Real as Fish

Luke 24:36 b-48

April 19, 2015

Easter 3

Here is Jesus.

Visiting with the disciples after the resurrection.

And he talks to them. Not for a passing moment,

not just one faint misunderstood word, but for a long time.
They actually discuss things.

And it’s not like he only speaks to one disciple, like Thaddeus

and then Thaddeus conveys his interpretation of what Jesus said

Fish and Pita, Mark Hewitt, 2012

to the rest of them.

Jesus talks to all of them all together.

And then they touch his wounds, still visible and identifiable.
And he was hungry, he needed to eat.
And so they fed him.

Broiled fish, just to be specific.

The gospel writers go to some lengths to show us one thing:

This resurrection is real.

It wasn’t a hallucination, vision, whatever you might call it.

It was flesh and bone resurrection in real life.

The disciples saw it, felt it, smelled it, experienced it.

Jesus is alive again, wounds, hunger and all.

As much as you can prove matter exists,

Jesus was there and alive and snacking on fish.

Nothing is quite as real as fish.

Now we could get hung up on this one event

And never leave. And maybe the church has to some extent.

But we must remember, this isn’t just a story about the very real

resurrection of one person 2000 years ago.

This is a story about us, about right now, about all times, about human life.

It’s about hope, forgiveness, it’s about miracle of starting over again.

This story about how Jesus lived, died tragically

and then was risen again,

is a revelation about us,

and it is about God, and about our Creators wish for us all.

The story of Jesus is about

the cycle of life, death, and new birth again.

It’s about living in hope, not being afraid of death.

And we know this, because we have seen other resurrections.

Just in our own time,

We have seen cities and countries torn apart by disasters, war,

poverty, desperation, famine, neglect, greed, hatred.

And out of their ashes, we have seen new communities form.

We have seen how other people’s lives have been

burned to the ground with tragedy,

pain, sickness, addiction.

And we have seen them come back to life.

Many of us have been through our own deaths

years of sadness and worry,

and we have come here to this day,

still with hope, promise, and future.

We are alive, our wounds intact and visible.

But we know that resurrection is real .

As real as fish.

  

Now, other people have seen this.
People who do not share our faith

have seen the same kinds of things.

People with no faith at all have seen

things that were once hopeless come to life again.

But as Christians, we know this is the power of Christ.

We understand it as the work of God in the world.

And because we believe it is from God.

and we know that there is nothing

that is too far gone for God’s power,

we have hope for all things.

And even when death does come,

we know that we are still in God’s care.

And when Jesus was talking with the disciples

on that day and they were eating that real fish together,

he noticed that at the same time that they were filled with joy,

they were filled with doubt.

In their joy they were disbelieving and wondering.

Like us, they had lots of questions and concerns,

they didn’t know if they could trust their own eyes,

but Jesus told them that they would be

witnesses to him, witnesses to the story of Jesus

and to God’s love for us and God’s power to make life.

They could take their own wounds, their own doubts,

and use them to show people the love and power of God.

And since we have also seen

these things with our own eyes,

since we are witnesses to these things too.

We are also sent out into the world.

With our disbelieving and wondering,

with our doubts and questions

armed with our visible wounds

we stand as a testament of God’s work in this world.

We have been sent to share

the story of Jesus life and death and life again.

The story of God’s love and God’s power to make new.

To share, not just in words and sermons.

not just in hopes and prayers.

But in flesh and bone, solid ways.

Real as fish ways.

And so we do what we do,

We build houses with people,

we share food with them,

we work for justice in our community,

We welcome strangers,

We hold people’s hands when they need to be held

we make them food when they need to have food made.

we have real relationships and we

forgive one another when things go wrong.

Even in our disbelieving and wonder,

we have been clothed with power from on high

to share God’s love and resurrection.

We are Easter People.

People who are shaped by the gift of resurrection.

We share our wounds and stories and belief with a broken world

and testify that hope is possible.

That God is with us.

That after death comes life.

That resurrection is as real as fish.

That Jesus Christ is risen.