Disciples are sent

 

Luke 24:36b-48

 

Late in March, my son Dan and his family came from Arkansas to visit. It has been a few years since we’ve seen them. COVID seemed to make the distance worse, since travel was not possible. Mike and I watched and waited for them to show up, regularly checking for texts and looking out the door to see if they were here yet.

Once they arrived, I could hardly wait to get my arms around my kids. I was thinking, “Is it really you? Are you really here?” I suspect this is some of what the disciples were thinking when Jesus appeared that Easter evening.

The third Sunday after Easter is always a story about Jesus eating with his disciples. We pick up the story from Luke. The previous story is about Jesus meeting with two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus. They talk with him, he tells them how the crucifixion and resurrection fits with all of Scripture, and they invite him into their home. They offer him some supper, he prays and breaks the bread, and suddenly they recognize him in the breaking of the bread.

Our story today begins after the Emmaus disciples have returned to the upper room. They shared the story of seeing the risen Jesus, and they learn that Peter has also seen Jesus. Suddenly, Jesus appears in the room. They have been hoping he would appear to them all, but they are also startled and fearful.

   

It is a time when there are a lot of superstitions, and ghosts are on the list of things to fear. There are some tests prescribed to make sure that a person is not a ghost. First, their hands and feet should look and feel normal. This is to show that they have bones, the way a normal person does. 

And second, they need to make sure the feet are touching the ground. Ghosts hover off the ground, while a real person’s feet touch the ground. 

Third, ghosts can’t eat food, so Jesus asks for some fish and eats it in front of them.

Jesus has proven he is not a ghost, that he really stands in their midst, that he has really risen from the dead. Now, as he did with the Emmaus disciples, he reminds them of what he has taught them. He reminds them that what has just happened to him, his betrayal, arrest, trial and death, were all scriptural. This suffering and death has been God’s Plan A all along.

Now, the disciples are witnesses to his resurrection, and to his teaching. This all happened so God’s people could understand what God wants from them. The disciples have been called by Jesus, have learned what he could teach them. They have witnessed that God has power over everything, including death. They are now being sent to share this good news with the world.

A word that appears 248 times in the Hebrew Bible, mostly in Psalms and the Prophets, is hesed. It’s Hebrew for God’s mercy, grace, lovingkindness, or steadfast covenant love. As often as it appears, we are right to think hesed says a lot about how God loves us and how God wants us to treat others.

Jesus constantly demonstrated hesed with everyone. He treated everyone with respect, with kindness, with mercy: the disciples, the leaders of the community, the common people, foreign women, even the Romans as they were judging and executing him. The disciples have been witnesses to this, and Jesus wants the disciples to continue to treat people this way.

Two thousand years later, we are the beneficiaries of the first disciples, who gave their lives being witnesses to Jesus resurrection and his demonstrations of hesed. If no one told us about Jesus, we would never have come to know him and experience the love of God expressed in community.

We have been challenged to do some of our outreach ministries lately, but y’all have been faithful in keeping the shelves in the office stocked with portable food for hungry people in the neighborhood. People in the neighborhood know about us: last week, a neighbor dropped off two large packages of toilet tissue, which will be taken to Interfaith Emergency Services.

These are wonderful and very important ways to care for our neighbors. Just as important is seeing everyone through Jesus’ eyes. Jesus treated everyone he met with grace. He healed them, he fed them, he argued with them, he taught them to see each other as God sees them.

God loves each person on earth as God’s own beloved child, made in God’s own image. It doesn’t matter to God how they worship, where they live, how they express their sexuality, what language they speak, or how much money or political power they have. Although, … God does care that people have enough money and power to live meaningful lives.

We are Jesus’ witnesses today, called and sent to share Jesus with those who don’t know him. We are called and sent to share God’s hesed, God’s lovingkindness and mercy and grace with all people, even if it is scary to do so.

We are not sent out alone. God’s Holy Spirit accompanies us wherever we go, encouraging us, challenging us to speak Jesus’ name, to be merciful, to love as Jesus loves. Let’s live and love like Jesus, trusting that because the tomb is empty, God can do anything through and with us. Amen