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There was a wonderful comedy with Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep that came out back in the 1990s called Defending Your Life. In the story, Albert Brook’s character Daniel has died, but before he goes to heaven, in a sort of purgatory called Judgment City, he has to literally defend his life before God’s representatives. Each day he goes to a room, much like a courtroom, where they show scenes from his life – the good, the bad and the ugly – and he has to defend his decisions in each of those moments. A successful defense means entry into Heaven. But, one of my favorite scenes in the movie is an interaction between Daniel and Julia, another recently deceased played by Meryl Streep. The two of them strike up a friendship and spend a lot of time together waiting for their judgment. On one of these evenings, the two go to a restaurant in Purgatory and the beauty of Purgatory is that they serve only the best food; you can eat as much of it as you want; and you don’t gain any weight! So, as the camera pans the restaurant you see people devouring heaping platters of lobsters, steaks, pasta and desserts! Purgatory doesn’t sound so bad, now, does it?! Makes you hungry just thinking about it.
And of course, we have the passage before us today. As Jesus appears once again. This appearance takes place just after the disciples told everyone what had happened on that road to Emmaus. And, Jesus asks a very important question of those gathered there. Maybe you heard it. He said, “Have you anything to eat?” Now, I don’t know if you are picking up on the theme here, but after He has risen from the dead, Jesus seems to keep asking this same question, “Got anything to eat?” Road to Emmaus – they sit down and eat. Sea of Tiberius – He makes them breakfast. In the room where they are gathered today, Jesus is hungry again and we’re told that they gave Him a piece of baked fish and He enjoyed it. We can only come to one conclusion – rising from the dead makes you really hungry! I guess Defending Your Life was right! What Jesus wouldn’t give for a Country Buffet!
Of course, that’s not the point of these details. But, they are there for an equally important reason. These stories don’t want to only recall the encounters that Jesus had with His disciples after His resurrection before His ascension, but they want us to know something key – this man is real. The resurrected Christ is a flesh and blood, breathing and yes eating human being. He is still a human being just like you and me. This is why we profess in the Creed each week that we believe in the resurrection OF THE BODY. Ghosts don’t eat baked fish. Visions don’t get hungry. Humans do and that’s what Jesus is after the resurrection just as before.
And this isn’t meant to be an interesting, yet unimportant, detail for us to pick up on from Scripture. Instead, we are reminded first that through the grace of our baptism, we too are welcomed into a life that is eternal with God in Heaven. That we too will be resurrected, body and soul, in the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. We will not be ghosts; we will not be angels; we will not be spirits in the life that is to come – we will continue to be human beings who need to eat and sleep, live and breathe, but perfected through a life of grace in God’s Kingdom where sin and death are no more.
There is a tremendous intimacy that Jesus invites us into through this grace of resurrection. In a simplistic way, it is all about the body. Not only the Body of Christ raised from the dead and ascended into glory 2,000 years ago. But, it is about the Body and Blood of Christ present in our midst at each and every Mass; taken into our own bodies to mingle with us, unite with us, as we receive Holy Communion each week.
Scott Hahn in his book First Comes Love, speaks about this intimate reality. He writes, “Too little do Christians today realize the glory they receive in the Eucharist, the Mass. This is unimaginable intimacy. A long-ago Christian from Thessalonica, Nicholas Cabasilas, wrote that Christ’s ‘union with those whom He loves surpasses every union of which one can conceive.’ It is the closest family union possible—closer than mother and child, closer than husband and wife, closer than twin siblings—it binds a lowly human being to the Almighty God! Cabasilas goes so far to say, ‘To whom else could one be more closely united than to oneself? Yet this very unity is inferior’ to the union of God with the believer!”
In every Eucharist, we are literally united to Christ in the body. We receive His Body into our body and He becomes literally part of us, one with us and we with Him. As St. Augustine said and I so frequently quote, in the Eucharist “we become what we receive.” The resurrected Body of Christ becomes part of us and we are transformed, day-by-day, bit-by-bit, Eucharist-by-Eucharist into resurrection; into eternity. Easter is not only His; Easter is ours too!
Archbishop Tom Murphy was the much beloved Archbishop of Seattle through the late 1980s and most of the 1990s. Archbishop Murphy was a true shepherd who loved his flock and was always very present to the people, especially the youth. He had a particularly close relationship with the teens at one of his Catholic high schools where he essentially acted as their chaplain. Archbishop Murphy, despite his busy schedule, was always available to the school whenever the sacraments needed to be celebrated there for the students. They were his kids and he was their Archbishop.
But, in 1996, he was diagnosed with an acute form of leukemia. For the last year of his life, he underwent some serious chemotherapy and other treatments trying to fight the cancer and these took a toll on his body, leaving him in need of regular blood transfusions to keep up his strength. His kids saw this as their opportunity to reach out to this holy man who had done so much for them. They began to organize blood drives as frequently as they could so that their Archbishop would have the blood needed for his transfusions. He even jokingly called them his “little vampires” who were running around town to keep him alive.
At his last Mass with the teens he said to them, “Since I was a little boy, I have always loved the Mass and in particular loved the Eucharist. As a young boy, I would serve even at daily Mass and was always in awe of what took place on the altar. But, I don’t know that I ever fully understood it until now. Today, as I stand here, I’ve got your blood in me and I’m standing here alive today because of your blood in me. Now I get it.” He died six days later and surely received his heavenly reward.
My brothers and sisters, this is what Easter is all about. Do we get it? It is not only about one resurrected body 2,000 years ago. It is about that same resurrected body appearing on our altar each day with an invitation: Take Me into yourselves. Let Me be united with you in the most intimate way possible. Feel my body and blood coursing through your veins giving you life; eternal life.
My friends, at each Eucharist, we have got the Body and Blood of Jesus coursing through our veins and uniting with our cells. Each time we gather here, we are becoming more and more what we receive; more and more the Body of Christ together. We stand here alive today because the Body and Blood of Christ poured out for us; runs through our veins. Let us live in the resurrection Christ promised us at our Baptism and affirms in us at each and every Mass. We believe the resurrection of the Body and life everlasting. Amen.
May God give you peace.