Love's strange ways

 

Luke 24: 13-35
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
April 19, 2026

Photo of five individuals facing away from the camera, embracing each other, arms around each other's shoulders, heads slightly bowed. Four have lighter skin and short hair, one has brown skin and long skinny dreadlocks wrapped in a big knot.

How do you act after a crisis? How do you deal with grief? It can be pretty overwhelming some days. I’d settle for just being whelmed right now. How do you express yourself after a crisis? Do you respond with doing, activity, routine? Do you write it down or pick up a paintbrush or a piece of clay? Do you take a walk or go for a run? Do you sing, shout, swear, laugh, cry, all of the above? Do you eat or drink something comforting? Do you call a friend, all your friends, or do you withdraw from company? Do you try to numb yourself, escape, or shake it off, denying any effect the crisis might have had. Oftentimes we don’t give it much thought. No matter how we lose our balance, we reach for the closest thing at hand.



No judgment here. All of us have inherited or learned ways of living and coping that no longer serve us and it can be hard to let go, especially when faced with so much uncertainty. Sometimes we just need to get out of Dodge, and that’s what these two disciples have chosen to do.



In every version of the resurrection, no one else has an inexplicable experience except for the women in the group of disciples. The author of Luke names them: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them. The men do not believe them, calling their words an idle tale. Once again, Christ is risen! That’s what she said! This is a crucial part of the Easter good news: Believe women!



In this version, there are no instructions given to return to Galilee, like in Mark and Matthew. Unbelievable news is received and shared, but everyone is still in shock and grief. They’ve been traumatized by the brutal death of not only their beloved friend and teacher but also one upon whom they had placed all their hopes for liberation, a new heaven and earth.



This wasn’t an election cycle or even a generation or two. We who are White and privileged have no idea what this kind of yearning looks like or feels like. These hopes were and are centuries old, generations of longing. The grief of these two disciples is their hope engraved in their DNA. Expecting them to let go of the past is like asking them to cut off a limb or sever their hearts. Trouble is, grief like this, like any other grief, can make our choices, inform our decisions, cloud our judgment all the while we are convinced that we are in control.



Because what is grief if not love persevering. Grief that pours out its heart to a stranger. Grief that prevents these disciples from recognizing the one that they seek. Grief narrows our focus to the bare essentials but it can also obscure the way forward. As I said at yesterday’s memorial service, there is no resurrection without death and loss. There is no grief without love, no love without grief. God comes to us disguised as our lives to teach us about who we are, our power and our powerlessness, the strength we didn’t know we possessed and our weakness, the depth of our hearts and the shallows, our capacity for love and our fear of it, the possibilities of compassion, forgiveness, perseverance, determination, our ability to press on despite the great unknown.



I think God also comes to us disguised as our life together, in church, in our communities, our families, our nation, and our world. And I think we are living through another inflection point of grief. We certainly felt that when we were emerging from the pandemic, grieving the loss of millions of lives and a world that seemed easier to navigate than the one we are now living in. Now it feels like there is a critical mass of people who are willing to unlearn and learn anew, to face up to the unjust systems we have created and the harm and destruction those systems have caused, that we have caused each other, and to grieve that.



But there are also those who are desperately clinging to a world that no longer exists, who will do anything to avoid recognizing the stranger in our midst, shunning the God who comes to us disguised as our lives. The God who is more than two genders. The God who is marginalized, criminalized, to the point of genocide. The God who is unhoused. The God who is disabled. The God who is not White. The God who is an immigrant, a stranger in a strange land. The God who lives with the boot of capitalism on their necks. The truth that the way of wholeness, justice, compassion, liberation is not limited to one faith or to any faith tradition.



Oftentimes we human beings can confuse the form of something with the content—the substance, the meaning—and we can’t see the forest for the trees. These disciples on the road to Emmaus had expected a messiah, a savior but not one who was betrayed and crucified, then resurrected. How would they even know what to look for, something never before experienced. Only when Jesus gives them the content of their faith, the law and the prophets, how he lived and taught them, do they begin to understand.



Form can change, and it should if the form is living, if the form is alive but the content remains the same, the content that is love, joy, peace, compassion, justice, transformation, liberation, wholeness. Here in this story, there is one form that does not change because it is also the content, and that is Jesus at the table, taking the bread, blessing it and breaking it, sharing it with them, and it is then that they recognize him. “Do this in remembrance of me.”



We cannot recognize the resurrection—new life, the future, liberation—when we are still hanging on to what is past, what no longer serves us, no longer serves humanity. Our faith is a forward-facing one, a future-driven one, a faith that draws us ever closer to the kindom when we allow it to open our hearts and minds and change us.



Another way to think about it: We have to let our children change us, and all the children are ours. How else will we help them create the world they want to live in? We do not save the world, our world, for them. Rather we are transformed by them, by our love for them. We become the love they recognize, the love that accepts them, affirms them, supports them, believes them.



These are Love’s strange ways. Love that comes to us disguised as our lives that we might recognize a future we’ve yet to build and live in. The work of Easter is begun. And every day is Easter Day. Amen.

Benediction – enfleshed.com


Though our hearts may be weary,
the Spirit sends us with hope.
There is an opportunity before us
to live differently,
to practice radical love,
and to collectively turn from the systems that destroy us and our neighbors.
May the presence of Christ abide among us,
and keep our hearts burning for justice and truth.
With God’s peace, we are sent to make it so.