Luke
24:21
Before we understand – no, before we
experience – Easter, the resurrection of Jesus and the new and indestructible life
that puts into us, we have to look at the far more universal experience of
disappointment and loss.
You know what disappointment
is. The high school seniors can tell you
all about it. It’s the baseball season
that barely started. It’s the prom that
never takes place. It’s the senior trip
that’s off. It’s the graduation ceremony
that is a ghost of what it could be. It’s
a bunch of older people posting their senior pictures on Facebook “in
solidarity with the Class of 2020” that rubs it in that everybody else had
these rituals and they don’t.
You know what disappointment
is. It’s the wedding plans that have to
be cut way back. It’s the new job that
never starts. It’s the years of hard
work and long hours and doing without that went into a business that was
finally taking off and now may not reopen.
It’s the 401(k) that has declined by more than you want to think
about. Disappointment is the future than
more than likely will not be born.
For at least two of Jesus’ disciples, his
death was not only an injustice and an outrage but it was also a great
disappointment. As one of them remarked,
“we had hoped that he was
the one to redeem Israel.” [Luke 24:21]
They
had thought that Jesus was the one that so many of the people were waiting
for. He was going to be the one to toss
the Romans out of the country. He was
going to be the one who would give voice to the needs of the poor and the
people who were pushed aside – which he did.
But they thought that he was going to be the one who would do that in a
way that would really be heard and that would change things. Hadn’t the crowds backed him up just a week
earlier when he rode into town and people shouted,
“Blessed is the king who
comes in the name of the Lord” [Luke 19:38]?
Hadn’t
he been the only one who had had the guts to do what so many wanted to do when
he overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple and chased them
out? Where was the follow-up?
They were to learn that redemption
is not a matter of seizing power and punishing enemies. In fact, redemption comes from setting expectations
of glory aside and from putting forgiveness in place of retribution. Jesus brought redemption when he set aside
the things he could do to do the things that he should do. King, yes – but servant first. Ruler, yes – but one who wants people to
follow him out of love, not fear.
If you consider what is going on in
our lives right now, who is redeeming the situation? Who is turning trouble and struggle into constructive
channels? Who is doing something that
will have a lasting, admirable effect?
Who is bringing about results that are worthwhile?
I would submit that it is not the
people whose names are in the headlines or who stand in front of the cameras. Those who speak the loudest are not those who
speak the most clearly. No, those are
the ones who have no time for that because they are busy in the labs and in the
hospital rooms. They are stocking the
shelves in the grocery store and keeping the kids out of trouble. They are just trying to keep things running smoothly
as possible today. They are figuring out
how to keep people safe in the future.
If anyone looks for the world to be
transformed from what it is into what it could be, by God’s grace, there is
going to be disappointment and loss. Jesus
was clear about that. He said,
“If any want to become my
followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow
me.” [Luke 9::23]
It’s
a daily activity. It’s a way of life. It’s not a one-time, heroic act that has a
clear start and a certain end, or even a definite outcome. There are no definite measures of success and
failure except the internal conviction of the Holy Spirit that we are on the
right track. Hold that up against the
measurements that the world uses. The world
has clear definitions of success. How
much money are you making? Do you have
connections that can get things done? Do
people recognize your name and your face?
Are you an influencer?
We all fall into that trap, in how
we judge others and even in how we judge ourselves. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus even
judged Jesus that way, and when it didn’t work out for him, it meant that they
had misplaced their hopes. They had bet
on a loser, and that made them losers, too.
Or so they thought.
Yet that is where the power of the
resurrection comes upon us. That power begins
when it forces us to set aside our assumptions about success or status and
rethink what matters. Real redemption
begins. “To redeem” is one of those really
loaded terms. It can mean to set free,
or to buy back, or to ransom, or to make the best of, or to bring good from. It can mean a little of all of that at the
same time. To explain what the Messiah’
job really was would take Jesus going through the scriptures with those two
from start to finish.
“Beginning with Moses and
all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the
scriptures.” [Luke 24:27]
Jesus’
role as Redeemer wasn’t even just what they were looking for,
“the one who would redeem
Israel.” [Luke 24:21]
He
would be the one who would redeem the whole world. It would take in more than establishing a
political kingdom. It would mean buying
back and setting free the human soul.
What I see in the depredations that
this pandemic has laid bare is a chance of renewal. What I see is a painful exposure of how
misplaced our values have become. Yet
along with that arises clarity about what they should be, and a call to realign
our lives with the love of Jesus. I do
not see some sort of cosmic punishment from God, but I do hear the warning that
we cannot keep going the way we have been.
Senior portraits don’t matter as
much as the students who sit for them.
Prom dresses and tuxedoes don’t matter as much as the people who wear
them. What school you get into doesn’t
matter as much as what kind of education you get; and getting a degree is not
as important as being a decent human being.
The job you have is not as important as knowing we cannot even function
without the worker who is paid the least.
Leadership isn’t the same thing as fame.
Respectability is not the same thing as position.
Resurrection is more than life going
back to the way it always was. Resurrection
is going back to a life that has been redeemed and is made better, truer,
wiser, more authentic, by a Savior whom the world does not recognize but who is
out there on the road with his people.
As the spiritual says,
“I want Jesus to walk
with me.
I want Jesus to walk with
me.
All along my pilgrim
journey,
Lord, I want Jesus to
walk with me.”
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