Simple Presence
Easter 3B
Luke 24:36b-48
4/26/2009
Jim Melnyk

One of my most favorite fictional characters who have stayed with me since childhood is Winnie the Pooh – though I must confess a certain affinity for good old Eyore on many days. Can't you just hear Eyore reciting today's psalm: “Oh, that we might see better times!”
        
Sitting in my desk drawer is a Winnie the Pooh post card I bought a long time ago but never sent to anyone. I simply liked the card for my own self. It shows Pooh and Piglet walking hand-in-hand into the sunset. The caption goes like this: “Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. 'Pooh!' he whispers. 'Yes, Piglet?' 'Nothing,' says Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. 'I just wanted to be sure of you.'” The card captures for me the warmth, security, friendship and love that can be communicated to us and by us through the gift of presence – of simply being present for one another.
        
In a way, today's gospel is much like the Winnie the Pooh post card. On one level, the story is told because those first followers of Jesus – those tough guys and gals of the gospel – were hiding in fear in the upper room, unsure of where to go or what to do next. Unlike Mark, the oldest Gospel, the Gospel we heard on Easter Day, Luke has no charge by Jesus that all should head back to Galilee and start all over again. Indeed, the Luke/Acts tradition focuses on the Gospel being proclaimed first in Jerusalem – the Word of God going out from Zion – then in “all of Judea and Samaria, and [then] to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8b). And, by the time Luke is actually putting ink to scroll, some 45 years after the resurrection, there are many new followers of the way – followers of Jesus beyond the core who had been to Jerusalem – followers who had not had that same experience of Jesus after his death that the disciples had. They want to be sure of Jesus, too.
        
“Look at my hands and feet,” Jesus tells his friends. “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones.” Look at me. Touch me. Watch me chow down on some broiled fish if that helps. But most of all be sure of me. Be sure of me. I am with you, my friends. And I wish you my peace – peace the world cannot give – shalom alecheim – peace be with you!
        
The early church wanted to be sure that the resurrection was understood as a real, physical happening – what Marcus Borg calls an experience that will convince them that Jesus continues to be a figure of their present. The early church wanted followers of Jesus to know that the Risen Christ had the power to give them peace – peace in the present tense of their lives – peace in the now of their lives. It's as if Jesus is saying to his disciples, and to the church that will follow, “Hey, I just want you to be sure of me!”
        
But it seems to me like there's more to the story than just the assurance of Jesus' presence. It seems to also be about what that presence means to those in the upper room, and to those hearing the story decades later, and even today. I believe it's about simple presence – yes, but it's also about solidarity – the way Jesus is present to those hiding in mortal fear – the way Jesus is present to those seen as living outside the circle of acceptability – the way Jesus is present to us and for us today.
        
Among all the accounts dealing with the resurrection, Luke's seem to stress the bodily characteristics of the event with greater energy than any of the other evangelists' accounts. Perhaps, I'm thinking, perhaps that's because Luke most closely identifies with the followers of Jesus who were usually caught on the outside of society – in the midst of the brokenness of the world. For Luke, Jesus of Nazareth is raised from the dead in all the fullness of his earthly frame – physical presence in solidarity with beaten-down and broken of the world. Nail-scarred and broken, yet raised by God, Jesus remains a promise of God's transformation power for those who need that promise the most.
        
Jesus stands before his followers and friends as a “real-time” savior, though no longer constrained by time or space; no longer constrained by the powers of politics, institutions or Empire. The Risen Christ standing before his followers and friends is a visible reminder that he is One who has lived as one of us – as One who has suffered the grief and anguish of human life and love, as One who has suffered great pain and betrayal, and who has died a very real death at the hands of others. The Risen Christ is our scarred brother, and for him to be raised without the nail marks in his hands and feet, without his torn and ragged side, would diminish the reality of his suffering. And in the discounting of his suffering, our suffering would be diminished as well.
        
Jesus comes before his friends and followers as if to say, “Resurrection cannot deny human suffering – but by God's grace resurrection can and will transform it!” The resurrection becomes God's ultimate “yes” to human existence, and the means by which creation is healed. In Easter, God has offered the ultimate experience of transfiguration – and the glimpse of Jesus' transfigured glory on the mountain becomes a reality that can now be experienced by all who follow the Risen Christ.
        
The resurrection of Christ does not erase the world's ills. It does not discount whatever scars we may carry with us from life's struggles. But resurrection does bring healing and our wounds don't have to become festering scars. Easter is the power of God to make all things new – and in meeting the resurrected Jesus, his followers witness first-hand a new demonstration of God's power to re-create the world.
        
I was reminded of Good Friday and Easter while reading Thursday afternoon. I came across an interesting quote by Jacques Ellul in William Paul Young's book, The Shack. Ellul writes “No matter what God's power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master, the Almighty. [The first aspect of God's power] is that of the God who puts himself on our human level and limits himself” (p. 88). Now, that's hard stuff for many Christians to hear – that communion and community are more powerful than brute force.
        
Scholars such as Nicholas Berdyaev, Jürgen Moltmann and Paul Fiddes talk about this as “the desire of God.” In his book, The Creative Suffering of God, Paul Fiddes writes, “Berdyaev suggests, as does Moltmann more recently, that the key to divine suffering lies in God's desire for fellowship beyond [God's self]. Love is a longing for self-communication.”. Love is “a thirst to communicate what is good” (The Creative Suffering of God, Paul S. Fiddes, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1988, p. 71-72).         
        
And so I believe it can be said that Easter is about simple presence. But Easter is also about solidarity. Easter is about sacrificial and vulnerable love on the part of God. And Easter is about God's longing for communion with the very beings God has somehow brought into being – the very beings who struggle with what it means to be loved – and I'm willing to bet that every one of us in this room has struggled with what it means to love and to be loved.
        
This desire to love, Fiddes points out, comes only “from the abundance of God's creative fullness” (p. 72). It is God's nature to create. It is God's nature to be in relationship – the Trinity is one way of showing this. And because it is God's choice – God's nature – to be in relationship with creatures who also have freedom to choose (now this is another tough thing for many to hear) but because it is God's choice – God's nature – to be in relationship with those who also have the freedom to choose, it is God's nature to suffer and give God's self in love. That's hard stuff for some folks to hear!
        
And so the resurrection of Jesus from the dead affirms us as human beings, as creatures made in the image and likeness of God. The resurrection affirms our lives in the here and now of this world. The resurrection acknowledges, affirms and honors the often harsh realities of our physical and emotional lives as we struggle to live together with integrity and grace. Easter is more than God being simply present for us – which is comforting to be sure. Easter is more than God's solidarity with us – God's participating with us in our struggles. Easter is even more than God simply loving us – though that's incredibly true. Easter is the risky longing of God to be loved by us in return – the risky longing of God to be loved by us in return!
        
The resurrection affirms for us a God who “desires and suffers to create” a new communion where all of creation is honored and held to be sacred – a reality where the love of God – where the hope of God – where the dream of God is made real. Amen.        

©2009 Jim Melnyk