It was the spring of 1988. We had rounded the corner of the liturgical year again, and although I'd preached Easter sermons many times, I was feeling relieved that I was not preaching the Easter service that year. Senior minister Thomas Allsop would preach to the throngs of parishioners and visitors at historic Beechgrove Church of Aberdeen, Scotland.
He could not give up the flesh. In the moments before we leave forever we want to say what he did: I have hands, feet, bones; touch me, and is there anything for breakfast?
We are tethered to tubes, nails hammered hard, spear in our side, soon to pass through, but still this is my body,
with the scar on my hand from the bike accident, the lungs shredded with chemo, the broken left foot never quite healed, but still all I have ever known: this is my body.
If I rise, let it be not as a ghost, no metaphor for new life; please something like this body, some flesh, something I can understand.
It seems as though every time I read a well known piece of scripture, I find something I had never seen before. This week in our Lectionary Group, TKT noted that Cleopas and the other disciple stop walking in order to talk to Jesus.
When read in its entirety, Luke’s 24th chapter tells the story of Christ’s resurrection in much the same way that we as parents and family members narrate the birth of a child. Though we have prepared for the arrival of the new family member, the onset of labor announces that nothing will be as we’ve imagined.
