It was good for Solas to renew our friendship with Maddiston Community Church. Maddiston is a village in the Falkirk area of Scotland’s centrla belt – and we’ve known the folks down there for many years. I went down to Maddiston to speak about the appearance of the risen Christ to the disciples on the road to Emmaus for Solas – and to conclude the church’s series on the book of Luke. You can watch the whole message here.
Maddiston Community Church is the same fellowship that used to be known as Maddiston Evangelical Church. I asked them why they changed their name and they explained that while the term ‘evangelical’ accurately describes their theology, the term is widely misunderstood by folks in the community around them. An extreme example is a man who thought that it meant it was some kind of right-wing American import, with some connection to Donald Trump!
Thanksfully I wasn’t invited to Maddiston to talk about politics, but to talk about the transforming message of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what happened to the two disciples on the Emmaus Road as they trudged wearily home from Jerusalem after the crucifixion. Their hopes were dashed, and their understanding of how the Kingdom of God would arrive, lay in pieces. The very last thing they were expecting was to meet with Jesus – in fact they were going the wrong way completely. In addiiton to that they couldn’t see Jesus, they were dissiluioned with religion, confused about God and their efforts to figure it out themselves had failed. At Maddiston, we looked at the way in which the risen Christ overcame all these problems for the disiples – and how he can do the same for us today.
You can watch the talk in the link above, and read the original story in Luke’s gospel here:
