St. Luke 24:36-49
April 15, 2018
Easter 3B
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~
It’s been exactly two weeks since we began to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. And in many of our homes, the feast is fading. Leftover ham and jellybeans have all but disappeared. The Easter lilies have lost their pungent luster. And only a few shelves at CVS still hold half-price chocolate bunnies and peeps. But here in the church, the celebration continues. Here in the church, every Sunday is a “little Easter,” a sacred day when the Risen Christ appears to us as the Scriptures are opened and the bread is broken.
All four of the gospels record the resurrection of Jesus. The final chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all deal with the hard evidence of the resurrection—each with its own unique accents: The open, empty tomb. The folded burial clothes. The Savior’s wounded hands and pierced side. The appearances to the eyewitnesses. The gospel writers are careful to lay out all of the evidence for you—and for the whole world—that this Jesus is the crucified and risen Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Son of God—and He is alive forevermore.
Today we hear from the pen of Saint Luke. And in Luke’s gospel, the fact of Jesus’ resurrection is almost always underscored by a meal. Jesus appeared to two disciples at Emmaus as the meal got underway. He had joined them earlier on the road, but they were prevented from recognizing Him. But they immediately recognized Him in the breaking of the bread at the dinner table. And those two Emmaus disciples immediately rushed back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples what had happened.
Today’s gospel reading picks up as all the disciples are comparing notes on their Easter experiences when, suddenly, Jesus Himself appears in their midst. “Peace be to you” He says. Peace. You heard that same greeting last week in John’s Easter account. “Peace” is now the perfect, post-Easter greeting. It’s how you speak now that the resurrection has come to pass. Death is defeated. The grave can’t hold us. Sin is forgiven. Life is restored. “Peace be to you,” or, as we always say right before we receive Jesus’ body and blood, “The peace of the Lord be with you always. Amen.”
The disciples, of course, are startled and frightened, wondering whether they’re seeing a spirit or an apparition of some kind. But this is no illusion. Jesus sets them straight: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.” Then He invites them, “Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” He’s right, of course. You can’t touch ghosts. Spirits don’t have
Then, just to drive the point home, Jesus asks if they’ve got anything to eat. And gosh, just like in Milwaukee, there’s apparently a fish fry going on. They offer Jesus a piece of that beer-battered cod and He eats it right in front of them. The point is not that fish fries now have religious significance. The point is that ghosts and spirits don’t eat. But people do—living, breathing people with flesh and bones and bodies—they eat. Even after His resurrection, Jesus is still true God and true man—still one of us, forever and ever. The resurrected Christ still has a real body—a touchable body—bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.
This is how we know that our bodies, too, are destined for resurrection. Your body will be raised from the dead. You are more than a soul—more than just a spirit. The bodily resurrection of Jesus means that your body (even with all of its sins, and problems, and flaws) your body is valuable and important. Like the body of Jesus, your body will be raised to life everlasting—the mortal to immortality.
So start recognizing your body as a holy and valuable gift from God. Stop using it for sinful purposes—for immorality and idolatry. Stop seeing the body the way our culture sees the body—as only an instrument for pleasure and entertainment. The body has so little value in our culture. Witness the so-called “transgender” movement to reject the bodies God has created and given, in favor of a self-chosen gender—which always means terrible trauma for the body God has given. God creates us male OR female, and He knows what He’s doing. But we know better apparently. Or think of all the little bodies—the unborn bodies—subjected to trauma and death at the hands of abortionists, paid for with the very tax dollars that many of us are sending off this weekend. It is a silent, state-funded holocaust, right in our own backyards. Lord, have mercy. A body—a human body knit together by God—a body designed for resurrection—a body is a terrible thing to waste.
Today’s gospel not only highlights the body, but also the mind. A mind, too, is a terrible thing to waste. That’s why St. Luke tells us that Jesus opened the minds of His disciples to understand the Scriptures. Doesn’t that strike you a strange? They had witnessed the resurrection. They had been personally instructed by Jesus for three years. They knew their Bibles. And yet, even now, Jesus must open their minds. This tells us that you can know all the facts, but still not get it. You can know the Bible by heart and still not trust that it is for you. We are born closed-minded. Sin shuts our minds into a default mode in which we think we are the gods and that our words and our wishes carry the day. We closed-mindedly think that the world revolves around us and our feelings.
But a mind opened by Christ is freed from the tyranny of feelings and emotions. A mind opened by Jesus means that your mind is open to His promises, open to His forgiveness, open to believe the truth about the resurrection, about your own body, and about the life of the world to come. A mind opened by Jesus means that you understand your baptism as not just a splash of water, but a new birth as a child of God. A mind opened by Jesus understands the Lord’s Supper as so much more than mere bread and wine—but a resurrection appearance of Jesus—in which you can touch and taste and see that the Lord is good. With a mind opened by Jesus you understand that this life isn’t all there is—that Jesus Christ has destroyed death—that the grave is temporary—that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
This is the bottom line today: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. He was seen. He was heard. He was touched. He ate and drank. Best of all, He has opened your mind to believe all this. Our understanding isn’t yet perfect. Our fears haven’t completely disappeared. And that’s why we’re here, again today, on this Third Sunday of Easter, here where repentance and forgiveness of sins is proclaimed in the name of Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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