Living into the reality of the resurrection is an ongoing process for the disciples and friends of Jesus.  Today we hear a story about Jesus appearing to his disciples; a story told right on the heels of the Road to Emmaus story.  The Road to Emmaus encounter takes places on Easter Sunday night; the story we just heard takes place only a matter of hours later.  Cleopas and his companion turned right back around after meeting Jesus and retraced their steps back to Jerusalem.  The news that they have seen the risen Jesus just wouldn’t wait until morning.  They simply can’t wait to tell the 11 disciples and the others what has, miraculously and joyfully, happened. The gospel passage we hear today starts out, “While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’

It’s late, late, late on Easter Sunday night, and the disciples have been trying, with mixed results, to live into the reality of the resurrection since dawn.  Now for the first time, they see Jesus for themselves as he comes and stands among them.  Their reaction is no less emotional and no less confused than the reaction of any of the others throughout this unbelievable day.  They are startled and terrified, they think they’re seeing a ghost, they’re frightened and unsure of themselves; their emotions are right up at the surface playing across their faces: joy, fear, disbelief, and wonder.

The disciples see Jesus standing there, but have trouble believing it is really him; that resurrection is really a reality.  The disciples aren’t much different than us – we too have the experience when “seeing is believing” isn’t always true for us.  Luke’s gospel story has Jesus change direction and as Luke tells it, Jesus “opened their minds to understand the scriptures.”  In other words, Jesus helped the disciples live into the reality of the resurrection not just by really being there, in person, but by opening up their senses so that they might perceive his presence.

Sometimes for us, we need real, physical tangible proof; where seeing is believing, and there will be no believing without that seeing.  But sometimes, we come to know the reality of something through our senses.  We can’t see it or touch it, but we feel it to be true, and our emotions lead us into believing.  I think the reality of the resurrection for us often happens in this second way – in the sensing of Jesus really present within us and among us, even if we can’t, literally, see him.

Some of you know that I love the British author Susan Howatch, who has written a number of novels about the Church of England in the 20th century.  One of her novels, “The High Flyer” has as its heroine a young attorney living and working in the City of London.  The heroine, Carter, considers Christianity to be something totally unrelated to real life; a relic of her childhood maybe.  She is totally focused on her career and her husband, and has worked very hard to be a success as an attorney and a wife. 

But her life unravels very dramatically, and in one scene, in fear for her life, she’s running through the streets of the city late at night, desperate to get to a friend’s house near St. Paul’s Cathedral.  In her fear she says, “I found it helped to pretend I had an invisible companion. I said aloud to him, ‘Please beat back the Powers.  Please lighten the darkness,’ and the strange thing was that when I spoke these words I felt that someone was indeed falling into step beside me.”

Not only does her unseen companion keep step with her, urging her on, through her fearful nighttime journey, but as she reaches her destination, she senses something even more powerful.  As Carter puts it: “I was still shouting: ‘Help me, help me’ – but I did not have to shout any longer.  It was as if my invisible companion had finally materialized, pouring himself into the man in front of me so that the man himself, though a stranger, seemed known to me through and through.  A hand reached out, drawing me firmly across the threshold, and as I stumbled at last out of the dark I heard him say in the gentlest and kindest of voices: ‘It’s all right.  You’re safe here.  Come on in.’”

Carter has come face to face with the reality of resurrection, although it will take her much more time before she learns to name her unseen companion Jesus.  Sometimes Jesus opens the eyes, not in our heads, but in our hearts, so that we might see him and sense him – just as he did for the disciples, just as he did through the fictional story of Carter, just as he does for us.

That’s exactly what we prayed in the collect this morning.  We asked that God might “open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work.”  That’s a big prayer, but I know we see and sense signs of Christ’s redeeming work all around us.  And so I wonder where we’ve seen the living Lord this past week?  Or sensed the Savior within us?  I wonder where we’ve had experiences in the last week that helped us live into the reality of the resurrection?

As I think about that, I know I’ve seen the living Lord in the hands and hearts of so many parishioners who have been so hard at work preparing for the arrival of E’Jon’s family this past Thursday night.  I’ve sensed the Savior in the kindness and compassion of others, and again I knew the reality of the resurrection as we saw E’Jon reunited with his wife and four children after a five year separation.

Yesterday, H’Run, E’Jon’s wife, gave a woven bag to my husband as a gift.  You may know that many Montagnard women weave lovely and intricate designs into many different kinds of bags and blankets.  My husband pointed out to me that woven into the bag was the scriptural reference Romans 12:12.  That verse says: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.”  Those of us that know the story of persecution suffered by many Montagnard people understand the poignancy of that verse.
We sense our Savior in the kindness and compassion of others, if our hearts are attuned to that sensing.  We live into the reality of the resurrection as we gather as a community of faith, with the living Lord as the head of our church.  We meet the living Lord in the sacrament of Holy Communion, where Christ comes to meet us and dwell in us through the medium of bread and wine.  And we come to know that our unseen companion, Jesus, walks with us daily in whatever circumstances each day brings good or bad.  And our awareness only grows as we pray that God might “open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work…”

On this Sunday morning, we gather to offer profound thanks that we’re loved beyond measure by our living Lord, and we’ll leave here today ready to begin a new week.  Through the grace of God, may our hearts and eyes and ears and senses be attuned to Christ in and all around us in the days to come.  I wonder where you will see the living Lord this week?  I wonder how you will sense your Savior in the days to come?  And I wonder how Christ will lead you into the reality of the resurrection in the week to come?

Our Lord lives.  Thanks be to God.

Amen.