Third Sunday of Easter

Sunday, Aril 26, 2009

St. David’s Episcopal Church, DeWitt NY

The Rev. James C. Bresnahan, Interim Rector

“Wounds”

Luke 24:36b-48

While the disciples were telling how they had seen Jesus risen from the dead, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 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 that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you-- that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things."

Where am I? Who am I?

How did I come to be here?

What is this thing called the world?

How did I come into the world?

Why was I not consulted?

And If I am forced to take part in it,

Where is the director?

I want to see him.

Good questions, aren’t they?  They were asked over a hundred and fifty years ago by the philosopher-theologian, Soren Kierkegaard. People of faith know to ask questions.

Soulful-searching questions, like the psalmist asked: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?“ Questions of awe and wonder, like disciples asked: “Who is that that even the wind and sea obey him?”  Painful questions, like the lamentation of captives:  “Have you utterly rejected us, O Lord?  Are you exceedingly angry with us.”  The all knowing God too asks questions: “Adam, where are you?” “Cain, where is your brother, Abel?” Long chapters in the Book of Job are nothing more than questions God asks.

Today, we begin by asking a question of our own and explore how we might answer.

This is the question:

If the risen Christ were to show up here, today, right here, right now, how would you know it?  How would you recognize him among all the people here?

Now we are much too large a group to have an open discussion about our answers.  So, as you think of your answers, I’ll suggest how some might answer. And we can think about it.

Maybe, maybe, we’d recognize the Risen Christ by his long hair or his beard, like in some of those pictures of him. Do you think so?

Anybody here with long hair and a beard? But did Christ really have long hair and a beard?

If not his hair, then would he be the one with a halo around his head, like in all those paintings?  Anyone here with a halo? But halos are artists’ inventions, aren’t they?

How about this for an answer? You’d know it was the Risen Christ if you asked him to change water into wine and he did it.  Or to levitate, and his feet went up off the ground.  Would that convince you it was Jesus?

Well, I’ve seen illusionists and magicians do things inexplicable - like making the Statue of Liberty seemingly disappear, or making a tiger come out of nowhere. I don’t think any of them are Jesus.  And the street magician, what’s his name - I’ve watched him seemingly levitate  - both of his feet came up off the ground simultaneously, without jumping. I can swear I saw it, or thought I did. But that would never convince me that he’s Jesus.

Now, what if someone were to introduce himself and tell us, “I’m the Risen Christ.” Then we’d know he was Jesus, wouldn’t we.

But then I think back some thirty years ago, when someone I was talking with told me he was Jesus. I didn’t believe him.  Probably because our conversation took place within a mental institution where he was a patient.

So how would I know?  How would I really know - and recognize the risen Christ if he showed up?

Today’s Gospel reading, focuses on that question.

The reading tells of an appearance of the Risen Lord. The eleven remaining disciples are gathered. Jesus himself stands among them and says to them, "Peace be with you." They are startled and terrified. A ghost, they think, looking at his face, only a ghost. But then he says to them, “Look at my hands and my feet. Touch me and see. And when he had said this, he shows them his hands and his feet.

Then the dawning comes, then their eyes are opened, then they recognize him –by his hands, by his feet..

What is so significant about hands? What is so revelatory about feet? They bear the wounds of the nails that held him on the cross and caused him to suffer so.  His wounds reveal him as their crucified Lord.

That is a profound theological affirmation – that the risen Christ, Christ alive and with us now, appears still as the wounded one and never as other than the wounded one, and wants to stand among us in solidarity with our wounds.

All of us have been wounded.  All of us bear the scars of wounds, and many of our wounds still fester.

The wounds from growing up anxious in an alcoholic home; the wounds of war, in the flesh and in the mind, of buddies killed, of others one killed; the wounds of grief over a child who died, or sister, brother, mother, father; the wounds of divorce; the wounds of being molested or raped; the wounds of a parish because a priest was untrustworthy; the wounds of never achieving one’s life ambition.

Bearing those wounds, some think that God has turned God’s back on them; some think God has been punishing them; some think there is no God at all.

The message of the Christian Gospel is not, Just don’t think about it; you’ll get over it. Anymore than by not thinking about diabetes or cancer, you will get over that.

The message of the Gospel is that God is not against you but for you; not residing off in space but among us; not here without understanding but as the wounded one who bears the marks of the nails of suffering and death.

Not in running from your wounds will you find God but in prayerful conversation with your wounds, in the courage to look at them, pray about them, talk about them, in the trust that God can and will bring you to a better place.

And for all of us there is this invitation also: to open our eyes and hearts wider to a wounded world – to reach out and touch the wounded hands and feet of Christ in the lives of others who have suffered and suffer still, to be gentle at all times, not knowing what pain others are dealing with, or what burdens they are bearing.

And to come to the Eucharist, knowing that the bread of heaven is not off in space but in your hand, the wounded body of Christ for you and for a suffering world.