Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter and video of Service at St. Luke, Rensselaer, IN
2024 Easter 3 Luke 24:36-49
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
O Lord our God let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.
Without fail, whenever angels appeared before people in the Old and New Testaments, the very first thing they say is “Do not be afraid.” I imagine that kind of greeting is necessary. Who really expects an angel to appear before them? People are just going about their business and then this extraordinary being is there talking to them. The things they say are life changing. So, if it isn’t the appearance of the angel that frightens them, the message certainly will.
The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus weren’t expected either. The disciples were too grief stricken and confused to expect anything. They lost their friend and leader. Any hopes of Jesus being the kind of Christ who will lead the fight to expel the Roman Empire is dashed.
While all of us would not mind one bit if Jesus appeared before us and gave us some encouragement, that certainly wasn’t the case for the disciples. They are too focused on their loss to hope for that. Amid the turmoil they just endured, no one remembered that Jesus had said the Son of Man will be betrayed, suffer, die, and rise again on the third day.
The subsequent generations of disciples are far more familiar with all of Jesus’ predictions. We may have selective hearing and memory about many things that God says to us, but not about what comes after the cross. Every year, when we go through Holy Week, we already know how the story ends. Our shame, our sorrow, and our grief are tempered by the knowledge that Jesus rises from the dead sometime after the sun goes down on Saturday night. We have the blessing of growing up with the announcement that Jesus died on the cross for us and rose from the dead on the third day. But that is obviously not the case for the disciples. They needed to hear Jesus’ version of “Do not be afraid.”
Jesus knows that his greeting of “Peace be with you” is neither going to calm their startled and frightened minds, nor convince them that he is the same Jesus that ate the Passover meal with them. But, he has to start somewhere. So, why not a traditional Jewish greeting? “Peace be with you.” I am certain that he did not get a “and also with you” returned to him.
Jesus is resurrected. He is different, yet the same. One of the ways in which the glorified Jesus is different is that he is no longer subject to the limitations of time and space. Jesus’ humanity no longer interferes with the omnipresence that he enjoyed as the co-eternal Son of God before the Incarnation. But, there is also a continuity of his appearance and substance. This is the same Jesus who the disciples have traveled the country with for the last 3 and half years. So, Jesus provides for them four ways to verify that he is real. Look, touch, observe behavior, and then come to a true understanding.
First, Look. Look carefully. Look at the wounds. “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.” These are the wounds of the crucified Jesus.
Second, touch. He has flesh. He has bones. He has human form and structure. He invites them, “Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as see that I have.”
Third, observe normal human behavior. Living humans need to eat. We also tend to eat in one another’s company. Despite the fact that Jesus is also omniscient, he asks a perfectly normal question of his friends who are too astonished to offer him basic hospitality. “Have you anything here to eat?” So, Jesus joins them for a meal. He eats the fish they have on hand. I would like to think that in the course of this meal, a semblance of conversation and jocularity was restored. Peace truly was coming upon the disciples by now.
Fourth, they are on the road to coming to a true understanding of who Jesus is. It is time to clear away the false hopes and expectations from the minds of the disciples.
It is my experience that we learn best when we are content and at peace. When our minds and hearts are settled, words can be heard, new lessons can be absorbed, and they take root. Then, as the peace that Jesus gives them settles into them, he offers a comprehensive explanation of who he truly is. He took them through the Scriptures and showed them where Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms spoke of him.
I have heard over the years how certain contemporary generations lack a meta-narrative. Christian teachers lament how kids these days lack a sense of where they are in history. Not only in American history, but world and spiritual history.
When Jesus opened the minds of the disciples to understand the Scriptures, he gave them a meta-narrative. They already had one as Abraham’s children. God created the world in seven days. Adam and Eve ruined their life in Paradise. God established his covenant with Abraham. Moses led Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Moses gave them the law.
Jesus proceeds to add to the meta-narrative. He explains his presence among them so that when they go forth into the world, they can explain to Jew and Gentile the bigger picture of how God saved the whole world through the cross of Christ.
Jesus opens their minds.
Jesus is the one promised in Genesis 3:15. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Through his suffering and death on the cross, Jesus crushed the head of the serpent.
Shortly after his baptism, Jesus returned home. In the synagogue he read from Isaiah 61. He did all that Isaiah said of him. He brought good news to the oppressed; released those imprisoned by demons and sickness. He freed all humanity through the cross and resurrection.
In the night before the great Exodus, the first Passover lamb was slain and eaten as death passed over those who had the blood of the lamb on their door posts. Jesus is the final Passover lamb. His blood is now posted along our inner door posts; given to us at our baptism.
Not only is Jesus the final Passover lamb, he is also the suffering servant foretold in Isaiah 53. “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” By his stripes from the whipping of the soldiers, to the coarseness of the cross, the suffering servant, our Lord Jesus, heals us.
Psalm 2 speaks of Jesus’s divine sonship. He is God’s only Son. “The Lord said to me, You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” The Father’s affirmation at Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration was foretold in Psalm 2.
Psalm 22, 31, and 69 were echoed during Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus is the abandoned one who suffers for our sins. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus prayed. At the foot of the cross, Ps 22:18 was fulfilled as the soldiers divided among themselves his clothes.
Psalm 110 speaks of Jesus’ enduring role as our priest who not only sacrifices himself for us, but is raised and ascends into heaven to pray for us. “The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’”
These are the kinds of things that Jesus spoke of when he opened up the minds of his disciples. He added to the meta-narrative as he explained to them how to understand what the Scriptures say about him as the Christ. I am certain that during his 40 days of teaching the disciples, he had the pleasure of repeating himself regularly until they got it.
Once they got it, and the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost, then they went forth into the world sharing God’s good news. The peace of Christ was with them always.
For us, we are not so shocked by the resurrection because we have heard before. But we do need guidance on how to live as a people who are marked and shaped by the cross and resurrection of Christ. How then do we live and work and raise our families as people who are convinced that Jesus is the Christ and that his salvation comes by way of the cross and resurrection?
The same pattern that Jesus provided for the disciples becomes our pattern. First, we do this together. We assemble regularly. When we do, Jesus is in our midst. We read the Word. We receive the sacraments. Where the Word and Sacraments are, there is God’s grace and Christ.
Second, we look at the symbols in our worship space. We have ever before us, the Baptismal font, the Altar, the cross, the Word. We see the signs of his wounds when we look at the cross. We touch and receive our Lord sacramentally in the water of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Third, we learn the language of prayer that the Lord has given us in Scripture. The liturgy, the hymns, the prayers, come out of God’s Word. Through the liturgy we learn to pray, we learn to confess our sins, we learn to give and receive forgiveness, we confess our faith as the faith of the church.
To be a people marked and shaped by the cross and resurrection of Christ is to be grounded in God’s grace. In the perpetual threat of a culture of lies, deception, violence, and death, we live with the hope that only Christ’s cross and resurrection gives us. For the peace of Christ is with us.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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