Jesus with Skin On

When my nephew was perhaps 3-4 yrs old, he disliked bedtime. He really disliked bedtime. He hated the darkness, and hated being alone in it. That moment when his Mom disappeared behind the closing, creaking bedroom door was terrifying. Each night, my sister and John would get down on their hands and knees and shine his trusty Batman flashlight over every inch of the carpet under his bed. But John remained unconvinced. And every night he would plead and cry for his Mommy not to leave him. He was sure he would be strangled by the prehistoric snakes poised under his bed, and dragged down into the abyss under his mattress! The world of John’s long nights was dangerous, and way more powerful than he was! So every night John willed himself to keep his eyes wide open in the black death of his room... until, he finally succumbed to sleep.

After awhile his Mom thought she had come up with the answer to calm his little soul. That night she and John again went through their bedtime ritual. Finally it was time to say good night – time for that dreaded moment of jeopardy and danger. Again John began to protest, “Please Mommy, don’t leave me! I know the snakes will get me!” She offered her ace in the hole: “John, tonight try to remember that God is up in heaven looking down on you. You are safe and sound because He is in heaven.” Without missing a beat, and with the honesty only a child can offer, John said “That doesn’t help, Mommy. I want you! I need a God with skin on!”

I need a God with Skin on.

Were there ever more honest words from any human soul? Aren’t we all sometimes in need of a God with skin on? We all need a God who is Present – a God who is so involved and in control, that we do not have to worry about our own often unmanageable situations. Thanks be to God that is the very essence and sweep of the entire Biblical story. And today’s readings – all three of them – track the fullness of that Biblical message by reminding us of the Prophet, the Person, and the Promise made real in Jesus, our God with skin on. The OT Prophet, the Gospel Person of Christ, and The Epistle Promise Paul delivers, each reveal a piece of the wonderful truth that God is intimately compassionate and ever-present.

Our first reading from the OT, reveals the fore-telling Prophet Elijah, whose dependence upon God ultimately - and literally – restores life from death. Elijah delivers the message that God hears, and God restores. God conquers death, and when the widow realizes what God has done, she is convinced that God is who Elijah has been trusting and saying He is all along. The prophet teaches us that trusting dependence upon God opens all sorts of channels through which God can work.

Interestingly, both the OT and Gospel events take place in the exact same tiny town – some 1,000 years apart. That’s not the only similarity between these two stories. Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus, the Person of God, also resuscitates the only son of a grieving widow. In both stories the son is restored, and physically returned to his mother. And, in both stories, it is God who is recognized as the restorer. In both settings a fearful people are awed and respond with praise, and naturally – intuitively - spread His glory.

There are other, more subtle, similarities in these two stories. Note the point for each resuscitation. Oddly, in both events, it is not the dead son we are lead to focus upon. Rather, both of these stories stress the anguish and plight of the mothers who are left behind in grief and fear. In Biblical times, women had relatively the same worth – and power – as a cow. And without a male’s presence – even a male child’s presence – a woman was sure to be cast out without any means of support. In each story, it is compassion which roots God’s action. These stories are not centered around the issue of death, or even the fact of the resuscitation. Rather each event occurs because God had mercy – felt compassion for - a destitute and grief-stricken soul.

But there are important differences between these two stories as well, and Luke’s audience would have immediately noticed these differences. Elijah, the Prophet, pleads and prays to God for aid in this woman’s desperate situation. You can almost feel the sweat running down Elijah’s face as he cries: “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come back to him!”

Yet, look what Jesus does in Luke’s story. Jesus, the Person of God, comes upon this event and, without solicitation, without hesitation, does two strange things. He tells the widow not to weep – even though her only son lies dead before her, and He touches the dead body. In 1st C culture to touch a dead body was a terribly risky and shameful thing to do. No one would intentionally do such a thing! One became defiled, an outcast, until the complex religious ritual of cleansing had occurred. No one could either touch or be in the presence of such defilement. Essentially, in His compassion, Jesus, the Person of God, literally united Himself with death - entered into this young man’s death - so that the child’s life could be restored. Does that sound anything like the Easter message to you?

Jesus, the Person of God, did something else Elijah, the Prophet, could never have done – something startling – something almost silly to our ears. He talks to the dead man! He not only talks to him, he commands him to get up! In some circles that would get you a few months in a padded room! What does it mean that Jesus not only carries on a conversation with a dead man – but low and behold the dead man talks back! What does that tell us about Jesus, the Person of God?

This is important – and it is as relevant to our own lives today and it was to that young man’s life 2,000 yrs ago. Jesus speaks into this young man’s death and calls him back – calls him out of - his own death experience. Jesus, the Person of God, releases the young man from death. Christ not only kills death, he comes right into it so that we can be pulled back from it – into Life , and Health, and Hope.

Herein lies the Promise, and it is Paul’s letter that makes this promise so practical and earthy. Paul, the author of today’s Epistle to the Galatians, started out his life as Saul, the Pharisee. That fact made Saul a really good Jew! He was diligent in the practices and teachings of his religion; he was an expert in Jewish Law – and in the keeping of that Law. In his own eyes he was a righteous person, and he was committed to doing the right thing. That ‘right thing’ included heading off to Damascus to round up any Jews who followed Jesus, and dragging them back to Jerusalem where they could be dealt with - severely. But, Christ shows up on that road, strikes him blind and so changes Saul that when he can finally see - really see – what has happened to him – Saul is gone, and Paul is born anew. That experience is what Paul is alluding to in these verses, ending with “‘The One who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they glorified God because of me.” (Gal 1:23b-24.) There’s a resuscitated life! Paul had been so committed to enforcing the Law, and to his own righteousness, that he somehow missed God. His self-driven good intention had become a suffocating pall of pride.

The point Paul’s life makes is that death is not only a physical thing; we all carry in our sinful and broken human hearts – our own dead things. A rageful temper, materialism, alcohol or drug abuse, a sarcastic or critical spirit, a willingness to engage in gossip: these dead things kill us - slowly – each day, and like Paul, we can become so globally dead that we don’t even know we are dead. When we are hemorrhaging human strength, human knowledge, human logic, human effort - Christ longs to step in – into our death - and draw us out of ourselves, out of our pride, our fear – our hopelessness – and deliver each of us into new and unending LIFE! That’s The Promise!

So. Through the Prophet’s dependence and trust of God, we learn that God is able and willing to literally resuscitate fragile humanity. The Person of God, Jesus, IS the means; he is the resuscitator. He took on human skin so that He could take hold of each of us, and pull us out of death’s grip, back to Life. And the Promise? The Promise of God is that, like Paul, no matter what is dead in us, if we allow God’s Spirit to reach in and reclaim who we were really created to be, we will be made new and alive. Trusting Prophet, Living Person and Restoring Promise… God has shown us – in a thousand ways – that He is committed to resuscitating every single one of us!

So what does all this have to do with my nephew John wanting a God with skin on? When we release our frailty and fear to God, and allow Him to grab up the snakes under our own metaphorical beds – we are changed. When we abandon ourselves to the God who restores life – even from death – we become people who know what it is to live resuscitated lives, and we can’t help but tell others of the Hope we have known. Amazingly, we become trusting Prophets ourselves! We deliver that assurance – that experiential Fact of God’s presence - to another fragile and fearful soul. And the next generation of the church begins anew.

We become each others’ Jesus with Skin On.

When we know in our bones what Christ has done for us, we become – for another soul - Jesus with skin on. That’s how – and why – God empowers us to be His sturdy hands, His compassionate smile, His tender touch to each other, and to the world.

Since this is my first Sunday preaching as your soon-to-be Deacon, I hope you will forgive me for speaking personally of a Jesus with Skin on. Only a very few months ago, I came to this parish as a complete stranger. Most of you did not know me from Adam’s housecat. But you welcomed me so warmly, you were gentle and kind to me as I made mistakes and often put my foot in it. You showed me compassion, every bit as much as Christ showed compassion to the widow. You were Jesus with Skin to me. So, if any of you have not yet trusted God with your own Dead Things, I’m here to tell you that this is a safe place – a safe parish – to invite God to do His work of resuscitation in you. This is a parish that understands being Jesus with Skin on, and I am so thankful to God – and to you - for that wonderful gift.

So when we join each other around this altar in a few minutes, I pray that you will each feel God’s gentle presence in the person kneeling to your left and your right. Pray for that person as we circle His table together, and be grateful for this place, this parish, this family. This is the Body of Christ!

And as you kneel before God, to receive the body and blood of Christ, I pray also that each of you will sense anew that you do not simply take in Christ, you have been resuscitated to put on Christ, and be, for some other fragile soul, Jesus with Skin on.

Be Jesus with Skin On - with wonder and awe - for it is for this that you have been created! Thanks be to God!
Amen