York Minster

The resurrection made tangible Acts 3: 12-19; Luke 24: 36b-48

Date: 26th April 2009
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Jeremy Fletcher

Those who like to worry about these things will tell you that Facebook and Twitter and other ‘social networking websites’ are destroying the fabric of society. Students working for exams are giving in to temptation and distraction and chatting electronically rather than revising, and people have lost the art of conversation and reflection because they are spending so much time instantly online.

I have to say that I have not succumbed to Twitter yet, but those who know me will know that I do like Facebook, so much so that I gave it up for Lent to see what it would be like. And I missed it. And I like catching up with people I wouldn’t otherwise see. But perhaps there is something in people’s concerns about the loss of quality of relationship when everything is virtual. A local cleric told me that he has a rule that he will only make someone a Facebook friend if he’s eaten with them. Luckily we were having lunch when he told me that, and you’ll find him on my friends list.

[If all of that sounded like Klingon to you, don’t worry. We’re about to hit the Bible].

Our two readings today are in part about the tangibility of the resurrection.

One even mentions eating. The disciples, meeting the risen Christ are ‘startled and terrified, as if they had seen a ghost’. Jesus speaks in order to reassure them – it is me. I am not the creation of your grief, nor a spirit conjured from the shades. I live in a new way. I am not virtual, existing only in a photo, or pixels, or binary code, or imagination. To prove it is me, look at my body, and touch me.

They do this, but still cannot quite believe. So Jesus says the least religious thing you can imagine. ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ And they give him the least amazing thing you can imagine: a piece of broiled fish. Is there anything less spectacular? Anything more ordinary than that? Eating a kipper for supper with them makes the new world a reality, just as breaking bread in Emmaus, the story which precedes this one, opens the eyes of those two disciples.

I’m pleased that the disciples were able to have this tangible experience, so that forever after they could hold on to the risen Christ who had eaten with them.  What about those of us who live after the Ascension? The story Luke records in Acts also deals with tangibility. A lame beggar, whose accustomed pitch was at the Gate Beautiful has made his standard call for money. Peter responds – and makes the encounter personal. Here’s the revealing detail again. He fixes the beggar with his eyes, and makes the beggar look at him – unlike the impersonal nature of these transactions normally – no eye contact.  ‘I have no money, but I will give you what I have’, he says, and in the name of Christ he tells the man to get up and walk. The man is miraculously healed. There’s another lovely tangible detail: Luke, the Doctor, tell us that the man’s ‘feet and ankles were made strong’.

Our first reading takes up the story at that point. The crowd want to know what has happened, and how the man has been healed. Peter explains that the man has been touched – literally – by the power of the name of Christ. Christ has brought healing and new life to a man without hope – after the resurrection and ascension, in the same way as he would have done were he physically present. The man has not seen Christ, but the power of the resurrection has been made tangible and effective through one of his faithful followers.

What interests me about both these stories is that Luke in his Gospel and in Acts makes a further point with each one. In his resurrection body Jesus eats with his disciples, and they believe in him. This could be the end of the story – a tangible proof of the resurrection. Emotional security and spiritual confidence could all come from this moment – and, reading it, we who have not seen could also become intellectually and spiritually convinced of the resurrection. But Jesus continues to speak.  Firstly he gives them a theological and historical context, opening their minds to understand the scriptures, and then he gives them a command – ‘proclaim repentance and forgiveness’. You are witnesses, he says. Not observers but those who testify to what they have seen. Don’t just believe. Do. Don’t just find wholeness. Speak.

Peter, in Acts is the same. Every commentator on this passage about the healed beggar notes that Peter could have stopped his speech having explained that the man was healed in the name of Christ. But he goes on to challenge the onlookers. If this was Christ in action, then you need to stop being onlookers and make a response. Don’t just spectate. Repent. Don’t just be interested. Commit yourself, and find the true power of the death of Christ in the forgiveness of your sins.

To encounter someone face to face, tangibly, is to continue a relationship with all its demands and opportunities. The disciples meet the risen Christ, are touched by him, and are given a mission which transforms them again. The beggar and the crowd are touched by the risen Christ through the healing, and are challenged literally to turn themselves around, and follow the new way of Christ.

The resurrection is tangible for us who have not touched or seen or eaten when we do tangible things: when we come to this place, when we read and hear God’s word, when we do what God wants. Just to come to an intellectual conclusion about the resurrection is a bit like having a Facebook friend you have never eaten with.  The power of the resurrection comes in what follows – in encounter and relationship with the risen Christ boldly or spiritually. In this meal Christ becomes visible – and we eat with him.  The presence of Christ is tangible, or relationship with him is made personal, our forgiveness is given flesh. After this encounter, may we also be renewed, and like the first disciples be given a purpose and mission, to give people what we have – the good news of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.