36While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood
among them and said to them, Peace be with
you.
37They were startled and terrified, and thought
that they were seeing a ghost. 38He said to them,
Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in
your hearts? 39Look 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.
40And when he had said
this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41While in
their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to
them, Have you anything here to
eat?
42They gave him a piece of broiled
fish, 43and he took it and ate in their presence.
44 Then he said to them, These are my
words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that
everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and
the psalms must be fulfilled.
45Then he opened their
minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to
them, Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to
suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and
that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his
name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are
witnesses of these things.
The passage for this week is is Luke's story of what happened on that first Easter evening and it's the third story that gets told in this particular chapter of Luke. Now, I'm going to break down the other two real quickly so that we can have some context for what happens in our passage for the day. The first story that's told in the chapter is about the women: finding the empty tomb, remembering what Jesus said about being raised from the dead, and trying to share the good news with the disciples. The disciples heard their story and decided that it sounded like nonsense. So they didn't believe. The second story is about two believers who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus. They knew Jesus before he was executed, but they didn't recognize him on that day… until they sat down to the evening meal and he broke bread with them… their eyes were opened and they saw Jesus… and in the same sentence, Jesus disappeared. Now, when we pick up today's reading, the disciples were talking about the road to Emmaus story. Presumably they were trying to decide whether to believe the story of the two who claimed to have walked most of the day with Jesus. Remember they had already decided the women's story sounded like nonsense. But as they were in the midst of their deliberations, Jesus appeared to them… There was no question who was standing there, they only questioned whether it was reality.
From the women's story, we get the picture of a missing Jesus… He wasn't lying in the tomb where he was supposed to be. From the story of the road to Emmaus we get a picture of a mysterious presence who is known but not recognized, who disappears as quickly as he's found. And in both of those stories we get a picture of disciples who are very rational. They hear something they may want to believe, but it's too big of a leap. How can someone who was hung on a cross and laid in a tomb be alive… either, up and about in an unknown place, or as some mysterious, quasi-recognizable presence…
But in our passage, Luke goes to great lengths to assure the disciples, and also us as the people who hear the gospel, that this is no ghost. This is no illusion. It's really Jesus standing there. Look at my hands and feet, he said. Touch me and see; a ghost doesn't have flesh and bones; I do. Jesus even eats with the disciples… or rather, he eats while they sit there stunned: trying to get a handle on what's happening.
When you take these stories together, Luke does a masterful job of communicating the truth of the resurrection. The risen Christ may be outside of our understanding but he is real. It's the same Jesus, but in a different form. It's the same person the disciples dedicated their lives to following, with a different picture of what life could be. It's the same one they knew, but now they didn't know what to expect. The one they thought was the messiah was killed. But now the categories they'd always known didn't work because he was also standing in front of them as flesh and blood, talking, touching, eating.
It's amazing what happens when we have an experience that challenges our preconceived categories. Last week, at the confirmation luncheon, I heard about a YouTube video of a segment of a show called Britain's Got Talent. It's sort of the British version of American Idol. This woman, named Susan Boyle, walked out onto the stage and she didn't exactly have the typical pop-star look. Not really the category of person you'd expect on one of these shows. In her intro with the judges, she told them that she was 47 years old and unemployed. She came from a little town in Scotland… when the head judge joked it's a big town then, she thought for a moment and said it's a collection of villages really… She said she wanted to be a musical star, and the only thing that held her back is that she never got the chance. As the cameras panned the crowd, it was obvious that they weren't going to give her a chance. She was hardly worth their time… except maybe for a good laugh. But then she started to sing and there was an almost instantaneous transformation that happened in the crowd. Within moments they were on their feet, their hearts moved. It was moving for me to watch. It didn't seem to go together, the reality TV show; the 47 year old, unemployed woman; the angelic voice. The categories that the crowd knew didn't work anymore… and you know what happened? Susan left the stage the same person who walked out there, one step closer to claiming her dream of being a star in the music world. But the crowd, the people who heard her sing, underwent a transformation because they now had eyes to see the beauty that they weren't able to see before… and apparently it was enough to make them want to tell people about it. Susan is the buzz online and in the media. People started talking. People started paying attention. And it's everywhere. Her videos on YouTube have been viewed more than 100 million times. The Washington Post has done a story on her… She's the most searched for name on the New York Times website. She's going to have a movie made about her. I actually don't know much about the Susan Boyle story, but I know that it started because she didn't fit into the categories people expected.
When something affects us or challenges our thinking, it changes us. As Jesus stood with the disciples that evening, our passage tells us that he opened their disciples' minds so that they could understand the scriptures. He called them witnesses of the life, the death and now also the resurrection of the Messiah. And though he didn't use the imperative, he was clear when he told them to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. And instead of hiding out in their rooms, they did proclaim it. It seems like our actions are always based on experience; and their ability to witness depended on their encounter with the risen Christ.
What had before been a centripetal faith, meaning that everyone who believed was drawn toward Jerusalem as the center of the world because it was the place where the temple stood, and therefore the place where God lived… now it was to be a centrifugal faith… God wasn't bound by the temple. God wasn't bound by the tomb. God could walk unrecognized with people most of the day, or God could stand as flesh and blood, talking, touching, eating with the disciples. The rules had changed, Jesus didn't fit the preconceived categories… and the disciples were to be witnesses, carrying the message, carrying the story out from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
In some regards we see the fruit of the disciple's mission which started so long ago here in our sanctuary today as we're about to confirm these four young men. Robbie, Alex, Conor and Thomas are the most recent in our community who have said yes I'm ready. I've heard the story. I'm ready to be a part of it and I'm ready to pass it on. It's a wonderful thing that a few of them have started asking about how they might be able to serve in this community and one's even been asking how he can get involved in teaching the younger kids. They already want to be a part of sharing the story.
That's the commission Jesus gave to his disciples and by extension
it's a commission he gives us… you are witnesses of these things!
Tell the story… not as hearsay, not as second-hand knowledge, but
out of experience of the difference faith has made in our lives…
the difference relationship with God has made in our lives. We're
asked to tell the story with words when and if we can, but also we're asked to witness to the love of Christ simply by the way we act
and by the way we live. As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, When the
world looks around for the risen Christ, when they want to know what
that means, it's us they look at. Not our pretty faces and not our
sincere eyes, but our hands and feet–what we have done with them and
where we have gone with them.
And the beautiful thing is that it's not only a commission; it's also a blessing. When we live as a witness, going out from the center, sharing the story, serving in grand or small ways… when we live as witnesses, our eyes are opened, we see the way God works in the world and we come to know the risen Christ even better… Yes God did a totally new thing, in the resurrection when Jesus stood in front of the disciples and stood outside their categories of understanding, but God didn't stop there. God is still doing something new each time we experience the risen Christ in our lives. That experience informs the story we have to tell… and the witness overflows because when we know the story, we're drawn to live the story, to tell the story to share the story. It's a positive feedback loop… a self reinforcing cycle…not only a commission but a blessing… You have witnessed these things, now go be a witness. Amen.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland on April 26, 2009 at the United Parish of Bowie.
© 2009 Daniel Holland
