Third Sunday of Easter, Luke 24:36b-48
April 14, 2024
Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman
There’s so much going on in our crazy world that makes us feel startled and terrified. There’s so much that is seemingly frighteningly ghostly. There’s so much going on that causes doubts to arise in our hearts, events and trends that provoke us to try to figure out what on earth is going on.
Think climate change. How off the charts hot might it be in Phoenix this summer? What’s really happening and how soon? Then there’s this year’s presidential election. Both sides are terrified of the outcome. Also, we have deliberate disinformation to wade through all the time. What’s really true and factual? And when will inflation end and some stability return to the economy? How’s Artificial Intelligence going to alter how we live our lives? And on and on. I’m sure you’ve got your own personal lists of what provokes your fear and causes you to wonder what the heck is going on….
Startled. Terrified. Frightened. Doubting. Wondering. This is exactly how Jesus found his disciples when he appeared to them after his resurrection from the dead, as we just heard in today’s gospel reading. They were no doubt struggling to figure out what had gone down in the past few days. Jesus was crucified, he died, and was placed in the tomb. But then his body was gone, and he appeared mysteriously to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and was known to them in the breaking of bread.
Amidst all their conversation about these extraordinary happenings, Jesus appears again, alive, which only turned up the volume on their being startled and frightened, provoking all the more their efforts at trying to figure it all out.
Their best guess, according to Luke, is that they thought they were seeing a ghost when Jesus appeared to them. Because Jesus being found alive again after death was unprecedented. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen.
In his immediate, first response to them, Jesus did not try to reason with the confused disciples. He didn’t try to explain what had happened. No. He simply said, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts [and wonderings] 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.”
Which is to say, Jesus offered the exasperated disciples the comfort of his physical presence. Not too many words, but the invitation to the disciples to see for themselves by touching him and feeling his touch, his real presence.
It’s that physical presence and that touch that made the difference to calm them down, and to transform their bewilderment into joy. They were still, Luke reports, disbelieving and wondering, but joy suddenly filled their hearts upon seeing and touching their risen Lord.
And in that joy was also the grace to begin to move from disbelief to belief, from doubting and trying to figure it all out to simply trusting Jesus, a trust, again, that results from a physical, real presence.
The same things go on when a beloved other appears to us in times of our own being startled and frightened and doubting and confounded. Our loved ones know in those moments that we don’t need words. Rather, we need a hug, the reassurance that they are there with us in the flesh, in person. That’s the kind of experience and encounter that turns down the volume on all of that which troubles us in our crazy world.
Jesus also uses humor here to cut the tension. Luke reports that when the disciples were still disbelieving and wondering even amidst their joy, that’s when Jesus makes a kind of punch line: “Have you anything here to eat?”
As if to say, “What’s all the fuss? These last few days have been tough on me, and I’m hungry. Let’s eat!” So “they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.”
Once the disciples are reassured by Jesus’ physical presence, and they had calmed down, that’s when he could begin to explain to them the events surrounding the cross and the empty tomb. Once they had been settled down, then their hearts and minds were open to being taught.
So it is that Jesus 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.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’” (Luke 24:44-48)
Friends, what Jesus did while he stood among his disciples of old, is in parallel fashion what Jesus does even today when he stands among us in Christian community, we who are the church, Christ’s body in the world today.
When we gather round this table, it’s as if Jesus asks us, “Have you anything here to eat?” That is to say, “do you have any bread? Any wine? Yes?” Then it’s as if Jesus says to us, “let me make myself known to you yet again in the breaking of the bread and sharing the cup.” And thus, we encounter Jesus’ real presence, his physical presence even, alongside and in the bread and the wine.
And then, too, Jesus stands among us when passages from the scriptures are read and when the pastor preaches and when we sing. Through these means, and the Spirit’s energy coursing through the proclamation of the word, Jesus continues even now to open our minds to understand the scriptures.
And when we approach each other for the sharing of the Peace, it’s as if Jesus himself again stands among us and says, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts [and nervous thoughts] arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see….” And in your neighbors’ hands and feet, faces and eyes, in their presence when we shake hands or hug or offer each other a profound bow, our hearts are filled with joy as we encounter the risen Christ in each other.
Jesus also stands among us in the healing ministries of the church when we offer our healing hands and anoint with oil and pray for each other in need seeking God’s healing mercies. And thus, it comes to pass among us as in the report from the book of Acts which we heard today when people experienced Christ’s healing: “And by faith in the name of Jesus, his name itself has made us strong, ones whom we see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given us health in each other’s presence.” (cf. Acts 3:16)
All of this nurtures our faith, our trust, that even amidst things we cannot grasp, and cannot understand, we come to be satisfied with the assurance offered in today’s second reading, such that we don’t have to figure everything out: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when Christ is revealed, we will be like Christ, for we will see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2) In faith, in trust, that’s all the reassurance we ultimately need.
Thus, empowered and encouraged, we claim our calling to be witnesses, martyrs, to all these wonderful things that happen in our midst when Jesus stands among us. And we go to proclaim in word and deed Jesus’ death and resurrection, and engage in ministries that nurture repentance and offer the forgiveness of sins – and this for the sake of all the nations still captive to terror, doubt, and confusion.
For alleluia, Christ has risen. Christ has risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.
