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Second Sunday of Easter, April 19, 2020
*This message will be broadcast by Facebook and Instagram Live
and posted to Youtube, but will not be preached to a live audience. We – America, the world – are in the midst of
the COVID-19 crisis which is causing people all over the world to avoid
gathering in groups of larger than 10, and diligently maintain “social
distance.” It’s an effort to curb the
rapid, worldwide spread of the Corona virus which can be deadly.
“Why are you frightened,” Jesus
asked his disciples. They were behind
closed doors, gathered on the Sunday evening after the crucifixion. Two
disciples had just come from Emmaus to say Jesus, raised, had walked with them
the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
They didn’t recognize him until he broke the bread. Then he vanished. So, they immediately made the hike all the
way back the Jerusalem to tell the other disciples what had happened.
The
rest of the disciples were trying to piece together what the two from Emmaus
told them when Jesus simply appeared among them. Of course they were afraid! He was dead.
Now he’s standing here. He
continued, “A Ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke
24:38, 39). The resurrected Jesus makes
a specific point of telling them he is not a ghost.
The
final line of ‘The Doxology,’ a song often sung in worship, is “Praise Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost.” Yet in most of the
theology conversations where the topic is the Trinity, I hear God referred to
as, ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’
“Holy Ghost” seems to be an old way of saying it. We think of ghost stories, whether horror
films or fun, silly stories, like Casper, and we are pretty sure God is
not that. God is something else. So, we distinguish between ‘Holy Spirit’ and
the folklore around ghosts, and most often today, we refer to the third person
of the trinity as God the Holy Spirit.
There’s
no such distinction in the Greek, the original language of the New
Testament. The same word – pnuema – is
used for ghost and for spirit. Jesus is
emphasizing that he is here in person, in the flesh. In verse 39, he uses the word ‘flesh’ – sarka
in the Greek – to describe himself. He
invites them to touch him (v.39). He
eats fish while they watch. Resurrection is embodied.
I
offer two reasons why this is so important.
First, anyone who tries to make the case that Jesus’ resurrection was a
‘spiritual’ but not a bodily event is committed to an unbiblical position. Luke was written about 30-45 years after the
death and resurrection. But Paul wrote 1st
Corinthians with a couple of decades of those events. And he used sources that dated back to within
just a few years after the resurrection.
Thus, the earliest testimony from the very first churches was that the
resurrection is bodily. One may have
difficulty in accepting a bodily resurrection.
However, it is disingenuous to suggest the New Testament is talking
about something else.
The
consistent New Testament witness is that Jesus’s body rose. It was changed and in resurrection operates
by physical properties we don’t have the ability to measure or account
for. New creation is beyond what our
scientific logic can explain.
Nonetheless, as Christians, we believe in bodily resurrection, first for
Jesus, then for us.
The
second reason the establishment of the resurrection as an event that really
happened in actual history is, we have to deal with it. If it is true that Jesus rose from the grave,
what does this mean for how we live? We
are in a time of overlap. With the
resurrection, the new creation has begun.
However, the world is still dying.
Death is still a thing that happens.
People still sin. So while the
age of degradation and destruction is ending, it has not ended yet. We live within both realities, the age of
death and the new age of the Kingdom of God, inaugurated by Jesus’s birth,
life, death and resurrection. What does
it look like when we choose to live by the terms Jesus sets in the
resurrection?
For
a case study, I offer the story of Bud Welch and Bill McVeigh as told by
criminal justice advocate Jeanne Bishop.[i] I didn’t know either of these names until I
read about them this week. McVeigh is
the father of the notorious Timothy McVeigh, the man who set off a homemade
bomb in the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995. One hundred sixty-eight people were killed
and another 680 were injured. Prior to
the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack on 9/11/2001, it was the biggest
terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Welch’s
daughter Julie was a language interpreter working at the Murray Federal
Building. She died when Timothy’s bomb
exploded. Bill McVeigh is the father of
a mass murderer and Bud Welch is the father of one of his victims. Bud Welch lives as if the resurrection
happened and things are different because of it.
As
media scrambled to interview grief-stricken relatives of the victims, Welch saw
it as an opportunity to campaign against the death penalty. He lost a child. He didn’t see the point in any more death,
not even the killer’s death. From there,
he took his desire for grace further. He
went to great lengths to meet with Timothy McVeigh in prison. That meeting never happened, and McVeigh was
executed on June 11, 2001. However, a
nun helped connect Welch with McVeigh’s father Bill.
Bill
had kept a low-profile after the tragedy.
He couldn’t understand why his son did this horrible thing, and he did
not want the McVeigh name to bring any more pain to the families of the
victims. So, he avoided interviews and
did his best to stay out of the media.
He does not attend memorial services on the anniversary of the
event. He said he would always love his
son, but could not fathom that he did this thing.
Two
fathers beset by grief, and grace brought them together. Jeanne Bishop tells the full story in her
book that is now out, entitled, Grace from the Rubble. Bud Welch knows the resurrection of Jesus is
real and by extending grace to Bill McVeigh, he creates space for both men to
grieve and find hope. Could you or I do
it as he has? Could we forgive the
father of someone who killed our loved ones?
I
hope I never have to find out. The tragedy is immense. But I am thankful for the story and even more
thankful for the story in Luke 24. There
we see that death does not have the final word.
The risen Lord Jesus stands with his disciples, explains the bodily
nature of resurrection, and then demonstrates it by eating with them and
inviting them to touch him.
In
our current environment where we are forced to stay home by a disease that
passes aggressively from person to person and is deadly for some, how do we go
about living in the new age. Jesus is
alive and we have life in his name. What
difference does that make in COVID-19 America as we are two months into the
spread of the disease and the quarantine it has forced upon us?
Jesus
said, “Touch me and see, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones.” We cannot get within 6 feet of one
another. We go around with masks on so
that we cannot even see one another’s smiles.
In this strange time, how do we embody the grace Bill Welch demonstrated
after his daughter died? How in our
lives do we live as if the resurrection happened, we believe it happened, and
it makes a difference?
Answers
don’t always come easily. One of the
great commands of Jesus is that we love our neighbors as ourselves, and in the
time of COVID-19, respecting social distancing is an expression of love. Find ways to be with people while maintaining
that 6-foot distance. Don’t take offense
if someone else’s fear leads them to act in ways that make interaction
awkward. Bring peace to your encounters
with people whether it is in the limited public interactions we have or the
interaction is in social media.
Social
media is a setting where hilarious humor and uplifting joy is shared, but it is
also a playground for outrage and conspiracy theories. On Facebook, Instagram, and other social
media platforms, be a voice peace. The
disciples were overwrought and Jesus bid them calm, as he took away their
fear. The resurrection is peace, light,
hope, and welcome. We can extend all
these things. You can reach out to
someone with whom you have had an argument or falling-out. Invite that person back into your life with a
posture of humility and forgiveness.
When
the uncertainty and the cramped quartering of stay-at-home orders starts to get
to you, turn to the resurrected Lord.
Ask the Holy Spirit to remind you that COVID-19 is a symptom of a world
in the throes of death, but another world overlaps this one: the resurrection
life in which there is no death.
We
are locked in a strange time. But the
grace from one man to another in the midst of a tragedy helps us see a brighter
light. The story of the risen Savior
taking away his disciples’ fear takes away our fear. And the reality that the resurrection means
our lives have purpose drives us to see life and spread hope even in the face
of frustration and suffering. Live the
resurrection life, renewed daily, and feel doubts and disbelief give way as joy
settles on us.
AMEN
[i]
All my information for this story comes from baptistnews.com - https://baptistnews.com/article/25-years-later-grace-and-forgiveness-still-rise-from-rubble-of-the-oklahoma-city-bombing/#.Xph5wchKhPZ
