Acts 10:
34–43; Psalm 118:1–2, 14–24; I Corinthians 15:19–26; Luke 24:1–12
This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker,
given at St. John's Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, March 27,
2016.
“JESUS CHRIST: DIVINE OR HUMAN?”
Many times, when I am asked
a question that involves a choice which is marked by the word “or”, I often
reply “Yes”. For example, if I am asked, “Do you want vanilla or chocolate?”,
my answer is always “Yes”.
Other such choices are
responded to in the same fashion. After
all, how could I possibly choose between to very important and very good
choices (such as vanilla and chocolate)?
Setting humor aside, let’s
ask ourselves this question: “Is Jesus Christ divine or human?” The obvious
answer that Jesus’ resurrection gives us is “Yes!” (He is both divine and
human, all at once.)
We are celebrating, this
Easter morning, the fact that Jesus rose from the tomb completely and totally
alive. We are celebrating the fact that He rose with His humanity completely
intact.
The Gospel writers take
specific care to tell us about the nature of Jesus’ resurrected body. For
example, John tells us that Jesus could pass through locked doors, so this fact
tells us that there was something quite different about Jesus’ nature after He
rose from the dead. (See John 20:19.)
And yet, his physical body
had all of the attributes that it had had before His death. For example, in a
text we will hear one week from today, we read that Jesus told Thomas (Doubting
Thomas) that Thomas should put his hand into the print of the nails in Jesus’
hands, and to put his hand into the Lord’s side. (See John 20:27.) In Luke’s Gospel account, Luke tells us that
the Lord invited His disciples to touch Him, saying, “Why are you troubled, and
why do doubts arise in your hearts? 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 I have.” (Luke 24:38,39) A bit later on, Luke tells us that Jesus asked if
the disciples had anything to eat. Receiving a piece of fish, the Lord sits and
eats with them (See Luke 24:41 – 43.)
So in the wake of the Lord’s
death and His resurrection from the dead, the Lord’s true nature is completely
and totally revealed:
He has the ability to
conquer death. Only God has that power, a power that is demonstrated by the
fact that the Lord was absolutely, publicly dead at the conclusion of the
events of Good Friday. Moreover, after His resurrection, He has the ability to
come and go at will, passing through physical barriers. The Lord’s unity with
God the Father is revealed. He is fully divine.
But the Lord’s full human
nature is also revealed in the fact that He invites others to touch Him. He
sits and eats with His disciples. He specifically denies that He is a
disembodied spirit (Luke 24:39).
So, returning to the
question with which we began, we are able to say when asked, “Is Jesus Christ
divine or human?”, we can say with certainty, “Yes!” (He’s both human and
divine, all at the same time.)
Christians down through the
ages have often failed to grasp that Jesus’ two natures, divine and human,
exist together, inseparably, without confusing either of His natures.[1]
The inability to accept Jesus Christ’s nature was often the basis for incorrect
belief, something called heresy.[2]
The ancient Gnostics, for example, believed that Jesus Christ was a spirit, but
not human. Taking another approach, the early Arians believed that Jesus Christ
was the first thing that God created, so their approach affirmed Jesus Christ’s
humanity, in essence.
For Christians and for all
humanity, the reality of Jesus Christ’s nature brings us to an important
understanding of our relationship with God. For in Christ, God is forever
united to us human beings. The relationship between the Creator and the created
(us) is forever changed.
The power of God to create
and to recreate is seen in Jesus Christ’s rising from the dead. The power seen
on Easter Sunday morning assures us that, regardless of whatever might come our
way in this life, nothing at all will be able to separate us from God’s love,
as St. Paul assures us in Romans 8:39. Jesus’ rising with His humanity intact
tells us that the life we are living in this world, day in and day out, is
important. It isn’t just heaven that we are waiting for, we are called to
remember that the everyday of our present life is extremely important in God’s
sight.
And when this life is done,
we can be assured that God will receive us into the blessed rest promised to
those who have been claimed by God in baptism, for the God who conquered death
by raising Jesus Christ from the dead has shown us that He has the power to
conquer death for us when that time comes.
So, is Jesus Christ divine
or human? Yes, He is!
AMEN.
[1] An excellent affirmation of Jesus Christ’s
true nature can be found in the statement which was adopted at the Council of
Chalcedon in 451 AD. It can be found at the back of the Book of Common Prayer,
1979, on page 864.
[2] The word heresy comes from a Greek word which
means “choice”. So a heresy involves a decision to accept part of the truth,
but not all of it. In the case of understanding Jesus’ true nature, the ancient
heresies often chose to accept one of the Lord’s natures, but not both of them.
