Luke 24:36-48
There is good reason to be startled. Let your doubts arise in your heart. It makes perfect sense. In fact, it seems to be to be the only logical response. Terror and fear are the only possible reaction when someone who has been dead stands before you and says, “Peace be with you.” How could that not freak you out? Why wouldn’t you think that this must be a ghost? What other conclusion could you have other than the fact that something is terribly wrong? How in the world could you feel anything that even remotely resembles peace?
It would knock the wind out of you as it seems it does to these two disciples. They are mid-sentence explaining what they have seen and heard. “The Lord really has risen,” they were telling each other. Something happened to them when they broke bread with this stranger. They saw who he was. It all became clear. They knew that it wasn’t a stranger, it was their friend. It was their beloved. In the breaking of the bread, they saw that it was Jesus. In the midst of proclaiming their faith, this stranger interrupts. “Peace be with you,” Jesus says before either one can finish their thoughts.
And then, he tells them not to freak out. “It’s really me!” he exclaims. He wants them to know that he’s not a ghost. He asks them to use all of their senses — their eyes, their ears and even their hands — to know beyond any doubt that it really is him. He doesn’t try to explain how it happened or where he has been for the past three days. He asks them to look. He asks them to feel. He asks them to listen.
This is where I get a little lost because I have never seen that. I have never felt that. I have never heard that. What that group of friends experience together behind locked doors is totally outside of my experience. I have never witnessed anything like this so my gut is to reject that it happened. Yes, you heard me right. It’s my gut reaction. I want to see it. I want to feel it. I want to hear it. I want to know it deep within my own body — but it’s never happened to me like this. So, I’m not really sure what to do with the peace that Jesus offers these friends. I am left to wonder: is this peace for me?
It may be the question that you are asking yourself at this very moment. You know what you’re supposed to believe. You know that our faith articulates a certainty that Jesus came back. Christ is risen, but this is not what surprises you. Instead, it feels disconnected from everything that you know. It’s a nice thought. Christ is risen indeed, but how do you know if you haven’t seen it or touched it yourself?
It’s what we all want but in the sacred writings of our shared faith, it’s not something that we are invited to experience with our own eyes, our own ears or even with our own hands. It’s something that only happens to Jesus. It’s not for us to experience here and now. Instead, it’s something that you have to intellectualize when you read about it in some old book that doesn’t make sense half of the time. Of course, my dear friends in Leisurely Lectionary (our Wednesday morning Bible study) will be quick to correct me on this point. They will shake their heads and say, “No. It happened to Lazarus too.” But, they also know my reply. (Well, they will if they remember that that story about Lazarus is in the Gospel of John.) If so, they know that I will tell them, “Not in this gospel.” The story shared in the Gospel of Luke doesn’t bring anyone else back to life as in the Gospel of John. It’s just Jesus in this account. It only happens to him. And so, it’s a totally different story.
Or so it seems.
As I broke bread with one of my best friends this weekend, before I knew I’d be preaching this morning, I was reminded of something I have surely read somewhere in one of those books by John Dominic Crossan or maybe even Rita Brock. When I Googled it, I found my friend’s wisdom actually appeared in a Huffington Post article — which I shared on the church Facebook page. I’m not going to tell you about that article though. I’m going to share what my friend told me. As we broke bread, my friend reminded me that images of the resurrection didn’t appear until around the 7th century. (Remember that Jesus was crucified early in the 1st century.) But, when these images finally did start to appear, these resurrection images never revealed Jesus alone. He is always with friends. He is never by himself. He is always surrounded by his beloved — those that he broke bread with, those that he taught about Moses and the prophets, those that he encouraged when they doubted, those whom he loved. This is the first image that any artist could give to this mysterious event. There wasn’t some shiny Jesus shooting out of the tomb, but the same guy that they had known before everything turned to crap. It’s the same guy that is no longer alone. It’s the same guy that is now surrounded by his friends.
“You are witnesses to these things,” Jesus concludes here in the Gospel of Luke. This isn’t some intellectual feat. This is something that this group of friends has gone through together. It has been hard. They are still a little freaked out — but they have seen something. They have felt something. They have heard something. It may not be the same thing. It could be 13 different accounts as surely as we have 4 different gospel accounts, but it didn’t just happen to Jesus. It happened to each and everyone of them. They are all witnesses to these things.
And though we might like a detailed account of what it is exactly that each of these friends saw and heard, let’s be honest. That’s not what happens in our lives either. Of course we want to know why President Obama isn’t taking the action we think he should. Obviously we want to understand the hate that leads toward any good neighbor to shoot a hooded kid. It goes without saying that we would like to be a fly on the wall of those conversations that encourage war upon women. But, really, that’s only half the story. It’s not just these stories that keep us at a distance.
If we’re really honest, it’s those personal struggles that keep us locked in isolation. It’s those weights we’re carrying that are too terrifying to speak aloud. Those heavy burdens are what prevent us from witnessing to the power of resurrection. It’s that same stone that we’ve been tripping over for far too long — but we’re too afraid to admit how heavy it is. So, we try to make ourselves shiny as we suspect Jesus must have been after the resurrection — rather than welcoming others into our terror and fear.
We create our own art. We don’t draw any one else in. We create self portraits where no one else can witness to our pain. We are so good at this that when we hear Jesus offer words of peace, we can’t help but roll our eyes. Christ may be risen, but we haven’t allowed ourselves to see it, to feel it or even really to hear it. We can’t witness to these things because we have lodged our terror and our fear smack dab where we might actually experience resurrection. I can’t tell you to roll away that stone. I can’t tell you that it will budge easily. I can only tell you that I feel your pain because I have been a witness to these things. You are not alone — but this is the most awesome and most overwhelming claim upon our faith. It may be a big stone. You may have been carrying it around for 33 years — but if you are brave enough to share it with someone else, if you can witness to this terrifying thing, you will find that you have never been alone. It is just as Jesus promises: Your mind will be opened to understand all of the scriptures.