Jesus: The God Who Set Us Free

We are continuing with our Lenten Sermon series called “All About Jesus” where we are focusing on the the various ways that what Jesus did impacted the Jewish and Gentile societies at that time and also should impact us today.

Last week we looked at how “Jesus is the Heart of Our Existence.” We discovered that Jesus was with God from the beginning and how his arrival on earth brought hope to the Jewish people and that through his death there became hope for all people.

Henry Nouwen whose book we received the concepts we will be using for this series summed it up this way when he said “that in every phase of his search for the spiritual life “Jesus Christ stands at the center of my seeking.”

You can find this sermon and all of our sermons on our You Tube channel. This week our focus turns to Jesus as the God who sets us free. Our scripture comes from Luke 24:13-35.

13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him.

17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

19 “What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

Please pray with me…

Have you ever been having a conversation with a friend and then all of a sudden you realize that someone you don’t know is listening in? That could possibly be how these two men from today’s story felt when Jesus starts walking with them.

This would be similar to what is happening in the scenario that is in this story. Two men are talking and all of a sudden Jesus asks them what they are talking about. It is at this point that they bring up Jesus.

These men obviously believed that Jesus could have been the Messiah. They had hoped that he would be the one that would set the world right again and let the Jewish people once again be in control of their land.

As Nouwen states in the book we are using for this series “Letters to Marc about Jesus”, They are now “disillusioned, dejected, and downcast.” Their hopes have been crushed with the death of Jesus. The one they thought  was the Messiah had been put to death upon the cross.

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One reason that they might be struggling is because if he was not dead then he would have come out of the tomb before three days. There were two types of dead during this time frame. There was believed to be dead, and then there was what I like to call dead-dead.

They believed that a person really wasn’t dead until three days had passed. They didn’t have the machinery and tools to be able to confirm someone was dead. Therefore, time was their way of knowing.

These men either didn’t know about the story of Lazarus or they didn’t remember. Lazarus was one of Jesus’ friends. His sisters are probably better known in the scriptures, their names were Mary and Martha.

In the story they tell Jesus that Lazarus is dying and so Jesus heads in their direction, but he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. By the time Jesus and the disciples get to their town Lazarus has been dead for three days, which means that he is dead-dead.

Understandably Mary and Martha were upset because they believed that Jesus would be able to save their brother. In the end Jesus brings someone who was dead-dead back to life. This scripture contains one of my favorite lines from the King James Bible, when Jesus tells them to roll away the stone someone says, “but he stinketh.” Jesus ends up reviving a stinking dead person. Obviously, you would think that these men would have remembered the story if they had heard the story.

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Another reason why they may have been struggling was that they went from being hopeful that the Messiah was alive during their lifetime to hopeless that they would never be free from their oppressors, the Romans.

When we reach a point of hopelessness, we can begin to believe that nothing good is possible. That everyone and everything is against us. That possibly could be the frame of mind of these men.

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They may have also been upset because they believed that they had been tricked by this man. They were sure that he was the one. They were positive that this time this was the real Messiah. You see, there were others that claimed to be the Messiah.

Their claims had eventually been proven to be false. This was not the first time someone said they were the Messiah, but it is possibly the first time that these two had believed they were following the Messiah. The first time that they had personally been tricked.

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They were understandably saddened because this great prophet and teacher was no longer with them. They had enjoyed hearing his view of scripture. They probably liked his change in focus from the law to grace.

They enjoyed his stories even if they didn’t always understand the point. It was amazing when he would heal the sick and remove demons. Jesus was someone that a person enjoyed hanging out with even if you weren’t one of his chosen disciples. And now he is gone. There was a great void in their lives.

We know from the story that Jesus didn’t abandon them. We know that even though they didn’t realize it that Jesus was walking right beside them, asking them questions. In fact, Jesus eventually reminds them that this person whose death they were mourning predicted that things would happen exactly this way. The men were in such a state of hopelessness that these words didn’t seem to have an impact on them.

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If we look closely at these two men, we often can see ourselves in their reaction. We also tend to believe that Jesus has abandoned us when things don’t go as planned. At times it may seem like the world is falling apart around us.

We can begin to doubt if Jesus is real. It may lead us to ask the question, have a wasted my time reading scriptures and praying to this God who supposedly had his son come down and die on the cross so that my sins could be forgiven?

We need instead to trust in Jesus. Believe that he is with us in these situations. Desire to be closer to him instead of pushing him away when things don’t go as we desire. We need to believe that God has a greater plan.

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In fact, we also can become disillusioned when things don’t go as we planned. We can end up believing that following God is not worth it. We can struggle with an understanding of who God is and does he really love us.

Instead, we need to stand on his promises. We need to look for the good in even a bad situation. We know through Jesus’ death on the cross that even bad things can end up having a good purpose. Jesus was given a death sentence and died one of the most inhumane deaths. But, through that death our sins were forgiven, and we were able to receive eternal life.

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Just like with these two men when things don’t go as planned we can feel abandoned. We can begin to wonder if God really loves us and cares for us. We can begin to doubt our relationship with him.

Instead, we need to know that our God would never abandon us. It leads me back to the poem “Footprints In the Sand” that speaks of someone asking God why when things got tough there was only one set of footprints in the sand.

The person asks God why have you left me alone. God responds by saying that “When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you." We have a God that will never abandon us and will carry us if necessary, during the struggles of life.

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In today’s text, we have Jesus’ walking besides these men and they have no idea. There are many times in our lives when Jesus may be walking with us and we are unaware. Just like Jesus was reminding these men what he had said regarding his death and resurrection he also is reminding us about our relationship with him.

He remindsus why we originally believed. It is possible that as our relationship with Jesus grows we can make it more complicated than it has to be. We can change the focus on the freedom of our sin being taken away that Jesus taught us and believe that Jesus owes us even more. When actually it is us that owe Jesus.

We owe Jesus for the sacrifice he offered us. He didn’t want to die on the cross, but he was willing to follow the will of his father and do what was best for us instead of what was easiest for him.

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We have the men being transformed from people that were disillusioned, dejected, and downcast to people of hope. Jesus entered unexpectedly into their lives and his presence through the breaking of the bread and offered them new hope. Nouwen says it this way: “Their hearts were born again, and their inner life was made radically new.”

They still faced oppression from the Romans, but Jesus freed them from disillusionment. Jesus freed them from a lack of hope. Nouwen says that they received “a freedom that no earthly power, Roman or Jewish could take from them.

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We have available to us what was received from the two that Jesus meant upon the road. We are also able to receive freedom that allows our elections and the troubles of the world to become secondary.

We have available to us a freedom that even these two men could not comprehend. We have available freedom from the power of sin. We can be free from what has weighed down humanity since Adam and Eve. We have hope available to us through Jesus.

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We owe Jesus for the hope he gave us. Jesus’ death offers us eternal hope through the eternal life we have with him and his father. He offers us hope from our fear of loneliness. Even if all of our earthly friends and family abandon us God will not.

God will never leave us or forget about us in our times of trouble. He will never leave us no matter what we do. We just need to want to be in a relationship with him. He even waits for us if we decide to walk away from him.

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Jesus freed us of all of these things because of his love for us. Our first scripture reading reminds us of this. It tells us in Galatians 5:6 that it does not matter who you are. Your sex doesn’t matter, your race doesn’t matter, your previous behaviors don’t matter, even your current behaviors don’t matter. “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

Jesus has showed us this love. He is waiting for us to be willing to accept it fully. Jesus is waiting for you to ask him to be with you. It may be for the first time. You may be listening today and thinking that you want to get to know the God who set us free.

Or, you possibly have not spent time with God lately and you need to come to him and ask him to be with you again.  Jesus is waitingfor you to give up and let him lead. He is waiting for you to desire to become closer to him.

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Maybe, you have no difficulties with your relationship with Jesus but you are struggling with trusting God. He is waiting, desiring to lead you into the best life that you can have. He wants only what is the best for you. He is waiting for you to realize that he is offering you that opportunity.

Jesus is waiting for you to remember that he loves you. Those that have been in the church for a long time have sung the song “Jesus Loves Me” many times. This does not mean that we are always willing to accept that love.

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This should also remind us that we should spread this message to those around us. We have a message to share. We can tell those around us about a freedom that cannot be matched in this world.

We have the love of God to share with those around us. Our first reading makes it very clear that there is no one that is not loved by God therefore there is no one that we should not be willing to share the love of God with.

Let us live our lives in a way that shows God’s love to the world. Let us remember that no matter what you have done. No matter what someone has told you, you have a God that will always love you because after all, he is the one that freed you from the consequences of sin. Jesus has set you free.

Let us pray…