The Body of Christ

A sermon by Currie Burris

Luke 24: 36-48

April 30, 2006

            Jesus Christ was actually raised from the dead. It wasn’t a dream or hallucination of the disciples. What they saw was not a ghost or an impostor. It wasn’t the image of their crucified teacher. The person that appeared to them in that room was the same that they had known before. They touched him. He ate with them. They laughed together. Maybe they even cried together. The resurrected Christ was the real Jesus, body and soul. God’s victory over death is not just an idea, but a real embodied truth.

            The scripture passage this morning from the gospel of Luke tells much the same story as we heard last week from the gospel of John, leaving out the account of Thomas’ doubting and his need to touch and feel. But the Luke passage goes on to tell us what happened next. Jesus explains to them why all these things had happened. He calls on them to be witnesses of the resurrection and, echoing the great commission from Matthew, he commissions them to tell the good news to all the earth. He gives them his ministry.

            And then Jesus leads them out of the city and he is taken into heaven. Luke and Acts (written by the same person) are the only accounts that mention what we call the “Ascension.” Matthew, Mark and John end with Jesus very much still present on earth. In fact as Jesus gives the Great Commission in Matthew, he says “Lo I am with you always, even until the ends of the earth.” If Jesus was really physically resurrected, and according to Luke ascended into heaven, how can he be with us always, even until the end of the earth? Where is the Body of Christ?

            We could say that Matthew, Mark and John just neglected to add the powerful scene of the ascension. But I don’t think that was likely. Rather I think all four gospels were saying the same thing but in different ways. The transition of Jesus’ physical body into heaven was not a transition into some nether-worldly dimension, some other invisible realm far away with streets of gold and mansions on high. The ascension was not ‘up and away.’ It was ‘out and into’—out into the world and into the disciples. Heaven—the realm of God, the place where God lives and reigns—is embodied into the very physical, very particular lives of those who live by faith. 

            The body of Christ is no longer in one particular place in Jerusalem. The body of Christ is the Church, yesterday, today and tomorrow. The body of Christ was there in Jerusalem, then in Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth and Rome, and is now wherever the church is—in Jerusalem, in China, in India, in Nairobi, in Bueatown, in Accra, in Edinburgh, and in Silver Spring, MD. The Body of Christ is in the very physical, very real group of believers in whom Christ is real, embodied, in-fleshed. We are the body of Christ.

            If you want to see Jesus, if you want proof of the resurrection, if you want to see the nail-scarred hands, the wound in the side, you need look no further than the living, breathing community of faith around us. Look to those who were lost and now are found.  Look to those who were dead in their sin and we are now alive by grace. Look to those who are wounded and who now are healed. Look to those who were dead and now are alive.

            The miracle of the resurrection is embodied in the church—not perfect people but people made pure by the gracious mercy of God. The resurrected body of Christ is the body of the broken made whole, the lost who are found, the blind who see, the hungry who eat, the oppressed who are lifted up, the poor made rich in God, the suffering whose joy is made real. And “lo, I am with you—in you, for you, a part of you, healing you, lifting you, redeeming you—always, even unto the end of the world.”

            The Christian teacher, Thomas Troeger, in explaining this mystery of the body of Christ, has suggested that we need to develop a spirituality of materiality. (It is not “materialism” which is the misplaced worship of things material.) We need to understand that Christ never left the material world, but as the risen living Christ, he is thoroughly incarnate in it. The mark of Christ is in us, those who claim his faith, who trust in his word. We wear it around our necks. In our baptism, we are marked as Christ’s own forever.

            Rabbi Zalman has said many years ago that the body is the instrument through which the spirit plays life for God. We could say that the church is the body through which Christ is played for the world. And by the church I mean not just the institutional church, for sometimes it has anything but the spirit of Christ. Rather, the church is wherever Christ is lived and preached, wherever there is new life out of dead ends, new hope in lost causes, wherever there is new community in broken lives, new light where darkness is breached.

            I see the resurrected Christ every day, in the ordinary and the extraordinary—in the soaring hawk or the breaching whale, in the goldfinches outside my window this spring, in the red poppies in my side yard.  I see the risen Christ in our children’s laughter, in our mother’s tears. I see it in strength of daddy’s hands, in the silent truth of papa’s prayers.  I see the resurrection in the prayers of the weary, the hymns of the faithful—O God our help in ages past our hope for years to come.  I see the risen Christ in the hand held out to weeping and in the heart reaching out around the lonely.  I see the risen Christ in bread served to the hungry, in shelter for the homeless. I see the risen Christ in love and service, in praise and prayer, in life and hope.

            I recently read a story by Judy Wray, about a certain church service. (Living Pulpit, April/May/June 2006) It was time for this church to celebrate communion. In advance of the service, the pastor instructed her worship committee to do it a little different this time. She told them to bring the communion plates forward, but put no bread on them.  She told them to bring the chalice and the cups, but do not fill them with wine. Bring them empty. They were confused but they complied with their pastor’s wish.

            When the time for the Lord’s Supper came the empty plates and cups were brought forward. The Pastor prayed and then invited anyone who had ever been abused or betrayed by someone they loved to come forward. Silence. No one moved. She stood there with her hands raised, repeated the invitation, and waited. Slowly one person way in the back rose and made their way forward. Then a choir member left their seat and headed for the table. Then one by one, men and women, old and young, even a teenager, came forward around the table. There were tears just behind the serious eyes that stared at the empty table. Everyone else sat in stunned silence.

            The pastor then repeated the familiar words:  “This is my body which is broken for you” while walking around the table gently touching those standing there. “Whenever you gather, remember me.” Then the pastor turned to the rest of the congregation and said, “We gather as the Body of Christ. That body has been broken, again and again. Not just on the cross of Calvary, but here in our town, in our community, in our nation, in our world, the Body of Christ is broken. And we remain sick and distanced from the healing which Jesus Christ came to bring, as long as we fail to notice the bodies that are broken—as long as we fail to remember those bodies.

            “Perhaps once in a while we need to place no bread on the table to be broken symbolically, or wine in the cup to be poured out, in order to remind us of the wounds of the Christ. What we need is eyes to see our sisters and brothers who are broken, the bodies who are the Body of Christ crying out to be remembered, made whole once again.”

            The pastor then said: “Anyone who has ever been broken, abused, in pain, hurt, afraid, lost or alone is invited to join in a meal of healing around this table.”  And as one body the whole congregation rose and moved toward the communion table.  The broken body was remembered that day in community. Healing happened. Wholeness happened. Redemption happened.

            Today we are the Body of Christ.

            Christ is risen.  He is risen indeed.