4/19/2026 - "Look Again" - Pastor Anthony Spearhart

4/19/2026 - "Look Again" - Pastor Anthony Spearhart

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

There are moments in time where there's the stirring inside where it's felt. Not nervousness, because trust me, this is the fun part of sharing life together as the people of God, but a feeling of the quickening of the spirits, knowing that our God is here amongst us and doing a new thing. So that feeling is well felt this morning. So I'd like you to remember just a couple weeks ago, Easter Sunday, a story that we heard that was relatively similar to the one that we just heard. A story of Mary standing in the garden in grief, trying to make sense of what had just happened. And then Jesus speaks her name, Mary. And in that moment, everything shifts. So there I was, sitting in a care facility in my hometown. I'd gone there to visit a woman named Helen Schram. Helen had a gentle presence about her. She sat quietly in her chair. Her silver hair softly framed, her face and her glasses rested gently. As she looked out on the worlds, there was a kindness in her expression, something warm and familiar, like somebody who had spent a lifetime caring for others. But her eyes, her eyes just seemed distant. Not empty, but far away. As if she was trying to see through something just out of reach, like looking across the foggy horizon searching for something familiar. Helen was living with Louis Body Dementia in Alzheimer's. Helen and I had visited many times before, but today she wasn't remembering those other visits. And so we sat together. We talked about the weather, because that's always an easy place to start. We talked about the pictures on the wall. So many pictures of family, of a life well lived, showing that Helen was clearly well loved. At one point, I don't even remember what I said, but I made her giggle. And she smiled and said, I love to laugh. And so we laughed together. At another point, she mentioned that her husband was busy working at the grocery store he owned and that he would be there to visit her later that afternoon. And throughout our visit, she kept looking out the window. Now, there really wasn't much to see, just a big open field, and on the very far side of the field was a row of houses that were tree lines. After a while, I said to her, Before your husband Don gets here, would you like to go for a walk? And she agreed. So I gently pushed her in a wheelchair and we made our way outside. Slowly moving around the perimeter of the facility, taking in the air and moving at her pace, just being together in the fresh summer Ohio air. And then eventually we made our way back inside. Back to that chair. Back to that window. Back to that view she just couldn't seem to look away from. And I just sat there with her in the space where memory and reality don't always line up the way that we expect them to. And after a while, I asked if we could listen to some music. She smiled and nodded. So I leaned over and pressed play or CD player. And the song began with these lyrics. There's something you once told us when we were little kids. All of the things that you showed us and everything you did. The house on Nottingham, you taught us how to understand and showed us how to be a shram. As the music continued, it moved into the chorus. Put a smile on your face and a song in your heart. We will never let it leave us. We will never let it part. We will never let it leave us. We will never let it part. And as she listened, something shifted. She straightened up in her chair. And her eyes, those distant eyes, suddenly changed. There was a twinkle in her eye now, like something had broken through the fog, even if just for a moment. And then she looked at me. Her face softened, her head tilted to the side just a little bit. And she said, My tony. And I didn't think, my body just moved. I leaned in and I hugged her. I held her for a lifetime and yet just for a moment. As if somehow I could hold on to that moment. You see, Helen Stram was my grandmother. And that song, I had written those words. And my older cousin had helped put them to music. Because that phrase put a smile on your face and a song in your heart was her motto. One that if I heard it once, I heard it a thousand times. And this song did exactly what we had hoped that it would do. And that field she kept looking out over. On the other side of that field was the home on Nottingham Drive that she and my grandfather lived in for over 40 years. And one of the things you learn when you love someone living with dementia or Alzheimer's is that you don't try to pull them away or back into your re back into your reality. You don't argue them into remembering. You don't force them into the room where you are, you learn to meet them where they are. And the more I've sapped that, the more I've come to realize that's exactly what Jesus does. And I've thought about that moment a lot. Because there was something about it that was more of a memory for a moment. The thought lifted, and she was there. And every time I come back to these resurrection stories, that's the moment that my heart returns to. Just as I stepped in to visit Helen, and then she called me my name, and suddenly I knew I wasn't just with Helen anymore. I was with my grand. Mary experiences something like that in the garden. She's standing there grieving, trying to make sense of what had happened, assuming she knows the story, and then Jesus calls her by name, Mary. And suddenly Mary knows she is in the presence of her beloved Rabuni, her teacher. And just like that, everything shifts. I saw something like that in my grandmother, that moment when something breaks through the fog when recognition returns, even if it's just for a moment. And the disciples in today's story experience something just like that. They're walking along the road to Emmaus, and they're walking away. Away from Jerusalem, away from everything that had just happened, away from everything that they had hoped for. Because what they thought was going to happen did not. The story they believed in, the future they had imagined, it all seemed to fall apart. And so they walk.

unknown 8:12

They're walking away.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Not looking for resurrection, not expecting anything new, maybe not even wanting to look again. And Jesus comes alongside them, walks with them, talks with them. And they don't recognize him either. They're walking in the presence of resurrection and they don't yet recognize it. As if resurrection is quietly saying, look again. The story doesn't end on that road. It moves to a table. They sit down together, still not knowing, still carrying the weight of what wasn't the plan, still trying to make sense of a story that feels unfinished. And then he takes the bread. He blesses it, and he breaks it. And in that moment, they know. And then the Gospel of Luke gives us this quiet, almost easy-to-miss line, and he became invisible to them. Now, in the original Greek, it's two, just two words, Aphantos Eganeto. Which doesn't mean he vanished in some dramatic, magical way. It means he became unseen. He was no longer visible to them. And that's such a subtle yet holy distinction. Because Luke doesn't spend any time explaining how it happens. No spectacle, no fear, no one scrambling to figure out. Because Luke isn't interested in the mechanics. Luke is drawing our attention to that moment. Because it happens right when they recognize him. Right when their eyes are opened, right when the bread is broken. That's when he is no longer seen. And I wonder if that's the point. That the moment they finally see him clearly is the moment they no longer need to see in the way that they were expecting. Because up until now they've been looking for Jesus as someone walking beside them. But resurrection doesn't always work that way. Resurrection refuses to be contained to one body, one place, one road. So he becomes unseen. Not because he's gone, but because he's no longer limited to standing in front of them. Now he's in the breaking of the bread. Now he's in the burning of their hearts. Now he's in the turning of their feet as they run back towards Jerusalem. They didn't lose Jesus. They just had to look again. So maybe the question isn't just why they didn't recognize him. Why wouldn't they recognize him? I don't think it's because something was wrong with them. I think it's because resurrection doesn't always look like what we expect. They had a picture in their minds of how the story was supposed to go. They had hopes, they had expectations. They thought that they knew where this was heading. And then everything changed. And when everything changes like that, recognition does become harsh. Because we're still looking for what we thought it would be. And sometimes it's not that we don't recognize Jesus. It's that we don't recognize what resurrection has already changed. In John's Gospel, there's a man who had been blind from birth. Jesus heals him, gives him sight. And when people see him afterwards, they don't know what to do with it. Some say, isn't that the man who used to sit and beg? Others say, no, it just looks like him. And he keeps saying, I am that man. But they just can't quite see it. Because something about him is different. And the people around him are left trying to decide if they are willing to look again. Because when resurrection takes hold, it doesn't just change what we see, it changes us. And when it changes us, it begins to change how we live in our worlds. And that matters. Because we're living in a world that so often feels stuck in Good Friday, stuck at the cross of crucifixion, where it's harder to look towards resurrection life. But resurrection speaks into that. It tells a different story. And it reminds us that death does not get the final word. The despair is not the end of the story, that even in the places that feel most distant, most forgotten, most beyond repair, God is still at work. Resurrection life matters because it calls us to see differently, to live differently, to believe that something new is possible even when we can't fully see it yet. And to be that kind of people, we don't just wait for that change, but who step into it, who embody it, who become it in our lives, difference makers in the world around us. And there are times when that change is so real, so deep, so life-giving that the world looks at us and says, wait, is that the same person? Is that the same church? And the answer is yes and no. Because resurrection doesn't just restore, it transforms. And when something has that kind of life in it, you don't start over. You pay attention to it. You tend to it, you notice where it's already growing, and you stay close to that. Because that's how God so often works. Deeper, wider, more fully alive. And at times, yes, it sometimes feels like something new. Not because what came before wasn't real, but because God is still speaking, still moving, still unfolding something among us. And maybe this is where we begin to see it. That when resurrection takes hold of us, it doesn't just change what we see, it changes how we live. So here's the invitation before us. Not to cling too tightly to what we already recognize, but to have the courage to look again. Because resurrection is not behind us, it is here, and it is calling us forwards. And sometimes there are moments when we are deeply seeking resurrection, moments where we don't see everything clearly yet, moments where the future isn't fully formed, but Christ is still walking with us even now. So let's go. Let's be a people who live resurrection. And when that moment comes, when the fog lifts, when something stirs, when your name is spoken. You might just find that what felt distant was never really gone. And maybe part of what resurrection is teaching us is not just to look again, but to live differently. To be people who don't stand in the distance waiting for others to find their way to us, but who are willing to meet people where they are just as Christ did. Turn toward it, step into it. Because that's where life is. That's where Christ is.

unknown 16:39

And that's where resurrection is. Amen. And Amen. Let us go forth into the world in peace. Be of good courage.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Hold fast to that which is good. Render to no one evil for evil. Strengthen the faint hearted, support the weak, help the afflicted, honor all people, love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

unknown 17:09

Amen.