That Sense of Wonder - Rev. David Pileggi

Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we also can be confused and disappointed in how God is working through the death and resurrection of Jesus. But we can learn from the questions asked by the people on the day of Pentecost: What does this mean? What should we do? And we can rediscover that sense of wonder experienced by the disciples when meeting the risen Lord.

In some churches the second Sunday of the Easter season is known as Divine Mercy Sunday. When reading John’s account of Jesus' appearance with His disciples we see His divine mercy take concrete form. Like the disciples, we are invited to meet the Risen Jesus with all of our senses. And like them, it is in repentance and trust in Him that we can respond with joy in a world full of fear and doubts, because our salvation is not based on theology, but in meeting the Person of Jesus Himself.

To better appreciate the unique way that Matthew tells of Jesus’ resurrection, we need to remember the themes in his narrative of Jesus’ birth – fear, _im-anu-el,_ intrigue, worship, deception and death, all of which come to prominence in Matthew’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The worship of _Im-anu-el_ allows us to move beyond fear and weakness to having the joy and courage to obey His command, “Go and make disciples.”

After weeping over the city He loves, Jesus enters Jerusalem and cleanses the Temple. All four gospels record this event, but only Matthew recalls that the lame and blind come to Him and are healed. In highlighting God's love for the ignored and neglected, Matthew reveals the essential nature of Jesus' identity and the redemption He offers, not only to Jerusalem but to all who come to Him today.

The scriptures appointed for this week, and a close encounter with mortality prompted this sermon's reflection on death. The fear of death is the work of the devil and its denial and trivialization are symptoms of our inability to come to terms with our mortality. The pairing of Psalm 130 with the raising of Lazarus in John's gospel reveals the patch to liberation from such fears and distortions.

The rich symbolism and connection to the Hebrew Bible in the story of Jesus' encounter with a blind man (John 9) gives us deeper insight into God's grace and our calling to be a light in the world.

Jesus went where the Holy Spirit led and did the will of God - evenwhen it was difficult. But what of His disciples? Did they go out into every town and preach the Kingdom of God or did they only do so when they felt they had been specifically told to do so?

When enemies surround, do we look at them or do we look to the one who made them?

Summery: The faithfulness and obedience of Jesus, as the second Adam, is in striking contrast to the action of the first Adam. Jesus based his life here fully on the God’s words, thus securing victory for all of us. He made us righteous but also gave us tools how to overcome temptations and carry on that victorious lives with prayer and fasting.

On the Mount of Transfiguration, God declared, "This is my beloved son." This was not the first time God declared this, He also declared it at Jesus' baptism. But even before that, Peter writes that God spoke these words through David almost a thousand years earlier in Psalm 2. Peter, who physically heard God repeat what He had spoken so long ago writes: "For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."