Third Sunday of Easter: April 22, 2012

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER: April 22, 2012

Rogation Day, Earth Day, New Member Sunday

Luke 24:36-48

Preacher: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!

As I prepared to preach this week, I was reminded of a V.I.P. –a Very Important Pastor—who had a huge impact on my life. Pastor Bob (*not his real name) was the campus chaplain for the United Ministry Center at Oklahoma State University, a joint ministry of Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and the UCC. I got to know Pastor Bob because my church had given me scholarship money to be the “Peace and Justice Intern” at the United Ministry Center…and I took it the money, even though I was most definitely planning to be a world-famous concert pianist. Or, if that didn’t work out, maybe a doctor. Definitely NOT a pastor.

The internship was a great experience, except for one thing: Pastor Bob liked to push my buttons.

It was Pastor Bob who told me that Mary Magdalene was the first apostle, being the first witness to the resurrection and all. I scoffed at this, because I had been going to church my whole life and never once in Sunday school did Mary Magdalene show up on a list of apostles! Later, however, it was this conversation that made me consider a vocation as a pastor myself.

Pastor Bob also gave me a book about icons and spirituality which talked about them as “windows into heaven”. I secretly loved this book! I devoured it…and then vowed never to show it to my grandmother. She, and most other Lutherans I knew, would have considered icons to be far “too Catholic”.  (If you want to see how I feel about icons today, you are invited into my office after worship for a little art show.)

And it was Pastor Bob who told me about some early Christians—well, heretics really, called Gnostics or docetists—who believed that Jesus didn’t really have a physical body, because bodies were matter and matter…was considered to be inherently evil. But if Jesus didn’t have a body, then he couldn’t have died. And if he couldn’t die, he most definitely could never have been resurrected. Yes, there were eyewitness accounts from his disciples and others, but these guys theorized that Jesus only appeared to walk among us. In reality, he just skimmed the surface—not quite touching, but levitating a hair off the ground. Jesus was, in their view, a sort of ancient Criss Angel or David Blaine, performing illusions for the disciples and the crowds. It was all merely figurative: “The Word made flesh”; “This is my body” and, especially, the resurrection.

I don’t remember what prompted this conversation with Pastor Bob about Gnosticism, docetism and heretical views of the resurrection. But I do remember that it made me reconsider what I believed about Easter. I started to read the Bible more carefully. Suddenly, I noticed all the places in Scripture where Jesus seemed less like a superhero or an icon with a halo, and more like a flesh and blood man. This is especially striking in the scenes after the resurrection.

Take the Gospel lesson for this morning, for example. Jesus appears to the disciples once again after being raised. And the disciples, like the Gnostics several centuries later, were having a really hard time believing he could be alive. And who could blame them? It was an unbelievable situation. But Jesus, standing among them, says:

"Don't be upset, and don't let all these doubting questions take over. Look at my hands; look at my feet - it's really me. Touch me. Look me over from head to toe. A ghost doesn't have muscle and bone like this." As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet. They still couldn't believe what they were seeing. It was too much; it seemed too good to be true. They gave him a piece of leftover fish they had cooked. He took it and ate it right before their eyes. (Luke 24, The Message Version)

Jesus, proving that he was truly flesh and blood (rumbling stomach and all!) ate a piece of fish right before their eyes, so that they would be witnesses to his resurrection.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!

We proclaim Christ crucified and risen—and this matters. It matters that we believe Jesus was really, truly raised.  It matters that Jesus walked with real feet on the real earth, both before and after the resurrection.

It matters because Jesus didn’t treat the earth as a dead end, no-stoplight town: a good place to be from but nowhere you’d want to go back to.

It matters because Jesus wasn’t looking for an escape plan from this planet, and neither should we.

The resurrection matters because in the beginning, God made the earth and the sky and the trees and the animals and the people and then she said “It is good!” Amen?

And the real, bodily, earthly resurrection matters on this day, April 22, as the world celebrates Earth Day. There are, of course, many good reasons to care for the earth and all its creatures. We enjoy clean air and water, for one thing. And we might like to live here for a few thousand years longer, too!

But as Christians who proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ, every day is Earth Day. Every day is Earth Day for Christians because Jesus Christ was born of an earthly mother, ate food grown from the earth, knelt and prayed on the earth, got his feet dirty with dust from the earth, and suffered and died on a cross that was planted in the earth.

Above all, every day is Earth Day for Christians because Jesus Christ, son of God, wholly divine and worthy of praise, was raised from the dead to walk the earth again. The resurrection of Jesus sanctifies the earth and makes all of creation undeniably holy and worthy of our care and protection.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!

What does the earthly resurrection of Jesus mean for us today?

It means we are committed to being witnesses of the bodily, earthly resurrection of Jesus.

We are witnesses to the Good News that all matter is good. The earth is good, animals are good, trees are good, and all bodies are good and holy! Amen!

We are witnesses by committing to prayerful care of the earth, from recycling to carpooling to church to choosing electronic church newsletters in lieu of paper. Amen!

We are witnesses when we are good stewards of the resources given to us: sharing our building space with Scouts and PADS and the community choir and HeadStart. We are witnesses when we share land, labor and love to grow food in the Fruits of Faith Garden for the hungry. Amen!

We are witnesses when together with our denomination, the ELCA, we ensure that the whole earth is a safe and healthy place for all people—making malaria history, diggingwells for safe drinking water, walking with the Haitians as they rebuild their country, and resisting violence and oppression wherever it occurs. Amen!

Sisters and brothers, we proclaim Christ, crucified and risen. He’s not a ghost! He’s no illusionist! He is alive…and thus it was written, that the Messiah was 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 the whole earth. You are witnesses of all these things. Amen!