The Risen Body of Christ
Sermon on the Second Sunday of Easter
Bangor Cathedral, 8 April 2018
Acts 4:32–35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1 — 2:2 John 20:19–31
Have you believed because you have seen me?
Thomas has followed the Body of Christ along the lanes of Galilee
Thomas has seen the Body of Christ walk on water; seen it calm the storm
Thomas has listened to the Body of Christ give the sermon on the Mount, tell the parable of the Good Samaritan; watched as the Body of Christ healed the lame and the blind
Thomas has stepped on the cloaks and the palm branches lining the way as the Body of Christ is borne ahead of him, into Jerusalem, to shouts of “Hosanna”
Thomas has had supper with the Body of Christ in the Upper Room; the Body of Christ has washed his feet
Thomas has seen Judas kiss the forehead of the Body of Christ in the garden at Gethsemane
Thomas has seen the Body of Christ whipped and scourged
Thomas has seen the Body of Christ hung up high on the Cross
Thomas has seen the Body of Christ breathe its last
Thomas has seen the Body of Christ taken down, wrapped in grave clothes, placed the the tomb
Thomas has seen the Body of Christ dead, and cold, and lifeless
And Thomas will not now believe that the Body of Christ has life again — he will not believe that the Body of Christ can love again — until he has touched it; until he has felt its warmth and its wounds.
And so the Body of Christ stands before Thomas, and says “Put your finger here, and see my hands. Reach out your hand, and put it in my side.” Close enough to feel his breath, to sense his warmth, Thomas stretches out a hand, and believes.
And the Body of Christ, essentially, slaps him in the face. “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those… better are those… who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”
Something similar happened in the Gospel we heard last Sunday morning. Mary Magdalen has come to the tomb, on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, and sees that the stone has been taken away. She’s weeping. She notices a figure; mistakes him for the gardener; and then he calls her by name, and she knows that here is the Body of Christ before her. Imagine her stretching out an arm, to touch him, to feel him, to hold him. And he says “Do not hold on to me. Do not cling me. I have not yet ascended to the Father.” This man, this teacher, this friend she thought lost; this body she thought dead, and cold, and lifeless; and now here he stands before her; she yearns to embrace; and immediately he says “Don’t cling to me… Blessed are those… better are those… who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”
In both instances, it is almost as though Jesus is saying “Here I am; but there is more. Here I am; but Resurrection, the Resurrected Body of Christ, is now more than this. Understanding that is now your task.”
Have you believed because you have seen me?
A flashback. Earlier in his Gospel, John tells the story of Jesus feeding the many thousands who had come to hear him teach. John tells the story of the miracle, the feeding with the loaves and the fish; but he doesn’t leave it there. Jesus talks to his followers about what it means to be fed. God has fed his people in the past when they were hungry in the wilderness. Jesus has fed his followers now. But the time will come when people will be fed, truly fed, by the Body of Christ. “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you… Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them… The one who eats this bread will live for ever.” People find this disgusting, unpalatable. Jesus has fewer followers at the end of this story than at the beginning. But he is adamant, firm in his teaching.
To our ears, hearing that teaching now, we hear Jesus talking about the Eucharist. We understand him to mean the taking of bread and wine, the giving thanks, and making the Body of Christ manifest, even on this altar-table today. “This is my Body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
When we talk, when we think about Resurrection and the Resurrected Body of Christ, like Mary in the garden and Thomas in the upper room, we have an idea of what that means: A body we can cling to; warm wounds we can feel. But Jesus had already been teaching his disciples that the Risen Body of Christ will be something else as well. It will be Eucharist. Resurrected and alive at every altar-table. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
Have you believed because you have seen me?
Another flashback. The Last Supper in the Gospel of John, the eve of the Crucifixion. Jesus get up from the table, takes off his outer robe, ties a towel around himself, pours water into a basin, and washes his disciples’ feet. Then he teaches with words: “If I washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet… I do not call you servants any longer, but friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father… I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
In a very real way, Jesus forms, gives birth to, the Church around the table that evening. “Do as I have done; and do it together. Be as I have been; and be it together. Become whom I have have become; and become it together.”
And when, in some of the earliest documents of the Church, in Paul’s letters to the Romans, and the Ephesians, and the Corinthians, and the Colossians, there’s a need to try to describe what kind of thing that Church is, Paul calls it the Body of Christ. “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” “In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” They’re words that have made their way into our liturgy, even words that may be over-familiar. So let us be shocked again by them.
When we talk, when we think about Resurrection and the Risen Body of Christ, like Mary and like Thomas, we have an idea of what that means — a body we can cling to and wounds we can feel. But Jesus taught in that upper room that the Resurrected Body of Christ will be something else as well. It will be us. In St Augustine’s words “Let us rejoice then and give thanks that we have become not only Christians, but Christ himself. Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ. For if he is the head, we are the members; he and we together are the whole body.”
Have you believed because you have seen me?
It’s easy to be Christmas people. The darkness and the candle-light, the mulled wine and the fir trees, the carols and the expectation; they all help us to wait for and to welcome that child in the manger, that precious gift, God with us.
It’s easy to be Lent people. Christ crucified surrounds us, above us, behind us, in stained glass for us. We can get used to feeling sinful, and penitent, and guilty.
It’s harder to be Easter people. Hard to know what the deep joy of an empty tomb is. Hard to know what the Resurrected Body of Christ means. Like Thomas, I want to see. Like Mary, I want to cling to him.
But Jesus has taught us something greater. When we gather and give thanks, the Body of Christ is here, veiled in bread and wine, given to feed us, his Easter people. And when we, as a community, love each other, and confess our faith together, and build one another up in hope — when we are faithful and hopeful and loving — here is Resurrection: we, his Easter people, the Body of Christ, wounded, living, glorified.
“Believe because you seen me.”
