Luke 24:36b-48
April 26, 2009
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Did you miss Easter this year? Some of you may have been traveling and out of town and never did get the chance to attend Easter worship. Some of you may have had a bad day, perhaps a miserable, depressing day. So while others were out rejoicing on Easter morning, you feel you missed Easter.
It’s not surprising to find this situation in the passage we read in Luke 24. What should have been a joy-filled day, there’s a mixture of surprise and discouragement. Some of Christ’s followers received the news of his resurrection with joy, but others found the report troubling. On the very day of the resurrection, as word of Christ’s presence was sweeping through the community, two downcast disciples of Jesus were walking away from the Holy City, toward Emmaus. They almost missed Easter.
So it always happens that some people miss Easter, even if they have been occupying a pew on Easter Sunday. It happened in Jerusalem even on that first Easter day. It happens here with us, too.
What about you? For whatever reason, did you miss Easter this year? Today is the third Sunday of Easter. So, if you missed Easter for the past two Sundays, you have another chance to see the resurrected Christ today.
Touch Me and See
The events of that Friday left Jesus’ disciples, his closest friends in shock at the brutal, painful and shameful way that Jesus had died on a Roman cross. The only saving grace of the whole experience was that at least his body was allow to be laid in a tomb by his friends instead of left hanging for days to rot in public humiliation, as was standard Roman practice.
Jesus was very clear with his friends that he would be taking a trip down the road toward the cross and the grave. In fact, Jesus had given them his fateful itinerary three times but “they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said” (Luke 18:34).
They were surprised to find the tomb door open, the flat stone of his resting place empty and no indication of Jesus’ whereabouts on Sunday morning. Instead of being missing and presumed dead, Jesus was dead and presumed missing.
It was two angels who told the disciples, “He is not here, but has risen.” And then they reminded the women again of Jesus’ travel plans. The two disciples traveling on the road to Emmaus got the same reminder, only to find that it is the risen Jesus himself who was delivering it.
Now gathered together in Jerusalem, with the anxiety, grief, and wonder of the last three days on their minds, all the disciples and the friends of Jesus tried to sort out the evidence. But then, suddenly, there he was among them saying, “Peace be with you” (Luke 24:36). The disciples thought they were seeing a ghost.
Death is a trip from which no one is supposed to return, so it’s little wonder that the disciples were “frightened” and that even “in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.” But if you missed Easter this year, neither you nor the disciples could miss the fact that Jesus told them to “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39).
Luke makes it clear that this was no projection of imagination or collective fantasy. Jesus said, “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself” (v.39a). The risen Jesus was touchable and even hungry, asking his friends for a little piece of broiled fish. Jesus took the fish and ate it in front of them.
Physical Presence
Today’s lesson insists on the physical presence of Jesus among his disciples. Jesus was not a ghost. He invited them to touch his wounds making it plain that he is flesh and bones. This is the thing that surprised Jesus’ disciples the most—they couldn’t imagine Jesus as a living physical presence again; they thought he was a ghost.
For us to understand the resurrection, we have to understand just how physical it is. Our future with God is not harps and clouds. Rather, it’s bodies and face-to-face meetings and meals together, as in today’s gospel.
Just as the wounds of Jesus’ passion are still visible on his risen body, when we are the body of Christ, we would also have marks of our history of discipleship on our bodies too. Because what happens to us in our bodies matters to God—every wound and wrinkle, every laughter line and disability, every tired hand and foot, is a mark in our flesh of the kind of people we’re becoming. Our bodies tell our stories, they express our identities, and they are the indispensable means of a lifetime of sacrificial discipleship.
Our bodies are not incidental, as the Western tradition has too-often thought. God’s future for us is not disembodied and spiritual only, but physical and concrete. It is imagined in the New Testament as a new heaven and a new earth, with a new body for each of us fully continuous with the body that was ours before death. God created the physical world and our salvation as creatures of earth can’t happen without a physical environment for the saved to occupy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, Discipleship articulated that the church was to establish a physical space for the body of Christ in the world.
We must now ask whether spaces of proclamation and order are already sufficient to describe the visible form of the community of the body of Christ, or whether this community claims yet another space in the world. The answer in the New Testament is unambiguous. It holds that the church-community claims a physical space here on earth not only for its worship and its order but also for the daily life of its members.
Thus, the church exists not solely as a spirituality entity that appeals to the soul, but as a place where our bodies encounter and are transformed by Christ’s presence.
The risen Jesus is portrayed in today’s gospel as wonderfully, physically, recognizable, humanly, alive. We can just imagine what Jesus’ homecoming might have been—full of hugs and warm touches, handshakes and embraces, and perhaps even backslapping each other of welcoming home.
Jesus Commissioning
The resurrection reminds us that our faith is not simply a philosophy. These physical details about Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances offered by Luke are a form of proof, cataloging and foreshadowing the essential message about him that his disciples would carry into the world. When the disciples preached the “good news,” it was more about the pivotal events of Jesus death and resurrection than Jesus’ teachings. The risen Jesus, wiping the crumbs of fish off the table, reminded them that it was not a philosophy they were dealing with, but a real and resurrected person in whose name “repentance and forgiveness” would be proclaimed “to all nations beginning from Jerusalem” (vs. 47).
Later, in the book of Acts, Luke tells us that the disciples did not go around the Roman world setting up Jesus memorial societies or simply repeating his parables. Instead, they insisted that Jesus was alive, that his death and resurrection had ushered in the new age when God would set a fallen world upright, and that they had been witnesses to the fact.
They also understood that, after his ascension, they were to continue to embody his scarred hands and feet, feeding the world hungry for the hope of salvation, wholeness and promise of new life made possible by his sacrificial death and bodily resurrection. They hadn’t seen a ghost or a resuscitated corpse (two of the most accepted ideas of life after death at the time). They had witnessed something utterly new, surprising and overwhelmingly joyful. No matter how bizarre their story seemed to be and no matter how much prevailing powers tried to crush their movement, they continued to be “witnesses” to the reality of Jesus’ physical resurrection.
There in Jerusalem, sometime on that amazing Sunday, Jesus reminded the disciples how his life and ministry, his death and resurrection are what was written in the law of Moses, prophesized by the prophets, and sung by the Psalmist. Now that the scriptures are fulfilled, the message of repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in Christ’s name to all the nations. And since they, the disciples have physically witnessed these things they are now commissioned to proclaim this truth.
Repentance
We tend to think about repentance as a theme during Lent and on Good Friday. But Jesus’ last words to the disciples are to preach repentance and forgiveness. Jesus charges us to continue his ministry of proclaiming repentance and forgiveness today. And we know that we have just as many things to repent on and seek forgiveness for as the people in the first century.
There is an amusing story about a woman who somehow came into ownership of a parrot. Though the parrot had lovely feathers, his beauty was only feather deep. The bird had an extended vocabulary consisting mainly of vulgarities. The woman set out to help the parrot learn appropriate language, and worked daily to train him.
Finally, a day arrived when the parrot began to shout and scream nasty words, louder than ever before—and the woman lost her temper. Grabbing the parrot from his perch, she shook him and told him to be quiet, or else. When the bird continued his tirade, the woman threw him in the freezer. After much thrashing and screaming from the freezer, all was quiet. The woman opened the door, and the parrot walked out, repentant. He apologized for his misbehavior, and promised to change his attitude and his vocabulary.
Then the parrot asked, “What did that turkey do?”
First of all, my apologies to anyone who may own a parrot or another kind of bird. Also, I don’t condone cruelty to animals. But the funny story teaches us that while we may all look beautiful and lovely on the outside, we still have some things in the inside that needs changing. But the main point I want you to see from this story about the parrot is the behavior of the bird owner. She tried to train him daily to become a better bird. She personally, physically, in a face-to-face manner helped the parrot to become repentant and changed his bad vocabulary. That’s what it means to be physical witnesses of the risen Christ.
The Risen Christ steps into the disciples’ confused-struck lives and they are charged to become physical witnesses. The disciples are no longer just followers. No longer just helping Jesus a bit in his ministry. They are given a new task, a great and awesome responsibility—walking in Jesus’ very own steps, charged to go proclaiming repentance and forgiveness in Jesus’ name, to all nations.
Hands and Feet
The 2009 ABC Biennial in Pasadena this June is on the theme, “These Hands…These Feet, I am Sending You.” Did you know that Pastor Lauren is the one who came up with this theme serving on the planning committee? We are the hands and the feet to proclaim the good news of repentance and forgiveness. There is no other if we don’t. Inasmuch as Jesus invited his disciples to “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.” means that we are physical witnesses of Jesus Christ today. We must be as physical as Jesus was to his disciples in Jerusalem.
God has become touchable in his Son, the one who has been raised from the dead. The risen Lord forgives those who misused touch—those who assaulted him violently, those who abandoned him lovelessly. The Easter Lord reclaims the meaning of human contact when he invites his disciples to “touch and see.”
With these hands, we extend a hand of welcome. With these hands, we hold to pray. With these hands, we pass the peace. With these hands, we receive the bread and the cup. With these hands, we sing, “Blest be the tie that binds.” With these feet, we step out to proclaim good news. With these feet, we feed the hungry and give shelter to the homeless. With these feet, we go out to all nations preaching repentance and forgiveness. With these feet, we make footprints for Christ.
If you missed Easter, the Easter good news is that Christ is risen! You can touch and see him for yourself. Now that we have the privilege of seeing Jesus not as a ghost but in his flesh and bones, we have the responsibility to become physical witnesses to carry on the work of Christ, to understand the scriptures, and to spread the word of repentance and forgiveness to all nations.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, we thank you for an empty tomb and a resurrected, living Savior. It is that resurrection power that draws us to worship, for we long to be connected to your Spirit and your creative life in us and in the world. We long to know that our lives matter, that we have ultimate purpose beyond how we perform or what we earn. We long for the courage to respond to you in faith and to trust that when we do as your physical witnesses, transformation in ourselves and the world is possible. We need your Spirit working in and through us just as it worked in and through a group of frightened, disbelieving followers to change their doubt to faith and their fear to boldness. May our encounter with you today proclaim a risen Savior to all the world. Amen.
1 thought on “Physical Witnesses”