NewCreation

Homily for Third Sunday of Easter, Year B

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this the homily for the third Sunday of Easter. And here we are again, a bit like Groundhog Day, back on the same evening as we were last Sunday and the Sunday before: the evening of the first day of the week, the evening of Jesus's resurrection, each time sinking a bit further into what's going on here. You remember that in Luke's version, which is the one we're looking at, the women come to the tomb early, find the body missing, see two men in dazzling clothes, go and tell the disciples, and Peter just saw the empty tomb, nothing else, went home. Later that day two disciples go walking to Emmaus and Jesus comes up alongside them and explains to them everything in the scriptures concerning himself, and later that evening when they invite him into their home they recognize him in the breaking of the bread. After that, they, full of excitement, turn around, go back to Jerusalem, where they find the rest of the disciples — the A team — who told them the Lord has risen and has appeared to Peter. And then they, the disciples from Emmaus, share what had happened on the way. So that's where we are in the beginning of today's Gospel, where the excitement has already grown. The disciples now are in a room in Jerusalem talking about this. And it's an ordinary word for talking, nothing particularly special about talking. And it says Jesus himself stood among them — didn't come in, didn't appear, just, Jesus himself stood among them — and said, "Peace be with you." They were startled and terrified, and the verb of their being terrified takes us straight back to Exodus: "This is what happened on the morning of the third day as the people drew near to Mount Sinai. On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning as well as a thick cloud on the mountain and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled." In the camp trembled — that's the same verb as we have here. And the funny thing is that yes, they get all worked up as if they were at Sinai, but Luke is understating that. That's not what's going on here. It's the un-Sinai, in a certain sense. They thought they were seeing a ghost. Actually, the word is "a spirit" — something from another realm, something that didn't fit into normal experience, normal life, something that was bizarre. If it was a ghost, then it was a sign of the world of revenge, because after all the ghost of Jesus would be coming to say, "Those bastards got me, now you get them for me." But none of that is true. That's not what's going on here at all. Something much more human is going on, and that's the key. He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do Doubts arise in your heart. Well, the word for doubts is more like wonderings, thoughts, internal dialogues. "What's going through your minds?" At first it says, "Why are you frightened?" And this is a key word that's in parallel with the Emmaus story, because if you remember in the Emmaus story, as the two disciples were walking along, Jesus came up and asked them what they were discussing, and it says there that they stood still with their faces downcast. And that was a reference to Pharaoh's butler and baker, who when Joseph came to ask them why they were troubled about their dreams, they stood there with their faces downcast, and Joseph then became the interpreter of their dreams to them — he explained to them everything that had been going on. Well, here, not with the Emmaus disciples, he's saying, "Why are you frightened?" And that's exactly the same verb as Joseph addresses to the butler and the baker in prison: "Why are you frightened?" And it's a sign that what's going to follow is the interpretation, the fuller interpretation, just of the sort that he had given to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. But first, who is the one interpreting? "Look at my hands and my feet, see that it is I myself." With the suggestion that they hadn't really been able to grasp who it was, that it was he. There was something mysterious about the appearance such that it needed pointing out who it really was. "Look at my hands and my feet, see that it is I myself." So first of all, his hands and his feet bore the marks of his recent crucifixion, so he was being identified by his wounds. This is the equivalent of the lamb standing as one slain in the book of the Apocalypse, which is also how John shows Jesus appear in the upper room. So first of all, if you like, it's the wounds that give the identity. But then he says, "Touch me and see, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Now this is not only the living-and-dead quality, but the physicality. This is a body, this is a human being — humans are bodies. There is something good about being a human body; it's going to be able to relax with, enjoy the company of, eat with people. The whole purpose of what Jesus has been through has been to enable our bodies to become dwellers in heaven. And when he 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?" This is this wonderful little — if you like — domestic aside, just to emphasize the sheer bodiliness of this, the ordinary human domestic banality, if you like, of it. And they gave him a piece of broiled fish. Notice that we have two forms of food in the Emmaus account, and in this account, in the Emmaus account, they gave him some bread, which he then took and broke, and here they give him a piece of broiled fish. Please notice that in Luke's Gospel he blesses bread and fish. So this is part of, if you like, the identification that this is the one who has fulfilled all that they had heard and lived with him. And he took it and ate it in their presence. Now not merely the giver but the participator alongside them, being their guest and their brother, if you like. Just before I go on, I want to bring out something about this little reference which says, "while in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering." If I can, I'm going to share my screen with you so that you can see a little chunk here from Isaiah 43:10, because this I think is a passage that is being brought to life by Luke in this section. I'm giving you the translation from the Septuagint rather than from the Hebrew, because it's the translation from the Septuagint to which Luke's references are — to the Septuagint as a rule. "Be ye my witnesses, and I too am a witness, saith the Lord God, and my servant whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe and understand that I am he. Before me there was no other god, and after me there shall be none. I am God, and beside me there is no saviour. I have declared and have saved. I have reproached, and there was no strange god among you. Ye are my witnesses, and I am the Lord God, even from the beginning, and there is none that can deliver out of my hands." Please notice that at the beginning of that passage, "be ye my witnesses, and I too am a witness, saith the Lord God," and "my servant" is referring to himself — "that I have chosen, that ye may know and believe and understand." Know, believe, and understand. What I mean — those three verbs. So it's the knowing, the believing, and the understanding that is being fulfilled here. Hence the disbelieving is the process of them being taken into this new place of understanding. So Isaiah 43:10 is like a fill-in for what's going on here. So after he's eaten with them, then Jesus says to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you." What an incredibly subtle little phrase that is. The suggestion is that he's not saying any new words now. His presence is making alive the words that he already spoke to them — "while I was still with you." That little phrase "while I was still with you" rather suggests that I'm not still with you. There's clearly a genuine difference between how Jesus was while he was teaching up till his execution and what he's saying here. "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. Now please notice the… the sense that what he's doing now is by his presence making available more fully the full sense of everything that he had talked about before. He opens their minds in the same way as with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, as he had opened their eyes. And that was undoing the wrong sort of opening of eyes which Adam and Eve underwent in the garden, because it was because of the serpent that they opened their eyes and knew their shame, if you remember. But here they opened their eyes and saw him for who he really is. So they saw the real Adam for what he really is. And here he opens their minds. First they'd seen him physically; now their minds are to open to understand the Scriptures. This too is a wonderful little reference to the book of Joshua. After Moses has died, the Lord speaks to Joshua and tells Joshua what to do. Excuse me while I find my place. It says this: "The book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth. You shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful" — in your knowing it. That's in the Greek. It's in the knowing. So what Jesus is suggesting here is he's giving them the instructions for reading and understanding the book. "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. And you are witnesses of these things.'" So we get this — luckily in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, our second reading from John — we get the sense of the group working through what it is to become witness to this: that the anointed one is to suffer, to rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name. This, if you like, is what we are being turned into witnesses to. This is the purpose of having our minds opened. This is the purpose of him standing amongst us, showing us his physicality. All of this is to make available for us, as our doubting, troubled, questioning hearts deal with all this, that one has come into our midst who was always going to come into our midst. It is he. He is doing these things, and he will take it forward. And he's inviting us to undergo it beforehand, so that we may be witnesses to it with him. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.