Jesus In Our Midst

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 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 recognized him: and he vanished from their sight. Luke 24:28-31

I have hidden an egg in the sanctuary this morning. It looks just like the one I am holding in my hand. Take a moment if you will and look around your pew or the pews beside you and see if you can find it. Seriously, take a moment and look. Have you found it yet? Keep looking. It looks just like the one in my hand. It's purple, it's an egg, and it's somewhere in this sanctuary. No luck? Hmm...let me give you another clue. It's purple, it's a plastic egg, and it's possible right where you were looking. Do you see it yet? Have you found the egg?

It's in my hand.

How often do we miss what we're looking for when it's been right in front of us the whole time? If we were Molly Ringwald or the star of any 80s-90s rom-com, it would be more times than we'd like to admit. The truth is we miss what we are looking for because we do expect to see it when we see it. It catches by surprise or we're so focused on looking for it we simply glance over it, like the shoes you were looking for this morning.

The same can be said about Jesus.

Part of my call requires me to ask this question: Where's Jesus? When planning an event, organizing an outing, making a visitation, planning a wedding, funeral, or a worship service, the question I must always ask is: Where's Jesus? Part of our responsibility as Christians and as the church is to ask that very question. On the commute to work where's Jesus? On the way home, where's Jesus? When we spend time with our children, where's Jesus? When we fix dinner or watch TV or in our quiet alone time the question we are to ask is: Where's Jesus?

Mike Yaconelli, founder of Youth Specialties once wrote:

“I was recently hit with that very question during a meeting with a well-known evangelist. After an hour and a half of his very organized presentation on a new, nationwide program for spreading the gospel, he stopped and asked some of us to respond.
I started to speak, but the words caught in my throat. My tears ambushed me, and I was unable to respond. Taken by surprise, I wondered what my tears were all about. Instantly I saw the following mental picture: A man was leaning against the wall a few feet from us. He seemed lonely and sad, like a wallflower at a dance. One look at his eyes, and I could tell he desperately wanted us to notice him, to pay attention to him, to talk to him—but we just went on with our business and ignored him.

That man was Jesus, of course. There he stood in the midst of our long conversation about strategies, programs, and target markets, and we didn’t even notice the very reason why we have these meetings in the first place!” (Yaconelli, http://www.youthspecialties.com/articles/wheres-jesus).”

The disciples in our story, like us, were caught in the recent events. They were caught in all that happened and in the loss of their friend and teacher. They had heard the proclamation of his resurrection from the women but they had not seen him. Caught up in their own mourning and confusion they do not recognize the person who meets them on the road. Walking they share the story of the death of the Messiah with the risen Messiah. It is not until they sit down for supper and the bread is broken that their eyes are open and they notice he has been with them the entire time.

The walk to Emmaus is a story that should resonate with us. Instead of ragging on the disciples for not seeing we should put ourselves in the story and ask: Where's Jesus? Is Jesus in our midst? We are not that different than the disciples. We walk, glide, run, whatever metaphor works for you, through life seeking something or someone to help bring us closer to Jesus or to have an experience with Jesus that we miss seeing him right before our eyes. We miss seeing him at our table. We miss seeing him in the face of our neighbors, strangers, and our enemies. We miss seeing him in the blessings and the heartaches. We miss seeing him because we are not looking for him. Like the disciples we are on our walk to Emmaus with no expectation to meet the risen Lord. We expect to see him in the grandness instead of the ordinary.

Every summer when I was a teenager I would attend Falls Creek youth camp with my church. I would go expecting to see Jesus the way I saw him the year before. I expected to have an experience that drove me to my knees, that made me cry, that made me repent. Every year it was the same. I'd leave with the group with the belief God was going to meet me in the Arbuckle Mountains. I would return a child who was coming down from a sugar high after eating the giant chocolate bunny. I would be satisfied for a day or two but by the time I got home Jesus had disappeared and I thought I would have to wait until June to see him again. But nothing happens the same way twice.

We attend church the same way. We expect the music to lift us to the mountaintop. We expect the sermon to raise us to another place. We expect the Sunday School lesson to sweep us away. We expect more than what these services can do so when those things do not work we look for the experience somewhere else. We turn on our TVs and hear preachers babble and shout. We turn to conferences and camps. We turn to old experiences forgetting that nothing happens the same way twice. Our eyes stay closed and blind to the one true shepherd in our midst.

The Road to Emmaus is not a story of a spiritual experience. It is a story of seeing with new eyes the risen Lord in our midst. A spiritual experience indicates that it only happens once, a special moment that transcends place and time. The disciples did not have a spiritual experience. They experienced reality. They experienced the resurrection in the most real sense and in the ordinary way, on a walk down a road to a town. You and I have these same experiences. We take our walks. We drive our cars. We share stories with one another. But we do not expect to see Jesus in our midst. We do not expect to hear him speak. We do not expect him to touch us, to breathe on us.

Several years ago, I took a group teenagers to the Ozark Mountains outside of Eureka Springs, AR. One afternoon one the boys told me he was going for a walk and I said I would go with him. We hiked for over an hour and found ourselves on the shore of a river enclosed by the walls of the mountainside. We sat for several moments. We sat in silence looking over the water at the walls of rock. As we sat there I began to see someone in between us. I shook my head thinking I was going crazy, something bound to happen. We got up and the person stayed. He smiled and waved good-bye and it wasn't until we returned to the cabin that I realized who it was. An ordinary moment beside an ordinary spot opened my eyes to the truth of the resurrection.

“Edmund stared hard for a while and then said, “No. There's nothing there. You've got dazzled and muddled with the moonlight. One does you know. I thought I saw something for a moment myself. It's only an optical what-do-you-call-it.”
“I can see him all the time,” said Lucy. “He's looking straight at us.”
“Then why can't I see him?”
“He said you mightn't be able to.”
“Why?”
“I don't know. That's what he said.”
“Oh, bother it all,” said Edmund. “I do wish you wouldn't keep on seeing things. But I suppose we'll have to wake the others.””

I believe we've seen the risen Lord. I believe we see him everyday in our lives. I believe we experience his presence. I believe he is here. But like the egg, we keep searching for something like it blind to the one right in front of us. Like the disciples I believe our eyes will be opened. Like the disciples I believe once they are open we will see Jesus in our midst and ask ourselves, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road...” I believe Jesus is in our midst.