E3B – 14 Apr 2024
New Creation Bodies
Message by: Fr Richard M Healey
Audio
Liturgy of the Word
E3B – Easter Sunday 3
MP3 media (7:30am)
MP3 media (5pm)
In today’s homily, we journey with the disciples after the road to Emmaus, reflecting on the profound mystery of Jesus’ resurrection as told in Luke’s Gospel. Over the past five years, I’ve delved into psychology, seeking deeper insights into our human nature. This Easter, we’re reminded that the resurrection is a transformative event, not just for our spirits but for all creation. It’s about the new creation God is unfolding, where even our bodies are called to be transformed. Let’s open our hearts to this promise of complete renewal and allow the power of the resurrection to work within us, bringing forth new life in every aspect of our being.
(00:00:00) – Over the last five years or so, I’ve kind of noticed that my reading habits have really expanded. I think part of that is just being the the joy of discovering audiobooks. And so when I go for my daily walks or when I’m in the car, I can be constantly just listening to different sources of information. And one of the things that I never kind of imagined that I would spend so much time reading is things about the human person, psychology and insights that we’ve been able to to kind of gather about just the nature of how we work, how we function, how things unfold within us, and how to function better within the world. But when we come to think about Jesus and what happened on that resurrection day, and even though this is now the third Sunday of Easter, so it’s two weeks since those amazing events, the church has put us back here on Easter Day. It’s from the Gospel of Luke, and it’s the two disciples that are sharing the story of what happened on the road is the road to Emmaus, and what happened when all of those events unfolded.(00:01:20) – Now remember that they were walking for some kilometers with Jesus walking by their side, sharing his story, going through the scriptures. And yet they weren’t able to recognize him. Or in the Gospel of John. You have Mary of Magdala, just so in love with with Jesus and so devastated by his death that she’s just there, standing at the entrance to the tomb, peering into that. And then suddenly someone is with her, calling her by name. And yet she thinks that he’s the gardener. Where have you put him? Show me so that I can go and offer homage to his body. But we see something quite extraordinary. There, there today, in the locked room. And suddenly Jesus is there. So what kind of a body does Jesus have that he’s able to be present to them suddenly there before them? Yeah. It’s not a ghost. He’s offering them his hands. He’s offering him their wounds. He’s saying, have you got any food here? Give me a piece of fish. But he’s.
(00:02:38) – He’s eating, he’s drinking, he’s sharing, he’s embracing, he’s touching. He’s been touched. And yet he can come and go. He. The last time the disciples saw him, he was in the village of Emmaus. And they didn’t see him running along the road. He’s able to kind of disappear from their sight. So what is going on? I mean, why does this matter? Well, the teaching of the church is that what happened for Jesus is going to happen for us. So it’s probably helpful if we kind of have some sense of what does the resurrection of the body actually mean? I mean, every Sunday we profess it in the Apostles Creed. You know, we say that yes, we believe in the resurrection of the dead. And I’m pretty sure for most of us, most of the time, that just kind of flows over us and we don’t actually kind of think, well, what does that mean? What do we hope for? You know, someone has died and we we bury them.
(00:03:45) – That was the traditional kind of sense. It doesn’t seem to make much difference because eventually that body will decompose. Or if the person has been cremated, that those ashes are just there. There’s not much there for the Lord to work with. But that’s the thing about the resurrection. That’s the thing about new creation. Hope is that God will do for us in that moment of the return of Jesus. When we read in revelation 21 and 22 the end of the story, where heaven and earth are finally reunited when the heavenly Jerusalem comes down to here, to earth. It’s not about us being evacuated. It’s not about our souls being freed. It’s about this complete and absolute transformation of every part of creation. And just as God was able to create from being nothingness in the Big Bang, that the gift of God’s creative energy being able to be released and flown for, so also he’s able with this new act of creation. To restore and renew and to bring to birth this wonderful new body, like that of Jesus, that were able to be both in earth and in heaven.
(00:05:12) – Almost simultaneously, there is able to be this, this transformation, this, this movement between the two spaces, the space where God’s will is always done, which is the space of heaven, and the space here on earth where we know the corruption of sin, where we know that we haven’t got that experience of being able to offer ourselves fully and completely at all times before God. And so this transformation that happens, that’s what we see in Jesus. So he’s pouring out his peace. He’s pouring out his life. He’s giving them this fragile little community, this opportunity to to grasp hold of this gift and this grace in this moment, to know that that’s what we’re looking forward to. That’s what this transformation is going to be about for all of us. Not simply that there will be with God in heaven when we die. That’s life after death. But as one of my favorite authors, Tom Wright, the former Anglican bishop of Durham, says, you know what Christian hope is really about is life after life after death.
(00:06:20) – That transformation that happens when we’re able to experience that wonder of God’s grace and God’s life. Another Anglican John Polkinghorne said that, it’s almost like, , when we die, God will upload our software. That whole sense of who we are to his service, to the cloud. Until that day when the Lord is able to bring about the new creation, and then he’s able to to download our software into the new creation bodies that we will have, and we’ll be able to experience that new life and the goodness of God. That’s the longing that we have to be changed and transformed as we encounter him in the scriptures, as we let him teach us along the way, as he feeds us and nourishes us, as he pours out his peace upon us, that we can begin to experience the new creation life here and now. We don’t have to wait until we die. We don’t have to wait until that moment of the absolute beautiful transformation of the world that we can begin to taste and see here and now.
(00:07:29) – We can begin to open ourselves to the work of creation, the new creation that God is bringing forth in our lives today. So let’s pray that we might indeed be changed and transformed, that we might walk the way of repentance, that we might walk the way of opening ourselves to God’s glory and God’s grace, and turn away from anything that prevents us from experiencing that full human flourishing. But God is inviting us into today.