Let’s start with a story:

"This is absolutely preposterous," the young man said. His spiritual advisor, who by now was used to such outbursts, calmly asked, "What, precisely, is preposterous?"

"Well, first," the young man said, "that God, the exalted, dignified, all powerful, holy-be-his-name God, would enter into history and allow the Christ to suffer the absolute, unbelievable, shame and indignity of being whipped, and tortured, and mocked, and paraded through the streets, and crucified, and killed. Killed! God, killed! That God would suffer at all, but especially suffer like that is totally preposterous!"

The old man liked this young one. He liked his passion. It made him smile. "And what else is preposterous?" he asked.

The young one leaned forward, as if he had been challenged. "What else is preposterous?" he asked incredulously. "I’ll tell you what else is preposterous. This whole belief that a dead man came back to life, this belief that Jesus is still alive and has a living body, that’s what’s preposterous. No rational person could believe that a dead person came back to life. What those people who said they saw him were really seeing was a figment of their own wishful thinking. They conjured up a ghost, that’s all, a ghost. I’ve never seen Jesus resurrected; I’ve never seen his body. This is all smoke and mirrors chasing after an imaginary ghost."

The old man smiled. He knew the young man well. "You don’t bring these things to me until you’ve done quite a bit of investigation on your own," he said. "Tell me about what you’ve already done to try to understand this."

The young man blushed. He hated being so predictable, but at the same time, he loved that the old man knew him so well. "Okay, you’re right," he admitted. "I made a list of people I knew were committed Christians, and I went and asked them to explain it to me."

"What happened?" the old man asked.

"None of them could," the young man said in frustration. "I went to the chaplain at the prison. He didn’t have much time and had to talk to me as he walked to a class he was teaching on forgiveness. All he really had time to say was, ‘Look, I do this because this is where I find Christ.’ ‘Isn’t it hard?’ I asked. ‘Oh, yes. It often breaks my heart,’ he said, ‘but it is also quite wonderful.’ Then we were at the door.

"So next I went to Family Life Ministries. I spoke with Jane Gunter. ‘Can you explain this to me?’ I asked. She said, ‘Honey, I’m so sorry, but we’ve been just covered up with God’s children needing help this morning. It just breaks your heart. I’m afraid explanations will have to wait. Could you make some lunches?’ Then, without saying anything else to me, she took this girl’s hand and said, ‘How’s the baby?’ So I went down the hall and looked in a door where some volunteers were busily spreading mayonnaise on bread. I didn’t want to bother them, and I figured they probably weren’t experts anyway, so I left."

The old man chuckled. This young one’s passion was matched only by his arrogance. "Go on," he said.

"Well," the young man continued, "after that, I went to the AIDS clinic at Grady, and I talked to a nurse I know. ‘How can you believe that Jesus is resurrected when you are surrounded by all this death?’ I asked. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it is heartbreaking, that’s for sure. But I believe that Jesus is resurrected because I see him all the time in here.’ ‘Where?’ I asked. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’d love to talk to you about this another time, but I’ve got to change a dressing,’ and she walked away.

"So I went to the Bargain Shop. I explained everything to the lady behind the counter in great detail, and when I was done, she just smiled politely and said, ‘Excuse me,’ and went to help some homeless person find some clothes. I could tell that she was wondering whether I needed medication. It was quite insulting, really."

The old man couldn’t help but let another smile slip out. "Go on," he said, doing his best to return to his serious face.

"So then I went to Begin Again — you know, that supervised visitation ministry. ‘Doesn’t it break your heart to be with these children who have had to be removed from their homes and to deal with these parents whose lives are so out of control?’ I asked. ‘Oh, yes,’ this volunteer said. ‘It really breaks your heart.’ ‘So how can you think that Christ is risen in a world like that?’ I asked. There was a long pause, then, just as the volunteer was about to speak, a young woman came in and said she was there to see her baby. The volunteer ignored me completely. ‘Welcome,’ she said to this skinny, probably drug addicted, unfit parent. ‘I’m glad you’re here. Let’s go on up.’ And then she was gone.

"Then I went to a priest. I mean, you’d think a priest could explain this to me, right?" The old man smiled again. "But she said she had a service," the young man, not noticing, went on, "and she just invited me to come."

"So, you’re right," the young man said, looking at the older man, "I have tried to investigate this on my own, and I’ve gotten nowhere. I don’t see any reason to think that the ‘resurrected’ Jesus was more than an apparition, a haunt, a ghost, a figment of their imagination."

There was a long pause. The old man knew from experience to wait for it. Wait. Wait. Finally the young man asked, "What do you think?"

"Well," the old man said, "When Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was risen from the dead, they thought he was a ghost. I certainly don’t blame them, and I certainly understand why you think he might be a ghost still. I mean, after all, you are quite right to say that the story of the crucifixion is preposterous, and you are quite right to say that the story of the resurrection is also preposterous.

"But he showed them his hands, his wounded hands, and feet, his wounded feet. And he invited them to touch him. And he ate with them. In other words, he convinced them that he was real, that he had a real body, that he was not a figment of their imagination, not a ghost that lived in some other world, but that he was real, and there, and with them in their world.

"And this we know for sure, for absolute sure: they believed it; they believed it with all their heart, and soul, and being. We know that because they devoted the rest of their lives to him. What else could have changed this frightened, cowardly group into men of courage and conviction who would be willing to be tortured and killed because they believed that Jesus was resurrected and alive? A figment of their imagination? A phantom? A ghost? Not hardly.

"Now, the hard part for us is that Jesus took that body with him when he ascended into heaven, so we don’t get to see the wounded hands, the wounded feet, touch him, see him eat a piece of fish."

The young man was looking intensely at him.

The older man said slowly, "But he has a body still. He is with us still. He is in our world, our broken, heartbreaking world still. Alive, still."

Now the young man’s voice took on a different tone, as if he almost regretted that he had to push the point: "But I want to see the hands, and see the feet, and touch, and share the meal. I need to. The story is so preposterous. I need to."

"I understand," the older man said. "Let’s be silent for a while, and I’d like you to think of the hands and feet you encountered on your quest."

They were silent. The young man thought of the chaplain walking to teach forgiveness to a class of criminals. He thought of Jane Gunter taking the hand of a homeless mother. He thought of the Family Life volunteers spreading mayonnaise. He thought of the nurse walking toward the horrors of AIDS. He thought of the Bargain Shop worker reaching to help a homeless person get clothes off the rack. He thought of the Begin Again volunteer leading the young mother up the stairs. And he thought of the priest placing the bread in his hand.

After a while the older man spoke. "Christ’s body is among us in many, many ways," he said. "You have seen just a few of them. And in many ways, what they do is, at least to the world’s way of thinking, preposterous. I mean, this wading into the brokenness of the world, this walking toward the heartache, it really is preposterous.

"No one will ever be able to convince you with rational argument to see those hands and feet doing preposterous things as the Body of Christ. You just have to experience it. They do preposterous things, to proclaim that a preposterous story is no ghost, but is real."

After a while, the old man said, "Now, what do you think?" The young man put his head in his hands.

Okay, that’s the end of the story.

Everybody look at your hands. Yes, right now, look at them. Now look at your feet. In our collect this morning, we asked God to "open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work." During the silence after the sermon, I invite you to reflect on your hands and your feet. And ask yourself this: Do my hands and my feet touch the world in a way that proclaims that I believe with all my broken heart a really preposterous story?

Do my hands and my feet touch the world in a way that proclaims that I believe with all my broken heart a really preposterous story?