“Like Unto His Glorious Body”

 

 

The Third Sunday of Easter                                                                         April 18, 2010                        

Text: John 21:1-19                                                                 The Rev. Dr Ross M. Wright

                                                                                                                                                           

 

One of the striking themes in the resurrection appearances of Jesus is the failure of the disciples to recognize the risen Lord.  On Easter morning, when Jesus appears to Mary, she mistakes him for the gardener.   The same evening, he appears to the two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus and spends the better part of day speaking with them, but they do not recognize him.  And in our Gospel reading this morning, the risen Lord appears to the disciples on the shore of Galilee Lake.  Returning from a frustrating night of fishing, they see someone on the shore, beckoning them.  He is close enough that they can hear him speak.  But they do not recognize that it is Jesus. 

 

How do we explain this pattern of non-recognition?  Peter, James, and John have been with him for three years and observed him in every imaginable situation.  When you travel with someone, you really get to know them.  So by now, they know his every gesture.  They anticipate his moods.  They know him about as well as you can know anyone.  And yet, they do not recognize him.  What are we to make of this? 

 

Certainly one factor is that no one was expecting to see Jesus.  The resurrection was completely unexpected.  There was “no official delegation of disciples on hand to greet Jesus.  There was no receiving line.  No spruced up little girls in their Easter hats holding ribboned bouquets.”[1]  Mary Magdalene and the other women who went to the tomb on Easter morning expecting to find a body – nothing more.

 

But there is another explanation for this pattern of non-recognition, and it has to do with the mystery of Christ’s resurrection body.  It is important to remember that during the 50 days that Jesus revealed himself to the disciples and other believers (up to 500 at once), he revealed himself bodily – in his resurrection body.[2]  This is why John includes so many sensual details: Thomas putting his fingers in the nail holes of Jesus’ hands; Mary Magdalene throwing her arms around Jesus the moment she recognizes him;[3] the smell of fish broiling and the heat of the charcoal fire as Jesus makes breakfast for the disciples.  

 

There is something mysterious and awesome about Jesus’ resurrection body.  Even after they recognize him, the disciples have the strange feeling that they are in the presence of the same Jesus whom they have come to know, and yet, not the same Jesus.  John’s observation that “No one dared to ask him, ‘Who are you’?” conveys amazement: “Is it really you?”  Jesus’ resurrection body is similar enough to his former body that they recognize the nail holes in his hands and the spear wound in his side.  But different enough that they approach him with awe – a kind of inexplicable wall separates his bodily existence from theirs.[4]   

 

These post-resurrection appearances reveal the heart of the Easter faith: the resurrection of the body.  The Christian hope is not just about “resurrection to eternal life” in some abstract way but about the resurrection of bodily life, as in the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the resurrection of the body.”  You know, it is not hard to find people who believe in an immortal soul that lives on after death – a kind of vague, disembodied existence.  But bodily resurrection?  That’s a different story.  Many find the idea not only dubious but offensive.  N. T. Wright, currently one of the most compelling theologians on the subject of the resurrection, describes a BBC radio talk show which he hosted in which a caller strenuously objected to the notion of a bodily resurrection.  He said: “I’m not planning on taking my body to heaven.  So I don’t see why Jesus had to take his.”[5] 

 

Why indeed?  Because who we are is inseparable from our bodily existence.  A vague, bodiless soul-life is not really us.  To put it positively, God is concerned with life that is lived in the concrete realities of this world and not just soul life.  “As we age, we grow into the world, and the world grows into us.”[6]  In other words, the experiences of life in the world are recorded in our bodies and become part of who we are.  Don’t you know people whose face is a kind of transcript of their lives?  I remember a comment by a friend and fellow parishioner about meeting Fitz Allison when he arrived as rector of Grace Church in New York.  My friend said that the first thing he noticed were the lines deeply etched on his face.  He did not look like the robust, sun-tanned hunks pictured in Christianity Today.  Rather, it was a face that spoke of suffering, my friend observed, and of being present with the suffering of others.  

 

Christian hope in the resurrection of the body means that who we are in this life is “carried forward” into the life on the other side of the grave – carried forward and redeemed.[7]   The promise of redemption or transformation is crucial, because it answers the objection of the caller on the radio show who said: “I’m not planning on taking my body to heaven.”  One reason that people object to the resurrection of the body is that bodily life is both exhilarating as well as excruciatingly painful.  The same bodies that enjoy a good glass of wine, a beautiful sunrise, a Mozart sonata, and the mystery of our sexuality also grow old and at times humiliate us.  After age 50, the warranty runs out on these bodies of ours.  The short story writer and playwright, Anton Chekov, complained that aging felt like having curdled milk inside.[8]  

 

And if our bodies are transcripts of our lives, then we can all think of parts of the transcript we would like to erase.  How is it possible for God to carry forward our concrete life in this world without carrying forward the experiences we wish to forget?  He can’t just erase the past, like hitting the delete button on the computer.  Because for better or worse, our past is part of us, and to erase our past would be to obliterate us.  

 

And it is precisely here that Jesus’ resurrection body holds such promise for us.  We have seen that the disciples experience Jesus’ resurrection body as the same, yet different.  He is the same person, and yet, transformed.  What is true of Jesus’ resurrection body is also true of us and our resurrection bodies.  Who we really are, our deepest identity, has not yet been revealed.  St. John says:

 

Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.[9]

 

Likewise, St. Paul says:

 

For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.  When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.[10]

 

This new and transformed self, this “new you,” is known to God alone and will be revealed in our resurrection bodies.  For, as Paul adds, we will have resurrection bodies “like unto his glorious body.”[11]

 

Let us return to our text and hear the good news in this mysterious conversation between the disciples and the risen Jesus.   At a certain point, these wearied fishermen suddenly recognize the stranger on the beach.  How do they recognize him?  He calls them “children.”  Notice the importance of the sound of his voice.  When people whom we know well call us on the phone, we know immediately who it is.  When Ross calls me, all he says is: “Hey.”   Then, Jesus commands them to throw their net on the other side of the boat. Now this is dubious advice, as any experienced fisherman will tell you (Think about it – do fish prefer one side of the boat to the other?).   Nevertheless, as they respond to this dubious advice, the miracle occurs.  The veil is removed.  They recognize the risen Christ.   

 

Notice that this is not just any miracle.  It was by the same seashore that Jesus first called them to follow him and join him in the great work of catching people for the kingdom of God.  It was here that they dropped their nets and devoted themselves to the cause that would shape and direct the rest of their lives.  Who knows – maybe it was the same net and the same boat.  Only now, everything is different, because they go as witnesses to the resurrection. Their past lives are carried forward and redeemed.  All of them had abandoned him.  Now, the risen Lord reissues the call.  Now the call comes from the God of the resurrection, who makes all things new. 

 

This re-commissioning is particularly poignant in Peter’s case.  It has often been pointed out that Jesus’ three-fold question, “Do you love me?” corresponds to Peter’s threefold renunciation of the Lord as he warmed himself by a different charcoal fire, outside of Caiaphas’ house on Maundy Thursday.  Jesus invites him to reaffirm his love, not to humiliate Peter, but to invite him to remember this painful event in the presence of the risen Christ.  Thus, Peter recalls the past – now, in the reconciling and healing power of the resurrection. 

 

The risen Lord is present in the healing of memories; or better, as we remember painful or shameful events from the past, conscious that the Lord is with us, as he was with us in the original event.  We do not forget these experiences or pretend that they did not happen.  Rather, we remember them, conscious that the God of the resurrection, remembers them with us.  Recently, I saw a documentary on the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in which the perpetrators were offered amnesty on the condition that they publically confess their crimes in detail in the presence of their victims (usually, the widow of a murdered husband and children).  It must be devastatingly painful for the victims to relive these nightmares and profoundly humiliating for the perpetrators.  The procedures are carried out with the conviction that when the evil is brought into the light and the truth spoken, a measure of healing may be granted.  They are a parable of how the risen Christ is present in the healing of memories

 

C. S.  Lewis beautifully expresses the transformation of our resurrection bodies in his sermon, “The Weight of Glory.”[12]  We are living among people who, one day, will be so transformed, that if we were to behold them in their resurrection bodies, we would be tempted to bow down before them as before gods and goddesses.  We will share in a resurrection like Jesus’ resurrection.  We shall have resurrection bodies “like unto his glorious body.”