a Homily for Easter 3B
Text: Luke 24:36-48

Was it Real?

This is our third Sunday in Easter and our third different resurrection story.

We had Mark’s open-ending with Mary, Mary, and Salome running away in fear with instructions to bring the Good News to the rest of Jesus’s followers.

We had John’s story of Jesus appearing to the disciples, who were cowering in the locked room. Jesus’s appearance demonstrates His victory over death and even gives Thomas a second chance at gaining the same understanding of the resurrection that the others have.

This morning, our gospel pericope addresses a slightly different issue: was the resurrection real? As John’s depiction deals with faith in and the proclaiming of the resurrection, this is dealing with its physicality. It is an argument in response to that question posed long ago: was it real?

Imagine all of the questions they received. Particularly this one: “I know you think you saw Jesus, but that doesn’t mean He was really there. You were just seeing things.” Jesus doesn’t just appear before them, He is before them. He proves it by eating some fish.

Our Historical Obsession

I love the part about the fish. It seems so strange. We’re such skeptics about our world that we might say “sure he ate fish—just like a magician’s hat is a portal to a rabbit hutch.” It feels like a parlor trick.

The answer the writer of Luke gives may as well be for us. We are full of questions. Did Jesus really come back? Was it Him? What of His soul? Was it the same body or a new one? What are we to make of His return? How long did He stay with them? What did they get out of it? Did it happen?

We are tortured by the historicity of things and we fret over the question of Jesus’s existence. We want it to be true. But these aren’t the questions Jesus came to address. Not really. He came to do something else. To prove something else. Something that started on the walk to Emmaus.

The Walk

Two disciples are walking and a stranger joins them. They start talking about Jesus and the crucifixion, and they’re surprised he doesn’t seem to know anything about it. And they then say

Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. (verses 22-23)

They invite the stranger to stay with them and eat. Then Jesus reveals himself while eating with them.

Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. (verse 35)

See in this a pattern: the women tell the disciples, then Jesus reveals himself to these two disciples. Then they tell the other disciples about Jesus and Jesus reveals himself to the whole group. Someone tells a story, then Jesus reveals himself.

In our own gospel pericope for today, it says

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures (verse 45)

and after describing what they are to do, Jesus says

You are witnesses of these things. (verse 48)

The three women are the first witnesses, the first to receive the revelation, and first to understand. They tell the disciples about it and they become witnesses, receive revelation, and understand.

Then they are called to pass it on.

The Story

The resurrection challenges us to deal with the difference between truth and fact. And more importantly, get over it. Because faith isn’t built on building a time machine to witness with our own eyes, but to be a witness in revelation. A revelation that comes in the form of a story. A story told to us by someone who witnessed, received the revelation of Jesus and believed. And now, they are telling you.

My own experience on a Sunday morning at All Saints in East Lansing, for the first time worshiping with the New Zealand Prayer Book—it contains such captivating liturgies. A seminarian was preaching about faith in doubt and I had my eyes opened. My life changed. I am here because of that day. No flashing lights. No booming voice. But a preacher, whose name I never learned was a witness who shared his revelation.

Our belief doesn’t come from philosophy or from history. It comes from sharing with other people. Sharing what we’ve witnessed. Sharing our experience to others. And that includes these two boys we together will baptize this morning. We will share our story, the story with them: today, tomorrow, and the many days after that. We will vow to tell the story so that Jesus may be revealed to them. Because that’s how the truth works: it comes from hearing a story. So let’s share it.