The beauty of the scriptures is indisputable. But their revelatory substance, vast and deep in nature, contains a potency that is hard to describe. Every word is pregnant, every word infused with deep meaning, fascinating connections, but most of all, every word wields the power to point toward God and God’s truth in deeply powerful, transfiguring ways. Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances express a particular richness of this special metaphorical infusion. But they also pack a power punch of what it means to be “real.” How important it is to God that Jesus, we, what we do in our lives and mission, and all that is dear to us, are valuable and vital and “real.” Real and in real time! Not just in a distant future, but in the real world, here and now.
For Jesus’ disciples, these words are the “flesh” upon which we must feast in order to be the apostles he needs us to be.
Jesus’ urgency in this brief time he has yet on earth is to help his disciples and apostles understand his bodily resurrection and his place within the scriptural heritage. Why? It’s vital to their ability to carry on his mission. In these power and meaning-packed passages in which he appears to them again and again in various ways, he seeks to leave them with deep messages that will essentially seep into their souls and take up residence there, informing their ministry from that day forward.
Clearly, one of Jesus’ core messages involves the importance of “flesh.” We need to pay attention to his zeal to appear in human form. With his bodily appearances, Jesus affirms God’s creation as important, human beings as important, the material world that God created as important to God, even while acknowledging that someday this world will change, just as he has changed.
Bottom line: Resurrection of the body matters. The vibrancy and life of the body…matters.
The truth of Jesus’ bodily resurrection cannot be ignored by the disciples. Jesus is essentially “in their faces” with it. He takes step after step to prove that he remains with them, not as an ethereal ghost, but as their master and teacher “in the flesh.” And although in his manifestations, he seems to appear slightly different in appearance….in some cases, they don’t recognize him immediately….he is most definitely and indisputably “there” –as real as the fingers on their hands.
Jesus is incarnated not once but twice, driving home that God’s created world, his created people, that which we receive as our world is not a mere trifle in God’s plan but a vital and important part of God’s past, present, and future. Without a “body,” God’s work cannot be accomplished. When Jesus ascends, then it must be we who carry on God’s worldly mission.
Unlike the gnostics, who would argue that only the spirit matters, Jesus drives home the importance of the “flesh.” For him, the flesh is not evil. The flesh is beautiful, for we remember in Genesis that God created the material world and called it good! More than that, Jesus was made flesh to dwell among us to help us to learn how to minister to a material world.
Jesus comes to his disciples in “flesh and bone,” solid as the fish “flesh” the disciples are consuming for dinner, so that he can deliver to them a message. He’s no specter. He’s the “real thing.”
So is the messianic promise!
So is the mission he needs them to proclaim! So are the people he needs them to heal! What we do….matters. The mission….matters.
It will be different now without him, but it must go on just the same.
All that the scriptures have proclaimed and prophesied are coming to pass in the proof of Jesus’ resurrected body! He is the same but different. His old body has passed away, but his new body will live on forever, as will we. This is a foreshadowing of God’s plan for the world to come. Matter matters. Humanity matters. The created world matters. To God, the redemption of matter matters.
With that knowledge, so does the “broiled fish” that Jesus requests to eat, for this is not just a mere piece of fish to help prove that he’s a human being with digestion and substance, but the fish is a messianic symbol that hearkens a new age and an important message about the sanctity of the disciples’ mission!
Leviathan –monster of the sea, its flesh slain by God to nourish believers in the messianic meal to come, is symbolized in the partaking of fish at that discipleship table. Not only was fish considered a sabbath “delight” but in the symbol of Leviathan, a revelation of the messianic age. Jesus is the inauguration of that age.
The death of Leviathan symbolizes the death of sin and the material world as we know it. Someday, in its place will rise a new world, different from the last, but redeemed and beautiful. And “real.”
As we “feast” on Leviathan, we acknowledge that someday sin and death and this world will pass away, but that a new one will come to pass. Jesus is the augmenter of this new beginning. With his resurrection, the messianic age has begun. And we have a role to play in God’s continuing mission.
Throughout Hebrew and Jewish history, whenever an act of God is to be celebrated, a feast is held. In the case of the Prodigal Son, the Father slaughters the “fatted calf” for a festive feast. In every sacred festival, including Passover, and our own Lord’s Supper, the story of God’s victories and interventions are told by eating together. In fact, eating together in Jesus’ time and still in the Jewish tradition was a way of establishing relationship and intimacy, as well as mutual mission and reverence for God, with those at the table. In the story/parable of a great dinner in fact, Jesus tells that God’s final act will be to assemble a grand feast at which all believers have a seat at the table.
The sharing of the flesh acknowledges the embodiment of who we are as part of the created world, and a part of Jesus’ mission. Every feast in scripture features flesh passed away and consumed, and a renewed sense of “body” among those who share it! Our own “body” of Christ likewise stands united and infused with the Holy Spirit in the sharing of Christ’s body and blood. In him, we become a new being together, in mission to the world.
It’s no mistake that Jesus asks his disciples to “touch” and acknowledge his hands and feet, his side and bodily presence. They need to understand the miracle that God has done and will do for all of the world now and in the coming future, not just in spirit, but in real transformation, real acts of mercy.
When we repeat the words, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we proclaim the sharing of the body and blood of Christ each and every day. When we repeat the ancient creeds of the church, we are affirming our belief in a bodily resurrection in which someday we all will rise, and in new form, shall feast on the flesh of Leviathan, as the world (not just us) changes form and substance.
The old world will pass away, and a new one will be born:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” (Revelation 21:1).
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
We literally will “feast” upon that which has passed, just as we still today feast upon the body and blood of Christ, so that we will remember what was but yet prepare ourselves for what will be. In him, we will be changed, as Paul puts it.
But we will also acknowledge our role in changing the world as we know it now, even as our redeemed “body” continues Christ’s real work in a real and suffering world.
In our celebration of Holy Communion, we acknowledge the sacrifice and bodily resurrection of Christ, Messiah and Lord. Through his blessing of the flesh, we of flesh and blood continue his mission in a real world of material things, proclaiming that out of our woundedness and hunger comes resurrection and abundant grace, and knowing that someday, we and all those we touch with Jesus’ hand of healing will be transformed and changed.
Someday, we know that our bodies will rise. The earth will reconstitute itself into a redeemed body, just as we will reconstitute ourselves into the redeemed and eternal body of Christ.
In the meantime, Jesus reminds us, the “body” is important!
We the “body” must not be content merely to believe, not content merely to dream of the future or await our reward in death, but we must take seriously our mission to proclaim, to heal, to forgive, and to bless! To feed, to clothe, to embrace, and to save.
For we are “witnesses to Jesus’ commission!”
Who we are matters. What we do matters.
As we “remember” him, Jesus reminds us to “keep it real.”