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. – Luke 24:36b-42
An advertisement for a guest speaker at a Houston, Texas church announced that the speaker’s topic was “Activating the Presence of Christ.” That put me off and I’ll tell you why. The presence of Christ is not something that is “activated” by individuals or even groups of individuals. You don’t “make” Christ present in your home or workplace and I don’t “make” Christ present in the bread and wine at the Altar.
God’s presence isn’t dependent upon our subjective awareness. We can be grateful for that! In a world where we can control and manipulate so many things, it is really a comfort to know that God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all life, is constantly fulfilling the covenant promise to be with us no matter what. The divine presesnce is not dependent upon our consciousness. It may be the one thing in the universe that is never “up to us.”
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung discovered a statement to this effect among the Latin writings of Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus, the Renaissance scholar and humanist, said the statement had been an ancient Spartan proverb. Jung popularized it, having it inscribed over the doorway of his Zurich home to remind those who entered that "awe of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalms 111:10). The phrase is also inscribed upon Dr. Jung’s tomb. Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit. (Bidden or not bidden, God is Present.)
We are all aware of the idea that God in Christ never forces his way into our lives. That theme, and the related theme of the free will of the individual, are artistically expressed in Holman Hunt's famous painting, "The Light of the World." The latch on the door is on the inside, not on the outside where Christ, the bearer and embodiment of light, stands knocking. But note that Christ is present. His presence may be acknowledged, welcomed, resisted, denied, or ignored, but not “activated.”
Luke 24:36b-42 is one of several readings used in the Easter season that provide an account of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples. Jesus stood among them and spoke to them. They were startled and thought they were seeing a ghost. There was no knocking at a door. There was no “activating” his presence. He was there by his own will. Moreover, this gospel writer and others go out of their way to make it clear that this was no ghost. He was corporeally present. He invited them to touch him, he ate with them, and they heard his voice.
No doubt by the time the epistles and gospels were written, several decades following the resurrection, it was important to the bearers of the apostolic witness to counter certain Christological positions that were gaining in popularity. The Gnostics and others believed in a docetic Christ. In their thought, Christ only appeared to have lived and died, since a god would never defile himself by taking on human flesh and blood. Others taught that the resurrection appearances were “spiritual” experiences and tried to reinforce the Greek notion of the immortality of the soul, wherein we are just passing through.
Christians believe in the resurrection of the dead, not into a spirit world. Luke’s resurrection appearance is a way of saying “no” to a spirituality that says the body and all things physical are inferior and evil. The resurrection completes the incarnation and declares in the clearest of terms that God values and loves all that God has created.
The Risen Christ continues to be present with us in physical ways, principally in the Eucharist. The season of Easter was always used in the early church as the time to instruct newly baptized people in the sacraments, which they were now able to receive. This practice is still carried on frequently in the contemporary church. It is helpful, because all of us need to be reminded of the meaning of our sacramental relationship with God in the Eucharistic Meal. We come here not to “activate” the presence of Christ, but to experience him in the table fellowship. Then, we are sent into the world to be an extension of the experience of Christ’s living risen presence to others in touchable, tangible, real ways that make a difference.
St. Augustine, a fourth century bishop in North Africa, put it this way in an Easter sermon: "You are the body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken; you are to be blessed, broken, and distributed; that you may be the means of grace and the vehicles of the eternal charity."
It is true today. As we know Christ we understand that we are to make Christ known when we walk out of the church into the mission field at our doorstep. We have been fed so that we can feed others who are hungry, as are we, for that which satisfies the deepest hungers of our lives.