3 Easter – April 14, 2024
Luke 24:36b-48
Last week, we heard about Thomas, his doubts, his questions about the risen Jesus, touching Jesus’ wounds. That was John’s account. This week we hear the story from a slightly different angle, from the writer of Luke.
The disciples huddle together behind locked doors, afraid that the authorities will come after them. They struggle to take in these strange reports of “Jesus sightings” and wonder what it all means. Then, suddenly Jesus is there is their midst, “opening their minds”, and in so doing, sets them free from their fears. And even today, we need this kind of transformation.
Notice that the first way Jesus identifies himself is by his hands and feet. “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see..”
We don’t usually identify each other by our hands and feet. If we’re trying to find a friend or family member in a crowd, we scan faces. We look for the smile, the hair, or the eyes we recognize. We might mark the person’s height, build, or bearing. But hands and feet? How many of our friends even know what our feet look like?
What’s remarkable about Jesus is that he chooses the most revealing aspect of himself to share first. His hands and feet bear unmistakable signs of his crucifixion, his defeat, and his vulnerability. They’re not mended and manicured. His wounds are fresh wounds, still raw and gaping.
This begs the question….what would it be like to lead with our scars, instead of enslaving ourselves to society’s expectations of piety and prettiness? Jesus proved that he was alive and approachable by risking real engagement. Real presence. As in: “Here is how you can recognize me. By my hands and my feet. See? I have scars. I have baggage. I have history. I am alive to pain, just as you are. I am not immune; I am real.”
The paradox of resurrection is that Jesus’s scarred body comforted his disciples. His wounded hands and feet pulled them out of disbelief and into radical, life-altering faith. Let’s not treat this fact lightly, because it testifies to a great mystery. As theologian James Alison puts it, Jesus didn’t simply erase death, he carried death’s “shell” on his living body, rendering his scars a trophy — a sign of life’s ultimate and lasting victory. “What type of life is it,” Alison asks in awe, “that is capable not of canceling death out, which would be to stay on the same level as it, but to include it, making a trophy of it, allowing it to be something that can be shown to others in order to allay their fears?”
Maybe when the world looks at us to see if we are real, to see if the Jesus we love and the faith we profess is truly approachable and trustworthy, they need to see our scars more than our piety. Our vulnerability, not our triumphalism. Wounds aren’t pretty, and no, they don’t tell the whole story of the Christian journey. But the stories they do tell are holy stories. Jesus didn’t hide the bloody and the broken. Neither should we.
There is a fascinating poem entitled Dying from the Cold Within, written by James Patrick Kinney back in the 1960’s and it goes like this:
Dying from the Cold Within
Six humans trapped in happenstance
In dark and bitter cold,
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story’s told.
The first woman held hers back
For of the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.
The next man looking across the way
Saw not one of his church,
And couldn’t bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use,
To warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned,
From the lazy, shiftless poor.
The black man’s face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
The last man of this forlorn group
Did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave,
Was how he played the game.
The logs held tight in death’s still hands
Was proof of human sin,
They didn’t die from the cold without,
They died from the cold within.”
Is this the end of our story? Dying from the cold within? Not sharing our humanity? It wasn’t the end of Jesus’ story. We are surprised. The disciples and the others were surprised, startled, and terrified. Just when we think the story is over, God has something to say. It’s not about us. It has always been about God and continues to be so. It has always been about God’s purposes, aims and agendas for creation—repentance that leads to forgiveness of sins and the wholeness of creation.
There’s a wonderful story about a church custodian’s discovery one Monday morning when he went to clean the sanctuary. Instead of finding the usual fare – forgotten Bibles, umbrellas, bulletins covered with children’s drawings, and torn-up notes the teenagers had passed to each other instead of listening to the sermon – he found something very different indeed.
In a middle pew on the right side of the church lay a discouraged man’s anger towards God. On the back left pew sat a woman’s profound disappointment and fear over an uncertain future. Further down the pew lay a middle-aged father’s feelings of failure. Across the aisle the custodian found a young couple’s lukewarm commitment. On the front row he discovered an old man’s fear of death. In the corner, so small he could barely see it, lay a young person’s sins. On other pews he found jealousy, bitterness, pride, fear and doubt. The custodian was not sure what to with all this – but finally he swept it up – all those wounds, hurts, fears and sins – and threw them away.
My friends, that story is your story and my story. Or if it isn’t, it can be. Dying from the cold within doesn’t have to be the end of the story. Because God has forgiven us and made us his friends and his family, and freed us and given us a new future, we can walk away from all that binds and shackles us. Just walk away. Mother Teresa had rightly said that “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
The story of Easter is a story of embodiment, through and through. It’s a story of hands and feet, scars and hungers, skin and bone. “Touch me and see” is an invitation to live for, and somehow, against all odds. It’s an invitation that is trustworthy. An invitation that endures. For all of us, for all bodies, for all time.
Jesus is among us, in the midst of our fear, frustration, guilt, doubt, anxiety, suspicion, despair, restlessness, despondency and terror. He is not dead. He is real and says to each of us, “Peace be with you”. Do not be afraid. Let’s keep the fire glowing. Let’s share our sticks. Amen.
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