Easter 3 A

WHAT THE HEART KNOWS

Introduction

Have you ever just known something? Just felt it to be right inside of you? Ever had the experience of looking back at a situation and thinking to yourself, I knew that was going to happen... or that you felt something so deeply you are surprised it surprised you?

Augustine, one of the earliest writers of the church once said, “My Soul is restless until it finds its rest in Thee” while talking to God. A very poetic way of saying that he knew something was missing; and felt drawn to find that missing piece of himself in God.

For a moment – let’s call that love.

Each of us has different experiences of love. We fall in love as children with silly people who were never meant to last. We meet someone who changes everything for us and give them our heart; we even lose people and start over – finding some way to fill the empty space in our hearts. We experience love from family, from friends, from partners, and even from strangers.

Love draws us ever onward. You don’t control it. You can’t necessarily turn it on or off... it is.

Love is consuming... it is pain, it is joy, it is sacrifice, it is loss, it is memory, it is desire, it is everything.

My soul, my very being, is unsettled, restless, searching for love.

For many of us, that searching almost seems like a return – we knew that love once, when we were held by our mothers; when every single thing that scared us was fixed by those that loved us the most, when all of our needs were met at the expense of our mother’s health, career, sleep, perhaps even happiness.

And so... we search...

Family Trees

Ink Pad – Thumb Print

Close to Home

Not everyone had the best childhood. I certainly did not. I am getting pretty old to still be nursing the wounds of growing up; but I am.

I mention this because all love is imperfect. It is human. It is dependant.

My mother was brought up by a woman who was not the nicest on the planet. And so when she had kids, some of that continued to be passed down from generation to generation. My mother gave up some of herself for her husband’s career. And that probably drained some love from her. My mother was too tired some times when I expected too much of her.

So there have been moments when I actually did not like my mother at all.

All of you would be lying if you did not say the same. That time when your mother wouldn’t let you go out with your friends... or that time when you really needed her to understand and she didn’t... maybe when you were older and she disapproved of the person you brought home?

Human love, whether from a mother, a father, a friend, a lover... it has flaws because we are all flawed.

I know you don’t want to hear this...but the truth is, this is a huge part of our faith. It is a huge reason why Christian Contemporary Music is all love songs. It explains the Psalms. Faith is our longing for perfect love. A longing we rarely find, and which is fleeting, in the human realm.

Perfect love is the stuff of God.

Did Not Our Hearts Burn...

You see, the thing we feel throughout our lives is a type of loneliness. It is emptiness... and we try to fill it as best we can with money, with food, with gambling, with alcohol, with sugar...

We get married and live in relationships, we have friends, not to fill the loneliness but as a reflection of what we are searching for. In the same way that we are created in God’s image, human love is a reflection of divine love... but it is not enough to fill the emptiness...

I have often wondered if this was part of the mystique of Jesus... When we say that Jesus was the embodiment of God are we saying that Jesus loved in a way that overwhelmed? When Jesus looked at you did you feel safe, complete, loved, understood, hopeful, and powerful? I think you did.

I think this was why a no one person born in a nowhere place so rocked the world... the depth of charismatic love that Jesus had within him so reflected God’s love that it was almost inconceivable.

It sort of explains Easter, right. It explains the way it as so easy for the disciples to turn their backs on Jesus. They honestly did not know what they had. Three years of being loved and understood had just come to seem natural to them. So the loss of Jesus was sad, but not catastrophic... until they realized what they had really lost.

Every story after Easter shows a level of despondency and hopelessness that is sort of rock bottom. The disciples find themselves locked away in the upper room. They head back to Galilee and go fishing, something they have not done in like four years... they are lost, and aimless and lonely...

We find two of them dragging their feet through the dust on the road to Emmaus today. Lost and heartbroken they jump at the chance to tell this stranger all about Jesus...

But wait...

How are you feeling, one says to the other as they stop for lunch... This seems familiar... do you feel that – in your heart? Strangely warmed as if... wait... could it be...

They realize something that they have known, but not realized all day; this is Jesus. This is love.

You see, these Biblical stories are not just about them – they never are, they are about us.

They are about how we feel the same way when we have a religious experience. It is fleeting to be sure, but there are times when we feel totally understood and totally loved. And those moments make us understand what God is; God is love, wholly unconditional, totally undeserved, love.

We have those Emmaus road moments. Maybe you know what I am talking about. Maybe yours is yet to come. Maybe it will be the last thing that makes you smile on your deathbed. But it will be there.

It will also remind you of something. It will remind you of the first smile you ever saw; your mother’s. That sort of love that first envelops us is probably the purest moment of the divine love we have this side of eternity...

Conclusion

Last night I listened to an old Pete Townsend Song... ‘Let my Love Open the Door’ and it made me think of exactly what I am trying to say here. Just that one line....

We spend a lot of time in pain, a lot of time searching, we lose the people and places we love the most, we struggle with bills and sickness and kids and careers...

Well... no matter where you are this morning. God is Singing Peter Townsend... God is inviting you to remember the best love you ever felt. God is inviting you into a love that is better even than that.

You might just find the love burning so brightly within your own hearts that you run to tell others.

This then, is the good news.