Rumours of resurrection
Have you ever doubted the existence of God?
All of us have times when we doubt the existence of God. A Frenchwoman I
knew said I don’t believe in God but I shout at him now and then! Even Job
doubted. It seems to be part of our human condition that when things go wrong
or maybe we get very comfortable we doubt God. If a member of the family or our
loved one is ill or even dies we may doubt God exists because of the pain the
suffering and los we feel. If we experience a relationship breakup or even
divorce we may doubt God. How can you believe in a loving God when bad things
like this happen? Doubt is the flipside to belief. The Psalmist cries My God
why have you hidden your face from me and Jesus from the cross cries “My God
why have you forsaken me?”
An experience of God leads and doubt turns to
faith. God comes to us at strange times almost bumps in to us and jolts us from
doubt to faith. We will not have the experience that Thomas had of feeling the
holes where Jesus was pierced but something else cuts through and we believe.
This story of Jesus appearing to the disciples could be the end of Johns gospel
and this doubting disciple was so transformed by his experience that later he
is thought by some to have Christianized India.
But later on the disciples are returning to
their normal duties after the death of Jesus, to fishing, perhaps in
desperation, intensified by the fact we are told that they catch nothing.
Peter announced he was going to fish. So they went out leaving the house
they were staying at in Capernaum, possibly Peter's house. The boat that the
disciples used for fishing, possibly owned by one or two of them, possibly even
the boat that nearly sunk two years before when weighed down with a haul of
fish.
It was early in the morning, when dawn was
already breaking when they were coming back and they saw Jesus on the shore but
they did not realize initially that it was Jesus.“You haven't caught any fish
have you? He said “Throw to the right side of the boat." And they did and
this time they were not strong enough to haul the catch of fish. John realizes
the man on the shore is Jesus and Peter on realizing this, he wrapped his outer
garment around him, tucks up his working/fisherman's smock, under his belt
before diving into the water, because to offer a greeting naked would be bad
manners. We may assume that Peter had mixed emotions in this encounter with
Jesus. He had denied any knowledge of him, 3 times.
Much has and can be made of the symbolic
significance of the number of fish caught, 153, especially if you are a
mathematician and we know that the symbolism of the fish in early Christianity
is very widespread. The story also recalls for us Luke 5(the big catch).
We also realize that, because she was a woman
Mary Magdalene’s resurrection appearance is discounted. Even today we find that
woman are discounted as legal witnesses in many countries.
Jesus invites them to eat breakfast
with him. Jesus had made a charcoal fire (notice the detail) and grilled fish
on it for them to eat. He asks them to bring some of the fish they have just
caught.“Come eat breakfast” Not one of the disciples dared ask who he was. They
knew it was Jesus. If you have ever tasted fish grilled like that you will
remember how delicious it is. Fishing is heavy work.
Jewish hosts always said a blessing at the
beginning of a meal. Jesus is therefore following the norm when he blesses the
food. So we have a ghost with a gaping hole that you can feel, a ghost
who makes a breakfast barbecue. Or maybe it's just a story, a comfortable way
of resolving grief, collective transference.
There are a number of resurrection stories.
In all of them Jesus appears. In most of them he is initially not recognized .
How often do we not recognize the spiritual in our ordinary lives? In all
of them he gives his peace and in all of them (except the garden tomb) the
setting is in the context of eating. There are eucharistic overtones. There may
be a profound truth here that Jesus is always potentially to be found as we eat
together.
Today many of us are hidden behind closed
doors maybe of our faith or of our minds or maybe physically- because of fear.
We doubt God is with us and instead are prisoners to ourselves. Others tell us
that Christ is with us even in our own locked spaces. Gods Spirit is with us
everywhere and in everything we go through on our journey of life, the ups and
the downs, the joys and the sadnesses. Be prepared for God to bump into your
life in the middle of the chaos of life. Ultimately it is only God who can
convince us that God is with us even though we do cannot feel the marks of the
crucified body of Jesus, although maybe we have our own scars, our own
crucifixions. Unlike ourselves God never loses faith in us, never doubts us.
The problem is always the body! First there
is “no body”. The women at the tomb were grieving for the body which they
thought had been taken. The missing body is the beginning of the end.
Then there is a somebody but he is not easily
recognized as Jesus. Not by Mary, not by Cleopas, not by Thomas and not by the
disciples. But the body is of importance central to the tale. This is not any
body-it is the body!
This story is not about some ethereal
resurrection, the Spirit going to God. It is about the whole person being
resurrected. God is concerned about the whole of us, bodies as well. If God
resurrected Jesus’ body then he will resurrect ours! Jesus convinced the disciples
he was alive, through convincing proofs, for 40 days after the resurrection and
a promise of something more.
