Holy heartburn

From Helen 

I don’t know about you but sometimes when watching television I enjoy the adverts. Who can ever forget the neighbours who fell in love over sharing a cup of coffee, who can forget hearing about ‘Just one cornetto’, or of course themeerkats. Well there is one advert that you have probably never seen and this is for Holy Heartburn.

Now before your minds dream up all sorts of ideas of what this is, it is what we heard about in our gospel reading this morning.

The disciples walking along the road to Emmaus experienced a strange sensation within themselves that they described as their hearts burning.  It was indeed holy heartburn, the feeling which you get after an encounter with Jesus.  

There is a well known joke, that is always worth hearing which I think makes the point of what an encounter with Jesus can do to us.

A burglar was stalking stealthily around the living-room of the house he had just broken into. He jumped with fright when he suddenly heard a voice behind him saying "Croaoak, beware, Jesus watches you"
He turned around, swung the beam of his torch and until he saw a parrot. The bird repeated "Croaoak, beware, Jesus watches you"
The burglar walked up to the cage and asked "And what may your name be? The parrot answered "Coco"? The burglar sniggered and said "I've always found that a very stupid name for a parrot." The parrot answered "Maybe, but not half as silly as Jesus for a pit-bull terrier"

On a much more serious note.  Jesus does know us, and we know Him and can recognise Him.  

There are three things in the gospel reading this morning that I would like us to think about.

The first point I want to make is that Jesus knows us, and He understands us.  Jesus knows what we need, sometimes before we do, He knows what we need when we may not even realise that He is with us.  We only know the name of one of the two disciples in the reading, and his name was Cleopas.  In thegospel of John there is a Clopas mentioned who was married to a Mary.  It could be that the two walking in the reading that we have heard this morningwere in fact husband and wife.  This is quite a comforting thought, that even when people journey together in any human relationship Jesus is with them.

Jesus knew the right questions to ask so that the two would open up to Him and talk of how they felt. He knew these two had a need to talk, a need so great that they would even admit to being followers of someone who had been killed as a common criminal, as a trouble maker.  

Jesus also showed in his questioning and discussion that He knew they needed help to understand what had gone on.  They admitted that they looked to Jesus as someone great, they admitted that they thought He would be the one to redeem Israel.  Jesus needed to help them realise that - Yes God did suffer and had suffered but this was all a part of the plan of redemption.  Jesus suffered by taking our sins upon Him, but with the resurrection this meant that He was even greater than people had thought!

Jesus knew what the two needed and He knows what we need.  Jesus looking right into our souls means that He knows what we need before we even ask Him.  Knowing us so well, He knows all about us, which means we can and should turn to Him always. He is the one who truly understands us.

The second point I want to make is that the two experienced Jesus with them.  They had experienced it before, and although they did not recognise Jesus theyhad this strange sensation of their hearts burning whilst they walked with Him.  Jesus came alongside them in their despair and helped them to see the ways that things really were and the hope that they could have; that somehow everything was not just going to be ok again but it was going to be even better than before.

Jesus walks alongside us, as we encounter Him in our lives maybe through something that someone says to us, maybe through something we read or see, Jesus is alongside us.  I remember hearing a radio programme with JohnHumphys where he admitted that he had no faith. He also admitted that he would like to have faith and so he interviewed a number of religious leaders.One leader was the then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. JohnHumphrys asked where God was when a couple lost their child. The answertook him aback, it was,’I like to think that God was with the neighbours who took them food to save them having to cook, who sat with them when they needed support.’

The third point I want to make is about experiencing the work of Jesus.  The two recognised Jesus finally through the act of breaking bread.  Although they had seen Jesus breaking bread before, this time they were seeing Him in a new light.  This new light being the joy and love of knowing that Jesus had indeedrisen.

Every time that they broke bread together as a community of believers would remind them of Jesus’ promise to always be with them and not just this but it would remind them that they had a task.  This task being to share with the world all the good things that they had seen, all the wonderful things they now knew, that God had indeed had a plan of salvation.

A plan of salvation that was for everyone as the reading from the book of Acts reminded us, ‘For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away…’

If you looked around the Church now you would see that we are all similar types of people, but God has called everyone to experience holy heartburn and if we are not prepared to go to others and help them experience the love of God by not judging but by welcoming, by being prepared to welcome those who may be very different from us then our holy heartburn needs to get stronger. We need to admit that we need more of God, we do not have the answers but when we turn to God He will help us.

Holy heartburn means that we will want to go out and share with people the wonderful things that we have seen and continue to know, such as that Jesus sees right into our souls, He sees all that we need and all we can do is to accept His love and seek to know Him more.  

So, may we all suffer from holy heartburn as we continue to be made alive inChrist. May we be ready to share this wonderful joy with others no matter who they are. AMEN