When Eric Clapton’s young son died because of a tragic accident, he wrote a song titled “Tears in Heaven”. These are some of the words.
Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?Would you hold my hand
If I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand
If I saw you in heaven?Beyond the door,
There’s peace I’m sure,
And I know there’ll be no more
Tears in heaven.
Eric Clapton gives voice and words to the longings and questions of every person who has lost a loved one. What happens after death? What’s it like in heaven? Will I see my loved ones there? The message this morning is a response to those questions, and I respond in the name of Jesus who was alive, and died, and is alive forevermore. I respond on behalf of a God who has created all things and is able to make all things new. And I greet you with God’s grace, God’s mercy, and God’s peace.
Text: Luke 24:39-40
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 Jesus had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
From June of 2007 until I came to Greenville in August of last year, I was retired. One of the things Mary and I did during that time was to worship with different congregations on Sundays. It was fascinating. I learned many things, and enjoyed it. I particularly enjoyed listening to the preaching of my friends and colleagues. The reason I tell you this is because I stole this morning’s sermon title, “Things That Go Bump in the Night” from a sermon preached by a friend, Peter Berry, a Reformed Church Minister whom I heard preach during that time. I don’t remember too much of the sermon he preached, but I’ll never forget the title, “Things that go bump in the night.”
Until I researched it for this sermon, I had no idea where that phrase originated. I’m still not sure. However it first appeared in print, as part of a prayer, in Cornwall in 1928. Its origin, undoubtedly, is much older. Another source attributed the phrase to a traditional Scottish prayer.
From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
Some people are fascinated with ghoulis and ghosties, ghosts and the spirit world. Others are repulsed and frightened of ghosts and the spirit world. The disciples, when the resurrected Lord came and stood among, them were startled and terrorized, because they thought he was a ghost. Jesus tried to reassure them that he was not a ghost, “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.” Then Jesus asked for something to eat, and he ate a piece of broiled fish to show them that he was not a spirit, but a real body.
The idea that the dead appear as ghosts or spirits is as old as the hills. King Saul, the first King of Israel, went to see a medium, the witch of Endor, when his reign as king was falling apart. Saul asked the witch to raise the prophet Samuel from the dead. According to scripture, Samuel was not pleased when he was disturbed, and the bible warns us not to use mediums to disturb the dead.
That hasn’t stopped people from consorting with ghoulies and ghosties and longleggedly beasties and things that go bump in the night. All kinds of people have consulted mediums and conducted séances to connect with the spirit world and the spirits of those who have died. It is rumored that Dolly Madison held séances in the white house, and that Nancy Reagan consulted with the occult. Some people are obsessed with the spirit world.
In his letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul asks, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” People have asked those questions from time immemorial. And so I take the scriptural observation that the disciples thought that Jesus was a ghost, and our Lord’s insistence that he was not a ghost, as a stepping off point to talk about the traditional Christian belief in the resurrection of the body.
As a culture, we have a contradictory view of the human body. We seem to be of two minds when it comes to our attitude toward our bodies. On the one hand we worship the physical human body and on the other hand we deny the importance of the human body.
If we calculated the amount of time, money and energy that we spend to maintain, enhance, and beautify our bodies one would think that it’s the only thing that matters in life. Think of the amount of money and time that is spent in health spas and beauty parlors. Think of the amount of money and time that is spent in fashions and plastic surgery. Bodies are pampered and revered almost as objects of worship, often at the expense of other values. I think that pornography takes advantage of this by treating the human body as an object, a commodity separated from personhood and humanity.
It is understandable that we attach great importance to the physical body. The human body is the instrument by which we feel, see, hear, and smell. The human body is the instrument by which we are known and through which we know others. And even in death we attach great value to the human body. Consider the incredible effort and expense that went into the recovery and identification of the bodies that perished in the World’s Trade Center. It is estimated that it costs the government something like $25,000.00 to recover, embalm, and bring home each body of a soldier who has perished in the Iraq war. We place great value on the human body, even the bodies of those who have died.
And yet, on the other hand, we deny the importance of the human body. There is a puritanical strain that runs deeply through our culture, an attitude that somehow there is something shameful and wrong about the body. Even though it seems at times that our society has become more open and sexually liberated, some would say sexually depraved and brazenly exhibitionist, we are not far removed from our Victorian ancestors who covered even the legs of their tables and chairs because legs were shameful things.
Nowhere is our denial of the importance of the body more evident than in our attitudes toward bodies that are aging, dying, or dead. We remove them from sight. People with bodies that are failing are segregated and placed in nursing homes where they are out of sight. People with bodies that are dying are placed in remote wards of hospitals where it is hard to see them all covered up with hoses, tubes, masks and other medical instruments in their antiseptic rooms. And, when a person dies, their body is whisked away in an unmarked van and taken to a funeral home. They are then prepared for burial, but more often, disposed of by fire.
More and more often there is no funeral. If there is a worship service, it is usually called a memorial service. Sometimes the ashes are present in a lovely urn, but more often than not the body is not there at all, invisible. It is as if somehow the body didn’t matter, that the person has become a spirit, a ghost.
Our contradictory way of thinking about the human body has a lot to do with the fact that we seem to have an understanding that comes from Greek philosophy rather than the bible. The Greeks believed that we are made up of body, mind, and spirit, three distinct and separate parts. This view and understanding was adopted by the YMCA in its logo and slogan. The YMCA logo is a triangle, and its slogan is “Body, Mind, and Spirit.” With this understanding of human nature comes the belief in the immortality of the soul. It’s the idea that the body is simply a temporary dwelling place for the mind and the spirit. When the body withers away the soul lives on.
This is not what the bible teaches. The bible doesn’t make distinctions between body, mind and spirit. The body is spiritual and the spiritual is physical and the whole is infused with knowledge and wisdom. Paul tells us that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. From this view comes the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. We say it every time we make affirmation of our faith with the words of the Apostles’ Creed. I believe in the resurrection of the body.
That’s what Jesus was demonstrating to his disciples who were startled and terrorized. “I’m not a ghost. I’m not a spirit. I’m not a figment of your imagination. I’m not a wisp of mist. I am real. I am a body. Touch me. Feel me. I am real. I am me.
“How can this be?” we ask. “Illuminate this mystery.” As Paul asked, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” I don’t think that Paul dispels the mystery but he penetrates it with great insight when he says, “God gives a body as God chooses.” God is in charge and God can create or resurrect any kind of body that God chooses.
The American poet and literary intellect, Emily Dickenson wrote a number of poems about the resurrection. Most of them seem to indicate that she wanted to believe in the resurrection but could not. There is one poem, however, that leaps across the chasm of her doubt with joy. It begins with the question that we’ve been asking, “With what body do they come?” the same question that Paul asks in his letter to the Corinthians.
"And with what body do they come?" –
Then they do come - rejoice!
What Door - What Hour - Run
- run - My Soul!
Illuminate the House!
"Body!" Then real - a Face and Eyes -
To know that it is them! -
Paul knew the Man that knew the News -
He passed through Bethlehem.
We might add to her words that the man Paul knew passed not only through Bethlehem, he passed through Jerusalem, and Gethsemane and Golgotha and death itself and came to the locked upper room and said to his disciples, “Touch me and know that it is I.” and the disciples responded with joy knowing that he was real. And like the poet, I pray that for all of us we may leap the chasm of our doubts with joy knowing that those who have been gathered to the Lord are real, they are not abstractions, not shadows, not spirits, not ideas, not vapors but solid tactile and real.
I Believe in the resurrection of the body! Amen.