The Rev. Keri T. Aubert        April 26, 2009

Acts 3:12-19

Psalm 4

1 John 3:1-7

Luke 24:36b-48

Third Sunday of Easter, Year B, RCL      

In our Gospel reading from Luke, it is still the first Easter Sunday. The day begins at dawn with Mary Magdalene and the other women taking spices to Jesus’ tomb, which they find open and empty. Two angels appear to the women and say, “Why to you look for the living among the dead?” Later that day two disciples are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They are accompanied by a stranger who joins them for a meal. When the stranger blesses and breaks the bread, the disciples recognize him as Jesus, and he vanishes. The two disciples return to Jerusalem where the other followers are gathered. That’s where today’s story picks up.

In today’s story, Jesus appears among those gathered followers. To show that he is not a ghost, he invites them to touch him. He shows them his crucifixion wounds. And then he eats a piece of broiled fish. In this three-fold demonstration, Jesus indicates that he’s not only alive, he’s alive in his regular, just-like-theirs, human body. A body that craves touch. A body that carries scars. A body that requires food. A regular, just-like-ours, human body.

When we hear about bread and fish in the resurrection stories, we might remember an earlier story in Luke, the one in which a crowd of five thousand is fed with five loaves and two fish. In that story, Jesus oversees a miracle that produces enough food for everyone. In today’s story, the miracle is Jesus himself.

The miracle may be Jesus himself, but it’s a miracle that is tastefully understated. Jesus simply shows up. Surely he could have done it up better if he’d wanted to. I can imagine his arrival being announced with a fanfare of heralding trumpets. Or maybe Jesus could have had his own theme song that played every time he appeared, sort of like the Tonight Show. [hum Tonight Show theme song] The theme song would play and Jesus would appear from behind a curtain.

But it’s not the Tonight Show, and that’s not what happens. The disciples are going about their business, and Jesus simply shows up. And he shows up occupying his regular, just-like-ours, human body. A touch-craving, wound-scarred, food-needing, human body. I think this is also how it now works for us: Jesus simply shows up, occupying a regular, just-like-ours, human body. Much like the disciples, the challenge for us is to recognize it. Unfortunately, all too often, we are like the disciples on the road to Emmaus. We’re walking along with Christ but so wrapped up in our own stories that we don’t have a clue. Other times we forget that Christ is present even in struggle and imperfection. And so, in a way, it would be great if Jesus did have a theme song to let us know that he’s there. It would be so much easier. It would save us a lot of mis-steps and embarrassment.

But the thing is, we believe that the risen Christ is to be found in every person. Therefore if Jesus had an introductory theme song, it would be playing all the time. Picture yourself walking down Church Street, and every time you approach another person . . . [hum Tonight Show theme song] And another . . . It would drive us batty [hum Tonight Show theme song], but just imagine how effective it would be as a reminder of our baptismal promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons. All persons in their touch-craving, scar-carrying, food-needing, just-like-Jesus embodied selves. All persons who are saying to us, “Have you anything here to eat?”

In his Easter sermon this year, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams speaks of being asked by interviewers, “Do you know that God exists?” or “How do you know the Christian faith is true?” He says that it’s tempting to respond to such questions by either saying, “That’s my opinion,” or by presenting philosophical arguments and historical evidence. He finds both responses lacking. In contrast, he offers this:

Because of Jesus’ death and rising from the dead, our resurrection has started, and our citizenship in heaven has begun.  There is a hidden seed of glory within us, gradually coming to its fullness.

Resurrection has started.  How do we know?  Not by working it out and adopting it as well-founded opinion, not by deciding that this idea suits us, not by getting all the arguments straight, but because we are dimly aware of something having changed around us.[i] 

Williams goes on to say that this awareness of change compels action: “If we want to commend our faith, we have to show the difference.  The new world has to be visible.”[ii] He ends with this: “When all’s said and done, the call is to every one of us. We need to hear what is so often the question that’s really being asked when people say, ‘How do you know?’ And perhaps the only response that is fully adequate, fully in tune with the biblical witness to the resurrection is to say simply, ‘Are you hungry?  Here is food.’”[iii]

We walk a fine line in Christianity. On one hand, we say that God loves us just as we are. On the other hand, we talk about repentance and change. I believe this to say that God does love us just as we are, but that God also invites us to leave behind what is dead in favor of pursuing what is living. As Williams put it, something has changed around us, and our resurrection has started. In this ongoing resurrection we deepen our relationship with God through our encounter of the living God. One way we encounter the living God is through the risen Christ that we meet in others.

We are given many opportunities to encounter the risen Christ, but it’s awfully easy to miss them. The road to Emmaus winds through our busy lives. But we can learn to pay attention, and we can learn to notice the encounter as it is happening. Maybe it happens with someone here at coffee hour. Maybe it happens with a homeless person we’re serving dinner to at the Salvation Army. The collect for today includes this line, “Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work.” Open our eyes, that we may indeed see Christ in all persons. [hum Tonight Show theme song] No matter who steps out from behind that curtain, it is always Christ, always asking, “Have you anything here to eat?”

If we hesitate to engage, then I suspect our hesitation is mainly about fear, fear that is mainly related to our own feelings of inadequacy. What if I’m not up to it? What if there’s simply too much to do? It can feel like we are trying to feed five thousand with five loaves and two fish. But we might remember these words from Mother Theresa: “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”

The humanity we share with others far outpaces the differences that separate us. To the touch-craving, scar-carrying, food-needing, just-like-Jesus embodied persons surrounding us, we bring only one thing: our own touch-craving, scar-carrying, food-needing, just-like-Jesus embodied self. We may doubt, but Jesus was confident that it would be more than enough.