As we’ve been reading about Abram, as we’ve been exploring his story we’ve been looking for Gospel echoes. Because we believe that the Gospel runs from Genesis to Revelation, it doesn’t begin with Jesus. And in our passage today, in a throwaway line about Abram’s belief, and in an incredibly strange ritual, we find the strongest echoes yet of the Gospel in which we believe.
We’re once again in a wonderfully rich part of Romans, if you’re familiar with the Bible and with Romans there will be quite a few bits you’ll perhaps recognise in this section. And once again there’s far too much to talk about in one sermon here, but we’re going to focus on the pinnacle of this reading, the pinnacle of not just the chapter but all of this letter ‘If God is for us, who can stand against us’.
What does it mean to be a Christian? Is it about an extra set of practices we need to keep: reading the Bible, praying, doing good? Is it about a few extra things in our diary like worship on Sundays and other things throughout the week? Is it about a new set of beliefs we sign up to and say ‘yes, that’s what I believe’ as we do each week in the Creeds? All of those things are true, but they don’t get to the heart of it, they’re the working out of a bigger and more fundamental truth: to be a Christian is to be adopted into the family of the God of the Universe.
In our Gospel reading today we see Jesus encountering quite a few different people in quick succession, but the thread running through them all are two themes: who Jesus has come for, and what he has come to bring them.
In our Gospel reading today we hear some of what Jesus prayed for his disciples, and for us, the night he was betrayed, and in this prayer we get an insight into how he is praying for us right now, now that he has Ascended into heaven to take his throne at the right hand of the Father. And in this passage we see his heart, his love and concern for us, and we also get an insight into what his whole mission on earth was for.
What do you make of Jesus? Who is he? What is he? A good teacher, giving wise advice, who helps us think about the bigger things of life? Certainly. A Saviour who dies to set his people free? Absolutely. But here Jesus takes on a different picture for himself. The shepherd. The fact that Jesus takes upon himself the title of shepherd, and indeed in the very next verse after our passage for today, the title of the good shepherd, is a rich picture. We’ll think about some of what he’s saying in a moment, but first it’s worth pausing to note the theological undertones here.
On the road to Emmaus burdened hearts become burning hearts. They’re trudging home, exhausted, disillusioned, confused. All their hopes have died with Jesus on that cross and lie with him in the cold of the tomb. We’re back on that first Easter Sunday and as far as anyone is aware, as dawn breaks, Jesus is still in the tomb.
But what’s interesting about these two on the road is where they’ve come from. Our reading begins that on the same day ‘two of them were going to a village called Emmaus’. Two of them? Two of who?
‘The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it’. So begins the film the Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring. It starts in total darkness with that voiceover before the title card appears at the end of that sentence and the strings of the orchestra play a melody which will thread through the entire trilogy. It has stuck with me since I first watched it partly because it’s an utterly captivating way to start a film, but also because the first half resonates so deeply with our Christian faith.
The world is changed. Changed by the events we celebrate today.
…And it starts with the news that Lazarus is ill, it’s noted that his sisters are Mary and Martha, who we’ve met in the other Gospels, and they send word to Jesus that ‘the one you love is ill’. From what we can tell from the Gospels Jesus becomes good friends with this little family of 3, and so naturally they send word to him, he’s a miracleworker and his friend is ill, why wouldn’t you contact him.
But by the time he gets there Lazarus is dead. Indeed Jesus knows he is dead before he gets there. And we have repeated on the lips of both sisters a declaration of faith and of despair ‘if you had been here my brother would not have died’.
…There’s something wonderful about water, particularly on a hot day, it refreshes, quenches thirst, satisfies the body. There’s something about drinking it which goes beyond simple mechanics of needing water to survive, when you’re thirsty and you drink, you feel the change in yourself. Your mouth feels fresher, you’ve got more energy, your brain switches up a gear. Water enlivens us.
But, whilst I breezed past it, there’s no getting away from it, water is essential for life. If you don’t drink you die, and pretty quickly.