Jesus said: “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? … Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
“And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. … (then) he said to them, Have you anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.”
It was as if, “eating” was “kind of” a “litmus test.” The resurrection appearances are full of stories about Jesus having table fellowship with others. Breaking bread, making breakfast, eating fish…
Dead bodies do not eat. That is, unless it is a movie about the Zombie Apocalypse.
There is this kind of “cool story” from the “Civil War era of our history.”
Most people do not know that there were two battle’s of Bull Run. While most of us have heard about Bull Run, we think of it as being one battle. It was actually two separate battles…
In the first battle of Bull Run over 460 Union soldiers perished and almost as many Confederate soldiers. In the second battle a year later – an additional 1747 Union soldiers died and 1553 Confederate soldiers.
The battle of Bull Run saw the deaths of over 4100 Americans on our own soil.
At the bloody second Battle of Bull Run a certain Captain Robert Clark and his men – were surrounded by the Confederate forces but refused to surrender. In the terrible battle that ensued…Clark’s entire detachment was overrun.
Listed as “missing in action,” Clark was presumed dead.
When his family was notified, they sent a telegram asking for the return of his body. But Captain Clark was not dead.
Separated from his detachment, Clark had hidden behind enemy lines for three days, and although wounded and hungry, he was able to make his way back to his headquarters in time to deal with his family’s request.
With laconic humor he sent a telegram to his folks that read: Stop. Still have use for the body. Stop. Will bring it back in person. Stop. Your loving son, stop. Robert. Stop!
This ironic footnote from “a terrible war” captures something of “the astonishment,” which must have accompanied the “unexpected appearance” of Jesus “in the midst” of his disciples who clearly thought “he too was forever dead.”
The disciples were more than astonished. They were frightened and almost scared to death…they did not know what to make of Jesus’ appearance.
All of the Easter stories “begin with tears and confusion” and all of them surprisingly “end with hope and purpose.”
That is why it is “so important” that we tell the stories of Easter so we can “encourage people” and “instill hope in the future.” Lord knows we all could use a little bit more hope in our daily lives.
We live in a day and a time when people are not “overly hopeful.” Many think that we have made our own bed and now we must lay in it.
People point out “quite frequently that there is no prayer allowed in school, no mention of God at all. And yet these are encouraged among our prison populations who are treated better than our Senior Citizens and our heroic Veterans of Foreign Wars.
We shake our heads at children who “cannot spell,” “cannot count,” cannot “write in cursive,” speak improper English and we wonder about their future.
We live in that “golden age” where “everybody is a winner” and “no one loses” and in a time where there are “few consequences for our actions.”
Leniency seems to rule the day.
People are afraid of saying, “No.” And if you look at someone the wrong way – you could be shot, on the spot. “Road rage” once a strange and somewhat foreign concept is now well accepted. People are actually told to “mind their own business” and not to make “eye contact” with anyone – for your own safety.
This generation only gets more and more impersonal as we hide behind computer screens and become more or less dependent on our telephones for any and all interactions.
A text and an emoji today say’s all that is necessary for conversation.
So, our Gospel lesson for this evening is a beautiful illustration of how the “Easter message” overcomes tears and confusion and provides “a message of hope and of purpose” for the early church.
Jesus has indeed risen.
He is not a ghost, not a spirit, not a phantom, not a figment of anyone’s imagination.
He is as real as you or I. God has indeed raised Jesus from the dead…and as “the young church” liked to say, through him – “sin, death and the devil (or the evil one) has been overcome.”
Because of Jesus there is hope. And for some of us, he has become “our hope.”
Amen.