Even Us
Easter 3b, Luke 24:36b-48 (April 19, 2015)
Confused – disappointed – disheartened.
Maybe we can identify with those earliest disciples. Maybe there are times when we have felt that we have been giving it our all – you know at work, at home, in our marriages, with our kids – even working at our own health. Then, somehow the bottom falls out. We don't "get" what we were expecting. Work becomes harder and harder – we can only run so fast. The kids don't appreciate all that we are attempting to do. Sometimes not even our spouse does. And just when we were getting our eating or exercising in order – something else occurs that disrupts us beyond belief. There are only so many hours in the day. There is only so much one person can do. Sometimes the one or ones that we had really counted on, that we thought were reliable, let us down.
Who can blame those disciples for being confused, disappointed, even disheartened. They had invested three years of their lives following Jesus. Three years of hoping against hope for incredible change. They had gotten glimpses of it. Jesus miraculously fed and touched people, people who before he drew near to them were famished, people whom others treated as untouchable. Truth be told, sometimes the disciples own hearts and minds were lit up, seemingly on fire as Jesus spoke and acted. Who knows what might come next?
But then "it" happened. Jesus was arrested, tried and ..... EXECUTED! They had hoped. Now their hopes are dashed. What they have ended up with is - DEATH. Jesus had died. Let's be realistic. Maybe it's time to just keep on keeping on – go back fishing, you know? That's what they were beginning to think – in the muddy despair of their hearts and minds. Who can blame them for doubting? Actually, who can blame us?
So often, contrary to what Jesus lived and taught - might becomes "right"; violence wins and innocent people die trying to escape poverty, violence. They pay money to pirates to cross a sea but they drown in the process. In our own lives there are times when our deeds are nothing to be proud of. Sometimes our greed, our lust, or other insatiable appetites are given into. Too often this is our story. Nothing seems to have changed even though Jesus came. Finally there is death – one of those two certainties that Benjamin Franklin underlined. So it has been. So, it will be. Despair loudly rings out. . .
But right then, into the middle of their confusion and despair, Jesus appears. Yes, Jesus the One who WAS DEAD. He is with them. They are startled, terrified. This must be a ghost! They wonder if they are losing it. Is the traumatisation of his death now causing them to hallucinate? . . .
Now he speaks to them. "Peace be with you!" Aware of their doubts, of their being startled, their terror, he invites them into his reality. "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 I have." Then he eats with them. After eating, he teaches them, opening their mind to the scriptures. God has a dream to move people from death into life, from brokenness with God and with each other to new beginnings, harmony involving honest, intimate relationships. This is for all people. Those early disciples are to be his witnesses of all these things – to the world, beginning from where they were that day.
Amazing! It is amazing. To our post modern ears, minds and hearts it feels like long ago and far away. We are after all realists. We live in this technological age – with a number of certainties. Ah, how we love certainty, knowing, sometimes even thinking that we are somewhat in control. But then things happen, things over which we have no control. We get sick. We reach our limits. Someone we counted on lets us down, or worse yet betrays us. One or more of those we love die. Confusion, disappointment, despair well up within us. We aren't so far removed from those early disciples.
It can be at any moment, sometimes when we least expect it, sometimes when we most need it, that Jesus appears among us. If he speaks directly, even audibly to us, we too may be startled, even unbelieving. Are we losing it? Or, is it rather, that we who sometimes are lost are being found?
Today Jesus comes to eat with us. He is not a ghost. He comes offering us himself – so that in the midst of our confusion, our anxiety, our exhaustion we can experience that we are not alone, that God is God – that God overcomes death and all evil. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it. I know. But Jesus comes – emptying himself, taking on all the crap of the world, begging us, inviting us, wooing us to trust him.
And then, even though he knows us completely, he calls us just as he did those earliest disciples. "You are witnesses of these things!"
It's kind of scary. No, it's really scary. That our risen Lord would call us to be the bearers of his good and gracious word. We who are not only imperfect, but so often miss his mark of love, forgiveness, generosity, self-sacrifice.
This reminds me of one of my seminary professors, Dr. Buck. Dr. Buck is a man of great faith, humility and incredible intellect and service. About a week before my class graduated he said this to us< " When i think that you will soon be pastors it causes me to pray fervently".
Dr. Buck knew us. He knew our pettiness – our refusal and or inability to listen, to proclaim, to embody Jesus, to discern God's will. But Dr. Buck also knew the One who was and is sending us out.
Dear people in the midst of all that is going on within us, around us, through us, in this world, through this world, Jesus comes to us. Be still. Listen, see, be opened. By God's grace turn to him. Learn again or for the first time that whatever our yoke and burden, He carries it with us. Peace be with you!
It all feels and sometimes appears totally unbelievable. But with God all things are possible. Even things that exceed our confusion, our despair, any and all disappointment. After all Jesus lives and because he lives so too can we!
Be witnesses to these things. Amen.