Blessed Assurance

 

May 10, 2026 – The 6th Sunday of Easter, Year B

Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

© 2026 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

It’s exam season. Last week, as I drove one of my children to school, I noticed that the roads and sidewalks around the university were unusually empty except for a few, spaced-out undergraduates walking with that dazed look on their face that could only mean one thing. High school seniors are done with classes, but some of them still have AP exams to take. Other high school students are just gearing up for the stressful season. 

In a way, final exams still affect us all, even if it’s been decades since we sat for one. How many of you still wake up in a cold sweat after dreaming about studying for the wrong exam or showing up on the wrong day? Some of you spend as much time grading exams as your students spend studying for them. And, as the name Father Chuck gave our end-of-life planning workshop a few years back implies, all of us will someday be facing our “Final Exams,” whether we’re ready for them or not.

In today’s gospel lesson, for the second week in a row, we hear about Jesus’ disciples cramming for their final exams. This is the Last Supper. This is the moment when Jesus explains to his disciples that one of them will betray him. This is the dinner at which he tells them that he is about to depart from them and go to a place where they will not be able to follow. And the disciples’ response is a mixture of disbelief and panic. 

Last week, we heard Jesus reassure his disciples that they were ready—that they already knew everything they needed to know to carry on in his absence. “You know the way to the place where I am going,” he said to them. But Thomas wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about anything anymore. “Lord, we don’t even know where you are going. How can we know the way?” And Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. If you know me, you don’t need to know anything else.” Then, we heard Philip speak up and say, “Lord, if you will just show us the Father, we will be satisfied.” And Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time and still you do not know me?”

The disciples are grasping at straws. And who can blame them? They now know that the moment of truth is right around the corner. Jesus is leaving them, and it will be up to them to follow in his footsteps—to maintain his ways and observe his teachings—without his help. He won’t be around to show them how it’s done. They want nothing more than to be found faithful in his absence, but they hardly know where to start. So, like any good teacher, Jesus speaks to them with calming words of reassurance. Jesus knows that this is his last chance to teach them and form them for a lifetime of being his disciples even after he is gone, so he lays it out for them as simply as he can.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Those words are supposed to make them feel better. They are Jesus’ way of telling his disciples that, as long as they focus on what is really important, everything else will take care of itself. But somehow, over the years, like anxious disciples, we’ve forgotten what Jesus was trying to tell us and allowed his words to take on a new meaning—one that doesn’t sound at all like what Jesus was meant. And it all depends on how we hear the word “if.”

Among the many challenges that come with translating the biblical manuscripts into an English text is the challenge of not being able to hear the tone with which Jesus said these words. How do you hear him? Does the way he says these words anticipate our success or our failure? I’m not sure I can adequately give voice to the distinction I hear in my mind, but one version sounds like the equivalent of, “[As long as] you love me, you will keep my commandments,” while the other sounds more like, “If you [really] love me, you will keep my commandments.” 

The first is a statement of reassurance—one which lets the disciples know that, as long as they love Jesus, they will be faithful to him. The second feels more like a thinly veiled threat—one which conveys to the disciples Jesus’ doubt that they will ever love him enough to be faithful—like an emotionally manipulative parent who tells their children that, if they really loved them, they would clean their room. To me, only the first one sounds like Jesus, but that doesn’t stop us from hearing these words as if Jesus were trying to shame us into obedience.

I bet all of us have had a teacher, coach, boss, spouse, or parent who has used that tactic to try to get the best out of us. In fourth grade, my PE teacher was like that. He went around telling students that he didn’t think they were fast enough, strong enough, or disciplined enough to impress him. And he was right. Plenty of us resented him so much that we tried our best to prove him wrong, but I know I didn’t come out of the fourth grade any better for it. His “tough love” wasn’t really love at all because the only things that it fueled with us were spite and hatred. 

How often does that same approach get transferred to Jesus by pastors and preachers and Sunday school teachers who don’t know how to think about discipleship any other way? There are so many Christians out there who teach children that, if they really love Jesus, they will always do the right thing. But that never works. Because we never do the right thing. We’re human beings. We’re sinners. And, if we have been taught that people who really love Jesus always do the right thing, whenever we fail, we will believe that it’s because we don’t really love Jesus. And that fills us with shame. And shame has never motivated anyone to be better. It only shuts us down. 

I once heard a pastor say to a congregation, “If I could scare the hell out of you, I would.” And he meant it. But turning Jesus into a chronically disappointed motivational speaker or frustrated life coach won’t help us one bit. We need a savior.

If all we’ve ever known in our life is “try harder or else,” it may be difficult to grasp the truth of the gospel. Jesus didn’t die on the cross to motivate us to work harder. He died to give hopeless, recalcitrant sinners the gift of God’s unbreakable love. And the only thing we need to focus on is nurturing within ourselves the love that God’s love for us inspires. 

Unconditional love is the only thing that has the power to change us for good. In Jesus Christ, you are loved with a love that has the ability to shape you for holiness—to form you into the image of the one who loves you—to love you into loving others as you have been loved. “This is my commandment,” Jesus says to his disciples, “that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). We are already loved. That love is not withheld from us until we clean our room, say our prayers, or reach a prerequisite level of faithfulness. It is showered upon us freely and indiscriminately even and especially while we are lost in our own failures because God knows that unconditional love is the only thing that works. Love inspires love, and love is the root of faithfulness.

Imagine showing up for the most important final exam of your life and being told that you have already received a perfect grade. Imagine your teacher or professor or doctoral advisor letting you know from the outset that you are already home free and that the only point of the exam is to give you a chance to celebrate and explore everything you already know. Imagine diving in not at all worried about the outcome but excited for the chance to delight in having already been found worthy. Axios! Worthy! That is the affirmation Jesus proclaims to us through the cross. His death does not highlight our failures. It makes us worthy.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. That is Jesus’ promise to us. His love teaches us how to love and beckons from us the love that is our faithfulness. 

He Walks With Us

 

April 19, 2026 – The 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year A

Acts 2:14a,36-41; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35

© 2026 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

Today, for the third week in a row, we hear a gospel lesson that takes place on Easter Day. First, we heard from John about Mary Magdalene going to the tomb early that morning—how she found that the stone had been rolled away, how she ran to tell the disciples what she had seen, and how, after they had returned home, the risen Jesus came and revealed himself to her.

Last week, we heard another story from John’s gospel account—how, later that same night, the disciples were huddled behind locked doors, how Jesus came and found them and revealed himself to them, how Thomas had not been with them, and how Jesus came back a week later just to show himself to the doubting disciple.

Today we hear from Luke’s version of Easter. Luke also starts from the perspective of the women who went to the tomb early in the morning and found that the stone had been rolled away and that Jesus’ body was nowhere to be seen. Luke recalls how angels appeared to tell them that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and he explains that this was the moment when the women remembered that Jesus had taught his followers to anticipate his death and resurrection on the third day. But, when the women went and found their male counterparts and told them what the angels had said, the men dismissed their words as if they were an idle tale. They would not believe them. And that’s where today’s gospel lesson picks up the story.

Two of Jesus disciples—Cleopas and one whose name we are never told—are on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They are walking the road of defeat. That they have left the capital city and the companionship of the other disciples lets us know that there is no sense among Jesus’ followers that the empty tomb is a sign of Christ’s victory. They are talking about the things that have happened, but the truth of Jesus’ triumph is still hidden from them, just like Jesus’ presence with them on the road. 

“While they were talking and discussing,” Luke tells us, “Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” Why do you think they failed to recognize Jesus? Was it their grief—tears that blurred their vision? Was it the unlikeliness of Jesus’ resurrection—an idea so far-fetched that they couldn’t see it even when it stared them in the face? Had Jesus’ body taken on some new and strange appearance that the disciples were unable to see beneath? Or was there something about the truth of Jesus’ resurrection that they could not grasp until Jesus had made it known to them?

Jesus begins his ministry to these grief-stricken disciples with a question: “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” He is willing to start wherever they are. “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” they ask in reply. “What things?” Jesus says back to them. Even though he was more aware of what had happened than any other person on the planet, Jesus knew that, in order for these disciples to discover the truth, they had to be the ones to guide the conversation.

In the retelling that follows, we see that they knew just about everything that had happened to Jesus. He was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, yet the religious leaders had handed him over to be crucified. We had hoped that he was the one to redeem God’s people. Moreover, some of the women in our fellowship had astounded us with the news that his tomb was empty and that they had seen a vision of angels who claimed that he was alive. Some of the men went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.

In effect, they knew everything, yet they could see nothing. They got all the pieces right. They knew all the details. They had the whole story. Jesus was a prophet mighty in word and deed. He was the one to redeem God’s people. Yes, he had been crucified, but now his tomb was empty because, as the angels had declared, God had raised him from the dead in triumph. The disciples were not missing a thing. Yet, when they surveyed all that they had, they found that they had nothing—just a story that ended with emptiness, absence, a void. 

After letting them explain what they knew, Jesus helped them put the pieces together. “Oh, how foolish you are and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!” Jesus speaks to them with tenderness and compassion. The word translated for us as “foolish” literally means “non-thinking,” as if to imply that they hadn’t thought through it all properly. And “slow of heart” speaks not of their lack of intelligence but of their failure to orient themselves fully to Jesus’ teachings. The disciples’ problem was not a lack of intellectual knowledge but a need for spiritual comprehension. And, if you think about it, we shouldn’t be surprised that individuals who had experienced such trauma and grief were struggling to understand what was really going on. 

Luke does not tell us exactly what biblical passages Jesus used to help the disciples make sense of what had taken place, but we can imagine that, during their walk together, Jesus spoke about God’s promise to Abraham, about Israel’s deliverance from captivity in Egypt, about the prophets who called upon God’s people to repent, about the one who would suffer for the sake of God’s people, about God’s restoration of the people to their land, and about God’s promise to redeem them from tyranny and oppression. When Jesus described the ways in which God’s anointed one was sent by God not only to reclaim the throne of his ancestor David but to do so by suffering and dying in order to save God’s people from the power of sin and death, we can imagine that the disciples’ minds were racing as they tried to make sense of everything that this stranger was saying to them. But, still, they did not recognize him.

Later on, after they knew who it was that had walked beside them, we are told that their hearts were burning as Jesus opened the scriptures for them, yet, still, they did not know who it was that was speaking. This reflects a profound truth about human experience. The disciples knew all of the details that they were supposed to know, and they had heard an expert make sense of the story. Jesus himself had explained to them why what had happened to him had to happen—who he was and how his life, death, and resurrection were the fulfillment of God’s purposes for all of humanity. And still they did not recognize who it was that was speaking to them. 

There are some truths in this life that we are unable to grasp not because of our lack of intelligence, nor because of our lack of information, nor because of our lack of understanding but because there are some truths that we can only receive as a gift. And, as long as we approach them as something we must figure out on our own, we will never obtain them.

I remember well the night when God’s love for me was finally a truth that I could receive. I was eighteen years old and had spent my entire life learning about Jesus. I had gone to church and read the Bible and said my prayers. I had sung in the choir, preached a youth sermon, and volunteered every time church had asked for help. I had given my life to Jesus more times than I could count, but I came up empty every time. I had all the puzzle pieces, and plenty of spiritual mentors had put them together for me dozens of times, but the harder I tried to see Jesus the further away he felt. Despite my best efforts—in fact, because of them—all I came up with was a void—an emptiness—until I stopped trying to find Jesus and began waiting for him to come and reveal himself to me.

When the disciples reached their destination, Jesus acted as if he would keep walking. “Stay with us tonight,” the disciples pleaded. “It is already late, and the day is nearly over.” Then, when he was sitting at the table with them, he took a loaf of bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them, and their eyes were opened. It was Jesus, who had been raised from the dead, and they knew him. Then he vanished, and the disciples got up and ran the seven miles back to Jerusalem to tell the others what had happened to them—how the risen Lord had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Jesus comes and makes himself known to us not in our knowledge of the story or in our understanding of the details but in himself, given to us as a gift for our salvation. You can study every verse of the Bible until you know it backwards and forwards, and you can learn from the wisest and most gifted spiritual teachers, and you can do all the things and say all the prayers, but, until Jesus comes and reveals himself to you, you will not recognize him. 

That is the truth of the cross. That is the heart of the gospel. We cannot make ourselves recognize Jesus. Jesus must show himself to us. And thanks be to God that Jesus comes and reveals himself to people who do not yet recognize him. That is the gift of our faith. The truth of Emmaus is that Jesus walks with us even when our eyes cannot see him. He is with us the whole way. Once we sit down and wait for him to be manifest, his presence is revealed, and our eyes are opened, and we recognize that God’s love has been with us all along.