Easter 2B
John 20:19-31
Almighty
and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new
covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the
fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they
profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
“Why can’t we touch God?” a preschooler asked
me once in chapel. Children always ask out loud the hard questions that lurk in
our grown-up minds. In chapel, I must
have muttered something about God being too marvelous and mysterious to touch
except in our hearts. After all, John
reassures us in today's Gospel that believing without seeing or touching is
true faith indeed. If touching isn't important, though, why then does Jesus
return with a real body—and a wounded body at that? Today, I side with the
children: Jesus says to Thomas, "Put your finger here and
see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side." Why, then, can't we touch God?
[I'd
like to try an experiment. I'd like any of you young children with us today to
draw a picture of you touching God. What I'm betting is that you
will draw a better picture with your crayons than I'm going to draw for us
older folks with my words. Show me after church, and we'll see.]
If we're going to be honest, we adults and teens have trouble with the whole concept
of resurrection. We have trouble believing it; we have trouble conceptualizing
it; we have trouble describing it. You might think that our struggle with the
resurrection is just a modern reaction, born of our advanced scientific
worldview. But look at the disciples: everyone from Mary Magdalene and the
women at the tomb, to Thomas in today's lesson: they are all afraid and
confused when confronted with their risen Lord.
The
ink that has been spilled and the theological arguments that have been fought
over explaining the resurrection fill whole libraries, and still we doubt and
scratch our heads. A ghost--we could deal with that. A spiritual, disembodied
feeling in our hearts--we know about those. A resuscitated body, even that—we
have the medical equipment and know-how to produce that these days. But a new kind of body—a body that can walk
through walls, yet still eat fish, a new body with old nail marks and spear
gouges—come on, you’ve got to be kidding me! This Lent in chapel, once again one
of our children put words to the problem for us: "Was Jesus a zombie,
then?" he puzzled.
The
body problem--It’s not just about Jesus, either, you know. We say in the Creed
each week that we believe in the “resurrection of the body and the life
everlasting.” We are saying that we believe that our bodies will at some
point rise again, that we too will join Jesus in this new kind of embodied life
after death. (And no, we will not be zombies, either!) When I talk with
Episcopalians about life after death, I hear about souls floating away to join
with God in a kind of spiritual unity. I don't hear about bodies at all. But
these responses don't represent the Christian doctrine that we officially ascribe to.
"Look,"
some might argue, "doesn't God have a problem with our bodies, anyway?"
Doesn't the bible say that the lures of the flesh cause us to sin? Our ancient
church Fathers and Mothers used to punish their bodies harshly by denying
themselves sleep, food, and all pleasure. They believed that only denying the
body would sufficiently strengthen their souls for heaven. Doesn’t God love our
spirits best? Why not be done with bodies as soon as possible?
I
wonder, though. Is it God who has little use for our frail bodies, or is it us?
I remember that I didn’t have much use for my often sickly, always
uncoordinated body, when I was younger. My arms were the puny ones that always
collapsed in Red Rover; my feet were what tripped me up in dance class; and my
lungs were what kept me home with asthma when I wanted to be out having fun. It
was my mind that was my friend. It allowed me to escape my unreliable body in
books and in the world of imagination. It was what brought me attention and
approval at school. If I had to pick something to keep for eternity, it would be
my disembodied mind or my loving soul. My body I could do without.
It
wasn’t until I had children, I think, that I gained any appreciation at all for
my body. The miracle of pregnancy and birth created in me a respect for what
the body could do, for the way in which we are all so carefully and wondrously
made. Indeed, when I think about Incarnation, about God “taking on flesh,” I
think first of the baby Jesus. His silky smooth baby skin; his perfect little
fingers and toes; his sweet baby smile …. If God is going to take up residence
in some kind of body, the fresh, new, adorable body of a baby just might
suffice.
God
entering the world, loving the world, through the miracle of birth at
Christmas—I have no problem with that kind of Incarnation. But our Christian
faith does not just stop with Christmas. Like our bodies, the body of the sweet
little baby Jesus must ache and bleed, must suffer and die, if he is to be
truly human. It's important, then, that Jesus
return to his disciples with his body, with the same frail, wounded body that
had hung on the Cross. With a body that is hungry for some supper. With a
wounded body that they are invited to see and to touch. This new,
post-suffering, post-death body is also part of Incarnation.
It's
important to notice that the triumphant God did not shed flesh as soon as
possible. The triumphant Easter God did not come out of the tomb as a golden
beam of light or a soft and loving breeze. The risen Christ came to the
disciples, presenting them with his beaten-up body to touch, rather than
filling their minds with some kind of spiritual enlightenment. Barbara Brown
Taylor writes, “Touching the truth with our minds alone is not enough. We are
made to touch it with our bodies. I think this is why Christian tradition clings
to the reality of resurrection, even when no one can explain it to anyone
else’s satisfaction … The resurrection of the dead is the radical insistence
that matter matters to God," she says.[1]
Matter
matters to God. This is the lesson that we are to draw from the stories about
bodily resurrection. To our doubts about the loveliness of our bodies, to our
doubts about God’s commitment to our world, to our doubts about the strength
and durability of Incarnation, to our doubts about the truth of Resurrection, Jesus
says, “touch me and see.”
So
taste God in the crisp wafer and in the wine that burns as it runs down your
throat. Touch God in the warm hand squeezing yours as you pray together. See
God's pain in the dark, broken corners of life. Hear God in the laughter that
rings out from your family table. Smell God in the holy odor of candle wax. Feel
God's scars as you carefully rub your finger across your own. Matter matters to
God. All that pertains to bodies, matters to God. The resurrection of the body
tells us that our salvation, our healing, our eternal life, is to be found
there. Life is not just for the soul and faith is not just for the mind. Touch
and see—and like Thomas, you too will have the strength to believe.
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