Jesus returns from the dead and meets his disciples in different places: the garden, the Emmaus Road, the seashore, the Upper Room. He witnesses to them that he is alive, that he is back from the dead with a body.
Jesus isn’t content to send them a postcard from heaven: HAVING A GREAT TIME. WISH YOU WERE HERE. No. He shows up among them as his own witness.
And he recruits as witnesses those other people with bodies. Jesus wants them to move out and tell everyone who will listen and everyone who won’t listen, that bodies count….that he’s back from the dead with a body, threatening them with life.
Those who recognize his witness become witnesses themselves. They put their bodies on the line. They become contagious with the forgiveness they’ve caught, carriers of resurrection themselves. A God Notice
That’s what this back-to-life Jesus wants of us: not names on a list, or what someone has called “pew potatoes.” Jesus wants us as witnesses. Not airy spirits or pious ghosts, but bodies like his own with wounds to show…..bodies that witness to resurrection, threatening the world with life.
The only Easter some people may ever see….
Is the Easter they see in you and me.
