Luke 24:36b-48
Just as on the road to Emmaus when, Luke writes
(24:13-35), Jesus walked along (unrecognized) with the two disciples and
“interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures,” today’s
reading shows him again interpreting himself: “he opened their minds to
understand the scriptures” (vs. 45). This is the appearance narrative that
follows the Emmaus story. It introduces a risen one who is fully flesh, even to
the point of eating a piece of fish.
This is no ghost. Luke is keen to emphasize the
reality of Jesus’ presence and the disciples’ need to hear again a reading of
the holy scriptures that insists on his death and resurrection.
What are they to do with this experience of his
presence? They are to witness to “these things,” namely, repentance and
forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus.
Long ago, Jesus ate a bit of fish
in the presence of his disbelieving friends. They were thunderstruck, and who
could blame them? The resurrection hardly freed them of their anxiety. As
Thomas Cahill said in his book, Desire of
the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus, ‘‘If the
crucifixion left the disciples utterly desolate, the news that Jesus was risen
came on them like a tidal wave following an earthquake. They knew, as do we
all, that death is the end and that there is no possibility of reversing its
finality. If their world had been destroyed, would nature now play tricks on
them, upending the only things they still knew to be true, the constant and
reliable laws of the cosmos? If one has just suffered a tragic loss that sucks
life dry of all its joy, one may somehow find the dull courage to go on—but one
doesn’t want to open one’s door two mornings after such a tragedy to find that
earth and sky have changed places’’ (New York: Nan A. Talese, 1999).
Like those first followers of
Jesus, the good news of the resurrection does not exempt us from anxiety. We
are not freed from the anxious concerns of this world; no, on the contrary, we
are sent into the world and charged with the task of sharing the anxiety of
those who are most in need, so that they might be less anxious. We are charged
with the task of reading the most alarming headlines, responding to the most
devastating emergencies, listening and answering the most desperate cries for
help.
But we are freed from another kind of anxiety: we are
freed from the anxiety that we face the world—and death itself—alone. We are
gathered joyfully around a meal of thanksgiving, breathed upon by Christ
himself, and reassured that whatever befalls us, we will lie down in peace. –Steven
Crippen, Homily Service 39, no. 5
(2006): 56-64.
Acts 3:12-19
Having prayed over and seen the healing of a man who could
not walk, Peter explains to the people who witnessed this event the true origin
of healing power. Healing without knowledge of God’s power is beside the point
of the resurrection. Calling people to repent and be forgiven without their
understanding liberation into a life of joy and meaning is also beside the
point of the resurrection. Peter is continuing Jesus’ task here––opening minds.
In our former fellowship hall,
there used to hang a framed poster with a likeness of Jesus. Across it was
written the brash and sassy saying, “He came to take away your sins, not your
minds.” Jesus, according to Luke, on the very evening of his resurrection
devoted himself not only to opening scripture but also to opening the minds of
his disciples so as to understand the scriptures—meaning what they had to say
regarding his messiahship. Opening minds is what it means to practice
resurrection, opening minds to the truth about Jesus. As St. Paul put it to the
Christians in Rome, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by
the renewing of your minds . . .” John Rollefson –Homily Service 42, no. 2 (2008):118-126.
1 John 3:1-7
Liberation is the result of Jesus’ making us “children of
God” and “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” That last promise is
saturated with hope. Whatever situation is now your lot, what will be in the
future has not yet been made known. We have, in other words, room for hope that
in a world where God’s own son can be raised from the dead, there is no telling
what can still come upon us.
Stephen Crippen
is a psychotherapist and a deacon in the episcopal Diocese of Olympia,
Washington.
Homily Service 39,
no. 5 (2006): 56-64.
John Rollefson
is a Lutheran (ELCA) pastor.
Homily Service
42, no. 2 (2009):118-126.
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