Full service HERE. Sermon begins around 28:30.
Easter 3B
April 18, 2021
Luke 24:36b-48
INTRODUCTION
There are some patterns of the lectionary, the texts chosen for each Sunday, that are consistent each year. On Easter Sunday, we obviously hear the resurrection story, from a different Gospel each year. On the 2nd Sunday of Easter, we always hear the story of Thomas, and about Jesus breathing his peace upon the disciples. On the 4th Sunday, next week (spoiler alert), we always hear about Jesus as the Good Shepherd. And on this 3rd Sunday of Easter, we always hear a story about Jesus sharing a meal with his disciples, and about how in that sharing of a meal, he is made known to them. Today’s Gospel reading is about what happens right after the wonderful story about the Road to Emmaus. You remember that one? It happens Easter evening, when Jesus walks alongside a couple of disciples, but they don’t recognize him, even as he opens the scriptures to them. When they get to Emmaus, he shares a meal with them, and as he breaks bread, they suddenly realize who he is. No sooner have they figured it out, then Jesus disappears. They rush off to tell the others, and that is what we hear about today. Luke will use many different words to describe their feelings about this stunning turn of events – notice them, and as you picture this strange scene, try to imagine what of those you might have felt, too!
A phrase you will hear in two of our texts today is, “You are witnesses.” A witness, of course, is someone who sees something, and tells others about it. The telling part is important, but you can’t tell something you don’t see. So as you listen, also watch – watch for ways you see Christ, see restoration and transformation, and think about where you are still seeing Christ restore and redeem in your life today. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! Grace to you and peace from our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
In the big family news category: my parents are moving next week from California to Rochester! You can imagine I’m very excited about this. But as with most things, there is also a flip side: them moving here also means they are moving away from my hometown, and the house I grew up in, and all of the people who have known me since I took my first steps. Last week I was able to fly out to California to say goodbye to that special place and the people there, and as beautiful and important as that was, it was and is also bittersweet, to let go of that place that has played such a role in forming me into the person I am today.
So… it was an incredibly emotional week, with all the extremes of emotion present. I laughed and relished and breathed in that fresh mountain air, and I cried, and embraced dear friends, and helped my parents get rid of things, many of which were associated with specific memories. In many ways, it was reminiscent of a grief process – the joy of remembering a loved one, even as the pain and sadness of loss are pressing in.
All of this to say, I am grateful this week for stories like the one we hear today from Luke. Just look at everything the disciples feel all at once: startled, terrified, frightened, doubtful, joyful, disbelieving, wondering. Man! But it’s no wonder their hearts are all over the place – wouldn’t yours be? They have just three days before watched their friend and teacher suffer and die. He was buried, for goodness’ sake, laid in a grave with a stone closing him in. But now, at the point of this story, Easter night, they have begun to hear some rumors about what the women saw that morning, but how could they believe it? In fact, Luke tells us that they thought the women’s story was “rubbish,” an “idle tale.” But then, Jesus appeared to a couple guys while they walked to Emmaus – and they finally recognized him in the breaking of bread. So now these guys, too, have come running to tell the 11 and their companions, shouting, “The Lord has risen indeed!” No sooner have they shared their incredible story about their walk to Emmaus, than Jesus suddenly shows up. They have not even had time to process what might be going on here when Jesus says, “Peace be with you.”
So yeah, I can see why they felt startled and terrified. A man they believed to be dead, whom they watched die a horrible death, was now standing in front of them. That is terrifying, no matter who that person is! And Jesus is all, “What’s the big deal?” about it, asking, “Why are you frightened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” – uh, yeah Jesus! We do think we are seeing a ghost – you’re supposed to be dead!
I do kind of wonder if Jesus was trying to be funny here. Wouldn’t the Son of the All-Knowing God know that this might be a little hard for them to take in? That mere words of peace would not be enough to prepare them for this world-turning reality, nor to calm their shocked hearts?
I don’t know that I’ve ever felt quite what the disciples felt in that moment, but I do know what it is like to be overwhelmed with feelings and thoughts. I think we all do. To a much smaller extent, I felt that in California – extreme highs and lows all at once. I felt it when my children were born, simultaneously flooded with immeasurable joy and fear and exhaustion. We feel it anytime we are on the precipice of a big change – when we are about to lose something that may or may not have been good, but was familiar, and enter into something exciting and new but also fearful in its uncertainty.
When we get in that space, it can indeed overwhelm us, and it can be difficult to get our feet back on the ground. And this is what I truly love about this story. Did you notice that everything we hear about the disciples is about their hearts and minds – joy, wondering, fear, doubt, disbelief. And to all of this swirl of intangibility, everything Jesus offers them is concrete, grounded, earthy, engaging their five senses. “Look at me… touch me and see. I have flesh and bones,” and then my favorite part of all: “Y’all got anything to eat around here?” And he chows down on some broiled tilapia. I can assure you that ghosts cannot eat, so this seals the deal: Jesus really is risen, body and all.
You see, from the very beginning, our God has been incarnational. That is, God is not just this intangible thing that is sort of out there, that we experience in our thoughts and feelings; no, God is interested in bodies, interested enough to become one. God entered this world through a birth canal and nursed at his mother’s breast. He ran around being a kid, and worried his parents by getting lost in Jerusalem. He traveled, and ate, and took people by the hand, and cried with them and laid hands on them to heal them. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he sweat blood, and then suffered pain and wounds, and was nailed to a cross. He died, and he was buried. And on the third day he rose again – his body rose again. Not a ghost, not a mere spirit or soul, not a metaphor. His body, flesh and bones, rose again.
Especially as prone as I am to get lost in my thinking, emotional self, I really need a Savior who cares like this about bodies, about a body like mine, that laughs and cries and worships and weeps, a body that fails and falls, aches, breaks and dies. A body that is broken and scarred, and vulnerable to injury, sickness, injustice and cruelty. I need a Savior that cares about all bodies, even those that are too fat or too skinny, too dark or too fair, bodies that are shot dead at routine traffic stops or in FedEx warehouses, bodies that are beaten or abused, bodies that don’t feel like they match what is on the inside.
I need a Savior who cares about bodies enough to resurrect bodies, who honors physicality and even revels in it, who looks at the damage so often done to human flesh and cares enough that he would declare that those endings we dread are not the end of the story. Indeed, everything that has been wronged, forgotten, and broken will be restored – maybe not in the way we hoped or imagined, maybe not even in this lifetime, but restored in the way that God has hoped and imagined, whether in this earthly life or in eternity.
That is why Jesus’ bodily resurrection matters, still matters to us today. I think sometimes we do get stuck in all those thoughts and emotions, that even our faith gets stuck there and we cannot conceive of a God who cares about these vessels that house our brains and hearts. But when Jesus comes to those overwhelmed disciples, he points them back to the physical, back to his resurrected body. Two things happen when he does this. One is that intangible faith becomes more real to us, something we can touch, something to hold onto. We are given this gift also in the sacraments – water, bread, wine, even the gathered community – physical items to connect us to God. That’s one of the most painful things about this pandemic, is not having had easy access to those physical things that connect us to God, but I assure you – they still bring life, and we will have them soon!
And the other thing that happens when Jesus comes to the disciples is that we see that the stories of our bodies – precious, divine image-bearing, and suffering – do not end here, on this earth. Because we know that our hope is an eternal one. There is hope that these bodies that are broken may still rejoice. But until we reach that eternal hope, while we still walk as yet by faith in these broken and imperfect bodies, in a swirl of intangible emotions, we can rejoice that our Savior knows all about that, and cares about it, enough to come to us in our mess of thoughts and emotions when we cannot always find a foot to stand on, and say, “Touch me and see.” He grounds us, and brings us back to what is concrete, offering us a physical hand to hold – water to wash, bread and fish to eat, a community of faith. Ours is an embodied faith, lived in a community of bodies, centered around the hearing of the life-giving Word.
I am so excited in a couple of weeks to begin worshiping with you physically again, in small groups at first, but hopefully increasing numbers as weeks go by. I can’t wait to share with you the sacrament once again, to share that physical gift of grace, to take Christ’s body into ours. Until then, we continue to pray. Beginning this week, we will be including a prayer each week about our longing for this gift of Christ’s body, in preparation for us to receive it soon. Until then, we can continue to revel in find God’s grace in the nourishing Word, in the community however it can gather, in water reminding us of baptism, and in the assurance of God’s love and care for us, swirling emotions, broken bodies, and all.
Let us pray… Incarnate God, when we are a swirl of thoughts and emotions, give us something to hold onto. We thank you for being bodily present with us, and for caring about both our spiritual and physical brokenness, and we thank you especially for your promise to restore us. In the name of Risen Christ. Amen.
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