Thursday in the Octave of Easter, April 13, 2023

Luke 24, 35–48

The disciples of Jesus recounted what had taken place along the way, and how they had come to recognize him in the breaking of bread. While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I 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. He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

Both St. John and St. Luke give the time for the Lord’s appearance to the Apostles as towards sunset.  John says, “It was late the same day” (John 20, 19) while Luke tells us that it was dark or nearly dark when the two disciples returned to Jerusalem, an episode that precedes the present Gospel Reading.  Neither Matthew nor Mark record an appearance by Jesus to the Apostles on Easter Sunday.

“Peace be with you.”  The Greek text from which the English is translated may be providing a rough equivalent for the Hebrew shalom, which can have that meaning.  It is not a casual greeting, for the Lord’s appearance naturally startled the Apostles and the others.  Luke, indeed, comments, “They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.”  Once before they had seen him and reacted in this way.  Mark 6, 49: “But they seeing him walking upon the sea, thought it was a ghost, and they cried out.”  “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?”  They recognize him but they think he is a ghost which has come back to punish them for abandoning him in his Passion.  The Lord first assures them that he is not a ghost: “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”  He offers the Apostles his wounded hands and feet as his identification.  One day, when he come again, all of us will recognize him through the wounds in his hands and feet.  They are signs of his suffering and signs of mercy.  He will welcome the just into heaven with those hands and he will banish the wicked into hell with them.

“They were . . . incredulous for joy and were amazed.”  Their fright becomes joy as their love for him overcomes their fear of punishment.  If we would sit down and think about what the Lord has done for us in his Passion and Death we would be incredulous for joy as well.  “They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them.”  The Lord takes pains to demonstrate that it is not merely his soul taking the form of a man that they see, but that his Body has been brought back to life.  St. John, in his Gospel, also emphasizes that the Lord’s Body was raised up, as if to say, It is really him and not a trick of the light or a figment of the imagination: “That . . . which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 John 1, 1).

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms must be fulfilled.”  The Lord is as good as telling them that those who refused to believe in him — above all, the Pharisees and the Jewish leadership — had refused to believe in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.  “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.”  Here he addresses the false idea that the Messiah would restore the kingdom of Israel.  This narrow conception came from the Pharisees and not from the Scriptures. “Repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”  The Lord himself had preached repentance but now the Apostles would preach it and their preaching would be validated by the greatest proof of God’s power, the Resurrection of the Lord.  The preaching would “begin” in Jerusalem, as in fact we see in the early chapters of The Acts of the Apostles, and then it would be carried into the whole world.  

“You are witnesses of these things.”  The Lord makes a solemn declaration here, as though reminding them that they would be called upon to give testimony at the proper time.  He calls them “witnesses” and not “onlookers” or “spectators”.  They have an official position in a juridical process.  A spectator may walk away from what he sees, but a witness is v bound to testify.  You and I are witnesses of the Lord Jesus too, and we testify not only with our words, but especially with our actions.