Easter Sunday
At the beginning of my sermon I will tell a story: The legendary Malcolm Muggeridge was a British journalist, author , satirist and media personality. He was also a Marxist before he found Christ. During the Cold War he travelled to Russia to write a story about the Communist party and the decline of religion in that atheistic regime.
After conducting a series of interviews with officials in the Kremlin, he attended a Russian Orthodox Easter service. The church was packed. At the close of the service the priest said, “Christ is risen”, and the people shouted back, “He is risen indeed!”
Muggeridge looked into their faces and instantly realised that they were right and that Stalin was wrong. He said it was the reality of their joy that tipped the scales of his soul toward Christ. The reality of Christian joy is compelling!
Now it is interesting that according to an ancient Russian Orthodox tradition, the day before Easter was devoted to telling jokes. Priests would join the people in telling their best jokes to one another. The reason was to reflect the joke God pulled on the devil in the Resurrection. Satan thought he won on Friday, but God had the last laugh on Easter Sunday.
Now the resurrected Jesus was seen by the two disciples – Cleopas and his friend, when Jesus walked with them on the road to Emmaus. Through this story Luke is telling us that Jesus really bodily rose from the dead. We read how, in the inn in Emmaus, when Jesus was at table with them, He took bread gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them (Lk 24:30) Does that remind you by association of anything?
The Holy Communion service of course. There is something very special about the Holy Communion service when Christ touches you. No wonder St Paul tells us not to neglect taking communion regularly.
Secondly in this story we see the relationship of Jesus with the Old Testament Scriptures of Judaism. St Luke records in the Emmaus story how Jesus said to the two disciples: 25…. "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 beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. And, as an aside - by the Scriptures St. Luke meant the Old Testament as none of the New Testament books had been written by this stage). Jesus was the fulfilment of what God promised centuries and even a millennium before - in the Old Testament.
What is interesting is the two disciples response to Jesus’ teaching
After Jesus had left them they said: "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" There is a story about John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church who was actually an Anglican all his life. He experienced something similar to the experience of the Emmaus Road Disciples when was 35 years old. It happened on the evening of 24th May 1738.
Wesley, who by that time was an Anglican clergyman, had gone very unwillingly to a non-conformist meeting in London. Here he heard William Holland reading Martin Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.
Let me read to you what Wesley himself wrote about the transformation that occurred as he listened to Luther’s preface: “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation: and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."— The Journal of John Wesley. So this Easter Sunday we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus who has conquered death and sin and changed the course of world history.