Witnesses
Luke 24:36b-49
A Sunday School teacher asked her class on the Sunday before Easter if they knew what happened on Easter and why it was so important.
One little girl spoke up saying: “Easter is when the whole family gets together, and you eat turkey and sing about the pilgrims and all that.” “No, that’s not it,” said the teacher.
“I know what Easter is,” a second student responded. “Easter is when you get a tree and decorate it and give gifts to everybody and sing lots of songs.” “No, that’s not it either,” replied the teacher.
Finally a third student spoke up, “Easter is when Jesus was killed, and put in a tomb and left for three days.” “Ah, thank goodness, somebody knows,” the teacher thought to herself.
But then the student went on: “Then everybody gathers at the tomb and waits to see if Jesus comes out, and if he sees his shadow he has to go back inside and we have six more weeks of winter.”
So, if someone asks you, “what is Easter all about,”how do you answer the question? If you don’t know, then “six more weeks of winter” is as good an answer as any other. In today’s world, it is not safe to assume that people already know the story of Easter.
It isn’t safe because we live in a world that has become more materialistic. That simply means that if we can’t touch it, if we can’t use it, or if we can’t benefit materially from it, then we decide it must not be real. That approach means that we live in a world that focuses more on what we can materially gain for ourselves than on what we can sacrifice for others. It means we live in a less-spiritual world.
I know there are a lot of surveys that seem to indicate that most people believe in or practice some form of spirituality, even if they don’t go to worship. But I think that is a problem with surveys – they are based on self-reporting, without any kind of verification. But just because someone reports something on a survey doesn’t necessarily mean it is true. But even if it is true, there can be a problem with verification.
There was a news report a few years ago about an Army veteran named John Crabtree. He was permanently disabled from his wounds during his tour of duty in Vietnam. Because of those injuries incurred in the line of duty,he was receiving benefits from the government. One day, however, he received an official notification from the government that he had died and would no longer be receiving benefits.
Mr. Crabtree wrote the government a letter stating that he was indeed very much alive and would like to continue receiving his benefits. The letter did no good. He then tried calling the appropriate government agencies. The phone calls didn’t change the situation, either. Finally, as a last resort, the veteran contacted a local television station, which ran a human-interest story about his situation.
During the interview, the reporter asked him, “How do you feel about this whole ordeal?” The veteran chuckled and said, “Well, I feel a little frustrated by it. After all, have you ever tried to prove that you’re alive?”
As Easter People, we have been given what many would think is an even tougher assignment -- the world wants us to prove that Jesus is alive!
We have difficulty with that assignment because we tend to make our faith about being good and kind, about being unassuming and long-suffering. We are reluctant to share our joy, afraid that it will either appear sanctimonious to others, or that it will be snatched away from us because we were immodest before God.
Garrison Keillor has talked about this kind of faith in his Prairie Home Companion soliloquies. He said on one occasion, “My people are not Paradise people. We’ve lived in Minnesota all of our lives and it has taken a lot out of us. My people aren’t sure they’ll even like paradise: not sure perfection is all its cracked up to be. My people will arrive in heaven and stand just inside the gate, shuffling around. It’s a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be, they might say. We’ll say, ‘No thank you, we can’t stay for eternity. We’ll just sit and have a few minutes of bliss and then we have to get back!’”
How different this is from the view we have in our reading for today. It takes place just after Jesus appears to the two on the road to Emmaus. After their eyes are opened, and they know it was Jesus who was with them, they run back to Jerusalem to tell the others.
Let me say that again – they ran back to Jerusalem to tell the others. There are a couple of striking things about this. First, Middle Eastern men don’t run. That was part of the scandal in the parable of the prodigal son, that the father ran to meet his son. Second, when they stopped to eat it was already late, which means it was already night fall, the start of a new day. Even so, they ran 7 miles with only the full moon of the Passover to light their way. They ran because they know this is not something that can wait until morning to be shared.
Think about what you would have to see in order to get you to run even a short distance, much less 7 miles in the dark, to tell someone about it. It would have to be something pretty important. It would have to be something beyond what Twitter could convey, or a text message could point to, or even a long detailed email could express. And indeed, what these two had to tell the others was the most important thing to ever happen in history.
So they run 7 miles, in the dark, after a long and tiring day, because they have to find the other disciples and tell them this good news. We can imagine these two disciples sweaty, panting, bent over, yet so excited they are having trouble getting the words out. “We have seen Jesus. We broke bread with him!” And before the other disciples can digest this news, Jesus appears to them.
What happens next is one of the clues we have that Luke was writing his gospel for a Gentile audience, instead of a Jewish audience. Luke tells us that the disciples think Jesus is a ghost, and they are startled and terrified. Jesus assures them that he is not a ghost, and then asks for a piece of fish to eat. And we are supposed to think that eating the fish is the final proof of the resurrection. It is the final proof because we all know that ghosts don’t eat fish.
Well, I checked several commentaries, and they all had the same conclusion – eating fish is proof that Jesus is not a ghost. Even John Wesley in his comments on the Bible thinks that eating fish is about proving Jesus is not a ghost. But I think all these commentaries missed what is going on in this passage, because Luke missed what was going on, as well.
Let’s put on our Bible thinking caps for a moment. It is after the crucifixion. Jesus has been raised from the dead. He has already walked and talked and eaten with two of the disciples, who report to the others that Jesus has been raised from the dead. It’s a neat trick if Jesus is really alive, but how does this news affect the disciples? After all, the Romans and the Jewish leaders still want them dead, and all evidence to the contrary, they are pretty sure if they die they will stay dead.
But before they can come up with an answer about what it means for them, Jesus appears and eats what they have been eating – Jesus shares a meal with them. And now they have their answer!
Throughout the Bible, whenever people eat together, something special happens. Eating together makes all those around the table a family. By eating with the disciples as the Resurrected Lord, Jesus declares that they are now part of God’s eternal family.
Eating together is still a way we become family – whether it is around the dinner table in our homes, around the picnic tables at a family reunion, or around the tables of a church fellowship dinner. From the beginning of the Church, the Biblical witness is that we are the people who break the bread. We are the people who gather at the table of the Lord, and share the sacramental meal together. By this sign, we are made the family of God through Jesus Christ.
But eating together isn’t the only way we can affirm we belong to a family. And in a time when eating together has lost that significance in the larger world, our witness has to help others become part of the family of God through the grace of Jesus Christ.
So, what are some of the identifying characteristics of the family of God in Jesus Christ? Even though Luke missed the significance of eating the fish, I think he got this next part right. Jesus tells his disciples to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in his name to all the nations, as our witness to being part of the family of God.
John Wesley helps us understand what it means to live out our witness, so that it is more than just the words we say. He called it the “character of a Methodist” but it just as easily could have been called the characteristics of God’s family.
Wesley wrote that Christians have the love of God shed abroad in their heart by the Holy Spirit given to them, which makes them happy in God, giving thanks in everything. We belong to the family of God when we are grateful for even the little blessings. We belong to the family of God when we know there is a blessing to be found, even when times get tough.
Christians pray without ceasing. That doesn’t mean that we are always on our knees, or that we are always in our prayer closets, or that we stand on street corners with our hands raised high. It means that we know that God is with us, as close as our next breath, and that we can talk with God at all times.
Christians strive to love our neighbors unconditionally. We don’t look first to see if someone deserves to be loved, because love is not something you can earn. It is simply something that everyone needs.
Christians seek to be pure in heart, seeking only God’s will. And in that purity, we know that what God wills is for every person to be welcomed as a vessel of God’s grace, since this is how Jesus promised to come to us.
Christiansknow that being a member of God’s family means avoiding what God forbids, in obedience to God; doing what God commands, for the glory of God;and doing good unto all people, of every possible kind because everyone is our brother and sister through the grace of Jesus Christ.
Christians know that being part of the family of God is all about loving God and loving our neighbor. When that is the rule of our heart, it is revealed by how we work with others in humility and meekness, without regard for pleasures or ultimate outcomes after the example of Jesus Christ. Because our focus is on others, we are less likely to ask “what’s in it for us?” which then frees us to be used by God however God wants to use us. We can do what God wills for us because we trust God for the final outcome, even if we can’t see how it is going to all work out in the long run, or even in the short run.
Like the two on the road to Emmaus, we are called to run and tell the others in our lives that Jesus Christ has been raised the victor over sin and death. We are to invite them to join us at the Lord’s Table, the sign and sacrament of the family of God, so that they may also know that the gift of God is for all. We are to live our lives as those whose characteristics reveal our kinship with the Risen Lord. If we can do this, the world will know that Easter is not about seeing your shadow, but about no longer living in fear of the shadow of death!
UMH 316 “He Rose”