Touching Jesus
Sermon
Life Everlasting
The Essential Book of Funeral Resources
Object:
For a country woman
Touching Jesus
Luke 24:36-40
At the conclusion of the Gospel of Luke, the risen Jesus shows his disciples his nail-pierced hands and feet. He then invites them to touch him and feel how real he is. It is not clear in Luke's Gospel whether or not the disciples took Jesus up on his invitation and actually did take hold of him. Perhaps just seeing him risen from the dead was enough for them, as it was enough for Thomas in John's Gospel.
I have to think, though, if Hazel would have been there that day she would have touched the risen Jesus. He had invited her to do it, so, why not? I can see Hazel pushing her way through the crowd of shy, pious disciples. I can see her looking around at them as though they were a bunch of wimps. I can see her reaching out and touching her Lord. It isn't a little poke with a fingertip, either. I can see Hazel reaching out with both hands, holding the risen Christ and celebrating the wonderful feeling of how real he is. That's the Hazel I knew, a down to earth kind of person who liked things real, and who wasn't afraid of being real herself.
Like the rest of her family, it's hard for me to think of Hazel in a nursing home, maybe with a cheap picture of a country scene hanging on a windowless wall. Pictures of the country wouldn't do it for Hazel. It was the real country she loved. She loved being right out there in the middle of it, with real fields out the window to her south and real traffic on the real road she could see when she looked north. Hazel had real dirt in her real pots growing real flowers. As much as they walled her into her home last winter, I think Hazel actually liked those huge snowdrifts she talked about. They were real, big, white, and cold.
There are some families where pretending is a way of life. People hide their problems from each other, never talk about them, and put on a show that everything is perfect. Hazel would fit into that kind of family like a stick of dynamite in a glass factory. It was a real family that Hazel embraced. In that family real, genuine love, and real, genuine caring were exchanged between real people living real lives. The Hazel I knew would not have it any other way.
Real friends, talking together about real life, enjoying together some real laughs, those were the people Hazel loved to be around. Speaking from experience, for me children can be a bit too real at times. Not for Hazel. Precious little angels? Not a chance. They were real children needing real love, real guidance, real discipline.
Hazel didn't hide from reality the way some people do. She accepted it, and she expressed real opinions about it. I don't know if that was the way she always was, but that was the way she was when I knew her. That's why, when Jesus held out his arm and said, "Touch me" (Luke 24:39), Hazel would have done it. She wouldn't have done it to prove to herself that the risen Jesus was real. She already believed that. Her Lord and Savior was as real to Hazel as the house she lived in and the rich country ground on which it stood. Hazel had a real Savior, who really died for her and who really rose on Easter. Jesus was Hazel's real, living Lord, who really listened to her prayers, who really loved her and accepted her as she really was, smoking habit and all.
Jesus was real to Hazel. She didn't have to touch him to prove that. Still, I think she would have done it anyway. The invitation was there, and Hazel would not have been too shy or timid to accept it. Hazel would have enjoyed the reality of Jesus she could feel with her hands the same way she enjoyed the reality of Jesus she could feel in her heart.
But Hazel wasn't there that day in Luke's Gospel when she could have touched her risen Lord. Instead, Hazel's risen Lord was there in the hospital in Grand Rapids on Sunday evening to touch her. It was Jesus who reached out to hold Hazel in his hands, lifting her up from real death and giving her new and real resurrection life. It gives me a good feeling to know that this real woman, Hazel, had a real Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Touching Jesus
Luke 24:36-40
At the conclusion of the Gospel of Luke, the risen Jesus shows his disciples his nail-pierced hands and feet. He then invites them to touch him and feel how real he is. It is not clear in Luke's Gospel whether or not the disciples took Jesus up on his invitation and actually did take hold of him. Perhaps just seeing him risen from the dead was enough for them, as it was enough for Thomas in John's Gospel.
I have to think, though, if Hazel would have been there that day she would have touched the risen Jesus. He had invited her to do it, so, why not? I can see Hazel pushing her way through the crowd of shy, pious disciples. I can see her looking around at them as though they were a bunch of wimps. I can see her reaching out and touching her Lord. It isn't a little poke with a fingertip, either. I can see Hazel reaching out with both hands, holding the risen Christ and celebrating the wonderful feeling of how real he is. That's the Hazel I knew, a down to earth kind of person who liked things real, and who wasn't afraid of being real herself.
Like the rest of her family, it's hard for me to think of Hazel in a nursing home, maybe with a cheap picture of a country scene hanging on a windowless wall. Pictures of the country wouldn't do it for Hazel. It was the real country she loved. She loved being right out there in the middle of it, with real fields out the window to her south and real traffic on the real road she could see when she looked north. Hazel had real dirt in her real pots growing real flowers. As much as they walled her into her home last winter, I think Hazel actually liked those huge snowdrifts she talked about. They were real, big, white, and cold.
There are some families where pretending is a way of life. People hide their problems from each other, never talk about them, and put on a show that everything is perfect. Hazel would fit into that kind of family like a stick of dynamite in a glass factory. It was a real family that Hazel embraced. In that family real, genuine love, and real, genuine caring were exchanged between real people living real lives. The Hazel I knew would not have it any other way.
Real friends, talking together about real life, enjoying together some real laughs, those were the people Hazel loved to be around. Speaking from experience, for me children can be a bit too real at times. Not for Hazel. Precious little angels? Not a chance. They were real children needing real love, real guidance, real discipline.
Hazel didn't hide from reality the way some people do. She accepted it, and she expressed real opinions about it. I don't know if that was the way she always was, but that was the way she was when I knew her. That's why, when Jesus held out his arm and said, "Touch me" (Luke 24:39), Hazel would have done it. She wouldn't have done it to prove to herself that the risen Jesus was real. She already believed that. Her Lord and Savior was as real to Hazel as the house she lived in and the rich country ground on which it stood. Hazel had a real Savior, who really died for her and who really rose on Easter. Jesus was Hazel's real, living Lord, who really listened to her prayers, who really loved her and accepted her as she really was, smoking habit and all.
Jesus was real to Hazel. She didn't have to touch him to prove that. Still, I think she would have done it anyway. The invitation was there, and Hazel would not have been too shy or timid to accept it. Hazel would have enjoyed the reality of Jesus she could feel with her hands the same way she enjoyed the reality of Jesus she could feel in her heart.
But Hazel wasn't there that day in Luke's Gospel when she could have touched her risen Lord. Instead, Hazel's risen Lord was there in the hospital in Grand Rapids on Sunday evening to touch her. It was Jesus who reached out to hold Hazel in his hands, lifting her up from real death and giving her new and real resurrection life. It gives me a good feeling to know that this real woman, Hazel, had a real Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
