#DailyDevotion What Should Really Comfort Christians At Christian Funerals-Eating Fish

 

Friday Easter 3

Luke 24:39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them,  “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them.

 

If only Christians focused on passages like this I think Christian funerals would be so much better. There is so much half-cocked, bad theology, out there particularly at funerals, it really isn’t comforting at all. It may be for people who aren’t Christians. But it’s just stuff you read on the headlines of the National Enquirer or from spiritual gurus like Ophrah. But several things we can just strike from our Christian conversations is stuff like, they’re an angel now looking out for you, they’re a spirit forever now no longer shackled by this flesh, they’re in heaven forever now, and other things that completely ignore this passage.

 

What does this passage tell us that is should be so comforting at funerals for Christians. Jesus is risen bodily from the dead. Yes Jesus died and he was buried, but on the third day he rose from the dead. He didn’t rise a spirit. He rose bodily. He woke up Sunday morning and picked up his bag of bones and walked out of the tomb.

 

Jesus shows himself to the disciples. Touch and see him. He isn’t a spirit. He is flesh and bones. Just to prove the point he ask for something to eat to show it doesn’t just fall out. He can eat like a real human being because that is what he is.

 

While in the resurrection our bodies may be spiritual, that doesn’t mean spirit bodies. It means our real flesh and bone bodies are no longer controlled and run over by sin as they are now. The Spirit of God will run our flesh at the resurrection, that is to say, our wills and God’s will, will be one. We will no longer be sinful. Death will no longer run our lives. The love of God will be the premier thought in our minds and living out in our bodies.

 

While we may not know exactly what our bodies will be like, they will be material like Jesus’ risen body. They will also be like Jesus’ glorified body. Our body will me immortal, imperishable, and glorious like Jesus’ risen body. And we will live with God in these bodies here in the new heavens and new earth. The world to come will be a very material existence. We may not know what all we will be doing there, but we will be doing it better than are doing life now in these bodies broken by death. So if you really want to comfort Christian families at funerals, remind them how Jesus rose from the dead, bodily and ate fish. Remind them that Jesus is going to raise their loved one from the dead in similar fashion to live with Christ forever in a new world and that that is their faith, they will join them.

 

Heavenly Father, grant us such faith in Jesus that at the resurrection of all flesh, we may be raised like Jesus to eternal life to live and dwell with you, Christ and the Holy Spirit the new world you have prepared for us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.