Easter 3

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Easter 3
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: May 4, 2003


TEXT: Luke 24:36b-48 - “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” . . . . . They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

ISSUE: The passage intends to emphasize the reality of the resurrection of Jesus. He is touchable, and he is no ghost. He eats. He is the common sense fulfillment of the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. It seems that a new alternative reality is being revealed. Jesus after his resurrection is a mystical experience in that he can materialize and de-materialize. Yet he is a commanding present reality. The passage calls the world to an alternative reality where the presence of God is at work reconciling the world.
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How real is the resurrection of Jesus? The resurrection and some of the miracles of the Christian Scriptures are often stumbling blocks for many people in our time. They find it hard to accept the reality of the Jesus Story, and have difficulty finding the meaning in the story. My belief is that we must first discover the meaning in the Christian Scriptures and then we become awakened to their reality, and it is a reality often different from the way the world sees reality. It is an alternative reality. (See John Pilch)
In the scripture reading from Luke we have another story of a resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples. Again it is in the Jerusalem tradition of appearances. Not unlike the Johannine story, Jesus appears to some of his disciples and says to them: “Peace be with you.” The pax is the normal greeting of the period meaning may all the goodness of God be with you. In this story there is an immediate recognition of Jesus. But, again, the disciples are terrified and startled. They think that they are seeing a ghost, or a spirit. It is an apparition they think. But Luke wants his community to understand that the resurrection of Jesus is not merely a vision, but that the resurrection of Jesus has substance to it; it is not merely ghostly or spooky. Jesus says to the disciples, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” The disciples are still not terribly convinced, so Jesus asks for something to eat. They give him a piece of broiled fish, which he eats in front of them.” Normally the people and the disciples would not think in terms of a ghost or spirit being able to eat food. Luke is telling this story to emphasize the reality of Jesus’ presence with his disciples.
For most of us, as for them, I suppose, it was still very mysterious. Jesus seems to materialize and de-materialize at will. Granted this is likened to a spirit of ghost. Yet on the other hand there is that seeing, recognizing, touching, feeling, and watching the resurrected Lord participate in table fellowship with them, eating fish. It is a very mysterious new kind of reality for them, and for us.
There is still another and most important aspect of this event in Luke. It is a time of teaching, and a summarizing of what has already happened in the ways and teachings of Jesus in his ministry prior to the crucifixion and resurrection, and a summary of some parts of the Hebrew Scriptures: the Torah and ministry of Moses, the psalms, and the prophets. Obviously Jesus, a life long Jew, was steeped in the Mosaic tradition. In the Mosaic tradition, it is Moses, a servant of God who leads his oppressed people out of bondage and slavery in Egypt across the Sea of Reeds (or Red Sea) into a wilderness, which was a time of testing. It is in that experience that the people are given mannah from heaven, and water gushes from a Rock. Ultimately they are given a Promised land of milk and honey, Israel and Judah. For the Jews, the reality for them was that God, the God of wonder amazement and awe, was alive through Moses working through their history to save them from injustices. Jesus too is that reality. His ministry was largely devoted to the salvation of the peasantry and those who were cast down. He intends to raise them up, to call them into a journey that will eventually lead them into The Kingdom that is God’s.
There’s little question that Jesus was very knowledgeable of the Psalms, and his life a ministry is an expression of some of them. “The Lord is my shepherd. (23) He leads me to green pastures. He restores my soul. My cup runneth over. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me.” It means that God is like a good shepherd who is with me, even in very difficult times. John’s Gospel account has the tradition of Jesus as likened to The Good Shepherd, who leads an enormously large group of people up a grassy hill of green pasture to feed them bread and fish. Their souls are fed with a new reality that in and through Jesus Christ, God lives. There are other psalms that speak of the Mighty God of compassion and mercy, which becomes expressed in the ministry of Jesus.
The prophets anticipate a time when God will redeem the foolishness, the idolatry, and the apostasy of his people. The aim of the prophets is to call a nation, which has lost sight of its God back. The prophets often anticipate the coming of God once again in their history, who will be their king and redeemer, their high priest. One of the places that so beautifully spells this out is in the writings of the prophet Isaiah. (Chapter 52:11-53:12) Isaiah saw the hope of Israel in a high priestly like servant, who would be indeed a prince of peace, but who would also not bruise a broken reed nor blow out a dimly burning wick. Rather, the Messianic servant would give his own life for the sins of others, and be the offering that takes away the sins of the world. The servant will redeem God’s people and restore them to a worthiness to approach and be the people of God. When you look at Jesus, what do you see? You see in a clear reality, Jesus Christ offered like the lamb of God upon the altar to be an atonement, an “at-one-ment” for the people of God. It is the King of Love, the Prince of Peace, the Lamb of God, the great high priest, the Messianic hope of the world at work in Jerusalem, in their history. God is at work in Jesus Christ in the history of the human condition, and that’s for real, and for many it is the new reality.
Think of the simple story of Jonah and the Big Fish. Jonah is gobbled up by the Big Fish in his effort to take flight from God’s call to him. He sinks into the depths of the sea, becoming entangled in the seaweed. Yet, the great fish gobbles him up, and in three days, Jonah is spit up on the dry land and commanded to carry on the work of his Lord God. It is a salvation story of how God contends with sinners, the rebellious to restore them to the good.
Think of the great and powerful scriptural lines that come from the Book of Job. Job experiences terrible suffering, and his friends are telling him that it is his fault. He must have done something wrong. He is a terrible sinner, and is accursed by God. But Job says: “I know that my redeemer lives, and though this body be destroyed I shall see God, and He will not be a stranger. Job is assured of the reality of his redemption, which shall come beyond any shadow of a doubt. God is real and with him.
What was the reality, then, for the early Christian Church? What is it that we are being told by Luke’s resurrection story? We are being told that the reality is that God is still working in our history. God in Jesus Christ with all the mystery, awe, the wonder and amazement of God lives, and that the presence of God in Christ and in the world is an incredible reality unlike the world’s minimized realities. God real living presence is much like weeds. You can stamp them out here, but they come up over here. You stamp them out over here, and they come up over there. You cannot ultimately eliminate, destroy, crucify, nor wipe out the love and the salvation of God. The Reality is God is still with us, as mysterious, and as unlikely as that sometimes seems.
We can live with the world’s sense of reality, that human beings are sinners and always will be. We can live with the reality that evil will always persist. That there will always be war, and that there is little hope for the human condition. We can believe ourselves to be a meaningless fluke of nature, wandering forever, and without meaning, through the infinity of the universe. We can live with the reality that only what is seeable, provable, observable, consistent with the laws of the universe is real. Or, we have the choice of living with the alternate reality that God is still working in our history, that the spiritual awesome reality of the compassionate, forgiving, redeeming, renewing restoring love of God is the greater reality that still lives in the reality of the living risen Lord Jesus Christ who dwells with the members of his church that accept the response of our call and our faithful loyalty. It is the reality of that great love expressed in the life, teachings, ministry, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ that is the real hope of the world. “I am with you always even to the ends of the earth,” and we still have table fellowship with him in the Eucharistic feast, feeling and touching, and feeding upon Him.