When I was at Grammar School, I took up for a time, the option of studying art. I think I did it because the alternative options were less interesting rather than from the conviction that I had any artistic talent.

This lack of talent was to be exceptionally confirmed by the exam results, though in one area I showed some promise – this was the more theoretical ‘History of art’. I am full of gratitude for what that teacher opened up for me – which was an appreciation of art and especially of paintings. Because of those lessons I learned  to love visiting art galleries and studying paintings.

Some of the paintings we studied in art class remain indelible in my mind and amongst them was one by the early Italian painter Fra Angelico. It was an exquisite painting of the Risen Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene. It has been suggested that this painting, a Fresco in the Convent of s. Marco in Florence, is one of the most moving images of Christ in the whole of art. Christ appears to Mary Magdalene and she, kneeling, reaches out to me but he is gently holding her off. The title is taken from St. John’s account of the incident when Christ says to Mary, “Do not touch me for I have not yet ascended to my Father.”  Noli mi tangere

Contrast that request not to touch him with today’s Gospel, from St. Luke’s account in which he invites the  disciples to touch me and see.  The incident takes place immediately after the Risen Christ had appeared to the two companions at Emmaus. After having their hearts and eyes opened to what the Scriptures had to say about Christ and had recognised him in the breaking of bread, the two of them had hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples of their experience.  As they spoke, the others confirmed the truth of what they were saying because the Lord had appeared to Simon.  As they were talking, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’

The curious thing is that whilst Jesus was not with them they were animated and excited about the stories of the Resurrection, but when Jesus was actually there with them, they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  This led Jesus to show them the wounds which Crucifixion had inflicted on him and to issue an invitation which he had denied to Mary Magdalene to touch Him and see.

Our Lord then made the point that ghosts don’t have flesh and bones as he had. Though they received this news with joy they are still recorded as disbelieving in their joy. A sense perhaps that like Thomas, in John’s account (which mirrors this one in Luke) it was all too good to be true.  So Jesus clinches it by asking for some food. They gave him a piece of broiled fish. Something so ordinary that when he ate it they were convinced (just as when , in John’s Gospel, our Lord cooks them breakfast of fish by the sea of Galilee).

The emphasis here is on ‘physical’ resurrection rather than the ‘spiritual’ resurrection that St Paul speaks about. Luke goes to great lengths in emphasising our Lord’s bodily appearance and we have to remember that he is writing for a Church which was up against those who sought to discredit the actual physical resurrection – some of whom were members of the Church and some who were not.  'It is I myself' says the Risen Lord and in those words, Luke is challenging those for whom he has written - to deny it if they dare.

There will always be those who, like Thomas and like the other disciples, initially, have some difficulty in believing that Jesus rose physically from the dead.  Such people may find it easier to believe in a spiritual resurrection and, of course, the further we are from the physical events then the more spiritual interpretation of what happened becomes dominant.

We ourselves have a relationship with the Risen Christ which is a spiritual one and whilst we accept, perhaps, that there is to be for all of us a bodily resurrection we have difficulty in getting our heads around what that resurrected body will be like.  Will it be me when I was ten, or twenty, or fifty or will it be an entirely new body shaped not by my physical appearance here but which somehow mirrors the image God has of me and of Himself which he has put into me?

The disciples, Mary Magdalene, the two on the road to Emmaus, did not immediately recognise Jesus in his Risen form which suggests that there was something different about him so maybe it is the same for us.  It was only when he spoke or when he revealed something physical (like the nail marks) or when he broke bread or ate fish that their eyes were opened.  And maybe it is the same for us who never saw the physical Jesus whilst he was on earth. We encounter him in signs and through the eyes of faith.  So, for example, we take the  broken bread of the Eucharist and in it recognise the presence of the Risen Christ, or we open Scripture and our minds and hearts are opened to recognise him in what one bishop/theologian, Ian Ramsey of Durham called ‘penny dropping’ moments.

I hope that we have all had them, and often – when as we read a bible passage the words leap from the page and enter our hearts – ‘yes!’ we say, ‘that’s it, that’s God! I understand now’ and faith comes marvellously alive or to put it in the words of the Emmaus two – ‘our hearts burn within us.’  Some of you will remember the famous moment when John Wesley was worshipping in Aldgate Chapel in London and as he heard Scripture explained felt his heart strangely warmed  - his famous moment of conversion.

Or it may be that we enter a Church, perhaps at Easter, and take part in its liturgy, or simply let the signs of Easter speak to us – the flowers, the Easter candle, the Garden tomb, the cross with its winding sheet  that we sense something of the Resurrection.  Or we may be with others – perhaps praying together, or studying some passage of scripture in a house group or just in conversation about the faith when something happens – we can’t describe it – but it is as if Christ has suddenly come among us and we are gloriously alive with new insight, understanding, joy.

Not all the signs are what we might call ‘churchy’. The Risen Christ is abroad in the world as well as in the Church. He can be found in Creation, in those breathtaking moments when we look at the countryside around us, or in our own gardens, and we detect that there is something in Creation which is more than what we see and which is an expression of new life – easier, of course, in spring but even in winter we can see it – in the purity of snow, for example.  Or we may find Christ amongst us in art and in music, in poetry or in the hope of the poor and destitute.

At this time of year I think of Resurrection in all sorts of ways as we celebrate Easter. Everything we sing or pray or hear in Church speaks of Christ’s rising and it is easier to feel it, sense it, be part of it.  But also, for me, this time of year is a time when I think about death and what follows because it is the time when I remember my mother’s death on April 24th.

Each year, I am taken back to the bedside in the little cottage hospital where I sat in the early hours of the morning, initially talking to her but gradually being enveloped in silence as she moved away from me – slipping gently towards something I could not reach – a place I could not go. As the end drew near I became conscious that she was travelling and that she was being met by those who had been through this final moment of earthly life. She no longer spoke to me but rather to familiar people whom she had told me about from her past. 

As she died I was conscious not only of the lifeless body before me but of something new happening – not just for her but for me too. Though physically I sat there alone I did not feel abandoned. There was a presence in that moment and death was transformed by a life I can only describe as Christ’s. Not only my mother’s death but the death I was feeling inside me was changed.  I wasn’t immediately transformed by Easter joy – perhaps like those disciples I was a bit fearful and a bit bewildered but there was calm and only as I have reflected on that experience, as I do each year, that I have come to know that somehow, in some strange inexplicable way I was invited then to touch the risen Christ and find in that a healing and a hope.

We cannot share what the disciples shared in that place where they gathered together and perhaps because of that we might doubt or even disbelieve what the New Testament tells us of Resurrection – or if not that, at least try not to think too much of what it means beyond a hope and a promise.  There is always a gap between our intellectual understanding and our feelings or – as spirituality has it – our hearts.

Too often, of course, we demand an explanation before we can have the experience. As Thomas did and as those disciples in today’s Gospel seemed to do – but you will note that it was only after they recognised him that he could remind them of what Scripture said about Himself. He could only fully open the Word of God to those whose hearts were already beginning to open.

The Risen Lord constantly comes to us in signs and in people, in life’s events and life’s silences and his invitation remains the same as in today’s Gospel – It is really me, touch me and see.  What we have to do is to recognise that this is so – to feel his touch in the Sacraments, in the Scriptures, in the prayers, in the music, in the stranger, in the neighbour, in the friend and – please God – in each other.

What sign do you need that Jesus is alive? Look around you but also look at each other. We are all signs of Christ in the world and we need to celebrate each other’s Christ-like-ness much more than we do. We need to stop finding fault, criticising, disparaging each other and we need to more and more recognise the Risen Lord and touch him in each other.

I have a little book of cartoons about the Peace – one shows a man with a sour face saying ‘No thank you, I’m 1662’ but the last one is of an old lady smiling as she says, ‘Thank you. This is the only time in the week when someone touches me.’

I hope that isn’t true for any of you here but let us act as if it were – for then we will always reach out to others with the touch of Christ and maybe for someone that will be a moment of real resurrection, as indeed it should be for all of us when we open ourselves to another – for we are all Resurrection people and so we are all  physical signs of Christ Rising from the dead.