Download The New Creation - New Covenant Community Church

The New Creation
Luke 24: 36-48
By Rev. Alex McLean
April 19, 2015
Luke 24:36-48
While they were talking about this, Jesus himself
stood among them and said to them, “Peace be
with you.” They were startled and terrified, and
thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to
them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts
arise in your hearts? 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.” And when he had said this, he
showed them his hands and his feet. While in their
joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he
said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”
They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took
it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them,
“These are my words that I spoke to you while I
was still with you—that everything written about
me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the
psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their
minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to
them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to
1|Page
suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,
and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to
be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning
from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
 There is a word from seminary that has always
engaged me.
 It is a little technical so bear with me.
 The word is “liminal”
If you look it up in the dictionary, you’ll find this:
: of or relating to a sensory threshold
2
: barely perceptible
 Some things are just out of earshot.
 Other things are just barely visible.
 Where, for example, does the sea touch the
sky?
 The disciples find themselves in a liminal
situation following Easter.
 They encounter Christ in a new way, but it is
very hard to describe.
 Jesus has the ability to enter a room with
locked doors.
 Yet he tells the disciples that he is not a spirit
or a ghost.
2|Page
 He has bones.
 Just to assure them that he is not a ghost or
spirit, he asks for something to eat.
 They give him a piece of broiled fish.
 He offers them his hands and his feet which
still showed the marks of the crucifixion.
 Like the disciples, we are in a liminal situation.
 The resurrection is something that is hard to
put into words.
 It is hard to grasp Jesus as our risen Savior.
 It is such a great reality that it defies language
and logic.
 Jesus is the new creation.
 He is radically new, so new that he is without
precedent.
 There is really nothing to compare Jesus to.
 He is unique.
 We get a glimpse of the new creation in the
Easter stories.
 Do you recall the road to Emmaus?
 Two disciples are on the road when a stranger
joins them.
 The stranger asks them for the recent news in
Jerusalem.
 They are shocked that the stranger has not
heard about the death of Jesus.
 The whole town is in a buzz about that.
3|Page
 The threesome decide to have a meal together.
 When the bread is broken, the two disciples
realize that this is no stranger but Jesus
himself, risen.
 But just as soon as they realize it, the
resurrected Jesus vanishes.
 This is what I mean by a liminal situation.
 The disciples, as are we, are up against a limit.
 We are up against a limit of understanding.
 Our words fail us when we try and put our
finger on the resurrected Jesus.
 Yet, despite this, God reveals himself to us in
the work of Christ.
 We can’t really depend on common sense or
ordinary language to describe the miracle of
Easter.
 It is something that is beyond us.
 Yet, God does not leave the matter there.
 God reveals himself to us in the power of the
Word.
 As we read the Easter stories, we see in our
hearts how true they are.
 It makes perfect sense that these stories are
beyond ordinary language, because they are
events beyond ordinary reality.
 We are given a series of pictures to help us
understand.
4|Page













Do you remember Mary weeping by the tomb?
She mistakes the risen Christ for the gardener.
But then Jesus just calls out her name.
There is only one person who could say Mary’s
name that way.
She is no longer mourning, and she is no
longer without her Lord, because Christ has
named her.
The resurrected Christ is calling your name,
just like he called Mary’s.
He is calling you into a new reality.
He is calling you to be a part of his new
creation.
The apostle Paul writes: “So if anyone is in
Christ, there is a new creation: everything old
has passed away; see, everything has become
new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to
himself through Christ, and has given us the
ministry of reconciliation.”
You are called to be a part of this new creation.
That is what Luke is describing in our gospel
passage.
The risen Christ who appeared to the disciples
is the first fruit of the new creation.
This is the Christ that we worship and serve.
5|Page
 There is a limit to our understanding, and we
are in a liminal situation, but the truth of it
cannot be denied.
 About this liminal situation, Jesus says
something very important.
 The scripture says: “Then he opened their
minds to understand the scriptures”
 Do we have open minds?
 Has Christ opened your mind?
 It is very easy to have a closed mind.
 In our world with its feverish pitch, with
buzzing and booming confusion all around us,
it is easy to tune everything out.
 But Jesus opens minds.
 Jesus makes it possible to understand the
scripture.
 Jesus also opens hearts.
 This is what repentance really means.
 It comes from the Greek word metanoia,
which actually translates as changing one’s
mind.
 It also means a new relationship with God.
 That is really what the Easter season is about:
a new relationship with God.
 Maybe you have been a disciple for a long
time.
6|Page
 Maybe you believe that you and God are old
friends.
 But if that is so, God is always beckoning you
to deeper commitment and belief.
 The call to repentance, to change one’s mind,
to have a new relationship with God is
something that takes place each and every
day.
 We are like the Israelites in the wilderness
dependent on the manna coming each day.
 That manna is the mercy of God which we are
dependent on each day.
 We are fed by the word of God. Jesus is the
bread of life.
 Jesus also talks about the forgiveness of sins
in his instructions to the disciples.
 As scared and vulnerable as these disciples
were on this first Easter evening, they were in
need of forgiveness.
 Remember they had all deserted Jesus in his
hour of need.
 Peter, the lead disciple, had denied him not
once but three times.
 Like the disciples, we are in need of
forgiveness.
 There are times when we have let God down.
 We have succumbed to temptation.
7|Page
 We have done things we shouldn’t, and have
left undone things we should have done.
 But the message of the Easter season is that
God does not ultimately keep score of all this.
 If our trespasses were counted by God, who
could stand?
 Jesus came not to judge the world but to save
it.
 There is something very important that
happens on Good Friday.
 Jesus says: “My God, My God, why have you
forsaken me?”
 In those words, Jesus is saying something that
we should say.
 Our lapses of faithfulness should result in God
forsaking us.
 We don’t really deserve the love that God has
for us.
 That is why Jesus says that from the cross.
 He is standing in for us.
 As gruesome as it sounds, that is the
forsakenness we really deserve.
 Yet, that is not how God works.
 God will not let us lapse into despair over our
faults and sin.
 Jesus stands in for us and takes the
forsakenness onto himself.
8|Page
 He then rises above it all on Easter.
 He takes it into himself, like a sponge takes in
water.
 And then he discharges it all by rising on
Easter.
 He is transformed in the three days he fought
with death, and then rose victorious over it.
 He is still Jesus of Nazareth, but in some way
he is different.
 This “some way” is hard to define.
 As I said, the Gospel writers, inspired by the
Holy Spirit as they were, still had trouble
putting it into words.
 This brings us back to the liminal situation.
 We are at place where heaven meets earth,
and it is not easy to describe.
 Jesus is transformed so the two disciples on
the road to Emmaus don’t first recognize him,
neither does Mary at the empty tomb.
 When he appears before the disciples in the
locked room, they are totally shocked.
 It says that they were startled and terrified.
 When God is working, the results can be
jarring.
 God has sometimes been described as “the
great disturbance”.
9|Page
 God is that which shakes us up, and really
gets our attention.
 Yet, God is also gentle.
 When Jesus first appears, and when the
disciples are totally shocked, he offers them
his “peace”.
 Each Sunday we offer the peace to one
another.
 And what we mean is the peace of Christ.
 This is what Jesus offers the disciples.
 He will help them, and help us, with the shock
and awe of God.
 He cares that much, he loves that much.
 He doesn’t want us to be startled so much
that we can’t go out and serve on his behalf.
 We have all heard the saying “God will not
give you more than you can handle.”
 God gave the disciples a lot to handle on the
first Easter evening, but it was not too much.
 It was, on the one hand, the great
disturbance.
 Jesus appeared to them without coming
through a door or a window.
 He showed them his hands and feet, and even
had a piece of fish.
 He was introducing them to his resurrected
self.
10 | P a g e
 It was somehow the same as what preceded
the cross, but also somehow different.
 Jesus, was the new person, the new human, a
foretaste of what our heavenly existence will
be like.
 Yet, he did not leave them without
understanding.
 He, again, opened their minds to the
scriptures.
 Not just one or two proof texts, but he went
through a full review of the Bible, what we
would call the Old Testament, to show them
that the Messiah must die and then be raised
three days later.
 While this was a liminal situation, while it is
something we might consider a twilight
experience, he did not leave it at that.
 He fleshed out the message.
 He also gave direction as to what to do next.
 He tells them to go out and proclaim the
message starting from Jerusalem.
 Proclaim is an interesting word.
 Proclaim means to praise or glorify openly or
publicly.
 That was the disciples’ job, and that is what
they did.
11 | P a g e
 Starting with the Book of Acts and ending with
Revelations, we see how the early church
proclaimed the message of Jesus Christ,
crucified and risen.
 But this is also our job.
 We might be a little skittish about proclaiming
Jesus, died and risen.
 Remember, however, the words of St. Francis:
Preach everywhere, and use words if
necessary.
 In our day and age of transparency and
authenticity, people care less about what we
say than about what we do.
 If we love God with our whole heart, mind and
soul, and our neighbors as ourselves, it is
bound to shine through and people will be
attracted to the Christian faith.
 Jesus says: “You are witnesses of these
things.”
 That’s what our life is meant to be: a living
testimony to Jesus Christ.
 I believe that as Jesus made himself known to
those first disciples, he has made himself
known to you.
 You might be able to identify with the liminal
situation of the risen Christ.
12 | P a g e
 He has come into your life in a way that is
hard to describe.
 It is a mysterious place as is the place where
the sea meets the sky, but it is there
nonetheless.
 More than that, without God’s revelation,
without Jesus opening your mind, you would
be far less than what you are today.
 So go out today with the mind that is opened
by Christ, with the heart that is transformed
by Jesus, and with the soul that is redeemed
by his precious blood.
 In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, amen.
13 | P a g e