Luke 24: 36-43 has the same form as the great story which comes before it, the appearance of Jesus on the road to Emmaus to two disciples:
the risen Christ appears
the disciples do not recognize him
they are cited for doubting
food is shared
they respond in wonder and joy
Jesus gives them instructions (vv. 44-47)
(Fred B. Craddock, Luke - Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching [Louisville: John Knox Press] 1990, p. 289)
DOUBTING
I want to start with the fact that the disciples doubted. Jesus asks, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?" (v. 38) Matthew 28: 17 mentions this kind of response when, just before receiving the Great Commission on a mountain in Galilee, the gathered disciples both worshipped and doubted.
Every one in this room has doubts at some time or another. There are people here today who have doubts. It should be of great comfort to us all to notice that:
(1) the first Christians had doubts, even though they had the benefit of being with Jesus first hand. If they had doubts, we should not feel bad or inadequate because we have them too.
(2) Jesus has a history of working with people who have doubts and questions. While there were occasions where he was not able to do many mighty works because of unbelief, still he was able in such settings to do some mighty works. (Matthew 13: 58)
In Mark 9: 24 the father of a sick boy cries out to Jesus, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." Jesus does not reject this man who, like us, is a mixture of belief and unbelief. He becomes a healing presence in his family.
The great theologian Paul Tillich was once asked about prayer. In his answer he said that after the Lord's prayer, this prayer in Mark 9 was the greatest prayer in the Bible, "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief." (KJV)
(3) Jesus did not reject people who had doubts. When the disciples doubted, he did not turn around in a huff and make a fast exist, snarling over his shoulder something like, "Look, you dim bulbs! What does it take to penetrate your thick skulls?"
No, he stayed with them. He offered them a touch - he showed his hands and feet. He also ate with them; he studied the scriptures with them; he opened their minds; he gave them a task; he blessed them.
That he should act this way is not surprising. Jesus began the conversation with "Peace be with you!" (v. 36) - his way of establishing from the outset that they were all right with him, forgiven, solid, secure, safe.
With our doubts in tow, let us listen to what Jesus says in this remarkable passage. The popular Scottish scripture interpreter William Barclay hears "four great notes of the Christian faith resonantly struck" in our text.
1. the reality of the resurrection
2. the necessity of the cross
3. the urgency of the task
4. the secret of power
(William Barclay The Gospel of Luke (revised edition) [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press] 1975, pp. 297-298)
I. THE REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION
Even though the disciples have had the reports of the women who were at the tomb,
even though the disciples had just heard from the two persons who were on the road to Emmaus, and even though the disciples had the witness of Peter,
they are frightened and think they have seen a ghost. Jesus had to prove that he was alive.
Have you ever tried to prove that you are alive? An army veteran named John Crabtree had been wounded in Vietnam and was on permanent disability, receiving government benefits, until one day he was notified by the government that he was dead.
His benefits stopped. He wrote a letter to the government, explaining that he was alive. Nothing changed. He tried to call the government. Do you think that solved his problem?! Finally he contacted a local television station which ran a human-interest story about his situation. The reporter asked one of those standard "How do you feel about your situation?" questions. John Crabtree answered, "I feel frustrated - have you ever tried to prove that you're alive?" (cited in (Homiletics by Leonard I. Sweet, Vol. 9, No. 2, April-June 1997, p. 11)
The Jesus they encounter is no disembodied spirit. He is alive, and he has a body. He can be touched. He can eat fish. Again we think of those poor cult members who recently took their lives to escape from their bodies. They were more like some ancient Greek who believed in the immortality of the soul, that is, in some indestructible spirit which enters the body at birth and departs at death - a popular idea, but not what the Bible teaches.
Jesus' victory over death was not an escape from a perishable container or frame, "but a transformation of it; it is not to be understood as a transformation into a purely spiritual, angelic being, because Jesus remained flesh and bones, though immortal and not limited by time and space...These views are presupposed in Paul's discussion of the Christian's resurrection in I Corinthians 15: `With what kind of body do they come?' (v. 35b)" (Charles H. Talbert, Reading Luke - A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Third Gospel [New York: Crossroad Publishing Co.] 1986, pp. 228-229)
AN IMPORTANT DIGRESSION
With what kind of body did Jesus come, and with what kind of body will we come? It is important to look at I Corinthians 15 and see how Paul answered this question about the resurrection of the body.
He uses an analogy, comparing our bodies to a seed and the plant which comes from it. The body which dies is like a seed planted in the ground. The resurrection body is like a plant which grows from the seed. The plant does not look at all like the seed, but there is a connection between them. The seed is transformed into the plant; there is continuity between them.
Perishable body - seed; imperishable body - plant; transformation and continuity. It happened to Jesus, and it will happen to his followers. Because he lives, we shall live also. (John 14: 19) Christians will have resurrection bodies just as Jesus did.
The risen Lord "was no phantom or hallucination. He was real...Christianity is not founded on the dreams of...disordered minds or the visions of their fevered eyes," but on one who faced death and was raised up in the power of God. (Barclay, op. cit., p. 297)
In an act of remarkable generosity and vulnerability Jesus invites the disciples to touch him - to know him in a way other than through words. Our deepest knowledge is often tactile rather than simply verbal. The preacher John Killinger cites the sociologist Ashley Montagu's classic study Touching - "the act of touching and being touched when we are infants is the most important assurance we ever have of our parents' love and our well being in life. Jesus wanted the disciples to be satisfied in the most basic way possible that it was really he who stood before them." (John Killinger, A Devotional Guide to Luke - The Gospel of Contagious Joy [Waco: Word Books] 1980, pp. 140-141) Incidentally, consider how parents can reinforce the lessons of love and trust through touch if they bring their child regularly to church to be held by so many loving hands in the family of faith!
II. THE NECESSITY OF THE CROSS
Luke could not make sense out of church's experiences with the risen Christ apart from connecting it to his crucifixion. His understanding of history and scripture reflect this conviction.
Luke understood salvation history in terms of two periods:
(1) the time of prophecy
(2) the time of fulfillment.
And he understood the time of fulfillment to take place in two stages:
(1) the fulfillment of Scripture in the life of Jesus
(2) the fulfillment of Scripture in the life of the church.
(Malcolm O. Tolbert in Luke, The Broadman Bible Commentary: Luke-John edited by Clifton J. Allen, [Nashville: Broadman Press] 1970, p. 186)
To the Christians of Luke's community it was the cross to which the scriptures looked forward. To say this was not God's attempt to put a good "spin" on rejection and execution on the cross. To speak of the cross was to share the plan of God and to show the depth of his eternal love.
The disciples had been over the scriptures before, but had trudged down "the well-worn path of predictability" so often that they failed to get a glimmer of the dazzling insight about the heart of God and the extent to which God would go to disclose it. ("the well-worn path of predictability" is a phrase used in another context in Homiletics, op. cit., p. 11.)
III. THE URGENCY OF THE TASK
The call to repentance and forgiveness had to go out to everyone. The upper room where the disciples gathered was a special place, but it was not to be an end in itself. The church was to go beyond the four walls of the upper room. There was a mission of joy, an urgency to get out the message, to give everyone a chance to hear and respond to the fact that Jesus is alive, repentance and forgiveness are life changing possibilities.
A word about repentance and forgiveness - some people think that when some one has offended them, that person must repent before he or she can be forgiven. But the connection between repentance and forgiveness is not necessarily linear or sequential. Sometimes "the human confidence to repent comes in the context of the knowledge of God's forgiveness." Forgiveness may be the first step in the process, not the last.
Take this little story of Cornelius and Esmerelda. Cornelius has offended Esmerelda in some way; Cornelius is wrong; he needs to repent. But he is afraid - suppose he goes to Esmerelda and says, "I am really sorry about what has happened between us. I apologize. I even repent!"
Now that would be very hard for Cornelius to do. No only must he swallow his pride, but he would be taking a chance that Esmerelda would not accept him. What if she says, "Well, of course, you were wrong. How could you treat me like that? I'll never get over how badly you treated me of all people!"
But what if she is a good Christian? What if she really means it when she prays, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us"? What if she takes seriously a man who forgave people who were killing him even though they did not know what they were doing, much less repented of it? What if Esmerelda takes the initiative and goes to Cornelius and says, "Look, I feel bad about what has happened. I don't know how you feel but if you are feeling bad about it, I understand. I forgive you, and hope you will forgive me for my part of this. Let's talk."
Now she has given Cornelius the security and freedom to risk repentance in the confidence that he will be forgiven. How wonderful when this happens! That it can happen is a story worth telling, a matter of pressing urgency.
IV. THE SECRET OF POWER
The disciples are to wait in Jerusalem until power comes from God. There is a time to act on the urgency of the task, but there is also a time to prepare for the task. Waiting for God's Spirit of power is no waste of time. Acting without that power is a waste of effort.
One of the most active, urgent hymns we sing is "Lead On, O King Eternal." It contains these lines: "Through days of preparation thy grace has made us strong, And now, O King Eternal, We lift our battle song." (Ernest W. Shurtleff, "Lead On, O King Eternal," Baptist Hymnal edited by Wesley L. Forbis [Nashville: Convention Press] 1991, No. 621)
The days of preparation are the days of expectation of empowerment and energy from God.
Woodbrook Church is in a time of preparation as we await the completion of the long awaited sanctuary. We are expectant and excited; but, as I "read" the church, we are also exhausted, tired from the gruelling workload in a medium-sized church trying to offer a full-sized church program, working with a film of dust inside and mud outside. How do you "read" our church? I would be interested in your perspective. Do you agree with me that we are a curious mixture of excitement and exhaustion?
Fear not, o weary ones. We are waiting for the power to accomplish the tasks in ministry our Lord would have us to do. God does not will persons or churches to do something unless he equips us and empowers us to do it. Wait for power - it will be there for us in full measure at the right time.
CONCLUSION
While the disciples were waiting, Luke 24: 41 says that "they disbelieved for joy." In other words seeing Jesus alive was "too good to be true." Nothing in their experience prepared them for this moment. They could not take it in - they could only shake their heads in wonder.
Biblical references to joy always bring to my mind another text about joy. "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your master." (Matthew 25: 21)
With a Lord who begins his resurrection appearances with a greeting of peace,
with a Lord who works with us in the midst of our doubts,
with a Lord who offers us transformation and continuity of our bodies in resurrection,
and with a Lord who will greet us at the last with an invitation to enter into his joy,
we are surely people who can sing, "I'd rather have Jesus..."He's all that my hungering spirit needs. I'd rather have Jesus and let Him lead." ("I'd Rather Have Jesus," Baptist Hymnal, op. cit., No. 550)
