New Testament speaks of a cross—blood, pain, suffering, sin, shame and sorrow and an empty tomb—death, mystery, fear, amazement and disbelief. The world symbolizes the celebration of the recurring cycle of life as merely the result of natural law: things die, things live again. Yet for the church our celebration of life is the result not of nature but a demonstration of the power of God resurrecting to life the dead body of Jesus. We celebrate life not because spring follows winter but because in Jesus Christ resurrection follows crucifixion!
What are the church’s symbols for celebration resurrection life that comes to us through Jesus Christ? There is the cross and the empty tomb, two powerful reminders of the resurrection life that’s ours to celebrate. Yet are there continual symbols that we as a community can look to that calls to mind the reality of the resurrection? Yes, and for us as a Baptist community of Christians the resurrection is remembered as a celebration of life each time we see the symbol of a new beginning in baptism and each time we share the symbol of our greatest hope in the Lord’s Supper.
You say, "Bruce, I came here to hear about the story of Resurrection not about your church’s rituals, tell me the story and I’ll believe." My response is, "The first who saw the empty tomb didn’t believe, the first who heard the story of the empty tomb didn’t believe and this morning two who met the resurrected Christ didn’t even know it was him until they saw him do something with a piece of bread. You see, its not hearing the stories of resurrection that connect us. It is seeing and experiencing the story in symbol that makes it live continually for us.
I. The Story of the Broken Bread (Luke 24:13-35)
The account in Luke of the encounter of two disciples on their way out of Jerusalem after the crucifixion is one of my favorites. It is a favorite because it is so human. After Jesus was crucified his disciples were feeling anxious, dazed and confused. On Sunday following Jesus’ crucifixion two disciples, still overwhelmed with the events they had witnessed, were walking home to Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They are dejected and depressed because they had hung their hope on Jesus but it was all over now.
As they walk, a stranger meets them and inquires as to the topic of their conversation. They stop dead in their tracks, sad at what has happened to Jesus and stunned that the stranger doesn’t know what has gone on. When the stranger asked for more information, they explain all they knew about Jesus, what had happened to him and how they hoped that he would be their long-awaited Messiah (Luke 24:19-21). Then they add, " Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, Jesus' body was gone, just as the women had said." (Luke 24:22-24)
What I need you to understand is that their hearing the eyewitness accounts of the empty tomb made no impact on them—other than to confuse them. They knew all that Jesus had said himself about the fact that he would rise again but they did not connect eyewitness verification of an empty tomb with the reality of the resurrection. Hearing a story of someone else’s experience of Jesus resurrection meant nothing.
The stranger then begins to clarify for them what all these events have meant and where they find their basis. So he begins with what we would know as the books of Genesis and goes right through what we call the prophets, explaining everything about Jesus found in the Old Testament. Yet as powerful as this Sunday School lesson was and its content exhaustive, they still didn’t know it was Jesus they were talking to. They had the knowledge of eyewitness accounts of the empty tomb, they had the explanation of truth about Jesus from the Savior himself but it still didn’t click.
When they get to their village they invite the stranger to stay with them. So he goes into their home for a meal. They sit down for what they imagined was a very common meal, but that common meal had a revealing purpose. When the stranger took bread, blessed it and broke it, then they realized who they had in their home—the very risen Jesus himself. As soon as they recognize him—he’s gone. (Luke 24:28-32). Immediately they start back the seven miles to Jerusalem—in the night—to tell the rest of the disciples what had happened. Hear again what they said, " They said to each other, "Didn't our hearts feel strangely warm as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?" And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem, where the eleven disciples and the other followers of Jesus were gathered. When they arrived, they were greeted with the report, "The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter!" Then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road and how they had recognized him as he was breaking the bread." (Luke 24:31-35)
They recognized him when he broke the bread. They didn’t believe the story the women told or the scriptures Jesus explained to them until in the simplicity of breaking bread it all made sense. The symbol of the broken bread spoke the message of reality. In a seminar I attended recently, Robert Webber, a professor of worship at Wheaton College, told a story that reminds us of the power a symbol can have. He explained how a man who was an unbeliever had begun to want to know more about Christianity and had returned to church. The church was a very liturgical church, which used a processional each time they began their worship. One Sunday as the priest entered carrying a small brass cross the man saw that cross and suddenly the knowledge of Christ became reality for him and he believed. The symbol made everything else make sense.
What symbols can we continually return to in order to remember the reality of the resurrection as a personal celebration of life?
II. The resurrection is remembered as a celebration of life each time we see the symbol of a new beginning. (Romans 6:3-7)
The symbol for our church that pictures the new beginning a person has when they personally trust Christ for salvation is baptism by immersion. I realize that different communities of faith symbolize baptism differently. I read about one woman who was raised as a Methodist but later became active in the Baptist church after moving to a new community. One day she was helping a group of women clean up after a church fellowship. She emptied the large, electric coffee pot and handed it to the woman washing dishes. "Can this be washed like everything else?" she asked. "No," she replied, "This is a Methodist coffee pot. It says right here, DO NOT IMMERSE." (Christian Reader) Some of you may be like that Methodist coffee pots and that’s o.k.
You see the reason we immerse someone totally in water is because for us it is the best symbol of what Paul describes in Romans 6:3-7: "Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with him? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was. Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin."
The Easter message of the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus is symbolized every time a person is immersed into our church family. That immersion symbolizes what has happened individually. Each time a person chooses to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior they die to their old way of life and are forgiven of their sins. They, in turn, receive a new beginning because Jesus resurrects them spiritually. Does the water do anything itself? No, it’s just water. Is the United States flag anything more than red, white, and blue cloth? No, it’s just material. Is that symbol meaningless? No! Why? Because of the power of what it symbolizes.
You see, just like those disciples who didn’t believe the story of resurrection until the broken bread, so the resurrection lives for us continually each time we celebrate a Christian’s new beginning through baptism. When a person is transformed spiritually we invite a person to declare that publicly, openly, wonderfully by demonstrating in symbol that the Resurrected Christ has changed me—the old has been washed away and I have a new beginning.
III. The resurrection is also remembered as a celebration of life each time we share the symbol of our greatest hope. (Luke 22:14-20)
What is the symbol for our church that defines our greatest hope as a Christian? Our church symbolizes its greatest hope each time we share the supper of our Lord. On the night Jesus was betrayed he symbolized in a last meal with his disciples all that was to happen to him. Luke records that when he sat down with them he told them this would be his last meal with them "until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (Luke 24:16) and that he would not share this meal again "until the kingdom of God comes" (Luke 24:18). Then Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, telling them, "This symbolizes my body," and he took a cup of wine and said, "This symbolizes my blood." The death that he was to suffer was dramatized in the bread and the cup. He told them to do it in order to never forget him. Paul would say, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes" (I Cor. 11:26).
Do you hear the significance of the word "until"? Jesus used that word to say, "When I die it isn’t over! We will be together again." There’s hope because it isn’t over "until." Until what? Until he returns. My question is how can he return unless there is resurrection? The elements you see on this table are symbols of the death of Jesus for us. The bread dramatizes the symbol of his body broken for us. The cup dramatizes the symbol of his blood spilled for us. The supper itself is not something we do to remember a great loss but we do it because Christ is risen and returning. That is our greatest hope. We have written across everything we do when we share this meal "until"! Because of that "until" there is hope!
In one of the episodes of M*A*S*H, the sophisticated shell, inside which Major Winchester protects himself from the horror of the suffering and death with which he constantly deals, breaks; and he is left defenseless. He goes into a type of depression in which he struggles to find some answers to life’s most perplexing problem—death. Finally, in utter desperation, he leaves the base hospital and goes up to the battalion aid station where the wounded are first taken. Colonel Potter discovers where he is and calls him, ordering him to return to the M*A*S*H. A medical corpsman interrupts the conversation and calls the surgeon over to a man who is dying. Winchester confirms the impending death with a glance. The soldier says, "I can’t see anything. Hold my hand." The major replies, "I am." "I’m dying," the soldier moans, and this causes the surgeon’s unarticulated questions to surface: "Can you see anything? Can you feel anything? I have to know." But the dying soldier doesn’t answer. Instead, he says, "I smell bread."
When we smell, see, feel and taste the bread and the cup it reminds us we will be home when he returns for us! They are symbols of our greatest hope "until".
Conclusion: Two disciples heard eyewitness accounts of an empty tomb, met the risen Christ himself, heard that very risen Christ explain the meaning of the Old Testament to them but they didn’t understand the reality until they saw him break the bread. How does the reality of resurrection grip you and me continually? Through the symbols of a celebration of life—water, bread and cup – new beginning and great hope.
Dr. John Claypool tells this wonderful story: "Once upon a time I had a young friend named Philip. Philip lived in a nearby city, and Philip was born a mongoloid. He was a pleasant child—happy, it seemed—but increasingly aware of the difference between himself and other children. Philip went to Sunday School. And his teacher, also, was a friend of mine. My Sunday School teacher friend taught the third grade at a Methodist Church. Philip was in his class, as well as nine other eight-year-old boys and girls.
My Sunday School teacher friend is a very creative teacher. Most of you know eight-year-olds. And Philip, with his differences, was not readily accepted as a member of this third grade Sunday School class. But my friend was a good teacher, and he had helped facilitate a good group of eight-year-old children. They learned and they laughed and they played together. And they really cared about each other—even though, as you know, eight-year-olds don’t say that they care about each other out loud very often. But my teacher friend could see it. He knew it. He also knew that Philip was not really a part of the group of children. Philip, of course, did not choose nor did he want to be different. He just was. And that was just the way things were.
My Sunday School teacher friend had a marvelous design for his class on the Sunday after Easter last year. You know those things panty hose come in—the containers look like great big eggs. My friend had collected ten of these to use on that Sunday. The children loved it when he brought them into the room. Each child was to get a great big egg. It was a beautiful spring day, and the assigned task was for each child to go outside on the church grounds and to find a symbol for new life, put it in the egg (the old panty hose containers), and bring it back to the classroom. They would then mix them all up, and then all open and share their new life symbols and surprises together one by one.
Well, they did this, and it was glorious. And it was confusing. And it was wild. They ran all around, gathered their symbols, and returned to the classroom. They put all the big eggs on a table, and then my teacher friend began to open them. All the children were standing around the table. He opened one, and there was a flower, and they ooh-ed and aah-ed. He opened another, and there was a little butterfly. "Beautiful," the girls all said, since it is very hard for 8-year-old boys to say "beautiful." He opened another, and there was a rock. And as third graders will, some laughed, and some said, "That’s crazy! How’s a rock supposed to be like new life?" But the smart little boy whose egg they were speaking of spoke up. He said, "That’s mine. And I knew all of you would get flowers, and buds, and leaves, and butterflies, and stuff like that. So I got a rock because I wanted to be different. And for me, that’s new life."
The teacher opened the next one, and there was nothing there. The other children, as 8-year-olds will, said, "That’s not fair—that’s stupid!—somebody didn’t do right." About that time my teacher friend felt a tug on his shirt, and he looked down and Philip was standing beside him. "It’s mine," Philip said. "It’s mine." And the children said, "You don’t ever do things right, Philip. There’s nothing there!" "I did so do it," Philip said, "I did do it. It’s empty—the tomb is empty!"
The class was silent, a very full silence. And for you people who don’t believe in miracles, I want to tell you that one happened that day last spring. From that time on, it was different. Philip suddenly became a part of that group of eight-year-old children. They took him in. He entered. He was set free from the tomb of his differentness.
Philip died last summer. His family had known since the time that he was born that he wouldn’t live out a full life span. Many other things had been wrong with his tiny little body. And so, late last July, with an infection that most normal children could have quickly shrugged off, Philip died. The mystery simply enveloped him completely.
He was buried from that church. And on that day at that funeral nine eight-year-old children marched right up to that altar—not with flowers to cover the stark reality of death. Nine eight-year-olds, with their Sunday School teacher, marched right up to that altar, and lay on it an empty egg—an empty, old discarded holder of panty hose."
You see the symbol was a reminder of a celebration of life! Water, bread and cup-symbols that celebrate life…Resurrection Life!
Sunday, April 15, 2001
Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor
First Baptist Church
Jonesboro, Arkansas