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He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence (Luke 24:38-43).

Seeing Jesus in the flesh, the disciples are disorientated. As Pastor Anthony said yesterday, it is very understandable that they are frightened, resurrection is a very unusual event. Further, Jesus just materialized out of thin air. Physical bodies do not normally move through walls or doors. But Jesus, in his kindness, does not speak harshly of their slowness to believe. Rather, he invites them to use their senses to determine the truth. Is he their physical Jesus or some disembodied ghost?

We need to pay attention to this because it helps us think about our own future. What will we be like after our resurrection? In 1 Corinthians 15, we come across the question, “With what kind of body will the dead be resurrected?” (cf. 15:35). Paul tells us that the body will be glorious, like Jesus’ resurrected body (cf. 15:36ff). Rather then telling, Luke shows us.

Jesus wants to make clear that his body, and thus, after resurrection, ours, is fully physical. He has flesh and bones. We will too. He can eat bread and fish. We will too. Further, his body maintained the scars of his crucifixion. Hmmm. Will we too carry scars of this life? Maybe. We are told that Jesus will wipe away all our tears, but not our scars.

Here is the main point: we are not resurrected for some spiritual non-physical existence in heaven. Jesus’ resurrection is God’s deepest affirmation of the material world. Physical reality is not some form of lesser existence that we should seek to escape. The new creation will be as physical as this one. However, it will also be different. Out of the old, God will make a new type of material, no longer subject to death.

In our current existence, there are two distinct spheres: heaven and earth. We do not travel back and forth but by exception. In this age, we are tied to this earth. Our new bodies, like Jesus’ new body, will belong in both heaven and earth. At the end of the book of Revelation, heaven and earth will finally be joined together into one, so there won’t be any shuttling to and fro; the two dimensions will be fused together at last.

Right now, our bodies are earthly only; Jesus’ new body is at home in both earth and heaven. Some of us many need our mental pictures of ‘heaven’ adjusted to allow for this startling possibility. We who live, even as Christians, with our thinking conditioned by the world of sin and death, find it a huge struggle to adjust to God’s new world. That is part of the challenge of the gospel.

There is something else here. Easter is forever tied to Good Friday. Like it or not, Jesus body does and always will, carry the scars of the cross. And we who follow a nail scarred-risen Saviour may not separate the two events. Until death separates us from this earth or Christ returns to complete his work of redemption, we are tied to this earth and its people and its scars.

We are not to run away from the sorrows of this world. Jesus told us and continues to tell us to pick up our cross daily and to follow him. Isaiah says that ‘he took up our pain and bore our suffering’ (53:4). The church has always understood that we are called to walk with those who suffer, Mother Teresa of Calcutta being a prime example of one who did that.

The suffering of the world is immense; the harm that sin has done cannot be measured. How do we bare up under it all? With the hope of the resurrection burning in our hearts. Paul’s mini sermon on the resurrection is vivid with imagery and full of hope; yet it ends rather blandly, “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).