Preached on Sunday, April 26, 2009 at Christ & Saint Stephen's Church. Lectionary texts that this sermon is based on can be found here.
Well, here we are in Eastertide. Easter continues in our liturgical calendar for 50 days, all the way up to Pentecost, which is more than a month away. Why all this Easter, you might ask. What is Easter about that we didn’t get on Easter day? Well, judging by last week’s gospel and adding in this week’s gospel, you might think it all boiled down to appendages -- about hands and feet.
Last week, it was not until Thomas had but his own hand into the very wounds that he would believe that Jesus had in fact risen from the dead. And this week, Jesus makes an unsettling appearance to the disciples. They are startled and terrified by him -- they think they are seeing a ghost.
But Jesus says, “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.”
Those hands and those feet.
The Episcopal priest and noted preacher Barbara Brown Taylor in her sermon on this text makes some interesting observations about those hands and those feet. Jesus’ hands and feet now bear the marks of crucifixion – they are bloody and bruised, they are wounded.
These are the feet that have sunk into the muddy bottom of the Jordan River as the voice of God declared, “This is my Son.” These feet are the feet that have travelled far and wide from Nazareth to Bethany and beyond to spread the good news of God’s kingdom. These feet have journeyed inextricably to Jerusalem to fulfill God’s plan for the salvation for the world.
And these hands… these hands are the ones that bathed the feet of the disciples on the first Maundy Thursday. These are the hands that have made the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the dead to rise; the hands that fed the multitude and blessed the little children.
So much was done with these hand and these feet to spread the good news and to bear witness to God’s mercy and grace, and then, these hands took up the cross, and these feet journeyed to Calvary. And there they were nailed to the cross upon which Jesus would die.
And die, so he did. But then… then he rose again. That wounded body was resurrected. And Jesus came to his disciples to show them the victory he had won them. And he ate with them, as he had often done, and he opened their minds to a new understanding of all that had come before.
And then, having shown them his risen self, he gave them something to do. “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed… to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
The British Methodist Martyn Atkins points out the importance of this phrase: ‘beginning from Jerusalem.” Atkins notes that heretofore in salvation history the model was centripetal,spiraling inward, and all nations were come to Jerusalem to discover God’s salvation. In Luke’s gospel particularly, there is a hinge point at chapter 9, verse 51: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
But now, as Jesus tells the disciples in the portion of Luke’s gospel appointed for today, the direction has changed, it is now centrifugal, spinning outward, and beginning from Jerusalem, we are sent out to proclaim the good news of God’s salvation for all the world.
Outwards from Jerusalem, first through the Levant and Asia Minor on the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul, and from there throughout the East.
Down into Africa where the Copts, some of the earliest Christians, are found to this day. To Imperial Rome and throughout all of Europe, even as far as the British Isles. From there to Jamestown, and eventually here to the Upper West Side.
This amazing story continues being told to us today. And continues being told by us today.
From those first followers, who could say, as in our epistle reading today, “We declare to you… what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands…”
Hearing, seeing, touching, tasting… There’s something very special about being a Christian. We worship an Incarnate God. Our God took on our form, and became human in every respect. Our God became someone who could hear and see and touch and taste just as we do. And in this miracle, our God became a mirror for us, a divine face in which we can see reflected our own divinity as God’s children.
His hands are our hands, and when we gaze upon his wounds, we see our own wounds, we see our flaws, we see our sins, the things we have done with our hands that perhaps we should have not done. When we look upon his wounded feet, we see our own disappointments, the journeys we struggled and failed to make, the times when we’ve sought to stand firm, but our feet failed us.
And in those wounded hands and feet we see more than our own wounds, we see the wounds of the world. A world in which there are so many without bread or wine or a bit of fish to eat. A world in which no miracle worker has yet come to heal those who suffer from AIDS.
And so, beginning in Jerusalem, to all the nations, we become Jesus’ hands and feet in the world. And there are many places to go, much to do, many wounds to bind up with the love of God that was declared to us by those who knew him in the flesh.
Next Sunday, we’ll witness some of the fruits of our proclamation of God’s good news. The bishop is coming, and some who have been among us will come forward to be confirmed and renewed in the faith and received into our branch of God’s church. I hope that their new fellowship with us will make you feel what our epistle writer felt and that your joy will also be complete in these new friends in Christ.
Next Sunday is also Episcopal Charities Sunday, and we will collect funds for programs in Episcopal parishes throughout the diocese that feed the hungry. As you can guess, these programs are seeking to meet more and more needs in the current economic climate.
Then when your hands have handed in your Episcopal Charities offering, your feet can get in on the action too. Because next Sunday is also CROP Walk Sunday -- and it’s not too late to sign-up. I’m hoping especially that those of you with children in our church school will join the CROP Walk. In church school, we’ve been talking 
about how Jesus feeds us in the Eucharist with bread and wine and how then we must feed those who are hungry. A few weeks ago, when our gospel lesson was about the feeding of the multitude, the church school pasted gummy fish and cut-outs of communion wafers into baskets to represent all that was left over after that miracle, and then they packed lunches for those who come to our own Brown Bag feeding program where we hand out up to 100 lunches every week day to those in need. The kids only packed about 20 or so lunches, but theirs included little packages of gummy fish as a special treat from the church school for our guests. Joining in the CROP Walk next Sunday will help bring this important gospel lesson home.
Also next Sunday is the first Sunday of the month, and than means a first Sunday breakfast from 9:30 to 10:30, this one will be hosted by the AIDS Walk team. The AIDS Walk is three weeks from this Sunday, and it presents another opportunity to be God’s feet in the world. We will be walking as part of the Episcopal Response to AIDS team and the funds raised will go primarily to ministries to people with AIDS at Episcopal parishes in New York and New Jersey.
St. Frances of Assisi was known to say, “Preach the gospel at all times and in all places -- and when necessary, use words.” What began in Jerusalem is ours to continue. The risen Lord has redeemed our lives and our very bodies. It’s our job to spread the Easter around a bit, so that our hands and feet become the means of God’s justice and healing and peace to our world in our own time.
So, be a good Christian and break out your walking shoes. Preach the gospel with your feet. Share some of the work of your hands with those who are hungry. Walk for those who need the miracle of God’s healing grace. I promise you it is these very things that will go a long, long way to making the joy of Easter complete for you and for your children, and indeed for all the world. +Amen
© The Rev. Mark R. Collins
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