Luke 24: 36-48
In today’s passage, “Look at my hands and my feet,” Jesus said, and when the disciples did, they saw everything they had ever been through with Jesus.
They saw the hand that had broken bread and blessed broiled fish, holding it out to them, over and over again. They saw the hands that had pressed pads of mud against a blind man’s eyes.
They saw the hands that had taken a woman who had been caught in adultery, and the same hands used to write with his finger on the ground. And they saw the hands that had reached out to touch and heal a leper without any hesitation.
And Jesus’ feet—the disciples saw the feet, the ones that had carried him hundreds of miles in the desert area, taking the good news to all who were starving for it. The disciples saw the feet that had taken each and every step into the homes of sinners, whom he treated like a friend.
They saw the feet and had stepped over all kinds of boundaries and lines. Looking at those feet, they remembered the night that Jesus washed their feet and commissioned them to follow, not to stay.
Today, the challenges that we are facing are these: What are we going to ‘show and tell’ to others when the world looks around for the risen Christ? What do we say about us as an Easter people and an Easter community? Which part do we want to show as we bear witness to the risen Christ as Jesus showed his wounded hands and feet?
In today’s passage, Jesus still invites Easter people to be witnesses that it is all about God - the one who brings peace, unity, harmony, love, compassion, grace, justice, and mercy to a world that is broken and fragmented.
When the world looks around for the risen Christ, when they want to know what that means,
it is us they look at.
They look not at our pretty faces and eyes, nor our clothes or accessories, nor our cars or houses,
nor our assets or stocks, nor our degrees, but our hands and feet—what we have done with our hands and where we have gone with our feet.
They are still looking at us to find the risen Christ - where we have been, whom we have touched, how we have served, and what we have proclaimed.
May we remember people beyond our church’s door are still looking at our hands and feet - what we have done with them and where we have gone with them.
We are witnesses of Jesus’s whole life that includes death and resurrection. We are witnesses of all that God has done and is doing in the world.
Amen.