36 As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself
stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled
and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are
you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my
feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh
and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them
his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were
marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a
piece of broiled fish, [2] 43 and he took it and ate before them.
44 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 and the Prophets and the Psalms
must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,
46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on
the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of
sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise
of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power
from on high.” (Luke 24:36-49 (ESV)
“They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and
ate before them.” Jesus appears among
his disciples and eats fish. He does this to confirm that he is not a ghost,
not a disembodied soul, a spirit or some figment of their imagination. He has
risen from the dead. To this day, people try dismiss the resurrection as some
sort of mass hysteria along the lines of alien sightings, or ghost stories told
around campfires. And yet as they are recorded in scripture they have none of
the characteristics of such stories so easily dismissed. The corporeal reality
of the resurrection is concrete. Jesus eats fish. His existence is not one of a
disembodied soul inhabiting heaven, but rather he like Abraham and Isaac, like
Moses and Elijah who he meets on the mount of transfiguration lives, eats,
drinks and celebrates life. In eating fish he gives us a vision of our future,
the life of heaven that awaits for us, even as he gives us a foretaste of the
feast to come in the Lord’s Supper.
Heaven as it is described in popular culture, which often
disregards the resurrection of the flesh, but adheres to an immortality of the
soul, becomes somewhat a scary place. Most people are joking when they say they
don’t want to go to heaven because they won’t have any friends there. It’s a
bravado that neither cares to take seriously what scripture has to say about
life after death, the existence of heaven and hell and what is entailed
therein. No beer in heaven they say. Well they have it wrong. There is no beer
in hell, but heaven as it is described in scripture is a table serving the best
of meats and the finest of wines. And I will just say here in passing, I do not
agree with this modern dichotomy I find espoused today by well-meaning pastors
and theologians wanting to emphasize the resurrection of the flesh and so
insist heaven is not the goal of the Christian life, but rather the
resurrection of the flesh and the new creation. I suppose if one wants we can
compartmentalize heaven and the new creation and speak of the throne room of
God and the new earth as different spheres, but I don’t see the point. Heaven
and the resurrection of the flesh are one reality, even as Christ inhabits the
throne room of God in the flesh, the same flesh and bone he received at
conception in Mary’s womb, the same flesh that was crucified on the cross, that
he showed the disciple’s this day in the upper room, the same body he now gives
to us for the forgiveness of sins in with and under the bread and wine, the
same body with which he eats fish.
It seems a simple thing. Perhaps not even a very appetizing
thing, eating fish. It’s not normally the first thing I order at a restaurant,
fish. Though some of the best meals in my life have been meals of fish. To this
day I remember visiting Sweden with my grandfather Bror, then in his late 80s,
me in my early twenties. My uncle Per Olaf wanting to treat us to a dinner
worthy of the great city of Gothenburg took us to a fancy restaurant in the harbor
amidst the docks where you could see all the huge ships coming in and out of
the North Sea. I looked at the menu and couldn’t reconcile the prices to my
conscience, as I quickly converted Kronor to dollars in my head. They seemed
absurd. Never in my life would I have ever thought I’d spend my own money much
less another person’s on a meal. He was treating me, but my pious upbringing
was rearing an ugly head and plaguing me with the thought that to order off
this menu was to steal from a very hospitable host. So I ordered the cheapest
thing on the menu. For a couple hundred dollars I ordered cod, and ate wearing
blue jeans, a meal worthy of a tuxedo. Funny, the worst meals I’ve had were
eaten while wearing a tux, and mess dress blues. But this cod came out on a
plate, and the fillets were rolled somewhat like a cinnamon roll around each
other, and had been cooked in a cream sauce with just a hint of dill and every
bite melted in the mouth with the consistency of the best flan you have ever
had. I could not believe what I was eating, and began to wonder what those more
expensive dishes must be like, so I finished my grandfather’s tuna steak, and
was not at all disappointed. Somehow I doubt the fish, salted to preserve in on
the three day inland trek from the coast to the markets in Jerusalem and
broiled a day and a half later, tasted anything of the like for Jesus as the
fish in the Gothenburg restaurant. But it was fish, it was solid concrete food
for the body, savory on the tongue, and food for the soul.
See some things in life are meant to be. These simple things
we take pleasure in here and now. Those things that sometimes make us a little
attached to this world, perhaps even more so than we should be, because we
think that they cease with death, these things are shadows of what they should
be, even as we are shadows of who we will be. Meals with friends, a Friday pint
with coworkers, family dinners that go just write without the drama of
thanksgiving. These things that fill our
life with meaning and purpose even in the face of death here on earth. No,
these things don’t cease, but rather reach a perfection in the resurrection.
Eating, drinking, dancing and working, and living, no not existing, living in
the full glory of the grace of God, the joy of life to its fullest, because the
man who ate fish in the upper room is a man, a real man of flesh and blood, our
man who gives us life and says take and eat, take drink this cup is my blood of
the New Testament given for you for the forgiveness of sins.
Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep
your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen!
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