Preached at Christ Church, Bulkington
Readings – Isaiah 52.7–10; Luke 24.13–31
Sometimes, we don’t see things as they truly are until someone does something that draws our attention to them. In the famous story set on the Road to Emmaus, two followers of Jesus, fleeing Jerusalem after His execution, don’t recognise Him until He breaks bread with them. Then their eyes are opened and they know that He has been raised from the dead.
The world of the 2020s does much to distract us from the spiritual side of our nature. The screens that now follow us everywhere, bringing us unlimited opportunities for entertainment and amusement, mean that we scarcely have a moment to draw breath and contemplate our ultimate destiny. Along with that, those who hold a very narrow view of science tell us that there is nothing more to us than flesh and blood. Emotions, thoughts, and choices, in this view, are nothing more than products of chemicals and electrical signals bouncing around our bodies.
Yet something in us rebels against the idea that we are just walking bags of chemicals controlled by the computer made of meat in our skulls. Instinctively, we know that we are creatures of soul as well as body. Every human culture creates elaborate ceremonies and objects to remember its dead. This is something that distinguishes humans from animals. Something in us knows that death is not the end.
We also know that a universe without judgement is a universe without justice. Stalin and Chairman Mao died in their own beds as free men at a ripe old age, and so did Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith. If God is just, and Christians have always said that He is, then He must hold those who have got away with wrongdoing in their earthly lives to account. Christians have also always said that God knows and sees all.