He's Right Behind Me, Isn't He? Luke 24: 36b-48 Year B, 3rd Sunday of Easter, May 4, 2003 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi So here we are. It's been two short weeks since we peered into the tomb and found it empty. We consumed the Easter eggs the first week after Easter, and by now have eaten or thrown out the remains of the chocolate eggs or bunnies. We only have glimpses of Easter in the rear-view mirror as we ponder the Pentecost pool party. But in our text this morning we meet the risen Jesus once again, surprising his disciples and us, bringing some of Christianity's key theological issues to the fore: humanity, divinity, resurrection, and the power of faith in belief and practice. Each fall, my seminary plays football against the Austin Presbyterian Seminary in what is know as the Polity Bowl. The first year I played, the game got a little out of hand. This was flag football, but the pushing and shoving got excessive, tempers flared, and after one particular play in which a great deal of contact occurred, one of Presbyterian players came up red-faced, fists clinched, and ready to confront the one he considered the offender. So much for the belief that all these soon to be clergy were meek, non-competitive saints. At a cookout party following the game, one of my classmates was telling of this specific incident to others who had missed it. As we always do in such incidences, he minimized his own guilt, exaggerated his role in preventing escalating violence, and embellished the offenses of the other. As he told the story, I noticed the Presbyterian player who had come up swinging making his way toward us. As my friend became more animated and louder, I tried to signal that the person he was talking about stood just behind him. Suddenly, my friend stopped speaking, and asked, "It's him. He's right behind me, isn't he?" Can we not imagine today's scene from the Lukan reading being something like this? The disciples telling of how they had seen Jesus risen from the dead were the two who at first failed to recognize him on the road to Emmaus. So, can we not imagine them embellishing the story, somehow minimizing their failure to recognize him and adding to the sense of drama - as if anything needed to be added? Then, can we not imagine the one telling the story, stopping and asking, "It's Jesus, he's right behind me, isn't he?" The author of Luke comments they were startled and terrified. Once again, those who should be the least taken aback by the resurrection, reveal their inability to fully grasp who this Jesus is and to comprehend all he has done, including being raised from the dead. To eliminate doubt and confusion, Jesus doesn't explain resurrection, but instead encourages them to discover it for themselves. "Look at my hands and feet. Yes, that's right. I did die. A ghost? Are you sure? Touch me. Is that what a ghost feels like? Give me some fish. Do apparitions chew and swallow? It is I. I know you don't understand it; I know you can't believe it, but go ahead. Take a guess at what God has done." He revealed himself to them in a way that changed their lives and sustained them in the trials they themselves experienced. The presence of the risen Lord that led the disciples to see that he had been raised is still the foundation of faith. But we have a problem. How is it that we can be witnesses of something that we've never seen for ourselves? We weren't there. And if being there like the disciples is the only criteria, we've obviously missed the boat by about 20 centuries and we might as well just go home. However, while the Lord's physical hands and feet are no longer present, he is still the Christ risen in the struggling souls of those who, although they have never touched the mark of the nails, have been themselves so touched by him that they believe anyway. Although faded or obtuse, what they have seen of him is at least enough to survive one more day, one day at a time. He also now appears in his resurrection as the pauper, the prisoner, the stranger, the one who on his hands and feet still bears the marks of finitude and human suffering, in every form of human need that the world is free to serve or to ignore. He appears in his resurrection in the ministry of the hands of countless saints who in simple and sincere ministries continues to bear witness to the Lord's living presence. Although he may not appear in our midst to eat broiled fish, his presence is tangible in soup kitchens, around the kitchen table, and around the altar table. As in the first century so now the most convincing proof of the resurrection is the daily testimony of the faithful that the Christ still lives and the work of his kingdom continues. Jesus risen in his body means that our human bodies can carry the very existence of God and can hold the presence of God's spirit. As Jesus' body took on new life through God's power in the giving of the life of Jesus for us, so that we might know we are worth dying for, then through the sacrifice of his body, now risen, we can come to see in our bodies the same possibilities for new life. Our bodies, our selves, can be raised through the resurrection of Christ's body. Yet, we, as did the gathered disciples, have our doubts, our terrors, that question whether the Christ is with us. But the God who has reached out to us since creation also stands among us and invites us to touch his hands and feet through the eyes of a new-born childthe embrace from a friendworship and prayerthe person not like uscovered dish suppers and soup kitchens the straw of the mangerthe offensiveness of the crossthe shock of the empty tombthe table, here, as we drink the wine and eat the bread as we continue to celebrate his presence. The early disciples did not believe in the Resurrection as something they could just proclaim. They had to live it; they had to do the Resurrection. And that is the role that Jesus gives to the disciples and to us in this story - as a people of faith, as Easter People. Belief in the resurrected Lord can't be argued or explained into someone. Even Jesus didn't try that. He knew that the truth had to be seen, had to be touched, had to be experienced in his own flesh and in the living, and if necessary dying, witness of his disciples. And two thousand years later, as ones who have also seen and heard, as ones who live in the glorious tension between being witnesses and bearing witness, we are also called to tell, share and live our faith by reaching out to a friend in a dark place, who finds herself crushed by the weight of the world, unable to see any light on the road that lies ahead; visiting someone in the hospital as we and they watch their life slip away, as we pray together and wait; and by standing at the foot of an open grave, mud on our shoes and tears on our faces, when all we're able to do or say is to point to the one who defeated death, who rose from the tomb to meet us. We are called to give evidence of how the risen Jesus has come into our lives and retold the story of our lives in a way that opened our minds to the truth by inviting others to look into our homes, our families, our friendships, our work, our checkbooks, our daytimers - and find Jesus there. You see, you and I, the church is the continuation of Jesus. We are the Body of Christ. We are Christ's hands and feet, arms and legs, eyes and mouth, and Christ's checkbook. We are the vehicles of the love of Jesus evidenced in the Gospel, for we are his body. It is because of this, in times of darkness, despair, and doubt, someone can still ask, "It's Jesus, he's right behind me, isn't he?"