Fear and Snacks

Luke 24:36b-48

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.

Let’s say… completely hypothetically, mind you… that something enormously awful had happened.  Something so bad that your closest friend had died.  And let’s say the exact same, enormously awful thing that had happened to your friend was VERY likely to happen to you if you went outside.  So you decide NOT to leave your house.  Not to see other people.  Not to travel.  Just hunker down, order enormous amounts of toilet paper and bleach, and just wait the danger out.  No matter WHAT happened.  You were NOT going out!   

Now, the crucifixion of Jesus back then, and the pandemic we’ve been living through for the last year or so now, are not exactly the same thing, but I do think that because of our experience with the pandemic, we can better relate to the disciples who locked themselves away just hoping to survive another day.  They had just seen that their strongest, bravest, most full-of-life friend catch crucifixion and die!  They, very correctly mind you, concluded that if they went outside, they might too catch a fatal case of the crucifixion!  

Do you remember how you felt a year ago?  When the hospitals in the city were bursting at the seams? Pictures of truck trailers brought in as make shift morgues?  THAT level of worry, fear, and impending doom, may be as close to how those disciples felt back then as I EVER want to feel.  

But it was into that level of fear… that Jesus just showed up and said, “Peace be with you!”  Just imagine!  Being as on edge as you were at the very beginning of the pandemic, looking up and suddenly seeing a guy just SHOW UP in your living room and saying “Peace be with you!” without a mask? We would have all been screaming and hosing him down with the last two cans of Lysol we had hoarded away!  A can in both hands, like it was the Wild Germ-y West!  Pshuu! Pshuu! Pshuu!

So how did Jesus respond to that level of mindless, panicked, fear?  He said, “Hey, you guys got any snacks?”  Wait!  Huh?  “Jesus Christ!  Do you see us here?  We’re probably the most freaked out people in all of history… AND YOU WANT SNACKS!”  But with that question, seemingly out of nowhere, we see that Jesus isn’t just resurrected from the dead (which admittedly is quite a thing) but he’s also STILL really smart, super clever, and totally compassionate as well.  

Do you see what he did there?  I’ve talked about this before but what Jesus did here is SO GOOD that it stands up in reruns even 2000 years later!  By asking the disciples this everyday question, “Hey, you guys got some snacks?”  Jesus helps them get un-stuck from being locked in fight or flight mode.  Human brains can’t resist thinking about a question.  It happens subconsciously.  A question asked… is automatically a question wondered about.  AND the part of the brain that wonders about questions is NOT in the part that only gives you two options… punch it or run from it.

Asking this question unlocked a mental door… which then gave the disciples the possibility of opening the physical door they were hiding behind as well.  With that simple question, Jesus was guiding their minds toward the peace they needed, so that they could then embrace the possibility of stepping out from behind those locked doors and taking one first step and then maybe even another on The Jesus Way of living which they had suddenly abandoned out of fear on Good Friday.  

This story also helps us see, however, that walking The Jesus Way on THIS side of the resurrection wouldn’t look EXACTLY like it did when they walked the Jesus Way before Good Friday.  Would the physical aspects of Jesus’ ministry be left behind?  Were the healing and the feeding and the working for justice only things they did before Good Friday?  Was this side of Easter only supposed to focus on Spiritual things? 

 

This story shows us that things are indeed different (Jesus just “appears” in rooms now, no doors required, after all!).  But with Jesus showing his wounds, inviting them to touch his flesh and bones, and hear his growling stomach, the disciples learn that even after Easter, Jesus is still concerned with physical things.  And if Jesus is concerned with those physical sorts of things, like showing up in person to deal with wounds and stomach growling hunger, so must his disciples be as well. 

The same earthly concerns Jesus had before Good Friday for bringing peace through justice to the world, feeding the hungry, healing the sick and caring for the least, the lost, and the last are STILL Jesus’ concerns on this side of the Resurrection.  HOW those things are addressed may change, but the concerns themselves do not.  

For you and me today, this story helps us understand that we too will never be able to go back to EXACTLY how things were prior to the pandemic. As we slowly and cautiously emerge from our own locked doors of this past year, this is a really good story to keep in mind.  The exact details of how the world and our church will work on the other side of the pandemic is currently as clear as mud.  BUT, as we slowly emerge, we will still be called to reach through our fears and touch the wounds and heal the wounded of our world.  We will still be called to open our doors and go out… through our fears… and feed the hungers of our community with meals and with radical inclusion, and with acts of compassion both large and small that inject kindness into our community. 

HOW we do that will not be EXACTLY the same as we crack open the doors of our church after this pandemic and begin to step out onto the Jesus WAY in person once again.  But WHO we are as Christ Trinity Church, and WHOSE we are as Children of God, and our hope for our world will not change.  May we, in the days to come, like those disciples did back then, move through our fears and embrace our new walk on the other side of the door, always following along the same Jesus Way... and remembering always... to bring snacks... Jesus will, after all, want snacks.  Amen.