A Fresh Perspective

I am struck by the comment by the storywriter that as the two disciples were discussing the things that had happened with regard to Jesus, “Jesus himself came near and went with them, but,” says Luke, “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” We get off track, I think, if we start speculating about Jesus’ appearance or whether this was a vision or something else. The point being made, it seems to me, is that Jesus is not with them in the same way he was with them prior to his death. Jesus is now the living Christ, the cosmic Christ and what we now experience is the Spirit of Christ, not the human Jesus. But what does this mean – this inability to recognize Jesus? What’s the point? These two disciples on the road to Emmaus represent all disciples, they represent you and me. There is great irony when the two disciples say to Jesus who is walking with them, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place in these days?” Of course, the...

I love the story of the little girl who woke up during a thunderstorm and was afraid. After a bright flash of lightning and loud roar of thunder she threw off the covers and scampered into her parents room. Her mother awoke as she came through the door and immediately asked her what was wrong. She told her mother that she was afraid. Her mother said, “You don’t have to be afraid, sweetie, God is with you.” Very astutely her daughter responded, “I know, mom, but I want someone with skin on her face.” That’s what we get in John’s Gospel. Interpreters have described John’s Gospel in various ways. It’s been called a spiritual Gospel and a mystical Gospel, but the description I like best is Incarnational Gospel. Incarnation is perhaps the most dominant theme beginning in the prologue with the Word becoming flesh. In John, Jesus is presented as being at one with God; God’s unique Son who is completely obedient to God’s cause and will. As such Jesus incarnates, embodies in flesh and bloo...

The last two weeks in my Sunday School class we reflected on Jesus’ death in general and his cry of forsakenness on the cross in particular. No one in my class thought that God had actually forsaken Jesus, but we all concurred that Jesus felt forsaken and was expressing his sense or feeling of God’s absence in echoing the cry of the Psalmist, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When I asked, “Why do you believe that God did not actually forsake Jesus,” someone said, “Because God raised him up.” And that response, I think, gets to the heart of what the resurrection is about. Actually, you wouldn’t need a resurrection to believe in an afterlife. I used to treat the resurrection of Jesus as if it was the great proof that there is life after death. But that is not really what it is. It may indeed be a sign, a foretaste of what is to come, but we don’t need the resurrection of Jesus to believe in an afterlife. There are non-Christian traditions that believe in immortality. The ...