Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
April 26, 2009
Luke 24:36b-48

Christ Among Us

After the resurrection, Jesus is everywhere.  For 40 days – a Biblical number meaning only that it’s a long time, like 40 days in Lent – Jesus keeps showing up in the flesh:  In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus meets not only the women at the empty tomb but also the disciples later in Galilee.  Luke reports, in one of the most familiar and beloved of the appearance stories, that Jesus appears as a stranger to two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  Later that evening, Luke reports that Jesus also appears to the disciples gathered in Jerusalem. 

And John’s gospel reports no less than four appearances:  First at the tomb to Mary Magdalene, Then to the disciples that same day, hiding out for fear of the authorities.  And a week later to Thomas the doubter – the gospel lesson for last Sunday.  And finally, some time later, in Galilee, by the sea where the disciples have gone back to fishing.  Jesus meets them on the shore where he has made them a breakfast of bread and fish.  

All of these stories share common characteristics:  (1) The disciples are startled and terrified, (2) They doubt it’s really Jesus, (3) Jesus shows them proof and they believe, (4) Jesus tells them that his suffering and death and resurrection were foretold in scripture and are now fulfilled.  (5) And finally, the disciples – and by extension you and me – are commissioned to take the good news out into the world as the appropriate response to the resurrection.

How can we scientific-age folks understand these too-good-to-be-true stories?  Probably not as history, recorded as we would understand it today.  For whether or not you think Jesus’ appearances – let alone the resurrection – really happened this way is not as important as the question, what do they mean?        

We know that the gospels weren’t written until decades after the first Easter, and they reflect what Jesus meant, not only to the early followers, but also to Christians today who experience Jesus as a living reality.   Whether or not they are factual, doesn’t mean that they are not true as parables.  The bottom line is that, in the resurrection, God has vindicated Jesus – in the face of the establishment that killed him.

Now, it occurs to me to ask, if you or I had been betrayed and demeaned, stripped and beaten, tormented and tortured to death – and we could come back and make sudden appearances – to whom would we want to make ourselves known?  How about Pilate?  Or those chief priests and elders who turned us over?  Wouldn’t we want to come back and scare the “bejesus” out of someone?  Wouldn’t we want to show them a thing or two about who is in charge of this world?  Wouldn’t we like to lean back in our easy chairs, flip the channel to CNN, and watch the Kingdom of God be ushered in with one glorious show of power?  But no, Jesus chooses a woman, of all people, his pals the disciples, and two nobodies on the road to Emmaus.

The story reminds me of poet Adrienne Rich and her profound question, “With whom do you believe your lot is cast?” 1 It’s clear that Jesus’ lot is cast with us.  Do we return the compliment?  With whom is our lot cast?  I imagine that we church folks would like to think it is cast with Jesus.  But, if it is, we too are choosing the way of the cross – or at least a rethinking of how we live our lives – to bring about the Kingdom of God. 

The redemption of the world is to be a partnership enterprise, a divine-human collaboration, one in which we and God work together to bring sight to the blind, release to the prisoner, food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, peace to the nations.  It’s clear by now that God will not upstage us. St. Augustine puts it this way:  “We without God cannot, and God without us will not.”

Jesus walks with us on the road and reminds us that the prophetic scriptures turn the world upside down – God’s kingdom is for the earth, God’s passion is for justice, God’s end is a transformed world. 

The seeds of the Christian’s work in the world are sown in the resurrection stories in response to the good news of one who saves, sends, and blesses us.  As one commentator notes,

The believer who affirms that the Lord is risen, therefore,
should consider next what it is that the Lord has sent him or her to do.
The uniqueness of the Easter message is that it invariable changes the lives of those who find themselves touched by it. 2

And another commentator makes the point that, Luke reminds us that the risen Christ said, “Look at my wounds,”

and “Do you have anything to eat?” No one can follow this Christ and say that discipleship means being only concerned with “souls” [and can neglect the physical, economic, and political needs of other human beings]. 3

The all too common focus in some traditions that we need be concerned with our personal salvation alone misses a key point of the resurrection – that we are saved in order to be sent to, save and bless others.

Right now, in our midst and in our news, we have examples of contemporary disciples who are examining Jesus’ wounds, sharing bread and fish, walking with Jesus on the road.  Or who are standing in the State House rotunda in robes and stoles to protest human trafficking in Rhode Island and to advocate for legislation to protect women and children caught up in this modern-day slavery. 

At least 300 people – a majority of them people of faith – gathered at the State House last Tuesday to speak on behalf of those too vulnerable and frightened to speak for themselves.  For those of us there, it was truly a joyful resurrection moment!

This Friday, May 1, the American Friends Service Committee is sponsoring a rally for comprehensive immigration reform.  “Rise Together!  Stay Together!” is the title of the rally.  Families that have been torn apart by raids and deportation will speak, as well as people who have been stopped by the police in racial profiling incidents.  I have talked with people have come here to find work because laws were changed in their countries to allow corporate interests to confiscate their farms and force them off their ancestral lands.  I have a friend who is stranded in this country because her visa expired while she was hospitalized.  She is terrified of being picked up by the police and jailed.  Perhaps you too know someone who is afraid to leave home for fear of racial profiling....

Can we make the resurrection happen again and again in and through us?   

And when we here at Edgewood Church collect cereal, peanut butter and canned goods for the hungry, when we write checks from the Ecumenical Fuel Fund to help an elderly person pay an oil bill, when we plan ways to reach out to the community, we are living proof of the resurrection. 

Adrienne Rich must be thinking of people like us when she writes, “I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” 4 Jesus casts his lot with us:   He invites us to be his hands and feet in a violent and heartbroken world.

This is not what we’d like for Easter:  We’d rather be planting seeds in our garden, registering our children for summer camp, making plans for a barbeque with family and friends.  Is Easter then just an interruption?  A rite of spring?  A milestone on the calendar?  Or is it something else to us in the United Church of Christ who declare that Jesus is the Head of the Church?

In his service to the poor, missionary Albert Schweitzer, writes, in the cadence of the last century,

He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside.

He came to those ... who knew Him not.  He speaks to us the same word: “Follow thou me!”, and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time.  He commands.  And to those who obey, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who he is. 5

Easter is not over when the sun has set, when all the Easter eggs have been found, when the Easter hymns have been sung – Easter is just beginning!

The gospel, taken seriously, insists that we be different people after Easter:  That our eyes be opened to strangers in our midst.  That the love of God be exercised in our communities.  That the social order be re-imagined to reflect our scripture’s call for a world where peace and justice reign.                              

If Jesus is to be “Risen Indeed!” he must be risen in us.

May it be so!

Amen.

1. The Spirit of Place, 1990.
2. The Interpreters Bible, Luke and John, p. 490.
3. Fred B. Craddock, “Preaching Through the Christian Year,” p. 247.
4. Natural Resources, 1977.
5. The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 1956.