Not a Ghost Story (Third Sunday of Easter)

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Most people enjoy a good ghost story. And to many of the people who first heard the story of Jesus’ Resurrection, the story sounded just like that. It must be a ghost story. After all, Jesus could appear in the middle of locked room, and he could vanish from sight.

Today’s story in Luke’s Gospel was probably remembered and written down precisely because people wondered whether the appearances of Jesus might really just have been the disciples seeing a ghost. This story confronts that question head on, and goes so far as to say that even some of the first disciples thought Jesus was a ghost until they saw Jesus EAT in front of them.

And actually, the disciples probably would have had an easier time telling the world that Jesus’ ghost had appeared to them. People of all kinds of ethnic groups and cultural backgrounds were at least willing to entertain the possibility that ghosts might exist. And the disciples might not have seemed quite so crazy as they surely must have when they insisted that what they saw and experienced was actually Jesus himself risen from the dead, and not just a ghost.

So why not just let people think that Jesus was a ghost, if that seemed more reasonable?

I suspect that, beyond simply being inaccurate, the first disciples of Jesus insisted on the Resurrection over the ghost story because a ghost is usually something that:

• scares you … ghosts in ghost stories are almost always frightening, and sometimes they frighten us because they want revenge for what happened in their lifetime; and you could understand why the “ghost” of Jesus might want revenge; yet the Risen Jesus comes among his disciples and offers peace and joy – those are not the things a ghost gives …

• isn’t really part of your world … ghosts exist in some other realm, even though they might momentarily appear in this world; and so they can’t really make a difference in what happens in this world anymore; yet the Risen Jesus comes among the disciples and sends them into the world to be his physical presence, and he calls them to act right now in the world around them – And ghosts are usually only concerned with escaping the bonds of this world, and not what happens to it anymore…

• gives you a vision of the future that’s LESS than what you have now … ghosts are usually thought of as some small, vaporous left-over of life in this world; they usually can’t be seen or heard or do anything; in fact, they can’t even enjoy a good meal! Yet the Risen Jesus comes among the disciples as one who is transformed into MORE than he was a few days before – he can walk through closed doors, but he can also be seen and heard and touched – and he can even eat! Ghosts give us a vision of a future that’s less than now; the Risen Jesus gave those first disciples a vision of God’s future that’s a lot more than now …

So this Gospel story isn’t just about refuting the belief that Jesus was a ghost.  Instead, it’s a story that Luke included to remind us that we’re called to live as disciples not of a ghost story, but of the living and Risen Jesus.                             

And for us, like those first disciples, living as followers of the living Jesus instead of the ghostly Jesus means being people who:

• live and project confidence and joy … the world is full of people who are worried and scared; when we project confidence in God’s actual presence in our world in spite of the things that scare us, and joy at what God is doing in our lives even when everything isn’t going our way either, we show the world that Jesus really is alive; ghosts scare you; but it’s our job to show the living Jesus to those who are scared the most…

• are fully invested in the world right now … Jesus’ Resurrection means that God cares about the whole of everything that he’s made – our minds our emotions and our bodies. The world is full of folks who think that religion is about escaping the world and its problems; and ghosts encourage people to escape the world; But the living Jesus calls us to be people who show God’s renewing love for this world right now …

• live with a vision of the future that’s bigger and greater than what we have now … for many people, life after death – if they believe it exists at all – seems like a consolation prize…; Therefore, people’s vision of God is also pretty small. It’s our job to think bigger, and to live with the confidence of the writer of 1 John who says in today’s second reading, “when Jesus is revealed, we will be like him” – that is, we’ll be much more than we can imagine, not less …

What drove and motivated the first witnesses of the Resurrection to go out and tell the story of Jesus – what made them risk their lives and look like lunatics – was the absolute conviction that they hadn’t just seen a ghost. They had seen the Risen Jesus himself. And they knew how hard it was to believe, because some of them, too, had at first thought they were just seeing a ghost.

To many people in our world today, the story of Jesus’ Resurrection may still sound like a ghost story. But like those first disciples, we proclaim the Resurrection instead of the ghost story whenever we work to bring peace and comfort to those who are scared. We proclaim the Resurrection instead of the ghost story whenever we invest ourselves in caring for the world we know God is making new. And we proclaim the Resurrection instead of the ghost story whenever we project our confidence that God’s future won’t be a leftover of today, but a greater and transformed new life with God.

Amen.