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United Methodist Church San Antonio, Texas |
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United Methodist Church San Antonio, Texas |
“Dangers of Discouragement”
based on Luke 24
Reverend
Larry Scharmann
On Sunday, March the 27th,
after worship, my wife, daughter, and I went to Lockhart to spend some time with
the rest of my family. We went to
the home of my brother-in-law, where my sister had lived for several years
before she went home to be with God. It
was the afternoon of Easter Sunday. It
felt very different being in that house without my sister there.
To be honest with you, it felt a little depressing.
She was on my mind from the minute I walked into the door.
I thought about her as I sat on the couch where she had spent so
many of her last hours, and where I had knelt beside her to pray for her. I
looked at pictures of her that had been placed around the house.
I thought about how much her children must miss her and I wondered how
they felt about being in that house without her.
In the gospel account, it is the afternoon of the first Easter. Cleopas and another unidentified disciple are walking toward Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. What a weekend they had just been through! Jesus had died on the cross that Friday, and when he died, the hopes and dreams and plans of the disciples died with him. Jesus was gone. The one they had followed for three years had died. The one whom they thought would restore Israel to her former glory had been put to death.
Remember how it all happened? The women went to the tomb on Sunday morning and found it empty. They rushed back and told the disciples that Jesus had risen. But, remember, some of the disciples weren’t ready to accept that fact. Perhaps they thought this was a vision these women had seen, brought on by the overwhelming grief they were all experiencing. Perhaps they thought something entirely different. In any case, this little band of disciples is now without a leader and seems to be coming apart at the seams.
Cleopas and the other disciple
were so discouraged they headed out of town to Emmaus, which may have been their
home. It seems the two disciples
had endured all they could endure. They
were going home. They were sad.
For them, Jerusalem held nothing but bad memories.
“Enough is enough,” they must have said. “We’re out of here.
We’re going home.”
As they walk down the long,
dusty road to Emmaus, they meet a stranger.
Through our New Testament eyes, we know the stranger is Jesus, but the
two disciples have no idea who he is. They
are so sad, so discouraged, that they don’t realize that it is Jesus walking
beside them! Their
discouragement was their most dangerous emotion.
Discouragement is still a dangerous emotion. For one thing, discouragement can cause us to walk away from the body of Christ. Remember, the other disciples were in Jerusalem at this time. Cleopas
and the other person were going to Emmaus.
When
we allow ourselves to get preoccupied with
discouragement,
with plans that did not work out, and with dreams that seem to have died, the
first thing we want to do is to go off by ourselves and pout.
That is normal, but that is the worst thing we can do!
That is when we need the body of Christ the most!
Strength, support, and encouragement are most often found in others who
have similar values and who can understand without passing judgment.
Don’t walk away when you’re discouraged, draw closer!
The other day there was a
commercial on TV about some video tapes from the TV show called “Hee Haw”
that used to be on TV. I
used to love watching that show! I
remember one time when a young lady a woman on that show said “Kissing is a
way of bringing two people so close together, that they can’t see what’s
wrong with each other!”
It’s not that the two
disciples were that close to each other, but they were certainly too close to
their discouragement. They were so focused on their situation that they did not
recognize Jesus. The good news is,
God used their discouragement to give them time to verbalize their feelings, so
that God could help them see the truth for themselves.
Another thing about
discouragement is that it can cause us to hang on to our pasts.
“What are you discussing as you walk along?” Jesus said. Can’t
you picture them, walking along, bouncing ideas back and forth, sorting things
out in their minds? “What are you
discussing?” Jesus knew their
hearts, but he asked the question in order to allow them to pour out their
concerns and their hurts on him.
Beloved, our Lord has not
changed. He still draws near to us
to listen, to offer support, or to guide us to the truth. Cleopas
is the one who responds: “Are you only a visitor that you don’t know the
things that have happened?” Did
you hear that negativity? “Are
you only a visitor?” Not, “You
must be a visitor, and that’s why you haven’t heard what happened.” Not, “Let us help you understand.” “Are you only a visitor?”
Jesus asked: “What things?” So
they spouted off a whole list of things that, in their discouraged minds, Jesus had
been:
The
disciples had lost hope. When hope
is lost, the whole world seems dark.
Discouragement causes us to
want to live in the past, but we must learn to resist negative thoughts.
Don’t allow those thoughts to come into your mind.
We cannot allow ourselves to get discouraged.
We must move forward. We
must continue to move out in faith, knowing that God is with us.
Some of you have heard that
our long-range planning committee is going to be putting some ads in some local
papers soon. We hope to get the
word out about who we are & what we have to offer. In
that way, we hope to attract more people to our church. But here is the catch:
This
is the time to put our best foot forward, to accentuate the positive, to work
together, to encourage, to make our visitors feel welcome,
and
most
of all, this is the time to pray like
we’ve never prayed before!
Third, discouragement can
cause us to doubt what God can do.
Verse
5 says “How foolish you are
and
slow
of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken!”
Did you catch that word “all”?
So often we think that God
should act in this way or that way,
and
when
he doesn’t, we think God has let us down, or that God didn’t answer our
prayers. Beloved, the problem is
not with God, the problem is with the person looking back at you from the
mirror. If you think scripture is
not speaking to your situation, read it again! Perhaps you missed something.
Perhaps your discouragement clouded your reading. Pray
for God to remove the scales from your eyes
and
than read the passage again.
When Jesus
and
the two disciples arrived at
Emmaus, Jesus acted as if he were going on, but the two disciples insisted that
he stay. Jesus not only stayed, he
acted as their host. You see, it
was always the host who would break the bread, not the guests. We
see the result of Jesus’ action in verse 21 “Then their eyes were opened.”
They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within
us?”
Think back now to whenever it
was that you first became a follower of Christ.
I’ll bet you served everywhere,
and
did everything. People learned to count on you.
When no one else wanted to do something, you were the one who jumped in
and got it done. But then, what
happened? The fire died out. The
joy disappeared. Perhaps you
switched over to a different group. Perhaps
you became caught up in the negative group that didn’t like the music, or the
sermon, or the color of the carpet, or the way the person in front of you combed
their hair. You became discouraged,
disenchanted, and you gave up on God and his church.
Is
that your situation? Is that where
you’re at this morning? If it is,
then God has something to say to you.
Jesus gave the two disciples a
passion where before there had been only pain.
Jesus used two things to create that burning in their hearts:
My
friends, don’t you see? God is
still doing that! Spend time with
God in prayer. If you can’t think of what to say, just listen.
Pray every day. Let your
children see you pray. And read the
scriptures. Read the Old Testament
and
read
the New. Read the
Psalms, or start with
the book of Proverbs. Read
one chapter of Proverbs every
day. At that rate, you can finish Proverbs
in about a month. Do that for 90 days, then come and tell me how much your life
has changed.
The
conclusion of this Emmaus story is found in verse 33. After Jesus left, the story goes, “they returned at once to
Jerusalem.”
Did you catch that? They
could not wait until morning! They
ran the seven miles back to Jerusalem! They
had to tell someone! “It is true! The Lord has risen!” They
couldn’t keep the good news to themselves!
You
too have good news to share:
Stick
around! Don’t run away.
Stay near the temple. Stay
close to those who love you and who know where the hurt is. Don’t
get discouraged. Don’t let
discouragement blind you from the presence of Almighty God working in your life.
Amen
Reverend Larry Scharmann
Oak Meadow United
Methodist Church
May, 2005
