Good morning, everyone. I suppose that those of you who made it to church this morning are those well-organized among us, who filed your tax returns in January and have long since spent or invested your refunds! Otherwise, you'd be home this morning, like so many desperate Americans, searching madly through piles of paper and boxes of receipts so that you can file on time tomorrow, all the while making resolutions to be much better about it next year. Or, maybe you're here for a little spiritual fortitude to face that task still this afternoon.

On your behalf, I did some research to find some "holy help" for you in this anxious season, but sadly discovered that there is no official patron saint of taxpayers. However, tax collectors do have one-Saint Matthew, the apostle, who, as you may recall, was a Roman tax collector before answering the Lord's call to become a disciple. He is now the patron saint of accountants, bankers, bookkeepers, financial officers, money managers, stock brokers, tax collectors, and so forth.

A traditional prayer to him reads: "O Glorious Saint Matthew, you were first a tax collector and then a gatherer of souls for Christ after immediately following his call. After once gathering taxes and tolls, how wonderful was your conversion by grace, when, discarding your earthly possessions, you followed the Poor Man of Nazareth. The Mammon of Money is still worshiped. Inspire bankers with kindness and with the desire to help where they can. Make all accountants imitate your example in giving careful and honest accounts. For what is done to the least, to the poor, is done to Jesus, the Son of Man. Obtain for us the grace to see Jesus living in his Church and to follow his teachings in our lives on earth, so that we may live forever with him in heaven. Amen."

Obtain for us the grace to see Jesus living in his Church . . . may that be our prayer together this morning as we gather in this Easter season to worship the living Christ. As Larry [Young] said last week, "Easter Sunday is just the beginning of a beautiful Easter season, offered that we might experience the power of the Risen Christ among us and for ourselves." The early church taught that the resurrected Christ remained on earth 40 days after the resurrection before ascending to the throne of God, 40 days devoted to revealing himself to his disciples, so that they would have the assurance and conviction of faith. The Swiss theologian Emil Brunner has written: "You believe the resurrection, not because it is reported by the apostles, but because the resurrected one himself encounters you." We come this morning to worship because we want that experience for ourselves.

We can learn a great deal from the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. It is late in the day of that first Resurrection morning. Two of Jesus' disciples were walking along, greatly dejected, no doubt, struggling desperately to believe that the rumors they'd begun to hear that their Lord was alive again were true. There they were walking, and as they walked, they were talking over everything that had just happened. Actually, the verb used here is the one used to describe the way rabbis discuss, dispute and clarify the meaning of Scripture in the Mishnah. This is not idle chatter, but a serious attempt to interpret what had happened in light of the Word of God.

And, as they walked and talked, Jesus himself came to them, walked with them, but their eyes did not see him, the story says. He began talking with them and interpreting Scripture for them about the Messiah, but they still didn't see. When they reached their destination, he would have gone on, but their hospitality ethic urged him to stay for supper. It was there, around the table, in the breaking of the bread, that finally their eyes were opened and they recognized him. For they said to one another, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking with us and opening Scripture to us?"

Now knowing what they know, that the Lord is risen and is still in their midst, they look back and reinterpret their earlier experience. He had been with them all along. They could believe the resurrection because the resurrected one himself encountered them.

"Were not our hearts burning within us?" they asked, knowing that their hearts had perceived his presence long before their eyes and brains could take it in. It brings to mind that oft-quoted line from Antoine de St. Exupery's Little Prince: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

The first sightings of the Resurrected Christ came not through the eyes, but through the heart. The sensation can be triggered by any number of things, I suppose. Simply walking into the sanctuary- the silence, the beauty, the memories that are here. Or it might be the music, or the spoken word. The hug of a friend, the smile of a stranger. For the two disciples that day long ago, it came from the way Jesus opened up the words of the Scriptures for them, and the memory of his breaking of the bread.

For John Wesley, the founding father of Methodism, this same experience came from listening to someone read aloud Martin Luther's preface to the Book of Romans, as the Scripture was opened to him-it was May 1739, on Aldersgate Street in London. (This may be of special interest to you Disciple Bible Study I pupils who have been wading through or delighting in that particular epistle.) Wesley later wrote in his journal that he "felt his heart strangely warmed-in that moment, I felt I did believe." This was Wesley's moment of real conversion, the source of the spiritual fire which led to the initiation of the whole Methodist movement.

The long-time, former editor of the Christian Century journal, James Wall, put it this way. In writing about his own moment of insight and conversion, he wrote: "Like Wesley, I came to see something new, that the Resurrection is the event in history that reveals that death is no threat, because the one who creates also loves unconditionally and continues to create."

This morning we rejoice to welcome new members into the fellowship of this congregation and baptize two of our precious new babies into the grace of our Risen Lord. These are five adults and two sets of parents and their families and friends who are, in effect, willing to stand before us, in the presence of God, and by the vows they make this morning, testify to the reality of God in their lives. They have experienced here a taste of God's unconditional love for them and for their children. They know this to be a community in which God is continuing to create. Their witness in our midst this morning is a testimony to the Resurrection itself. The Resurrected One has encountered them and they now respond with praise and dedication.

Let us welcome and thank them this morning by offering ourselves anew to the Risen Christ. Let us open our hearts to receive him. Let us open our arms to embrace the world he loves so much. Let us praise God forever:

Alleluia! Amen!

© Patricia E. Farris, 2002. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.