"Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
Luke 24:13-35
Rock band, Green Day, has a song which have some lyrics which go like this:
"I walk this empty street
On the boulevard of broken dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk alone
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me
Till then I walk alone"
I wonder if the "two disciples" in our Gospel Lesson for this morning felt as if they were walking "alone" on "the Boulevard of Broken Dreams," as they headed out of Jerusalem--that city which had become for them "The City of Horrors"--on that first Easter and toward the town of Emmaus.
We are told that they were "talking to each other about everything that had happened."
No doubt, their hearts and their words were heavy as lead.
Oftentimes when our hopes and dreams have been smashed we feel as if it is the end of the world.
We feel as if we can never be happy again.
The dark chasm of doom and gloom envelop us--and we can't see a future.
It's at these times that we need to remember that it does get better!!!
And that is because we don't "walk alone"!!!
How many times in your life have you felt you were at the end of your rope?
How many times did it feel as if you could no longer go on?
Perhaps you feel that way now.
Perhaps you are suffering from a life-threatening illness.
Maybe some horrible tragedy has struck you and your household.
You might suffer from deep depression.
Maybe you are struggling with your faith.
Perhaps you have lost a loved one.
Perhaps you are going through a divorce.
I know, from experience, that this can seem like the end of the world.
When this was happening to me, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to go on.
The darkness I felt was so very dark.
I had hit "rock bottom."
Then one night, when all else was lost, I experienced the Real Presence of Christ in such a powerful way that I was able to actually rejoice and practically shout for joy--even amidst my suffering.
I called up my best friend, and between sobs of praise, I said: "It's going to be alright!!!"
"Rock bottom isn't such a bad place to be--because Jesus is here."
After this, I started reading and praying what is called "A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition" several times a day.
(Butch, Please put the Prayer on the Screen)
Let's pray this prayer together right now.
I call it "the prayer of perfect freedom."
When I started praying this prayer regularly, I also prayed to God that I would truly mean what I pray.
If we can get to the point where we really pray this prayer for "real"--I believe we are truly free.
It's a prayer about trusting God.
It's a prayer about wanting to live within the will of God--whatever that will may mean.
It's a prayer that says, "If all I have is Jesus--that's MORE than enough."
Let us pray.
(pause while praying, Butch, please take the prayer off the screen after we pray)
I hope we will keep this prayer with us at all times, and pray it regularly.
It will change our lives if we do.
So, three days after they had seen Jesus arrested, mocked, spit upon, humiliated, whipped, beaten, stripped, paraded through town--a bloody mess with a cross on His back, and then nailed on that Cross to die--two of Jesus' disciples were leaving the "Holy City of Jerusalem" where this had all taken place--they "were traveling to a village called Emmaus."
We are told that "their faces [were] downcast."
Why were they going to Emmaus?
Were they heading back to their fishing nets, tax offices, missed appointments, and merciless routines?
Were they headed back to join the rest of the "living dead"?
Fredrick Buechner interprets Emmaus as:
"the place we go in order to escape--a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, 'Let the whole [blankedly--blank] thing go hang.
It makes no difference anyway...'
Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that [people] have had--ideas about love and freedom and justice--have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish [people] for selfish ends."
But you know what?
That is not the end of the story!!!!!
You know why?
The Risen Lord meets us on the road to our Emmauses, in the ordinary places and experiences of our lives, and even in our darkest moments of pain and despair!!!
So, the two disciples were traveling to Emmaus.
"They were talking to each other about everything that had happened.
While they were discussing these things, Jesus himself arrived and joined them on their journey...
He said to them, 'What are you talking about as you walk along?'"
And then, we are told: "They stopped, their faces downcast."
"They stopped..."
This can also be translated as "They stood still..."
It's been said that "when God enters a conversation we think we are having with one another...
...we cannot [help] but find our lost selves standing still.
We have come to a crossroad.
At issue are not the miles before us but the moment at hand and the eternity that has just invaded time."
When have you come to a crossroad?
When has the issue of eternity invaded time for you?
Perhaps you are at a crossroad this morning.
Perhaps you have a decision to make...
...a decision that will decide, not just the here and now, but eternity itself.
So the two disciples have been walking down their "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" when Heaven came and walked beside them.
And Heaven asked them: "What are you talking about as you walk along?"
And they told Him about how their hopes had been dashed--shattered!!!
They told Jesus about how they had pinned all their dreams on their belief that Jesus was the Messiah, but the "chief priests and...leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him."
Then they told Him about how "some women from [their] group...went to the tomb early [that morning] and didn't find his body."
Not only that, but "They came to us saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who told them he is alive."
Perhaps you have been told by others that "Jesus is Alive," but you haven't seen or experienced this yourself.
Perhaps, like these two disciples, a second-hand account is not enough.
Jesus comes to YOU.
You can experience the Real Presence of Christ in YOUR LIFE as well, if only you will invite Him in.
Jesus comes to all of us, and walks with us on life's journey down the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams."
And we may think we walk this journey alone, but we do not!!!
And if we listen to Jesus as we walk along, if we read our Bibles, if we come to Church, if we allow God's disciples to minister to us, if we pray, if we yield our lives to Christ--we will hear Him talking to us just as He spoke to the two disciples on that first Easter.
As they walked along, Jesus began explaining to them the meaning of His death and the Reality of His Resurrection.
He opened the Scriptures to them.
Starting in verse 26 Jesus says, "Wasn't it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and then enter into his glory?'
Then he interpreted for them the things written about himself in all the scriptures, starting with Moses and going through all the Prophets."
Do you read your Bible?
When you read your Bible do you ask Jesus to interpret it for you?
Do you come to Bible study?
Do you make it a priority?
Do you have a devotional time each day?
Do you read the Upper Room devotionals which are out in the hallway, free for you to take home with you?
Do you make it priority number 1 to come to church and to participate in the ministries of God's people?
Will you make the commitment to do so?
We are told that when the two disciples and Jesus finally got to Emmaus, Jesus "acted as if he was going on ahead."
Jesus never forces Himself upon us.
Faith always must be a voluntary response to God's free gift of grace.
God offers us the gift, but we don't have to take it.
Jesus leaves us free to continue down the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" without Him, and so many of us do.
God's love is such that we are always free to turn our backs on God--to close the door of our hearts against Him, bolt our minds shut in fear of what inviting Him in might involve.
When Jesus comes to us--and He does, an invitation must be offered before He will come in.
In Revelation 3:20 Jesus says, "Look! I'm standing at the door and knocking.
If any hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to be with them, and will have dinner with them, and they will have dinner with me."
Have you heard Jesus knocking on the door of your heart?
Have you invited Him in?
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning, the two disciples urged Jesus, saying, "Stay with us...So he went in to stay with them.
After he took his seat at the table with them, he took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them."
And when this happened, "Their eyes were opened and they recognized him..."
Later they said to each other, "Weren't our hearts of fire when he spoke to us along the road and when he explained the scripture for us?"
Through the study of Scripture, if we allow Jesus to interpret for us, we will feel "our hearts strangely warmed!!!"
And when we come to the Table, if we invite Jesus into our hearts, we will "recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread."
