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Acts 3:12-19, I John 3:1-7, Luke 24:36b-48
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT
The Rev'd W. Lee Shaw
Alleluia Christ is Risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.
A recurring theme in the resurrection appearances is the eating of food. Earlier in Luke we read how Cleopas and his companion knew Jesus in the breaking of the bread. Now, Jesus asks for a piece of broiled fish and eats in front of them. Showing them clearly he is not an apparition, a ghost: He is a resurrected being, a new creation. Even so, Luke describes the scene most clearly in, “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering…”
Does that not also describe us as well much of the time. We take joy in our worship, we pray and say the creeds, sing our hymns of praise, we talk of our relationship with Jesus, we make our communion, we read scriptures, we read religious books and go to Sunday School and EFM and WOW, yet – yet – we still wonder, at times even disbelieving. As the father of the boy to be healed in Mark’s Gospel says, “I believe help my unbelief.”
The temptation I feel is too often not to “help my unbelief” but look over my unbelief. The temptation is to keep Jesus back then, over there, safely at a distance, a shadowy figure of the past to be revered and worshipped: a ghost.
To keep Christ a shadowy historical figure we also discount the validity and necessity of the church, the body of Christ in the world. If we can keep Christ as a figure in the past we can keep the church at a distance, unnecessary, superfluous, over there. But you are the body of Christ in the world. You are the church. I have a high theology of the church for I have a high theology of you, as beloved of God and gifted with graces beyond measure.
Church is one of our most misunderstood and misused words. When I say church I mean you, here gathered; gathered for worship and Christians around the world, for prayer, for ritual, for the Sacraments, for service and for fellowship. It is not just about organization and structure or buildings or how we do church and the elaborateness of our ritual (as they say, high and crazy, low and lazy, broad and hazy) as it is about how we are in relationship with God and with one another in our worship and in our world.
I love the collect we used at the Great Vigil of Easter and is used at all ordinations: “Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery….let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection…”
Those “things” include you and me. We are continually being raised up and being made new through Christ. We are in continual relationship and movement with God in the church. So, is the church perfect? No. It is made up of us: You and me. But it is the body of Christ in the world, it is the vehicle of sacraments of God, and it is the household of faith. We pray continually for its building up and guidance. The church is the outward and visible sign of Christ in the world through our own incarnation, imperfect as it may be; for we are but a shadow of what shall be revealed.
As the body of Christ in the world we gather to share in the breaking of the bread and the prayers. We gather to forgive one another and seek forgiveness for things done and left undone. We gather for fellowship and praise. We gather to serve one another and all God’s children. We gather to be one with Christ, in all of our incarnations and imperfections.
And as the disciples, we gather around a table to share in the feast, be it a piece of broiled fish or bread and wine. We gather together around a table because we know Christ will be made known to us in the breaking of the bread, the sharing of himself with us and the world.
So this Eastertide let us think less about an empty tomb – the where and when of the resurrection – and more of our relationship with Christ and each other. Easter is as much, if not more, about eating and sharing a meal as an empty tomb. As one preacher noted, at the empty tomb we know where resurrection happened. But he continues, “Celebrating Easter by eating means that Jesus could show up, that resurrection could happen, at any table, at every table. We have no way of knowing when, where and how the risen Christ will bring new life. Rather than being confined to one day, or to 50, Jesus' Easter feast continues as one meal leads to another, and tables get larger and larger, and closer and closer together,” (Craig A. Satterlee).
The Easter Feast continues. Alleluia Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.