Word to the Wise
Thursday, April 24, 2014 - Octave of Easter - Thurs
[Acts 3:11-26 and Luke 24:35-48]"Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have." And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, 'Have you anything here to eat?' They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them."
How does one speak or write about an event like the resurrection of Jesus Christ? How can one put oneself in the place of the "eye-witnesses" and the chaotic mixture of grief and amazement and fear that accompanied that event? Jesus is "there" and "not there." He can appear and disappear even if the doors are locked out of fear for the same fate that had befallen Jesus! He has "flesh and bones" and can walk down the road to Emmaus! He can eat fish! He can talk and preach! He seems the same but he's not the same! Perhaps all we can say is what St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:51: "Behold I tell you a mystery!"
I don't think we can be any better informed than the original eye witnesses. The event is not subject to a journalistic/scientific analysis. We don't know HOW God accomplished all this in Jesus. We simply know that God DID accomplish all this in Jesus and more importantly, we have to continue to bear witness to it ourselves! The original witnesses were not delusional and we are not part of a centuries-old fabrication! Jesus calls us to a life of faith to be lived now and beyond time. If we cannot accept this transcendent fact, our faith is in vain, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthains 15:17-19: "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all."
Jesus opens the minds of the disciples to the scriptures and tells them to go and proclaim the good news. He does the same for us and gives us the same task. That task is NOT to figure out how he got out of that tomb and can come and go in a locked room and eat baked fish. That task is to proclaim the new life that he brings! He is risen! Alleluia! AMEN