Spiritual LASIK

Luke 24:13-35 [1]

My wife and don’t have the best vision in the world. Both of us need corrective lenses to see well. One of my favorite early marriage memories was watching TV right before we went to sleep. Our TV was quite small – I think about a 13-inch screen – but it was right at the foot of the bed on a dresser so it wasn’t really that far away. One night, I looked over at Diane and she had brought a pair of binoculars to bed and was watching TV through those! Do I need to tell you that her vision is much poorer than my own?

If you wear glasses or contact lenses, you know that they are often a pain. We’ve thought about this new LASIK surgery where your vision is corrected through surgery. Here’s what a government website[2] says about LASIK surgery:

LASIK is a surgical procedure intended to reduce a person's dependency on glasses or contact lenses. LASIK stands for Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis and is a procedure that permanently changes the shape of the cornea, the clear covering of the front of the eye, using an excimer laser. A knife, called a microkeratome, is used to cut a flap in the cornea. A hinge is left at one end of this flap. The flap is folded back revealing the stroma, the middle section of the cornea. Pulses from a computer-controlled laser vaporize a portion of the stroma and the flap is replaced.

Don’t ask me to explain this to you but it seems they cut your eye with a laser and it significantly improves your vision. For those of you with perfect vision, I’m jealous. You may not know the challenges of blurred vision…but someday you probably will (ha! ha!). For those of you who have to use corrective lenses of some sort to see, wouldn’t it be great to be able to see perfectly?

We may not all have the same needs when it comes to our physical vision, but I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t sometimes struggle with their spiritual vision. Put bluntly: we lose sight of Jesus. If you’ve ever lost your glasses before, you know what a predicament that puts you in. Sometimes we forget about “tools” for helping us to see Jesus in our lives.

Luke records for us a story about losing vision…and then regaining it again.[3] It’s shortly after the Resurrection. The tomb is empty and now there are two followers of Jesus walking toward Emmaus. How do we know these two guys are followers? Well, it says “…two of them…” in verse 13 and this story comes right on the heels of the disciples seeing the empty tomb. So, someone…we know it’s Jesus but they don’t…comes and begins walking with two disciples.

Notice in the story that one of the followers is named Cleopas and the other is nameless. Why don’t we know who the other one is? The Bible has a wonderful way of inviting us into each story so we can find our place. We may wonder, “How couldn’t these guys not know it was Jesus walking next to them? It’s only been two days since they’ve seen him! How could they not know it was him? Boy, if I were there, I would have known it was Jesus!” Maybe the other guy isn’t named so that we’ll consider the possibility that there’s a place for us in this story! It could be anyone walking with Cleopas…maybe you…maybe me. The bottom line: Jesus is walking with them and they don’t know it.

Do you ever suffer from blindness even though your eyes are fully functional? Have you ever found yourself looking for something, and then you ask someone to help you find it, and lo and behold it’s right out in the open in front of you? It simply took someone else, or a different set of eyes, to see what’s there. Why couldn’t you see what was out in the open? Well, there may have been 15,000 things on your mind in that moment. The thing you were looking for may have so blended into the surroundings that it was tough to see. And sometimes, in our minds we somehow convince ourselves that the thing couldn’t possibly be there and so we dismiss the chance it’s there.

I think seeing Jesus is often like that. Sometimes we can’t see him because there’s 15,000 things on our mind. He’s there but there’s so much clutter that we just can’t see him. Sometimes Jesus blends seamlessly into life. We’d like him to show up with a beard, a white robe, and some glowing holiness around his head. But sometimes, he shows up in the form of the janitor at work, the child on the playground, or the smell of fresh flowers. And perhaps the biggest reason why we can’t see Jesus when he’s close by is because we dismiss so many possibilities. So do any of these fit you when it comes to seeing Jesus?

A few moments ago, I shared with you a description of LASIK surgery. With the exception of doctors or medical professionals here today, few of us probably understood completely what the medical jargon means. But we all probably understood some of it. If we look closely at the Emmaus story, I think we can see some keys for spiritual LASIK – steps to help us see Jesus better.

First, don’t walk alone in life. The disciples walked together but they also welcomed a stranger. Too many of us go through life as Lone Rangers. And then when we don’t invite people in, we often don’t see those encounters with Jesus that are right in front of us. Walk with others.

Second, be a spiritual risk taker. On the LASIK surgery website, they say you are not a good candidate for refractive surgery if: you’re not a risk taker. Certain complications are apparently unavoidable in a percentage of patients. I have come to believe that spirituality and looking for Jesus is a messy endeavor. There is not always one right answer to questions of faith. There’s a cost to being a disciple of Jesus that, like LASIK surgery, is not always covered by someone else. Are you willing to take a risk to see Jesus?

Third, we need to invite Jesus in. In our story today, there came a point where Jesus was about ready to go on…to keep walking.[4] The two disciples wouldn’t let him, though. They invited him in. Jesus stayed, he fed the disciples, and then their eyes were opened. Jesus is always ready to help us see him. But sometimes we simply allow him to keep on walking away.

So who among us wants to see Jesus? Who among us needs some spiritual LASIK this morning? Walk with others, take some risks, and invite Jesus in. Let the cutting of our hearts begin!

Amen.

[1] I have also preached on this passage at Cane Creek on April 18, 1999, and April 14, 2002. This sermon utilizes some of the research from those previous sermons but goes in a different direction than previous sermons.

[3] Joe Paprocki has written a great book on this account. It is entitled, Renewing Your Ministry: Walking With Jesus In All That You Do (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 2000). I have used a number of points from his book in this sermon.