Millbrook Baptist Church

I believe Psalm 23 is relevant in multiple contexts: God creates and shares space with God’s people. If it’s King David, there’s an assurance of a kinship where God’s people foster a community of faith and neighboring. God’s consistency abides, in the good times and the bad times, too. If the text is an exile setting, God is not only helping the returning exiles to find space in their old land, but God is also cultivating space for a new temple, where God’s community can build a future together. And if the psalmist lives today, perhaps God is telling us that new space is being cleared, physically, virtually, emotionally, spiritually for ours to be a banquet community.

Friends, Emmaus lies ahead. It may be seven miles, or seven years, or seven sentences to form a paragraph.  As we travel that road, I’ll hope we will remember to share the story.  And when we get there, I hope we won’t forget to sit, and rest, and enjoy a table.  For it’s a table that our future – God’s future, God’s bright future – will be revealed.  The bread that God provides may not be able to erase our pain, or our grief, or our disappointment over present circumstances.  But the bread is a reminder that our present circumstances are NOT, are NOT, are NOT, are NOT, are NOT the final word.  God is the final word.  And God is working, always working, to resurrect our own Emmaus: our possibilities, our goodness, our humanity, our tomorrow, our future.  So…let’s grab a seat at the table, and perhaps we may finally understand that our SHOULD HAVE BEENs will one day BE.

Thomas is the first of the disciples to proclaim Jesus’ identity with conviction. Upon seeing Jesus, Thomas expresses his belief. The text tells us that Jesus invites Thomas to touch, but it doesn’t say Thomas actually touches Jesus. We’re left to interpret that sight alone is enough for Thomas to believe.