Mystical Word – Third Sunday of Easter 2025
Readings for the Third Sunday of Easter
Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41 | Revelation 5:11-14 | John 21:1-19
We reflect on the resurrection of the body.
In one resurrection story, the Risen Jesus appears, as if from nowhere, to his frightened disciples and asks, “Why are you troubled?” Here is a question to ask ourselves every moment of everyday! Why am I troubled? Usually, I feel troubled because I have so identified with a story in my head that I am not aware of the divine presence here and now one with me. I have convinced myself I need something to be happy or need to avoid something to be happy. A typical example is gaining weight. We can feel bad about ourselves because we don’t look trim or svelte. The only real problem, besides a legitimate health concern of bad eating habits, is a story we tell ourselves about how we should look. Jesus asks, “Why are you troubled?” We have everything we need to be deliriously joyfully this very moment: oneness with the triune God. We are troubled because we don’t accept reality but believe, instead, the story in our brains about how society tells us we should look. If we drop the storyline, the overidentification with the expectation that I appear physically a certain way, divine happiness erupts from within. This is the beginning of the life of the resurrection.
The body is a good place for the life of the resurrection to affect. Jesus goes on to say to the disciples, “Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” There is an odd phenomenon today. We affirm how much we think our bodies are good. There are social movements that attempt to help people accept their bodies as they are, whatever their size or shape. Still, we do our best to care for our physical health. Society, though, also pushes a message that we have to stay in shape. It is easy to get the impression that we really like our bodies only a certain way. We may tell others to accept their bigger bodies, but really, we want slender and fit bodies. It is an odd hatred of the flesh because we want only good-looking and svelte physiques.
Jesus asks the disciples, “‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them.” There is no hatred for the flesh in the Gospel. Quite to the contrary, the Risen Jesus eats in front of his disciples. He shows them his hands and his feet. He basically says, “I’m not a ghost!” God does not leave the body to rot in the grave once we die. God loves us body and soul. God delights in us just as we are, whatever our body shape! The Gospel loudly proclaims that matters does indeed matter to God!
As followers of Jesus we look forward, in hope, to God’s final transformation of the entire cosmos. Insofar as this transformation affects us physically, we call it the “resurrection of the body.” Like the Risen Jesus, we will not be resuscitated corpses. We will be totally changed, even in our physical bodies. Our bodies, then, are integral to God’s plan to bring all things back into ultimate communion with the incomprehensible mystery of the Trinity. The resurrection of the body is God transforming the whole person, which includes the body. After all, God became a body!
The resurrection unveils the divine present in all things and results in a complete revolution of, first, consciousness, and, then, of the very atoms and molecules of this universe God has created. Since our bodies are intimately connected to the physical universe, this is good news for the stars, the hydrogen molecules, and the black holes, too! Of course, if God’s transformation of all things is good news for them, then it is good news for dogs, cats, trees, birds, rocks, penguins, polar bears, the oceans, the deserts, the jungles and every living and existent thing in this wide wonderful universe.
Still, the body is our access to the present moment. We can only ever know God right here, right now. One of the best ways to know God in the now is to root ourselves in our bodies. There are some contemporary therapies for those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder that involves using the body to root the patients in the present moment, so they can refocus their minds when they experience an episode of reliving their past trauma. Christianity has similar methods, and they both involve breathing. If we can breathe when we feel troubled and intentionally root ourselves in God in the moment, we can begin to experience the life of the Risen Christ in our bodies, which is but an anticipation of the end-times transformation of our bodies at the Eschaton.