APPARITION
WITH A MISSION See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him. Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. TEXT: Luke 24:36b-48 While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 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 he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” For thirty years we vacationed annually at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. I remember the first time we pulled off I-95 on to Rt. 117. It was after dusk and the road would take us through such small towns as Magnolia, Burgaw, and Rose Hill. Most of the road passed through wooded areas and tobacco fields. What impressed me were the number of signs, mostly hand-written, with Bible verses and the message “REPENT” or “JESUS IS COMING SOON.” But what really stood out in my recollection was a large billboard set some distance away from the road with the words “United Klans of America” and the dreaded burning cross. A few years later the Ku Klux Klan sign had been taken down, but the last time we traveled that road, “Jesus was still coming.” Of course Jesus’ arrival has been imminent for the last two thousand years, and I am sure that his appearance will be met with the same reaction as those first disciples who were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost, except for North Carolinians who believe that Jesus was one of their own. He must have been a redneck since he attended a fish-fry on the beach. The question is: Who was it that appeared on the beach and seemingly ate fish and demonstrated his corporeal nature to his unbelieving followers? After all, ghosts do not have breakfast, and a ghost does not have flesh and bones. . . . But do they? We are the ones who are doing the perceiving, and we see what our minds tell us to see; we feel what our minds tells us to feel. Perhaps the perception of Jesus was in the minds of the beholders. When the philosopher-psychologist Julian Jaynes published his landmark book, The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, he created quite a stir with his theory that human consciousness is only three to four thousand years old. He said that the ancient peoples did not think the way we do. The unseen visions and unheard voices were in actuality the right side of the brain speaking to the left, but interpreted as coming from some external deity. Some sort of catastrophe occurring in antiquity forced humans to learn how to be aware of their environment and their place in it. In other words, we became self-conscious, aware of who we are. It is interesting how in the evolution of human life we separated from the rest of the animal species. We became anxious, aware of our finitude, aware that one day we will die. We adopted behaviors unknown in the rest of the animal kingdom. Chipmunks don’t have to deal with their dark side. Cats are not suicidal. Squirrels do not mobilize to engage in war on other squirrels. And dogs do not appear to need alcohol to unwind at the end of the day. Only humans have the capacity to imagine, to create, to prepare for future needs or dangers, or to contemplate the meaning of existence. Only our species postulates a Creator, the continuation of life beyond this one, or the relevance of a purposeful life. Only humans have a sense of God. Sigmund Freud in 1927 published a monograph, The Future of an Illusion, in which he said that various religions were nothing more than emotional thermostats to regulate human fears and anxieties. God was the response to the trauma of self-awareness. Many others have suggested that the need for God will diminish as human consciousness continues to evolve. Or at least our concept of who or what God is. Is all this accidental? Did we just happen to come into being in some mysterious way? Or are we the result of a God beyond ourselves, a collective unconscious or super-soul? Both our epistle and gospel lessons speak to this question of who we are and what our purpose is. When Jesus appeared on the beach, it wasn’t to help the disciples go surfing for answers. He invited them to look, touch, taste, hear, to use their senses to perceive the reality of what was happening. There was a plan to what was occurring. There was intentionality. All these things were done to fulfill that which was written and spoken of. And there was a mission: “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” You are being prepared for that which will happen. You have a purpose to fulfill. Listen again to what John writes in his epistle about who we are and what we are for: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him.” We are children of God. The divine resides within us. Jesus said, “The realm of God is within you.” When all humanity becomes aware of this God-nature, that we are intended to be expressions of agape-love—God-love—then the realm of God will be manifest on this earth. In the meantime, we need to do those things which give expression to the God within us. This does not happen when we make war upon one another, when we destroy our habitat, when we kill ourselves through self-destructive behaviors such as substance abuse. We become God-like when we follow the example of Jesus and find ways to express God’s love and creative power to all people. Whether it is something simple like cleaning up our environment, demonstrating love and concern to victims of cancer, or arousing the creative spirit in our souls to produce or enjoy the arts, our mission in its larger scope is to be what God intended us to be. Jesus came to make us aware of that, and to re-establish the connection between ourselves and our Creator. The apparition had a mission at the fish-fry and that was to instill a sense of community among the disciples and to point them to a larger purpose beyond themselves. Eating with his friends, breaking bread and drinking wine, is communion, an act of including all in the larger fellowship of God’s family. For this reason, no one is excluded, no one is left out in the cold. All are welcome at Christ’s table. It is collectively that we are one with our God, for in the end all things will be reconciled to God through the awareness of the Christ-spirit in each of God’s children. Harry Serio |
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