Acts 3: 12 – 19 / Psalm 4 / I John 3: 1 – 7 / Luke 24: 36b – 48
This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, PA, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, April 18, 2021.
“TEARING US DOWN TO BUILD US OVER AGAIN”
(Homily
text: Luke 24: 36b – 48)
During my time as a member of the Army Chorus in
Washington, D. C., we would often close an after-dinner program with this song,
which is entitled “Dogface Soldier”. Part of its lyrics go like this:
I wouldn’t
give a bean to be a fancy-pants Marine,
I’d
rather be a Dogface Soldier like I am.
I
wouldn’t trade my old ODs for all the Navy’s dungarees,
‘Cause
I’m the walkin’ pride of Uncle Sam (I am!)
On
all the poster I read, it says, “The Army Builds Men”,
So
they’re tearing me down to build me over again…..
“Tearing
me down to build me over again….”
That’s what comes to mind when I think about
today’s Gospel text, which places before one of Jesus’ resurrection appearances
to His disciples. Luke, along with all the other Gospel writers, takes great
care to tell us that Jesus rose from the dead with His body completely intact.
He wasn’t a ghost or a disembodied spirit as He rose from the tomb.
You see, Jesus was torn down (or apart) as He hung
on that cross on Good Friday. But in His rising to life again, He was rebuilt,
rebuilt by God.
Whenever we read a passage from Holy Scripture, a
good question we might ask ourselves is this one: “What is God up to in the
event that we’re reading about?” Another question we could also ask about the
events we read about in the Bible is this one: “What does this text tell us
about God’s power, God’s nature, God’s love, God’s righteousness, God’s ability
to claim us as His very own, special possession, both now in this life and into
eternity?”
Asking ourselves what God might have been up to in
raising Jesus from the dead leads us to this conclusion: God has the power to
create, and the power to recreate. That’s what God did in raising our Lord from
the tomb. God took what had been torn, and he rebuilt it. Put another way, God
has the power over life, the power to create it, and the power to recreate it.
If God has that power to take what has been torn
down, in order to rebuild it, for that’s what the basic message is in the
Easter accounts, then what God did for Jesus, God can also do for us.
What does this mean, exactly?
Well, perhaps this: God has the power to restore
whatever is lost in our lives by virtue of our own waywardness, or the
waywardness of others with whom we interact. That means that God can mend
broken hearts and downcast spirits. God can intervene to rebuild broken
relationships between people and between people and God.
The resurrection event tells us that no one is ever
stuck wherever they find themselves. No one is barred from a fuller life, a
better life, a more meaningful life with others and with God.
We Christian believers are a resurrection people,
it’s been said. That means that we believe that things can be better, if we
allow God’s Holy Spirit to enlighten us, to embolden us, to empower us to be
the Lord’s hands to do and the Lord’s hearts to love.
AMEN.
