The Risen Body of Christ

 

John 20:19-31    Easter 2    April 24, 2022

St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Williamsburg, Virginia            

            On October 31, 2006, I nearly died.

            Some sort of  mysterious pneumonia had filled my lungs, and I had been in the ICU at Norfolk General Hospital for days, sedated and on a ventilator, as the infectious disease doctors at the Eastern Virginia Medical School struggled to diagnose what was going on.  On October 31, 2006, the pulmonologist had my ventilator turned up to 100% oxygen, but my blood oxygen wouldn’t even get up into the 90s.

            I didn’t die.  (You might have noticed.)  Just in time, the infectious disease docs diagnosed a fungus that had taken over my lungs: something called histoplasmosis.  Histoplasmosis can be treated effectively, once it’s diagnosed.  So, long story short: After 32 days in the hospital, and two months recovering at home, I was able to return to full activity.

            But I’ll tell you what: For the past 16 years, every morning when I have woken up, I’ve given thanks for the gift of a new day to be lived in my physical body, among those I love, who are living in their own flesh and blood.

            Why am I telling you all of this?  It’s because it’s Easter, and we are celebrating resurrection!  And if the resurrection means anything, the risen body of Christ has to matter to us in our physical bodies, in our flesh and blood, with all of our physical frailties.  That’s the first thing I want to say on this Second Sunday of Easter.

            Listen to John Updike’s poem, “Seven Stanzas at Easter”:

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

each soft Spring recurrent;

it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled

eyes of the eleven apostles;

it was as His flesh: ours.

 

The same hinged thumbs and toes,

the same valved heart

that—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then

regathered out of enduring Might

new strength to enclose.

 

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;

making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the

faded credulity of earlier ages:

let us walk through the door.

 

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,

not a stone in a story,

but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow

grinding of time will eclipse for each of us

the wide light of day.

 

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,

make it a real angel,

weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,

opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen

spun on a definite loom.

 

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,

for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,

lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are

embarrassed by the miracle,

and crushed by remonstrance.

 

            This morning, in the gospel of John, the evangelist is telling a story of the risen body of Christ.  It is not at all a “spiritual” story.  It’s entirely physical!

            When it was evening of that day, the first day of the week (in other words, that morning, Mary Magdalene had found the tomb to be empty!), and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the [Jewish leaders], Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

            Imagine the scene.  The solid, wooden doors are locked!  But Jesus stands among them in his risen body, with his “hinged thumbs and toes” and “the same valved heart.”  Jesus’ risen body is physical!  But, at the same time, Jesus in his risen body is able to pass through solid, locked doors! 

What is going on here?  The gospel writer is struggling to describe the body we will all have in the resurrection, isn’t he?

Do you remember that St. Paul struggles to describe it, as well, in his first letter to the Corinthians.  If you read the Daily Lectionary, you came across these words this past Thursday: So it is with the resurrection of the dead.  What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable….It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.  If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.[1]

It is a struggle to describe and even to understand what we confess each time we use the Apostle’s Creed: “I believe in the resurrection of the body.”

The gospel writer snags my attention with his words describing the physicality of Christ’s risen body: Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

I am caught by the physicality of this description: When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  (Do you think the disciples would not have smelled minty fresh breath there?  I do not think so!)

I am caught, in particular, by the physicality of this description, one week later, when Thomas is with the rest of them and Jesus appears again in his risen body: “Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”  Isn’t this shocking?  You’ve seen the grossness of open wounds, haven’t you?

Doesn’t your body show your physical history?  After our wounds heal, they serve as reminders.  During my morning toiletry, when my shirt is off and I see in the mirror the scars of my tracheotomy and where the feeding tube was inserted, it reminds me to be thankful for this gift of this day of life. 

For the resurrection of Jesus the Christ to mean anything, it has to matter to us in our physical bodies.  And that holds, not just in our healing triumphs, but with what’s more difficult: in all of our frailties.  My mother has been helpless, trapped in her body, since suffering a debilitating stroke three years ago.  A friend has had to dedicate his days to caring for his disabled wife, for years.  Another friend needs to have a hip replacement, but he doesn’t know when he can schedule it because his daily vocation is caring for his wife who is suffering from seizures that cause confusion and, perhaps, dementia.

What are your bodily frailties? 

How are you given the vocation of caring for another, in her frailties?

It is in our bodies, and it is now, that there is great good news in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ – because the risen Christ has brought God’s physical presence into our daily joys and sufferings.

Clarence Jordan once wrote this: “[God] raised Jesus, not as an invitation to us to come to heaven when we die, but as a declaration that he himself has now established permanent, eternal residence here on earth.  He is standing beside us, strengthening us in this life.  The good news of the resurrection of Jesus is not that we shall die and go home to be with him, but that he has risen and comes home with us, bringing all his hungry, naked, thirsty, sick prisoner brothers with him.[2]

And so, the first thing to say, on this Second Sunday of Easter, is that the risen body of Christ brings Jesus into our physical bodies, with all of our frailties.  The second thing to say is that you and I live as the risen body of Christ among all who are Jesus’ “hungry, naked, thirsty, sick prisoner brothers” and sisters.

How do you bring that risen Jesus to others?

How do others bring Christ’s risen body to you?

After those months of hospitalization and recovery, nearly 16 years ago, I returned to a monthly prayer group and, as I was sharing my experiences, I told them about one infectious disease doctor, in particular, who was such a healing presence; who did his work with such genuine humility that I didn’t even know he was a doctor until he had come into my ICU room for several days in a row.  And I told of two nurses, in particular, in the Progressive Ventilator Care Unit, who, when they learned I was a pastor, turned my room into a worship center!  They felt free to share their faith in God, and to pray for me, out loud.  And, do you know what they did every evening, when it was time for me to sleep?  After they gave me my nightly shot of Ativan, they sang a hymn! 

And so, I told all of this to the others in my prayer group.  And then I said, “But, you know, after so many years of assuring parishioners in hospital rooms that God is right there with them, I didn’t feel God’s presence myself!”  There was a short, stunned silence.  And one of my friends said, “Well, wait a minute.  You just told us about that doctor.  You just told us about those two nurses.  You mean to say you didn’t see God’s presence?!”

Well, of course!  That doctor, those nurses, they were the physical presence of the risen body of Christ, as they ministered to my frail physical body!

That made me conscious of how I could be the risen body of Chris, for others.  I remember, one time after worship at St. Stephen, there was a family visiting, and I discovered that their four or five-year old daughter had been recently released from the hospital, and that she had had a tracheotomy, which had traumatized her.  “Really?” I said.  Without even thinking, I knelt down to her eye level and opened up my shirt collar and said, “Look!  Here’s where I had my tracheotomy when I was in the hospital!”  What joy there was on her face, when she showed off her scar to me, too!

What opportunities has God given you, to be the risen body of Christ for others?  Think of when you have held a loved one’s hand during her dying.  That physical touch – the physical presence of the risen body of Christ!  Think of when you have sat down to share conversation with one of the guests staying in the building during the week of the Community of Faith Mission shelter.  Your physical presence brought the risen body of Christ!  When you sit down next to the person you always sit next to at worship: you bring the risen body of Christ to each other, in your physical presence.  Think of when you swing a child around, provoking shrieks of joy, and then, what do you do?  The two of you hug each other as tightly as you can!  Think of how you need to support your loved one, getting into and out of a car.

It is physical.  It is what Easter means: the physical presence of the risen body of Christ!

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

-- Pastor Andy Ballentine

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[1] 1 Corinthians 15:42-44

[2] Clarence Jordan (2005). “The Substance of Faith: and Other Cotton Patch Sermons”, p.26, Wipf and Stock Publishers