Acts 3:12-19, Luke 24:36b-48

Resurrection IRL (In Real Life)
IRL” has become a kind of text and Internet shorthand for distinguishing between “virtual” relationships or actions and face-to-face relationships. In virtual relationships, you may be able to communicate with the other person by many means, but the person is not bodily present in the same general space at the time.

People have been working on virtual technology for some time and 3 years ago CNN first used a hologram in a news broadcast. (It’s easy to find on You Tube, along with much other information on holograms and virtual technology.)

In that broadcast, one person filmed in Chicago appears to be standing in the studio in New York. This is virtual reality. We’re used to pictures but this is presence – or is it? She’s there but not there. Presence that isn’t actually presence.

On 24 March 2009 I joined facebook. Facebook is a means of connecting with people anywhere. One night this week I was messaging my sister – that is typing what we were saying back and forth, a written conversation. I coped for a while but I found it too limited and in the end I rang her on the telephone. At least on the phone one can hear the other person, which means the communication is richer than typing. Richer again is the videophone which is achieved by Skype (for us anyway) and is our way of seeing our grandchildren, who both live overseas.

So we’ve got the technology, but it’s not always what we want for relating with people. Often we just want to be in the same place at the same time where we can talk and observe and we can hear tone of voice and we can watch body language and communication is the fullest it can be. Hence the “Let’s meet for coffee” thing is as strong as ever.

To be sure, some argue that what we’re calling “virtual relationships” are in fact real relationships, and they point to evidence that some people may be more forthcoming and so more “real” about themselves in a chat room or via email or instant messaging or Facebook than they might be if you were speaking to them face to face. Folks making this case may object to the phrase “IRL” because it’s all real life, and might suggest we need to use a term like IP (in person) or F2F (face to face) instead. For me, this is weird because the more virtual the relationship is the less I trust and the less I say. I’d rather keep it real so come round for a cuppa or meet me at church on a Mon-Wed morning.

While I respect these arguments for virtual reality, it seems to me that the reality we experience is not limited to words no matter how honest . That is at best a very thin slice of how we humans communicate and connect with one another. Most of our communication is much “thicker” and non-verbal. And, lest one were to suggest that webcams have filled in the non-verbal gap sufficiently, much of our non-verbal communication is not mediated by sight, or sound either, but through senses of movement, touch, and even smell. It is in the interaction of all these “input channels” that we actually experience our deepest communication. Anything less becomes less real than “IRL.”

Still, we must admit many of us now find ourselves in a cultural context where the “virtual” and the “real” (F2F) are increasingly blurred. For some people, virtual worlds are primary reality in their lives. They may feel closer to the people they know through Facebook, Twitter, gaming or texting than the friends and family with whom they may be physically present at the time. How one manages these virtual relationships (or real relationships mediated or extended through virtual means) can become a primary focus of one’s “real” life.

Did Jesus really come alive?
Which brings us to the question, Was Jesus really present in those times he appeared to his disciples after his death? Or were these virtual appearances?

So far, one thing one can’t do in virtual relationships is physically touch, which is precisely what Jesus offered Thomas — real touch in real time. The Risen Jesus invited Thomas to experience directly, through touch, what the other disciples had already seen the week before: the scars remaining on hands, feet, and side from his execution. Touching the scars proved to Thomas that Jesus was truly dead, and truly risen, IRL (in real life).

But, now that Jesus is in heaven and his Spirit is here what’s real? There is a spiritual reality that is every bit as real as physical reality. But, because we can’t see it we can get confused figuring out how the spiritual and the physical connect, just as we can get into uncertain areas with virtual reality. How do our lives and the Spirit of Christ intersect? Read 1 John 3:1-7.

In this passage we are referred to as God’s children and Jesus as God’s Son. How then are we brothers and sisters with him? In the reading from Luke’s gospel the risen Christ has flesh and bones and an appetite – he is human. In the Acts reading it is not Peter who heals, but the Spirit of Christ through him. Karl Barth asked a fascinating question: “What if the Son of God has taken our place that we might come to stand in his place? What if we might be permitted to become by grace what he is by nature?”

The key to this transition from ordinary human to child of God is given in Jesus’ comission to his disciples: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all the nations,” (Luke 24:47). Repent and be forgiven and become a child of God.

Resurrection Invites Repentance
The thought that resurrection invites repentance seems almost an oxymoron. We associate Resurrection with joy, and repentance with sorrow. We associate Resurrection with exuberance, and repentance with solemnity. We associate Resurrection with life, and repentance with death, or at least with life gone wrong.

 Yet in the stories of the resurrection of Jesus and his presence as Risen Lord in the early church, repentance is a constant theme and is constantly connected precisely with Resurrection! Repentance presents itself with a broad smile!

 When Jesus gave his commission and when Peter preached to the crowd they were speaking to people who connected to what they were saying. These people knew the scriptures. They knew that sin was a breaking of the law and they knew that repentance is an about-face in our behaviour from law-breaking to law-keeping.

 But what does the average Kiwi know or care about all this? If you headed down to the Devonport Wine and Food Festival, early in the day, to tell the crowd they needed to repent and be forgiven, how long would you have to speak and what would you need to cover before your message would make any sense to your audience? Kiwis are not up on this kind of thing and in fact many deny both physical and spiritual reality and have their own form of virtual reality to see them through.

 Where do I get this? Romans 1:18-23 – have a look. What you worship is what you live for; what your life revolves around is what you worship. Therefore v23 can read, ‘Instead of living for the immortal God, they live for themselves or money or science or whatever their virtual reality defines as the purpose of life.’ So we can deduce from this passage that the average Kiwi’s sin is less about breaking God’s law and mostly about denying God and the reality he’s given us, and living without him.

 So, repentance with a smile? Yes! Christ is risen! Death is conquered. Christ is risen! Sin no longer has dominion over us. Christ is risen! We can truly be changed by the power of the Risen Lord dwelling in and among us. Christ is risen! We can repent—for the joy of it!

 Repentance remains solemn work, to be sure. To undergo a change of mind and a redirection of our actions requires us to face the reality of our sinfulness, the harms we have caused, the harms in which we continue to participate, and the evil we may not yet have fully renounced.

 To repent almost always requires us to discover, and uncover to others, things we may not wish to admit about ourselves. Repentance requires vulnerability, that we lay ourselves open to experiencing wounds and truths about ourselves we may have tried to numb ourselves against.

 Repentance is thus never a one-time act, but always a journey we take day by day, one step at a time. That is part of why it seems daunting to us to undertake seriously. Repentance becomes our way of life if we do so.

 Repentance is the first word of the commission Jesus gives to his disciples in our reading today and forgiveness follows. Repent and be forgiven and pass it on. This is real life.