Resurrection
Snakes and Ladders – Rev. David Mundy
1
Peter 1:17-23 Luke
24:13-35
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Do some of you remember the
game called Snakes and Ladders? The answer to this question probably has
a lot to do with age. We are living in the age of sophisticated video games so
many of the board games which used to entertain us are consigned to closets and
cottages. The notion of unfolding a game from its box and searching around for
the tokens or characters to play them seems rather quaint, don’t you think, in
light of what is available today?
Most of us will know the basic
premise of Snakes and Ladders. Start at point A and try to get to point
B, rolling the dice in turn to get there. What makes the game interesting is
the element of chance represented by those snakes and ladders. Land on a square with a ladder and up you go
to a new level –hurray! Land on a snake and –oh no!–
slide back down while your competitors leave you in their dust. Okay, it wasn’t
exactly Grand Theft Auto but it had its own charm.
I did a little research and
discovered that Snakes and Ladders was actually
devised as a tool to teach the moral lessons of life. It had its origins in
That concept of the ascending
and descending perils and rewards of life carried over into the game developed
in
It is obviously a game of life.
The two longest snakes have Temper resulting in Regret, and Indulgence
sliding down to Illness. A little girl kicks a stool in anger and ends
up holding her bruised
foot and a boy stuffs his face and ends up in bed with a sore
stomach. The two ladders which lead to the top row have Confession climbing
to Forgiveness and Penitence to Grace. The forgiven child
is hugged by an understanding adult. This Anglo Saxon game is quite moralistic but the owner of
the board is still singing in the choir today, so something rubbed off!
Don’t you wonder if the first
followers of Jesus figured they must be the tokens in a strange game of Snakes
and Ladders? Not the kind with little moral lessons but one with so many
ups and downs that they are left feeling overwhelmed and in Trouble,
down in the bottom corner of the board.
Life for the disciples was
puzzling, to say the least, as they attempted to follow their charismatic and
enigmatic rabbi who did and taught what no other teacher offered, but was often
hard to comprehend. They saw Jesus ride into
They heard Jesus’ cry from the
cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Then, when the rumours
began to spread that the grave was empty and Jesus was alive again the twelve
and others didn’t know what to make of it all. Was this good news, or just a
cruel hoax?
This is the third week of the
season called Easter, our season of resurrection hope. Have you noticed that
the three gospel passages we have heard each of these weeks actually give us
snapshots of first grief, followed by doubt and then today, confusion about the
resurrection of Jesus? Contrary to what we might imagine, the story of the
empty tomb was not good news right away for the followers of Jesus.
Luke is the only one of the
four gospels which tells us that sometime on Easter day a follower named
Cleopas and another who is not named leave
Yet as they walk together they
begin to realize that the stranger is much wiser about scripture and life with
God than they might have imagined. This guy really knew his bible and he asks
the right question to get them talking about Jesus the prophet and teacher and
about his tragic death so that in the end they tell the story.
Even though as one point “they
stood still, looking sad” he gets them moving forward on their journey,
both physically and spiritually, until he has unfolded the true meaning of
Jesus’ life and death and resurrection. By the time they reach the
How is it going in your game of
Snakes or Ladders? Some people greet others with a hearty “How’s it going
today – are you winning or losing?” Do you feel you are moving forward in a
hopeful way in your life in general and your life in Christ?
Most of get to enjoy those
positive “ladder” events in our lives, the graduations and weddings, the births
and baptisms and all the other celebrations which give us a sense that we are
moving forward and accomplishing goals. It’s human nature to want to move
forward and to feel that we will be rewarded for our efforts. It is also part
of the human condition to experience the setbacks and disappointments, although
it’s hard to be prepared for them when they happen. Isn’t it interesting that
we have the expression “snake bit” to describe those tough circumstances?
Many of you will remember the
One of the toughest blows for
the mom was going to a seminar where a young man of about twenty spoke to a
group of parents. She was encouraged because he was bright and funny and
insightful about his life. He was able to go to college and he had a future in
a way autistic children didn’t a generation ago. Still he admitted that
relationships were difficult and his progress into adulthood was sometimes “one
step forward, two steps back.” She
wondered what was in store for her boys. Many of us who are parents and
grandparents can appreciate that life doesn’t always turn out the way we hope
for our young people, yet we still love them fiercely.
Sometimes our sense of
well-being is deeply affected by our physical state and of course when we are
younger we tend to take good health for granted but as we age this becomes more and more of an issue. A couple of years ago I visited
one of our senior citizens who had been going through a miserable period of one
health problem after another, which involved a lot of surgery. She is a very
positive person but that day in the hospital was not the greatest for her. Her
sense of humour was still intact because she told me she felt that when she
died the funeral home better give the family a discount because so many parts
had been removed. But I could tell she was shaken and when our health is
compromised we can end up asking whether God has abandoned us to fate. I’m
happy to tell you that she is still a member of the congregation and while life
is not perfect, she is still glad to wake up in the morning
There are times when our
spiritual lives get put into neutral and we figure we just aren’t going
anywhere – we are the ones standing still, looking sad, not sure what happened
to Jesus in our lives. We experience our own moments of doubt and confusion
which can stretch into periods of time which become the “dark nights of the
soul,” to use the term of the medieval mystics.
Thank God for the affirmation
in all of these Easter stories that while the grief and doubt and confusion
which are inevitably a part of life can set us back they
don’t have the final say.
Christ comes alongside us and
offers the words of comfort and of challenge. Our lives are not a game of
chance, not just a roll of the dice, even though we can’t predict what is ahead
for us. We are people of promise, a promise of new and abundant life in Christ
which can be as fresh and real on this little Easter as on that first Easter
Sunday.
There probably isn’t a person
here this morning who doesn’t have some deep regret in
life. Some of us may feel that life has been unfair or we may be fearful about
the future. Despite this, despite all our ups and downs we can reach our
destination in our travels with the living Christ. We will get there, not in
competition, but in loving support of one another.
In the story we heard today,
Jesus followers do eventually arrive in Emmaus. They get heartburn first, then eat! As bread is broken the Risen One is revealed to
them and they say to one another “we knew it was him all along!” Then they go
and tell the others the Good News. There is a magnificent painting of the Supper
at Emmaus in the National Gallery in
But he painted sublime images
of biblical stories including the supper at Emmaus. Caravaggio’s pictures would
often include real people who looked as though they had been pulled off the
street to sit for his work. As real people we will get to where we need to go,
not because we are particularly virtuous or have achieved moral perfection but
because we are loved and redeemed in Christ who encourages us to carry on in
the journey.
In the game of resurrection Snakes
and Ladders we are all winners. We can thank God for new life in Christ. We
will go and live the Good News of Easter.