The Body of Jesus, Bodies for Jesus
A Sermon Preached on John 20:19-23 (see also Revelation 21:1-5)
at Venice Presbyterian Church in Cecil Township, PA
on April 12, 2014
Are we serious about serving an incarnate, an embodied God? Do we really mean it? And if we do, what does it mean for us that our Lord lived AND lives a bodily existence? Easter, as Christmas before it (in the church year), insists that our faith puts us into relationship with and service to a Lord who has embraced our embodied existence and redeemed it. In his bodily existence, Jesus shares and understands our pains, sanctifies our pleasures, and secures for us redemption for our bodies, now in healing, later in our resurrection. All of that means that we are intended to seek comfort in our pain from Jesus who knows in his own life what it is to experience pain, to allow Jesus to sanctify our pleasure and to teach us to receive those good pleasures with thankfulness. And, finally, we should be always looking for and seeking signs of the resurrection day by day — signs in the form of supernatural healing — that prefigure the final and complete healing of our bodies in the resurrection.
[My reference in this sermon to “the kids” is a reference to something I said to the children in the children’s message earlier in the service. And my reference to “Lisa” is to the elder who assisted me in this service and reminded us that for us every day should be Easter, because on all days we should live in the reality of the Resurrection.]
Read: John 20:19-23
Then, listen to: “The Body of Jesus, Bodies for Jesus”
©2015 Gary A. Chorpenning
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