Easter 3, 04/22/2012

Sermon on Luke 24:44-48, by Steve Saxe

44Then he said to them, "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." 45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things.

Christ is risen; He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The late E. Stanley Jones told the following story:

"A Christian preacher was preaching in the bazaars in India, and a Mohammedan said, "Padre Sahib, we have a proof in our religion that you haven't got in yours. We can go to Mecca and find the tomb of Mohammed, but when you go to Palestine you can't be sure that you've got the tomb of Jesus." "Yes," said the Christian preacher, "you're right. We have no tomb in Christianity because we have no corpse."

(For All the Saints, III, page 1049).

Well...yes & no. There is indeed NO tomb, but as we are reminded on this Sunday after Easter that there certainly was a body, and a living one at that! The Gospels clearly tell us that Jesus continued -for 40 days- to unexpectedly show up, risen from the dead, over and over again; here and there, for His disciples to see and interact with. They also tell us that He did not remain with them! He would leave, only to show again later.

We have all heard the expression: Now you see him, now you don't! Such must have been the reaction of the disciples to the many and varied appearances of their risen Lord. He kept coming & going In a back & forth, almost teasing series of appearances to the disciples. But unlike some of us who are over-involved up to our heads, the risen Christ knew where His comings & goings were taking His disciples!

It is important to see that, as all of the accounts of Easter reveal, the disciples were baffled by these appearances. They didn't respond in faith! Luke tells us in verse 41: "...while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling..." Truth is, they didn't understand what it was really about, and so were puzzled.

And this in spite of Jesus' words, when He had said that he would be raised (9:22; 18:33). In spite of the

report by the women of the empty tomb (24:10); followed by the report of the two from the Emmaus road (24:35),and one by Peter (24:34), the disciples were not prepared for Jesus to simply appear in their midst without any warning, nor did they expect it!

Perhaps we would find such an appearance threatening. My terror at the prospect of Jesus uninvited appearance would be less over my lack of understanding its meaning and more over what He might find me doing when He showed up! And if not fear that He would behold what I would be doing, then there would be trembling over what He might find me thinking.

I suppose that few of us need to worry about a random check in by our Lord. We don't expect Him to do an uninvited "resurrection repeat" here! But God help us if He did! I suspect that our Easter joy would be considerably diminished!

And so St. Luke tells us: they were startled & terrified & thought they were seeing a ghost ... We think that we know better than that!

Thus we hear about Jesus 3^rd resurrection appearance in Luke's Gospel, all of which occur in the area near Jerusalem on the day Jesus arose. This appearance is believed to be the same one that John records & that we heard about last week. It introduces some unique themes to us:

1^st: the bodily reality of the risen Christ. The disciples assume he's a ghost, Jesus reassures "I am not a ghost."

He not only displays his hands & feet, but eats with them! 2^nd: He scolds ALL of them -not just Thomas- for doubting: why do doubts arise in your hearts? And 3^rd: Jesus instructs them; & opens their disciples' minds:

he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 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, 4^th: He commissions his disciples to proclaim what they have learned & seen: (vs.47) repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses...

We Lutherans may be rather private and reserved about our faith, but I wonder what would happen if while leaving a cashier at a store we said: "Christ is risen?" There are worse things than being accused of insanity! Worse than that might be the political incorrectness of the claim!

One things is certain: regardless of what WE do or do not do, Jesus has risen from the dead, and Luke makes clear that He is going to leave His work up to His disciples....His Church. His life gets lived through us, and His forgiveness is seen in our feeble frightened and disbelieving reaction. Somehow, Jesus Word and way manages to prevail, so that His death and life are made known and that "repentance and forgiveness of sins be proclaimed in His name to all nations."

Were Jesus disciples ready for that? Not at all! Let us note that Jesus selected & sent the very men who had denied & abandoned Him! "You are witnesses of these things." Luke tells us: 41 While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering..." The empty tomb and this appearance of Jesus at 1^st produced only fear and amazement -- two emotions that we would expect to get in the way of believing, but joy?

The Revised English Bible interprets this as, "for it seemed too good to be true." That may be the best way to understand the irony of the disciples continuing unbelief because of joy. No doubt they expected Jesus to remain with them and stick around. Now that He had risen from the dead, he would have been ideal Messiah! People would surely have believe in Him. But He comes...and then He goes again!

Have you ever been involved in something that just went horribly wrong and then it all got turned around suddenly and everything turned out to be ALL right. That's what's happened here. The disciples saw Jesus death as an end, and so could not sort out what His resurrection meant. What do our behaviors reveal about what we believe?

He opened their minds to understand the scriptures. The disciples needed help to properly understand those scriptures, and to realize that what happened to Jesus was not some novelty, but part of God's saving actions all along. They needed to know -as we do- that the real enemy we have to face isn't political, or economic or racial or ethnic or military...the real enemy is sin & death!

Christ takes care of that on our behalf. He gives us forgiveness of our sins and new life, and so calls us -ready or not- to proclaim both repentance & forgiveness. Our goal in pointing out sin and calling for repentance is the forgiveness of sins. Thus Luther claims: "where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life & salvation." (SC: Sacrament of Altar) Jesus brings forgiveness & life so that we by faith might believe in and actually share in His Resurrection repeats...now and forever.

Pr. Steve Saxe

E-Mail: LCGS1601@aol.com

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