The Third Sunday of Easter --- 19 April 2015

Luke 24:36b-48

36 While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." 37 They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 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." 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and 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." 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 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, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.

"Have you anything here to eat?"

·        This is such a simple question that it hardly seems worth commenting on… if it were said in any other circumstance. It sounds so much like something a traveller might say as they arrived at your house after a long and tiresome trip. It might be something a person recovering from sickness might say as they grew hungry, which I think we’d all agree is a pretty good sign.

·        It sounds like something a person might say during a commercial when watching a movie on the TV, just before they run off to the kitchen to return with food you didn’t even know was there!

·        This simple question has a different reason and a different value this time. Luke tells of one of the risen Jesus’ appearances to the disciples on the evening of the day of the Resurrection. The disciples there – which includes the two who had come freshly from seeing Jesus on the road to Emmaus – were terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost.  He said to them, "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."

·        What makes the difference here is seeing Jesus’ hands and feet along with the final proof: "Have you anything here to eat?"

·        Jesus was not asking because of being hungry after his labours or as part of the recovery from his pain and ordeal or even because he’s a bit ‘snacky.’ He’s showing his disciples that he is really there and that his body is very real. The implied knowledge is that ghosts don’t eat, so if he eats, he’s not a ghost. It is a proof to the disciples that he is resurrected in his body.

·        Our understanding that Jesus was raised bodily from death has quite a few ramifications.

·        The first is that death is not the end; death does not have the final word. That Jesus stands before his disciples shows that death has no hold on him and because of this, death has no complete hold on us.

·        The second is that the body is good as all creation is good. In the book of Genesis, after God creates something, God sees it good. The created world is not something to be avoided. It is just as redeemed from slavery to sin, death, and brokenness as we are. There has always been a strain of the overly-spiritual in some Christians’ way of thinking, as if to say that the body must be downgraded. But this is not so. We do not follow a disembodied Christ, but a Christ resurrected in the body. The goodness of physical creation and of our own human existence is affirmed and blessed in this.

·        Because of this, we are called to be involved in the things of the world, and live our Christian vocation through what we do in the world.

·        The third is that the followers of Christ will have to bear wounds and scars to be like Christ. The service of Baptism reminds us that when we were baptized into Christ, we were baptized into his death. His resurrection shows us a way of being for others, a way that involves the death of our own desires and demands. The lives of all the apostles and of the early disciples shows their dedication to their fellow disciples and to the world at large. It also shows their willingness to bear the wounds of Christ in so many ways, for the way of discipleship is always the way of the Cross.

·        Lastly (at least for our purposes here today), Jesus tells his disciples – ALL of his disciples – that they are to spread the Good News of new life and forgiveness to all the world. "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." This is the mission of the entire church, of every disciple of Jesus Christ, in so many different ways and styles.

·        These last few words at the end of Luke’s Gospel propel the story to Luke’s second book, the Acts of the Apostles where the Good News of Christ is preached all across the Mediterranean basin even to the centre of the world in that age – Rome itself. In the book of Acts, the timid Church becomes a bold proclaimer of all that Jesus did, even to the point of embracing one who had persecuted the church and even preaching the Good News in the centre of the world that opposes the Gospel.

·        Those simple words of Jesus – asking for a piece of cooked fish – and the eating of that morsel that follows has a lot to say to us in this Easter season… about who Jesus is and who we are, what he is and what his grace has made us to be, what he calls us to, and how we can follow him in his mission, that mission which is now ours.