Jesus own followers, who had initially fled from the danger and horror of the crucifixion, talked eventually not just of continued affection but of resurrection. They tried to express what they meant by telling, for example, about the journey to Emmaus undertaken by two Jesus followers, one named and clearly male, one unnamed and probably female. The couple were leaving Jerusalem in disappointed and dejected sorrow. Jesus joined them on the road and, unknown and unrecognized, explained how the Hebrew Scriptures should have prepared them for his fate. Later that evening they invited him to join them for their evening meal, and finally they recognized him when once again he served the meal to them as of old beside the lake. And then, only then, they started back to Jerusalem in high spirits. The symbolism is obvious, as is the metaphoric condensation of the first years of Christian thought and practice into one parabolic afternoon. Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens.

Jesus could still be for them a living presence, companion on the road and at meals, uplifting their spirits. Emmaus may never have happenedbut Emmaus always happens.

With the Enlightenment and the years beyond, we have largely lost our ancestors ability to speak of truth in storieswithout confusing the stories with fact. We can deal with Aesops Fables, but have more trouble with religious onesespecially Christian ones, precisely because so many Christians have insisted on their literal truth. Still, when we can give ourselves permission to enter the world of myth and metaphor, we may find ourselves rewarded.

At no time is this more true than at memorial services, when we mourn the loss of a beloved lifes companion. Often, at such times, I have used these words of the poet Donald F. Robinson:

They say you have left me, but it is not true.

My eyes are liars, and my reaching hands

Are become traitors when they reach for you.

Only the heart within me understands.

It's true the body you built so long ago,

A house to live in, houses you no more.

Your voice is still, your steps no longer go

About their business, quiet across the floor.

But you and I have lived so long together

We have no further need of sound and sight

And outward touch to recognize each other.

You have long lived within me, like a light.

Still like a light you're there to lead me on

When those who understand not say you're gone.

So it is that we remember our beloved ones, no longer with us. In tears or in laughter, when we remember, time vanishes, and we are together, our spirits astir within us. At holidays. At birthdays. On visits to familiar places. Right here beside us in these pews, they sit with us in memory.

So it is with Jesus, if we have loved him. So it is with any spiritual figure whom our hearts have embraced.

Sometimes, in our tradition, we have kept Jesus at a distance, seeing him as a great teacher and exemplar more than a personal presence. It has been our Unitarian tradition to keep God at a distance, as well, as the clockmaker God of the Deists, now retired from daily responsibility, though our Universalist tradition has more often warmed to God as an active and loving presence. Today, as Unitarian Universalists, we have interwoven these two traditions, along with more recent strands, and it is for us to fashion the spiritual experience we need.

Not all of us feel the need of a personal spiritual presence, and some may not imagine that presence in human form. But for others who may long for such a presence, but have stumbled on the bodily resurrection, I invite you to shift from the physical world to the realm of memory; to nurture the love of Jesus as a personal presence, if you like, much as many of us have felt the living presence of beloved parents, spouses, and partners, sometimes even children, who have died but live on in our hearts.

You have told us the stories from your own lives, after all, of feeling the intimate presence, sometimes, of a husband or wife now gone, or a beloved partner. Of hearing their voices, and feeling their touch. And for those whose spiritual focus has been Jesus, they, too, have known the comforting presence, the daily guidance, the counsel in times of difficult decision, that they have cultivated. Though they never knew him in the flesh, they have come to know him in the intimacy of the spirit, in study and story, song and prayer.

Perhaps we ourselves may have come through times of suffering and trials of the soul, without needing to reach out for spiritual support, but still I pray that we may never belittle the experience of those who sing of a Jesus who walks with me and who talks with me, or of a personified God who takes my hand and guides me through the night. They might be friends or family or companions in these pewsor even us, at some other stage of life.

Leafing through the current issue of First Days Record, a monthly collection of essays by UU ministers, I found a reflection, by colleague Barbara Hamilton-Holway, on her grief at her parents last years. I thought of my own family memories, and I wept. I knew I had to share it with you this morning.

A year earlier she had been with her daughter Sarah, helping her parents clear out their family home as they moved to a retirement and nursing center. It was Holy Week, and her mother, struggling with cancer and a series of strokes, was not up to going out. It was her fathers first time at church without her mother. As the congregation sang a hymn, he stiffened, then fell back. They called 911, the ambulance took him to a hospital, and the service continued. But although his heart was weak, it was not a heart attack, she writes, but heartbreak.

Each night during the visit, she and her daughter massaged her mothers body. Now, thats a sacrament, her brother told them later. Each night, Barbara lay awake in bed, remembering. Wasnt it just a short time ago that they were helping me move into my first home? she wondered.

She returned after several days to her home in Berkeley. Sarah called, the work of moving behind her, now just beginning her own grieving for her grandmother. Nothing, Barbara reassured her, can take away her presence in our lives But to herself she wondered, How could [she] not be among us? Climbing into bed, she cried. Her parents were trying so hard to be responsible for the decisions that needed to be made. Whatever happened, they would be OK, they had insisted. How could I not be there helping them? she wondered.

My mother and father have no doubt of our love for them. We are with them always. We cannot not be among them. Thats the Easter message. Jesus died and each time his friends sit down to a meal of bread and wine he joins them at the table.

One evening of our visit, we celebrated my mothers 81^st birthday. There were not enough chairs for all the guests. There were my mothers parents, her grandparents, brothers and sister, their children, my children. There was my mother with laced up boots swinging from a tire swing; mother dressed in overalls, freckled and beaming ; mother waving from the running board of a model T Ford on a family vacation to Colorado; walking down the aisle arm in arm with my father; holding my big brother, me, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren; mother [gliding] by on the ballroom floor with my father; mother [in] the kitchen where she has cooked and baked Around the table all old grudges have been forgiven, understanding has come to past harsh judgments. [And quoting writer Mary Pipher] In that great sea of memory, time collapses and we all are together in that place where time doesnt exist Our grandchildren go crawling onto the laps of our great-grandparents. We all at the table.

Mother died in September and today would have been her 82^nd birthday. I am carrying forward a tradition she started of decorating a birthday cake with photographs of the family. Tonight, and each time the family gathers round the table, how can she not be among us?

This, for me, is resurrection. It can happen at Easter, and on any other day. May we, each one of us, know the resurrection of those we have loved most dearly. May we walk in the ways of love, that we may be resurrected in the lives of our loved ones who come afterall that was lost, restored; all that was old, made new.

And if we wish to see Jesus, may Emmaus happen for us, this day and always.