Ichthys, the Greek word for fish, came to carry special
meaning for Christians. Each letter of this
word in the Greek alphabet stands for a part of Jesus’ name and title: iota,
Jesus; chi, Christ; theta, God’s; upsilon, son; sigma, Savior.
Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior: this was Peter’s
proclamation we heard from the Acts of the Apostles. What led to this forceful preaching about who
Jesus was? Here’s how Chapter 3 begins:
“One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at
three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in.
People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate
so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple.” Instead of giving
the man alms, Peter pronounced him healed in the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth.
Then Peter asks the crowd why are they staring at him and
John. A modern equivalent might be, “Whatcha looking at me for?” Then he
launches into an explanation of who Jesus is.
He tells his listeners that the God of their ancestors, glorified in
Jesus, gave Peter the power to pronounce healing for the man who was lame. Then he exhorts them to repent and place
their faith in Jesus.
This isn't a gentle exhorting. Peter placed blame for
Jesus’ crucifixion on these folks(even if they weren’t present), as being part
of the crowd who demanded “a murderer” be set free. Then he claims they really
didn't know what they were doing. But if they repent and turn to God things
will be made right for them—their sins forgiven.
How did Peter become so bold? Remember his denials on the night of Jesus’
arrest? He became so bold through his
interaction with the resurrected Christ. Our gospel reading today contains one
of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances.
What makes Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances so
life-giving? How could this have made the disciples bold? Luke tells a four-part account this
post-resurrection appearance. Each of
the four parts leads toward the conclusion that the resurrected Christ, though
changed, was as real as he had been when they had traveled with him. He wasn't a figment of their imagination. He
wasn’t a ghost.
Jesus’ resurrection troubles many folks today. How can something as out-of-the-ordinary as
resurrection be possible? It cannot be verified through reproducing the phenomenon. Nor have we been able to discover some
biological or physical explanation.
Well, Jesus’ disciples were not any more ready to believe
in resurrection than modern folk may be. People in the first century did
believe in ghosts. So the disciples
feared they were seeing one when Jesus suddenly appeared among them.
But “faith seeking understanding” cannot be considered
out of line here. On Maundy Thursday someone
asked me what did I think would have happened if Jesus’ disciples were never
convinced that the resurrection had happened—or if it really hadn’t happened. I
answered the question by saying I think the Jesus movement would have
failed. Author John Updike penned these
words to make this point very eloquently in his poem “Seven Stanzas at Easter.”
“Make no mistake: if he rose at all / it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules / reknit, the amino
acids rekindle, / the Church will fall.”
What Jesus does next are the four steps I mentioned
earlier that lead to the disciples having faith in the resurrection. He greets
them with peace and tells them to look and see the wounds. Then he asks them to touch him. Next he asks
for a piece of fish to eat—neither ghosts or figments of one’s imagination
consume food. Finally, he explained the scriptures concerning him. Luke
described their minds as being opened. Now
they could accept Jesus’ resurrection!
Can we imagine ourselves in this group of disciples? Have we ever wondered about Jesus’ miracles,
the signs and wonders Jesus did in the gospels—could they have been real or
something else? And finally Jesus’ resurrection—how was that possible? We should be able to find ourselves in the
same frame of mind they were in: glimmers of faith in shadows of doubt.
What can we do? We don’t have the resurrected Jesus in
our midst to see, to touch and to give a bit of fish. But we do have the Hebrew
Scriptures, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and all those letters written
by St. Paul and others. By listening to the scriptures being read each Sunday,
by reading them as devotions, and finally by studying them, we, too, can have
our minds opened to understand who Jesus of Nazareth is: “Jesus Christ, God’s
son, Savior.”
And in addition to these holy scriptures, we have
experiences that can lead us to faith in Christ. Many find the natural world with its
diversity of flora and fauna as testifying to God’s greatness. Then we may be
able to go the next step to believe, as Peter said in the temple that day: that
“the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant, Jesus.”
And in addition to these holy scriptures, we have holy
communion which we also call Eucharist from the Greek word for
“thanksgiving.” As the bread and the
wine are consecrated and we receive them, we may become acutely aware of
Christ’s presence with us. In these elements, as we understand the great
mystery of our faith, we can see, touch and taste Christ, using our senses, as the
gathered disciples did that day.
Yes, in our giving thanks for the blessings we have
received from God, we may come realize that the resurrected Christ is as close
to us as our breath—perhaps the most important of all the blessings we have
received, the gift of our very lives. Then
we do indeed give thanks for Jesus Christ, God’s son, Savior!
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