Easter 4B
How do any of us ever get up and walk? “Through our own power or piety?” Peter asked rhetorically of people who had just witnessed a healing at the Jerusalem temple. Of course not. The lame man walked because of God’s grace alone. That was their lesson. But have we learned it for ourselves? Likely we didn’t get onto our feet through our own power or piety either, but do we thank God for that? Do any of us actually remember our dizzying first steps?
As some of you know, I’m the shamelessly proud grandma of a toddler, so I’ve recently had the chance to revisit the process of a human being taking their first steps. It’s a remarkable combination of readiness, courage, and coordination. A time in most human lives that is utterly transformative, but rather fleeting. We’ve all been walking for a few years now, so we barely think about our first steps, excepting when we pull out our old photos and videos.
Or when we tell family stories, which of course our Holy Scriptures are examples of. Remember that they mostly began as tales once told around fires at tribal gatherings, and not read as short passages from books with chapters and pages. So I confess that I was a little disappointed to discover that the two scriptural passages we heard this morning begin right after the first steps were taken, so to speak. The steps themselves are recorded in the Bible; we just happen to be hearing the story on the subsequent page. But, so that we can all enjoy a common recollection of those first post-resurrection paces, let me refresh your memory. In our Gospel, we met the bewildered disciples furtively gathered in Jerusalem, taking stock of the curious accounts of the risen Lord. Cleopas and a companion had been walking to the village of Emmaus when a mysterious stranger joined them on the walk and gradually revealed himself to be Jesus. He did this through interpretation of Scripture and breaking of bread. Sound familiar?
After the Pentecost and Ascension events—the giving of the Spirit and Jesus’ return to his Father—the Book of Acts introduces us to some of those same disciples, gradually learning that the power of Jesus was available to them, and continued to manifest in their prayers and preaching. As in the case of our first reading, when we met Peter and John—at the temple per their usual practice—where they encountered a lame beggar at the gate known as Beautiful. Peter called on the name of Jesus to heal him, and the lame man rose up and walked. Actually, he jumped up and leaped and praised God.
The walking ones, the jumping and leaping ones: we love these Biblical characters. But you didn’t hear about that part of their stories this morning, unless you happened to read the preamble to our Sunday lessons at home. Which is a practice I highly recommend. Because in order to understand the scriptures we heard in church, we need to know that in both cases—just before the part we heard read aloud today—someone had just taken a brave step in faith. And first steps, well… they made (and still make) all the difference.
Transformative things have happened, and indeed are happening in our midst right now. It’s important that we notice the transformative moments. Take pictures of them, tell stories about them, tell them to our children. But ultimately it’s not about memorializing specific moment in time—even the very important ones—rather it’s about how we live into the new reality they auger. Nobody would care about a first step if it were the only one. So it’s really about what direction we walk after the first steps, we might say. As the stories we’ve heard today make that clear. After walking, the witnesses have a new story to tell and a new sermon to preach.
Like a child’s first steps, like the fateful journey to Emmaus, like the lame man’s delighted leap, stepping out in faith takes us all to a place of new possibilities. Jesus still shows up on the journey, still calls us to stand—even leap—on our feet with the help of the community of disciples. And we know this is true not because of miraculous stories, or at least not just because of them. We know this because the disciples began to understand their experiences in new ways. After their walk, the ones who had wounded by trauma became witnesses to God’s triumph.
In like manner, the cross and Resurrection change everything. They are snapshots of a singular miraculous moment in history. We fill our sacred spaces of visual reminders of this momentous memory. But the truth of the resurrection is not revealed simply because we have images of crosses all over our cathedral. Their truth is revealed in the transformation it effects in us.
Look around in your mind’s eye, friends, at all of us who’ve found our way to this community. Like the disciples who walked back from Emmaus carrying stories of Jesus known in the breaking of the bread, we still gather with our friends to hear the scriptures opened to us. We repent and are assured of God’s forgiveness. We see each other’s hurts and we practice compassion and we pray for each other in Jesus’ name. We are agents of and witnesses to the healing that God continues to effect in our midst, and in the world. And we remind each other that it’s not us, nor the Episcopal Church, nor even Christians who make this possible. Rather, it is the faithfulness of God.
This is why we rise up and walk: to church, to visit the sick, to bring food to the hungry. I don’t know what your next brave and faithful step will be, but I’m guessing that you have a hunch. Tell us what it is! Let us pray for you and support you in it. Because it’s what disciples of Jesus have done since the very first post-resurrection steps. Recall that some very sad women walked to the tomb expecting to find death and decay. But somehow, they were met by the God of life, who assured them there was more walking and leaping and praising to do. So let me assure you of the same. Go to the limits of your longing, wrote poet Rainer Maria Rilke in 1905—
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
