Scripture: Luke 24:36-48; John 20:24-29; John 20:30-31; Romans 14:21; Acts 1:23-26 Series: Easter
Preaching on Luke’s resurrection appearance, where the startled disciples mistake the risen Jesus for a ghost, Pruitt notes Jesus goes beyond offering his wounds to touch (as with Thomas in John) by eating broiled fish to prove his physical resurrected body. A digression on his unpublished seminary research into Bible diets concludes there is no Jesus diet: Scripture focuses not on what you eat but on whom you eat with. Jesus then opens the disciples’ minds to all of Scripture, summarizing the gospel as the Messiah’s suffering, rising, and the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness to all nations, notably absent of heaven, hell, and church committees. From this Pruitt draws the church’s purpose: service (touching Jesus’ wounds), fellowship (breaking bread), and worship/proclamation. Acts’ casting of lots for Judas’ replacement shows church order and committees, while not the heart of the gospel, still matter for gathering the body of Christ. He closes calling the congregation to be the church together, serving, fellowshipping, and worshiping with opened eyes.
Illustrations: soap-opera-resurrections, doubting-thomas-wounds, seminary-bookstore-job, bible-diet-manuscript, daniel-plan-diet, acts-casting-lots-judas
April 14
Opened eyes
–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 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.“ - Luke 24:36-48 NRSV
It is hard to imagine what it would be like to see someone alive again after you thought they were dead. Some movies and TV shows have normalized this to some extent, especially if you have ever watched soap operas that have characters who would die and come back over and over again. The reality of someone coming back from the dead would be one of the most jarring experiences imaginable that doesn’t happen very much in human history.
The people standing there when Jesus showed up didn’t respond as they thought they should. They didn’t have poise. They reacted. They were scared and their first thought was that he was a spirit. It translates here as ghost, but it’s the Greek word pneuma for spirit, something not material.
Then Jesus does what he did last week with Thomas, but he goes a step further. Last week, we read about doubting Thomas in the gospel of John chapter 20 and how Jesus appears to the disciples. Some of them see him, one of them doesn’t. Thomas comes up later and is like, “Hey guys, what’s up?” And they’re like, “we just saw Jesus.” And he is like, “No you didn’t. I don’t believe it until I touch his hands and put my hand on his side.” And so the next week Jesus shows up, And Thomas doesn’t believe until he touches the wounds and then, but he believes good for him, okay? Here in Luke, Jesus offers for them to touch his wounds. And then he goes a step further because even after touching his wounds, they don’t believe. And so he is like, “Hey, are you guys eating fish? Lemme try some of that fish.” So Jesus eats some fish. This is the one moment in the gospels where Jesus eats.
There wasn’t a lot of comment upon Jesus’ diet in the gospels. Jesus doesn’t have much food advice for us.
When I was in seminary one summer I took, I took Hebrew in the mornings and then I worked at a campus bookstore in the afternoons and it wasn’t, it wasn’t connected with the seminary. So it was like all the students came and there was, when there were still new Harry Potter books coming out and there was one coming out that summer and Duke used to have a bunch of camps in the TIP program where kids from all over the country came to campus if they got a certain PSAT score. And a lot of those gifted and talented kids were really into Harry Potter. Spent a lot of time trying to talk to me about Harry Potter. That was most of my customers during the summer. The other major customer base was professors with poor social skills bumping into each other or the walls and shelves because they were reading a book.
But mostly, it was a pretty low pressure job. I had a lot of time on my hands; not a busy environment. So I worked on researching a book about food and dieting in the Bible and I got a full manuscript on it. I never really edited it. I mean, this is almost 20 years ago now.
One of the things I looked into came about because my parent were talking to somebody at their church about what I was doing and they said, “oh, it’d be great to know what the Jesus diet would be or the Bible diet.” After studying the scriptures with a focus on this, I came to the conclusion there is no Jesus diet. Jesus doesn’t give one weird trick to lose ten pounds.
I mean, I know that somebody sold millions of copies of this thing called the Daniel Plan, which is basically Atkins and Paleo marketed for Christians. The dietary concerns of the Bible mostly take place in Leviticus and in Torah and following the kosher laws. And this is dismissed and this vision that Peter has in the Book of Acts. But the Bible doesn’t hold on to eating whatever you want. Paul tells us in Romans that if you’re with somebody who’s not eating meat, you shouldn’t eat meat. You shouldn’t harm the witness just because you want to do what you want. The relationships you make are more important than the food you eat. The Bible doesn’t focus on what you eat. The Bible focuses on the people with whom you are eating. And all that gets us to this one moment where Jesus eats a specific food. The point is not the fish. The point is not that Jesus is promoting a fish only diet.
Spirits can’t eat. Everyone knows this. Spirits don’t need material sustenance. You could touch them, maybe, but they definitely wouldn’t need to eat.
Jesus eats with them. He eats with them and opens their eyes. Then, as his eating, he explains all of salvation history to them. He explains Moses or Torah, the first five books of the Bible. He explains the prophets. He explains the Psalms, what a Bible study to be a part of!
And then Luke gives us the explanation of what all the scriptures come to. Thus it is written that the anointed one of God is to 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. That’s the story. You know what’s missing from the story? Heaven, hell church committees, many other things, but I’m just gonna focus on those three. Heaven, hell and church committees. They’re not here. We have Jesus summarizing his own good news as proclaimed throughout the scriptures. The Messiah is to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. And that repentance, the repentance of the Messiah’s suffering, death and resurrection and that forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in all nations beginning in Jerusalem and all peoples it has been offered. The point of the Bible is to offer repentance and forgiveness of sin to the world. John says as much in his gospel when he writes at the end of chapter 20, if all the books in all the world, all the books in all the worlds could not contain the actions of Jesus Christ. But these things were written so that you might have life abundantly. This is what is offered. This abundant life is offered, a life of mercy and repentance, a resurrection life lived out. In Luke, Jesus shows the scars. In Luke, Jesus eats the fish. In Luke, Jesus shares the explanation of all of the Bible to the people. We have all of this. We have the purpose of the church given here in in all its ways. We have service. It starts with service. The purpose of the church starts with service, with touching the wounds of Jesus. And we have fellowship eating together, breaking bread together to show that we are human, to show that we are alive and then we have worship. Then we have the proclamation of God’s good news of mercy and forgiveness in this world. It’s all here. In the book of Acts, the story of Luke continues. That is the story of the people who follow Jesus. It doesn’t go so great. It starts on a high note when Jesus ascends into heaven. Then we have the first church committee meeting in the second half of Acts one. I’m not even joking here. The disciples cast lots to see who will take the place of Judas. They have an open committee assignment and the nominations team decides to go with the draw lots strategy, kind of risky. But what it does show is that bureaucratic things matter, that the ordering of the church matters. It doesn’t always work out right, but it matters. It’s not something to be dismissed. I mentioned how church committees weren’t a part of the gospel explained in Luke 24. They are not. Church committees are not the heart of the gospel. However, church committees are a part of the story, the gathering of the body of Christ, the ordering of God’s people towards these things, towards serving our neighbors, towards fellowshipping and growing in faith towards worshiping and studying the scriptures. There are ways of helping us be organized in that way so that we are not each an island unto ourselves, but called to be the church together. My brothers and sisters, may you feel called to be the church together. May you feel called to love together. May you feel called to serve together. Whether you’re, if you’re not a member of this church, may you feel called to join us in this journey. Join us in this journey of serving our neighbors. Join us in this journey of breaking bread together. Join us in this journey of worshiping our Lord together. Let us give thanks for this journey. Let us give thanks for this day. Let us give thanks for our Lord Jesus Christ, who showed himself to his disciples, who showed his wounds and his scars, who ate with them to show his physical resurrected body and explained everything so that they would understand why he did what he did and what we are offered because of it. May we receive forgiveness this day. May we receive mercy this day. May we receive his love.
Let us pray,
Heavenly Father, thank you for gift of mercy. Thank you for forgiving us. Thank you for opening our eyes. Thank you for showing us how to live. Thank you for showing us how to care. May we live with opened eyes to see as you see and love as you love. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. amen.,