Risen With Healing in Her Wings

John 20:19-28

A Sermon Preached by Rev. Monica L. McDowell Elvig

May 15, 2006

University Congregational United Church of Christ

Seattle, Washington

In the time between the Resurrection and the Ascension and Pentecost, Jesus appeared to the disciples on a number of occasions. On four of these occasions, the gospels tell us that the disciples did not immediately recognize Jesus. We don’t know why they didn’t. There is never any explanation given as to why they didn’t know that it was Jesus. Perhaps his appearance was somewhat changed post-resurrection, perhaps it’s just because Jesus was the last person they’d expect to show up. We just don’t know.

But what is explained in the gospels is how then the disciples did come to recognize that it was Jesus. There are 4 different ways the gospels tell us that Christ was recognized.

The first way was on Easter morning. At the beginning of chapter 20 in John, Mary goes to the tomb, finds the tombstone removed, and goes and gets Peter and John. They see the empty tomb and then they leave. But Mary is distressed because Jesus’ body is not there. She remains--weeping and Jesus appears to her. But she doesn’t even realize it’s Jesus. Maybe she has blurry vision from all her tears, but she supposes him to be the gardener. They were in a garden after all.

Mary does not recognize it was Jesus until, he says her name, “Mary.” It is the first way Christ was recognized after the resurrection, when Jesus calls Mary by her name.

There is a story by a Presbyterian minister, named Virginia. Virginia was a solo pastor of a congregation. Within a very short period of time, she had a dizzying number of losses, She lost her beloved mother, father, and sister, as well as a number of other less significant losses, but on top of losing her entire family, it was just too much for her. She found herself unable to cope, and as a pastor she was just going through the motions. On Palm Sunday that year, she and the congregation she served were invited to participate in a community-wide service at another church. They ended the Palm Sunday service with a recessional that began inside the church and then paraded to the outside grounds. The children had all lined up ahead of time outside of the church, so that as the pastors led the people from the sanctuary through the doors to the outside they then led the worshipers through this throng of children.

As Virginia paraded through the children, one child began saying, “Gin-Gin, Hi Gin-Gin.” Then the other children began saying it too, “Gin-Gin, Hi Gin-Gin.” Virginia said she barely made it through the parade and she had to head straight back to the church to a private room where she broke down weeping. You see what no one there knew, and no one there could have known was that Gin-Gin was Virginia’s childhood name. That no one else, except her beloved mother, father, and sister had ever used.

Virginia said, it was as if Jesus whispered into that one child’s ear, say “Hi gin-gin”. To Virginia, it spoke to her that God still knew her, even in the midst of great loss and grief. Virginia said it was the beginning of her healing. She ended up taking a Sabbatical to grieve and to get back on her feet. But the strength to heal came when she knew God knew her name, her real name. And God spoke it to her through the throng of children.¹

You may be waiting to be healed from your grief and loss, maybe from the loss of your mother, waiting to hear God speak your name, as only God can.

A second way Christ was recognized after the resurrection is in the gospel of Luke. Two of Jesus’ followers are walking along on the road to Emmaus, talking, and Jesus comes along beside them, accompanying them as a stranger. They too do not recognize that it is Jesus. The text says that their eyes are kept from recognizing him. They are discussing the events surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion. When they arrive at Emmaus, they beg Jesus to stay with them, and as he breaks bread in their midst, then their eyes are opened. They recognize him and then he disappears. And they say to each other, were not our hearts burning within us while he was with us and teaching us. And they went and told the disciples that Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

As a chaplain for adults with disabilities in New Jersey, one of my privileges was to accompany those individuals in group homes who so desired, to attend a church of their choice. I was a bridge in helping the church then to include and incorporate that person into the full life of that faith community.

Danny was one I accompanied to the Hopewell Church. Danny has cerebral palsy, cp, he uses a wheel chair and would regularly make loud vocalizations and move his arms, like this, especially when he was happy or excited.

Danny was a stranger to me and to the church, a stranger with a different body and a mind that was a mystery to those of us who attended to him. Communication was a mystery, too, because his vocabulary was limited to one word at a time over and over.

Danny loved to attend the Sunday evening service at Hopewell because of the contemporary music, and because the informality was comfortable to him as someone who liked to move and make noise. The church served communion every Sunday and they did it by intinction, having everyone come forward. Everyone would tear off a piece of bread from the common loaf and then dip it in the common cup of juice.

I had taught Danny how to do this ahead of his first time, or I thought I had taught Danny how to do this. But when Danny rolled forward to tear off a piece of bread, he didn’t something completely unexpected. He grabbed the loaf of bread and tore off this huge hunk of bread and then gave what was left back to the elder, standing there in shock. Actually, we were all standing there in shock, the ministers, the elders and I. What do we do now? But Danny knew what to do. He just dunked that hunk of bread in the juice and then eagerly devoured it.

He did this week after week. I’d keep reminding him to tear off a little bit, and week after week, he’d tear off a huge hunk and take pleasure in doing so. After a while, the change didn’t take place in Danny, the change took place in me and in the ministers and elders serving Danny broken bread. We came to understand that in serving Danny, a stranger in a broken body; serving him the broken body of Christ, Christ was present with us, Christ saying, take as much as you need, as much of my grace and presence. There is more than enough. More than enough to enjoy.

I began to look forward to Danny breaking off that huge hunk of bread. My heart would burn within me as Christ would teach me through breaking of bread with a stranger. I doubt very much that Danny will ever be healed this side of heaven, but through him, this stranger, this mystery, God helped to heal my brokenness, my disability, my inability to recognize Christ’s presence in our midst.

You or your loved one may or may not be healed from brokenness this side of heaven, but God may through that brokenness, heal you in other ways, and heal others through you because of the deep communion that is possible with Christ in the midst of brokenness.

A third way Christ was recognized after his resurrection was at the Sea of Galilee in John 21. Peter and the other disciples have been out fishing all night and by morning they have caught nothing. After daybreak, after the dawn, Jesus stands on the beach, but the disciples don’t know it’s Jesus. Jesus nonetheless tells them to cast the net on the other side of the boat. They do, and they catch so many fish they cannot haul in the net. It is then that Peter recognizes that it is Jesus, and says, “It’s the Lord.” and Peter jumps into the water and swims to see him. In the miracle of abundance where there was nothing before, Christ is recognized

A friend of mine I knew at Princeton seminary had very little in her life. She had been abused physically, emotionally, sexually by both of her parents from infancy into her teenage years. She at 45 was twice divorced from abusive marriages, a single mom, a recovering alcoholic and a recovering drug addict. She was evaluated as having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the catastrophic level. The highest level there is. Parts of her body would inexplicably shut down and stop working, not psychosomatically, but all that abuse was stored in her body and her body just couldn’t cope. One day her elbow would stop working, another day she wouldn’t be able to talk. She had night terrors every night, all night long, and after the dawn, she would have to pray for a half an hour to an hour every morning, just to have the courage to get out of bed.

She once said that if she didn’t heal she felt she would die. Amazingly she was not suicidal, but she felt that unless she healed, one day her body would just completely shut down. I once saw her handwriting—it was broken, scribbled and scrawled, like a 1^st grader’s. She had several therapists working on her concurrently. One who did therapy on her body, releasing all the stress and memories stored in her body, one psychiatrist, one spiritual director, she was in a support group, a 12-step group. She had multiple therapists for years.

A few years ago I got a phone call from her out of the blue from New Jersey. She said, “Monica, I just want you to know. I’m finally on the other side. I’m healed. God has healed me. I just wanted you to know.” The following Christmas I received a Christmas card from her, with the most beautiful flowing adult handwriting. At age 51, though she had had nothing in her life, she was finally on the other side, on the other side of the boat of her life. She was able to for the first time embrace her own motherhood to her teenage son. She was now able to recognize Christ’s presence with her in the miracle of abundance. The abundance of grace and mercy and overflowing love and compassion that God brought her through healing.

Sometimes our nights of waiting and toiling last a very long time, our progress slow toward healing in our relationships and healing from some relationships, even seemingly non-existent. After a long, long drought, a long night of nothing, you may be waiting for the healing that comes with the dawn, with the presence of Christ that brings a miracle of overflowing abundance of healing in your life and your relationships.

The fourth way that Jesus was recognized after his resurrection was in our passage this morning, by his wounds. When Jesus appears to the disciples, they do not know who it is until they see his wounds. You might think that post-resurrection, Jesus’ wounds would have been healed over scars. But in Greek, Jesus tells Thomas who had not been with the disciples the first time Jesus appeared, literally, to insert your hand into my side and insert your fingers into the nail holes in my hands. Jesus’ wounds then are not healed over scars; they are 3 dimensional tangible, palpable, deep wounds. And in being invited to explore the depth of Jesus’ wounds, Thomas then declares my lord and my god, and the text says that the other disciples too when they recognized Jesus by his wounds, had rejoiced.

In the book, Send My Roots Rain, by Megan McKenna, a Catholic devotional author, she recounts the time in the summer of 1976 she went to visit a refugee camp for Guatemalan Indians. They were in exile in a camp just across the border in Mexico, the church being their only protector from the soldiers. She lived with a refugee family and took her turn every 3 or 4 days going to retrieve 2 buckets of water from the one spigot available for 40,000 people. On the day her turn came she discovered her brand new brand name sneakers had disappeared so the family gave her a pair of worn shoes to wear that didn’t fit very well. By the time she reached the long distance to the spigot her feet were blistered and bleeding. She didn’t want to take them off for everyone to see, but she didn’t think she could stand the pain.

Only 20 people away from the front of the line, a woman, the woman, appeared. The woman in black who appeared every day. The line would go completely quiet when she arrived. They would back away, let her go to the front of the line get her water and leave. No one spoke to her. Megan curious on previous occasions had asked around to find out who this diminutive mysterious woman was. All she was told was that this woman was a bit crazy, a bit “touched;” for she believed she was the Virgin Mary, the Blessed Mother. Megan also found out her husband and children were all gone -- brutally murdered. All her brothers and sisters had disappeared or been tortured to death. This woman would go to the church every day and stand at the foot of the cross, grieving, crying out, “Jesus is being killed, Jesus is being killed. Jesus is being killed.” Everyone respected her grief, but everyone kept their distance.

Megan writes,

“[On] the day my feet were bleeding…when the woman in black came, everyone moved aside to let her in, and she filled her bucket. There was silence. But this time she didn’t go away. This time she walked down the line and stopped right in front of me. I was nervous. I will never forget her face. She had an old, old face, but her eyes were bright, full of fire. She looked at me, and then she bent down and poured precious water on my feet and started washing my feet with the bottom of her dress. She patted my feet dry and dug some muslin out of her pockets. She wrapped my feet [with it like gauze] with great care and then helped me put my shoes back on. Then she stood up in front of me, almost smiled, and said very quietly [in Spanish]…‘Go with God, my daughter.’ Then she went back down the line, filled her bucket again, and left.

“The silence after she had gone was much longer this time. Then one of the older women put her arm around me and [reversed] the other woman’s [good-bye: ‘Welcome in God my daughter.’] From then on, everyone spoke to me, even if I didn’t understand their language, and they brought me small gifts of food and cloth….

“I don’t think the old woman was ‘touched’…Maybe [even if] people think she is a little bit ‘touched.’ Perhaps we all need to be a little bit ‘touched’ that way….I think she was [who she thought she was]…She is always in the place where there is welcome and tender regard even in the midst of horror….The woman still lives in the desert and has the wings of the eagle and eyes of fire. She has soft, healing balm, especially for…those in pain, [the oppressed, the outcast.]²

We have all been wounded. Our wounds are unique to us; they identify us, just as Jesus was identified by his wounds. But we have all been wounded. We are all the same in this. Our natural tendency is to hide our wounds. Like Megan, we are often reluctant to take off our shoes so others can see we are bleeding.

But as Jesus openly shared his wounds, as Jesus openly invited Thomas to explore those wounds, so as we openly acknowledge our wounds, we discover Christ in our midst. We then invite healing into those deep places in our community that need to be touched. And we become a community of Christ, a community that shares its woundedness, just as we share in Christ’s healing. For through our wounds we are made whole by the One who gave us life, by the One who birthed us all.

For the One who gives us life does indeed make us whole by opening our eyes to see the Christ, the Beloved, the Divine Spark in every person we encounter. And this One makes us whole by opening our hearts to love God, and the other and self with all our being. And this One makes us whole by opening our minds to understand that loving God and the other and self then is one and the same thing. Then we can be the healing presence of Christ in the world, with the fire of love in our eyes and healing balm in our hands.

We worship a life-giving God. We serve the Christ, the Beloved, risen with healing on eagles’ wings. Let us rejoice and give thanks, the wounded healer is in our midst. Amen.

¹Story taken from Presbyterians Today.

²McKenna, Megan. Send My Roots Rain: A Spirituality of Justice and Mercy. New

York: Doubleday, 2003, p. 233.