Aprill 22 Sermon Lk. 24:36-48, I John 3:1-7, Acts 3:12-19

When we recite the Creed we confirm belief in the resurrection of the body.When my mother was in an assisted living center a lady who was then in her nineties told me that ministers do not speak enough about the afterlife, note she did not say Hell alone, but heaven also. She said that the afterlife was mentioned in funerals, but she was too upset to hear it well then. (Before she died, she asked her family to ask me to assist in her funeral). In our confessions we also speak of an immortal soul, and it is not at all clear to me that we are affirming the same thing I don’t want to get into an argument about when and how we go to heaven after death. Let’s imagine we are in geometry class and we will have an axiom:when we die we enter into God’s eternal time, where past, present, and future merge. After all, it is in Luke’s gospel that he tells the bandit on the cross this day you shall be with me in Paradise. Second axiom, Jesus is a pointer for our resurrection life. In contrast to John’s story last week, , everybody in Luke seems to be Thomas in their understanding. In the time of Jesus it was another given: that ghosts/spirits can’t eat. Ghosts could not be touched or touch others. So when he asks for something to eat, we are in a new frame of reference. Third assertion, it is dangerous for Christians to separate body, mind, heart and soul as completely distinct entities. We are ensouled bodies, or embodied souls. Our very selves are a mix of these features in our lives. We know this when we speak of something being psychosomatic. For us this resurrection picture seems to mean that we will be ourselves, our restored selves, our best selves in heaven. We will carry within this embodied life: feelings and thoughts and relationships intact.It seems that the phsycial life we have experienced will perdure. Jesus says “see that I am myself.” This resurrection of the body raises as many questions as it may settle. If we eat as resurrected selves, what about bathroom? Maybe heaven will be a place where the men’s rooms are as nice as the women’s bathrooms. Maybe men will finally find better aim in heaven. Seriously, jesus is recognized as himself. Held in the memory and embrace of the divine, we will be recognized, and maybe, at long last, we will recognize ourselves a shte beloved of god, precious gifts of God, part of God’s age old working and reworking to make this world and the world to come a good place. I John makes the wonderful assertion that we are children of God. John indicates that we learn to live within the life and light of Jesus Christ. In time, we start to resemble the life of Christ in our attitudes and actions. So often, I hear people say that temptations do not seem as potent as they age. They attribute it to the wisdom of experience and the aging process, but John would say that we are being conformed to christ. That status is rendered from love. a good way to approach resurrection is to ask: will the love of God for us stop upon our deaths? In Acts Luke’s account has the author of life killed. Death does not close the page of the life of Jesus, and through that life, our lives too will persist in a new way. We are family. could the creator of all life, the giver of new birth, dismiss our lives? Can we really believe that God can ignore the bonds of family? So precious are we, god enfolds our lives into the Author of Life.