Homily for the Third Sunday after Easter
April 18, 2021

Experience with the Risen Christ

We just recently finished up the Parish Lenten Bible study and as we were reflecting over the past little while, we had a conversation about how as we get older we aren’t the same person as we used to be…the things that happen in our life, the good, the bad, and all the in-between…they change us. They change the way we look at life, they change the way we interact with others and how we see the world.
Fr. Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation talks about the “second half of life” and how the things that were once important (things like reputation and success) often become less important as we get older, and we realize that we can find deeper and more profound meaning in things like our spirituality and our relationships.    Now I’m simplifying Rohr’s idea a bit here…but I think we can all connect with this idea that life changes us and as we grow and mature, our priorities often change.
When I was in university, I was serving a church as their youth intern. One Sunday, I came in and one of the youth said, “You guys—something crazy happened to me this week at school.” We all looked at her waiting for the “crazy” moment…she finally said, “I was in the cafeteria one day, and this boy came up to me. He said, ‘What is it like to know the love of Jesus?’” she continued, “I was kind of confused. I just stared at him, and then finally asked, ‘What do you mean?’” She explained that she never really talked about her faith much at school, but he said to her, “You just…I mean—it’s just obvious by the way that you conduct yourself that you know what it’s like to experience God’s love. And I want to know that feeling too.”
Experience with the Risen Christ also changes us. And this is what we see in these post-Resurrection encounters ---
In Matthew’s Gospel, we see the women who are ‘filled with awe and great joy’ at hearing the news (28:8). In Luke, we find the two disciples on the road to Emmaus who move from ‘faces downcast’ as they talked of all that had happened, to exclaiming in wonder, ‘did our hearts not burn within us as he talked to us on the road?’ (Luke 24:32). Then in our reading today, the disciples go from “startled and terrified as if they were seeing a ghost” (Luke 24:37) to joyful (Luke 24:41)…so much so, that after Jesus ascends to heaven a few verses later, the disciples go “back to Jerusalem full of joy” (Luke 24:52). John’s Gospel describes Mary ‘standing outside the tomb, weeping’ and then a moment of transformation when she hears her name, ‘Mary!’ and recognizes Jesus (John 10:16); and then again in John we see the shift in the disciples from fear to being ‘filled with joy at seeing the Lord’ (John 20:20).
There is a distinct change right to the core of their being of those who knew Jesus when they encounter his risen self: from grief, sorrow, fear and hopelessness at his death, to hope, life, joy and energy to go out and tell others.
These encounters tell us something about the way in which the risen Christ acts with people – by rekindling lost hope, bringing joy, easing fear and enabling a lived out response of continued discipleship.
I don’t want to simplify this. I mean it’s not a perfect transformation…its lived out…its worked out. Any kind of change can be a process and we see this process being worked out with many of Jesus’ followers during these 40 days following his resurrection: they rejoice, but some still doubt; they find hope, but some still fear. Regardless, Jesus continues to show up.
And literally, Jesus just shows up. In John, chapter 20, Jesus did not have to knock. He did not even have to open the door. He simply was there. In Luke, Jesus simply appeared and “stood among them” (Luke 24:36)
And it wasn’t because he was a ghost. The Gospel writers want to make that point very clear… Jesus says,  “Look 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.” (Luke 24:39)
Jesus even shares in some leftovers, saying, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. (Luke 24:41-43)
Jesus is recognized not by his miraculous appearance, but by his wounded humanity. He can go where no one else can go. He can go where no counselor can go. He can go where no doctor can go. He can go where no lover or spouse can go. He can reach you, and reach into you, anywhere and anytime. There is no place where we are, and no depths of personhood that we are which Jesus can’t penetrate.
And is this not how we can experience God, when we let the Risen Christ into our own wounds?
And when we let the Risen Christ into those places, is this not how we enter into that process, that work, of transformation?

AND PEOPLE WILL NOTICE. Just like the young girl, who through her relationship and her experience with Jesus, showed to others an obvious difference…that opportunity is available to all of us.
There’s the old adage that as we get older we actually get more set in our ways and change becomes more difficult. That can be true in a lot of ways….as we gain experience we also gain a better sense of ourselves…what we like, what we don’t like….but I think attitude and choice can play a big role because we are always on a journey of maturing and growing. That’s part of our journey as humans. The opportunities for transformation never end. Not even now, when the world has seemed to stop…The Risen Christ is ready and will show up.
So I pray that we continue to pay attention to the ways in which the experience of the Risen Christ presents to each one of us…as individuals and as a Church. And through the transforming love of God, may we also be witnesses and invite others into an experience with the Risen Christ. Amen.

Yours in Christ,
Cynthia

Image Attribution: Duccio, di Buoninsegna, d. 1319. Christ Appears to the Disciples at the Table after the Resurrection, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=49184 [retrieved April 22, 2021]. Original source: www.yorckproject.de.