Easter 3 (4/06/08) “What Do We Do Now?”

Text: Luke 24.13-35

During an election year like this one, I often see references by various columnists and commentators to the 1972 movie “The Candidate,” which starred Robert Redford. It was not a particularly good movie, as I recall, but it had one quite memorable line. Redford plays Bill McKay, a candidate running for the U. S. Senate. He’s opposing an entrenched and popular incumbent, and there’s virtually no chance that he is going to be able to win. He’s just a sacrificial lamb. But there is some clever packaging and some typical political shenanigans—the movie’s tag line was “Nothing matters more than winning, not even what you believe in.” And the end result is that McKay is elected. In the closing moment of the movie, he turns to his campaign manager with a look of utter bewilderment on his face, and asks him, “What do we do now?”

“What do we do now?” I imagine that precise question was on the minds of Jesus’ disciples that first Easter—and not just the twelve, but all those who followed the man from Nazareth. In today’s gospel we meet Cleopas, who pours out his frazzled emotions and his bewilderment to this stranger on the road to Emmaus. He tells him about Jesus, and what a mighty prophet he was, maybe even the Messiah; and then about how the “powers that be” had him put to death, ending all those dreams and dashing those hopes; and then about some of the women who have now reported that his body is missing and that he is alive. Talk about an emotional roller coaster! Cleopas and all the others must have been asking that question: “What do we do now?” They had been following Jesus for three years, some of them, and now everything seems to have changed. They don’t really understand what has happened, but they know things are different. The old way of thinking, of acting, of planning—all of it is going to have to change. What, indeed, do they do now?

And hasn’t that question been yours, at one time or another—maybe often? When you come to the end of the path you’ve been following; when it’s time to enter a new phase of life, then the question comes quickly to your heart: “What do I do now?”

Sometimes, as with the disciples, the situation is one of unanticipated and unwelcome crisis. You lose your job. You suffer a financial setback. Your spouse dies unexpectedly, or leaves you unexpectedly. In the midst of grief, anger, confusion, that one question keeps floating up: “What do I do now?”

Or sometimes it happens when you realize you’ve made a bad choice, and now you’re stuck with it. I have a friend, a pastor, who many years ago left the parish where he had been serving for some years to accept a call to what appeared to be a bigger and better situation. The very first Sunday there, he and his wife came home from church, sat down on the bed, looked at each other and said, “We’ve made a big mistake!” What do we do now?

And sometimes the question comes just as a result of a change that you’ve expected, to which you’ve looked forward, but you didn’t really know what the reality would be. I’ve seen this a number of times as people move into retirement, or as they decide to move to a new community. It’s a good thing, something they really planned for and wanted—and yet when they got there, it was just not so easy to adjust to a new reality. “What do we do now?”

Perhaps there’s something of that feeling as we dedicate our new facility today. We dreamed of it, we planned for it, we worked for it, we dealt with unexpected bumps along the way, and now it is reality. So much energy has gone into getting us to this day, and now it has come, and we rejoice. But “what do we do now?”

It’s a common human dilemma, isn’t it? And perhaps that’s why this story of the journey to Emmaus is so very precious. In the midst of their uncertainty, their confusion, as they are talking and discussing and perhaps asking that question, “What do we do now?” here’s what Luke tells us: “Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” Oh, I love that verse! The disciples were discouraged, confused, uncertain of where to turn—but Jesus himself came near and went with them.

What was it that kept them from recognizing him? Perhaps it was their tears, their grief. That is what kept Mary Magdalene from recognizing Jesus on that Easter morning, when she mistook him for the gardener until he spoke her name. Perhaps it was their confusion, the trauma through which they had been in the last days. When we are confused, we often find it hard to see clearly.

Or perhaps it was Jesus himself who kept them from recognizing him—in order to teach them, and to teach us, something we must never forget: That in those times of uncertainty, he himself draws near and walks with us—even if we cannot see him.

That is not unlike God, you know. I’ve always had a particular affection for a line in Isaiah 45: “Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.” The people of God have always experienced that reality—that difficult but wonderful truth that even when we cannot see him, or cannot see him clearly, God is nonetheless right here beside us. And even when the question in our hearts is “What do we do now?” he is right here guiding us, instructing us.

That’s the point of this story, you see. These disciples do not know what to do next partly because they do not understand what has happened. But Jesus—even though they don’t know that it is he—Jesus explains it all to them. “Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” The things they have not understood; they things they have been unable to grasp—he explains them, patiently, carefully. In the space of a few hours, they not only come to see what has happened and what it means, but their eyes are opened to recognize him, and to realize that he has never left them. I suspect in that moment they also begin to know what they must do next, what he has in store for them.

And so with us, on our own journey through life. When we aren’t sure what to do, he is there to guide—even if we do not see him! When we don’t understand what is happening or why, he is there to say, “Don’t be afraid! You may not understand right now, or see things clearly right now. But you don’t really need to understand right now. You just need to know that I am here, walking with you, guiding you, and that it will be OK.”

“What do we do now?” We do what those disciples on the Emmaus road did, and what Christians have always done: We trust him, we listen for him, watch for him, we wait for him. There’s a line from a hymn by Charles Wesley that I’ve always loved: “As far from danger as from fear, while love, almighty love is near.” He is near, you know. He is right here with us, always, always, walking beside us, patiently and lovingly, until our eyes are opened and we recognize him.