"Blessed to Be a Witness"

April 22, 2012

Gospel Reading: Luke 24:36B-48

Jesus himself stood among the disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you.” ³⁷They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. ³⁸He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ³⁹Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.

Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” ⁴⁰And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

⁴¹While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” ⁴²They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³and he took it and ate in their presence.

⁴⁴Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things.”

SERMON: “Blessed to Be a Witness”

The disciples really loved a good dinner party (in Greek, I believe the word is potluck).  This was one dinner party they would never forget.  Some of their group were excitedly talking about Jesus walking with them on the road to Emmaus, while others were doubting, and all of a sudden, Jesus appeared in their midst.  He looked at them and simply said, “Peace” but they were all terrified, thinking he was a ghost.  This Jesus seemed a little different.

They must have been asking themselves:

Is this Jesus 2.0?  The new-and-improved Resurrection model?  The old Jesus was pretty remarkable: healing the sick and casting out demons.  But Jesus 2.0, well he was raised from the dead and can walk through walls!  He can also disappear better than David Copperfield! 

This upgraded Christ did not emphasize his post-resurrection glow or his ability to defeat physics.  He said, “Look at my hands and my feet, touch me and see.”  For some reason, he knew was best recognized not by his voice or his face but by his wounds. 

Now, I can’t help but wonder why God would have raised Jesus from the dead but still left him with the marks of that terrible death. Why didn’t Jesus appear glowing and perfect like a Lord of the Rings Gandalf the Grey becoming a radiant Gandalf the White, instead of remaining scarred?  Perhaps because there’s a witness in those wounds.

Barbara Brown Taylor describes this witness well:

 “Look at my hands and my feet,” Jesus said, and when they did they saw everything he had ever been to them. They saw the hands that had broken bread and blessed broiled fish, holding it out to them over and over again. They saw the hands that had pressed pads of mud against a blind man’s eyes and taken a dead girl by the hand so that she rose and walked. They saw the hands that danced through the air when he taught, the same hands that reached out to touch a leper without pausing or holding back.

And his feet—the ones that had carried him hundreds of miles, taking his good news to all who were starving for it—into the homes of criminals and corrupt bureaucrats, whom he treated like long-lost kin; into the graveyard where the Gerasene demoniac lived like a wild dog among the dead, whom he freed from his devils forever. Looking at those feet, they remembered the vulgar woman who had wet them with her tears and dried them with her hair, and Mary, who had sat there quietly protected by him while her sister Martha railed at her to get up and work.

Those hands and feet, that so marked Jesus’ ministry on earth needed to be marked by his greatest witness of love and sacrifice on the cross.  While none of us know what it is to be raised from the dead, we do know what it is to survive the heartache or fear or illness that we never thought we could.  And when that survival happens, we are made new, but we also bear the scars of that struggle for new life. 

As enticing as the idea of an airbrushed, perfect Jesus is, what we really need is a Savior with scars.  Because when we are called to be a witness to that Savior, we need to be able to talk about the ugly struggles that somehow God has brought us through.  That’s what being a witness is: claiming resurrection life for here and now, in the midst of our wounds. 

Jesus’ hands and feet told the story of God’s excruciating and exhilarating witness on earth.  They still do.  That kind of witness can’t be erased.  And as the Body of Christ, we are his scarred hands and feet still bearing witness to the new life God brings.    What an overwhelming responsibility.

The disciples certainly felt overwhelmed by it.  They were disbelieving and wondering when they were told to be witnesses.  Jesus patiently explained again how he was always meant to come and die and rise again, so that humanity would never again doubt the depths of God’s love for us.  And as he uttered those powerful words, gesturing with those holy, holey hands, still some doubted.  But they were called to be a witness all the same.

Because if a witness is found not in glowing light and perfect heavenly bodies but in a tired, wounded body still serving, then God can use even the most unlikely characters to witness to the resurrection.  The most powerful testimony is not how we have placidly sailed the sea of obligatory faith, never wavering, never doubting.  The most powerful witness to the work of God is found when we show our wounds that have been healed with God’s grace, even if the scars remain. 

When we let our hands reach out to those in need of dignity and sustenance rather than balling them into fists of anger and pride.  When we let our feet guide us to bravely walk alongside the overlooked and judged, rather than running frantically—and going nowhere—on the treadmill of self-expectations.  

I invite you, as I play the song “Blessed to Be a Witness” by Ben Harper and show images, to ponder what it means for you to be a witness.  What it looks like for us to be God’s wounded hands and feet in this world. 

We are each of us witnesses to our Risen Lord who still walks among us, and that is a blessing.