A Reflection for Thursday in the Octave of Easter
Find today’s readings here.
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. (Lk 24:36-37)
A ghost does not eat food, so to prove to his disciples he is not a ghost, Jesus eats a fish. He wants to give clear evidence of his resurrection to his frightened followers. Behold the denti that gnaw the pesce! Could a phantasm do such a thing?
And then, like a Scripture scholar marshaling forth clear declarative sentences, Christ tells us plainly what the past three days have been all about: “Thus it is written that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. In his name, penance for the remission of sins is to be preached to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”
You who live in fear can now rejoice in hope. There is new life for you, and life in abundance. Go, share it with the nations.
Christ uses anything and everything to get his point across. He eats what needs to be eaten, says what needs to be said. He becometh for our sake poetry, philosophy, rationality, alchemy, art. He changes water into wine. He spins stories that break us open like only a good story can. (Who of us has not painfully been the father, the son and the older brother in The Prodigal Son?) He blows apart every notion about a god’s incarnation by being born in a manger. He turns over tables, drives out goats, casts out demons. He crushes us by dying, astounds us by rising.
I will do whatever it takes to get through to you, Christ says. So don’t take your eyes away from me. Pay attention. Because you never know what I am going to do next. I will pass through the walls of your heart, appear in your midst and bring you the truth: the one who was dead is now alive. You who live in fear can now rejoice in hope. There is new life for you, and life in abundance. Go, share it with the nations.
