My wife and I have this running argument. Well, argument might be too strong a word. It’s really more of an ongoing conversation.
Four times a year, at the start of each new season, we compare notes about which one is our favorite. After debating the question for nearly 30 years now, the answer always seems to be the same: Our favorite is whatever season is starting. That’s one of the advantages of living in this part of Creation. We get to enjoy the great changes of climate and nature that each season brings.
Truth be told, though, spring gets the edge in my book. There’s something blessed about watching the earth renew itself as it awakes from its winter slumber. Rain splashes down from wind-whipped clouds, and new life pushes forth from the warming ground. Where snow and ice once covered branches, buds of green begin to appear, offering the promise of growth and bringing vibrance of color to a dreary landscape.
It seems no mere coincidence, then, that spring also brings with it our celebration of Easter. We move from the dark shadows of Lent into the light of the risen Christ. A stone that once covered the entrance to a tomb has been rolled away. Risen life emerges, offering hope and promise to a weary world and declaring the majesty and sovereignty of God over everything, including the power of death. For as spring returns each year, so too does our celebration of the resurrection, and we are reminded of the resurrection we share through faith in Jesus Christ.
This annual cycle of death and resurrection is the pattern for God’s work in our lives: A constant rhythm of deaths and resurrections, of separations and reconciliations, of pruning and fruitfulness, of setbacks and growth, of disappointments and joys, of tragedy and triumph, and of challenge and accomplishment.
During those times of life’s challenges, we often are left to wonder how and where God is present through it all, and even strong faith gets put to the test. Weary souls and beleaguered spirits question if God has abandoned or if God is punishing. Yet the Lord is present through it all, even though we do not always sense divine presence.
Our Gospel lesson this morning tells of two others who had similar doubts. The men are walking the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the day of the resurrection, and they are discussing the events that had transpired in the previous week. Their hope once laid in Jesus being the promised Messiah, but like many of Christ’s followers – and even the apostles themselves, the crucifixion seems evidence that God’s plans have been thwarted. When the two encounter another traveler, they don’t realize that it is Jesus walking with them on that dusty road, just as we often fail to recognize Jesus walking with us. As with you and me, the two travelers are relying too much on what they can see and too little on faith. And so it goes.
Listen, then, to the Word that God has spoken – the God who always sees the big picture, even when you and I cannot.
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.
While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad.
Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.
“Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.”
Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight.
They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:13-32)
The irony is both puzzling and painful: the Lord is most present and most active when he seems most absent and most inactive.
God is present in our times of darkness in hidden and mysterious ways, as Scripture tells us time and time again. But human nature wires us to trust experience and feelings more than the promises of God. Blindness weakens confidence that Father, Son, and Spirit are ever-abiding. Some of the most formative spiritual development comes during the dark times of our lives: Times when you really do have to live by faith.
Think of the Israelites – God’s people in the desert – for 40 years believing that God has left them for dead while in reality God is transforming them, preparing them to enter the promised land not as slaves – unfit and unprepared for their new home, but as people of faith who put their trust in God.
Think of David, chased into a cave by his enemies, scared, frightened and alone. Yet cave-time is where David realizes that the only solid rock on which he stands the never-failing presence of God, who would transform him into a leader of a new nation.
When you visit with folks who have faced great adversity and challenge, many tell stories of amazing resurrections that God brings to their lives from the ashes of adversity.
People who have lost their jobs suddenly realize that they really weren’t all that happy in that line of work, and God leads them to labor that better utilizes their gifts and talents, fulfilling the purpose that God has in store for them.
People who have faced a breakup or a separation or divorce realize that the relationship was not a safe and nourishing place for them to be, and God leads them to healthier, more faithful relationship. Or, separation unveils some rather unappealing aspects of themselves, and God leads them to change who they are and to shed those unappealing characteristics.
People facing illness discover the healing power of prayer, and oftentimes the recovery that God brings looks far different than what was asked and anticipated. The apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians about the challenges of life and how he views them because he walks with Jesus:
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-12)
In other words, our human weakness and the adversities of this life provide occasions for divine power to enter in and resume control.
Our willingness to submit to the power and will of God – as Jesus did in dying on the cross – allows us to die daily – to shed those things that aren’t so holy, so that we might experience new life daily through the transforming power of God.
It is our own insufficiency that reveals God’s sufficiency. And it is God’s sufficiency that deepens our faith, transforms our character, and eliminates selfish desires. A constant process of personal death and resurrection is required for us to be spiritually fruitful. Before his life could bear fruit in others, Jesus first had to die, and only after this, be raised in glory from the dead.
Jesus shares this message time and time again with the apostles, but they never truly hear what he is saying. And as a result, they scatter to the four winds after the Last Supper and are nowhere to be found at the crucifixion. Jesus wants his spiritual life in us to bear fruit by germinating and growing in others. But for this to happen, we must take the same path that Jesus takes – through “death” to “resurrection.”
If you want a spiritually fruitful life, it will require a series of “deaths” followed by “resurrections.” It involves setting aside the ways of this world, pruning our sinfulness from our hearts, so that power, truth and love can pour into us and then through us in greater measure to others.
Our culture proclaims that we can get what we want, we shouldn’t have to suffer, and nothing is worth losing our comfort over. But as the Gospel elsewhere proclaims, a vine must be pruned to bear fruit. That process of pruning can be difficult and painful, but parts of who we are may have to be pruned – trimmed from our lives and left to die – in order for us to flourish and be fruitful.
In a few minutes, we will gather around the table to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. As we heard in the reading from Luke, it was not until Jesus sits down at table with those two people on the road to Emmaus and breaks bread them when the people realize they are in the presence of Jesus. As we break bread today, remember that Jesus is present and active in our lives. Remember that Jesus is who sustains us. Cut off from Jesus, we are nothing. But when we abide in Jesus, Jesus abides in us, and resurrection is ours.
Have faith that the Lord is there and wait with patience for the transforming resurrections he will bring as you walk your own dusty road with Jesus. As the miracle of spring happens around us once again, let the miracle of the resurrection happen again in you.
To God be the glory. Alleluia! Amen!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, April 27, 2025 at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA.