for April 16
Thursday in the Octave of Easter

Today’s gospel is another is this week’s ‘appearance stories’ of Jesus’ encounters with his disciples after his resurrection. It’s the second this week from Luke’s gospel. Unlike Mark and Matthew, who place Jesus’ resurrection appearances in Galilee, where his ministry began, in Luke, Jesus appears in and around Jerusalem, where his ministry culminated in his dying and rising and from where the gospel will be preached to all nations.

In both yesterday’s and today’s appearance stories, Luke emphasizes that Jesus was a prophet mighty in word and deed, indeed, as the fulfillment of all of scripture. And in both accounts, Jesus shares a meal, as he did so many times during Luke’s gospel, with his disciples as well as with tax collectors and sinners. Each meal foreshadows the fullness of God’s kingdom; each meal is a sneak preview of the teaching and table fellowship that will become the practice of the new Christian community.

In fact, in yesterday’s gospel, two disciples are already sharing teaching and table fellowship. They discuss the ‘things that have taken place’ and ‘all the scriptures’ during their seven-mile journey, and they invite Jesus to stay for a meal at their destination. ‘The walk to Emmaus’ is a better known and better loved appearance story, perhaps because of its memorable conclusion: “he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” In today’s gospel, on the other hand, Jesus shares a bit of fish with his disciples, just as he does in the 21^st chapter of the fourth gospel. While this evokes both the disciples’ past and future lines of work and their willingness to share whatever they have, I have always been secretly glad that the Christian community did not adopt fish as the meal by which we remember him.

Nevertheless, today’s gospel reveals something worth remembering.

The disciples are said to be ‘startled and terrified’ by Jesus’ greeting, “Peace be with you.” Consider how he responds: Look, he says, at my hands and feet. Touch me, feel my flesh and bone, he tells them. Listen again, he invites, to the words I spoke. And then there is that taste of fish. Sense by sense, Jesus appeals to his disciples to take the physical reality of his resurrected life into their own lives. This new life in Christ is not some distant promise, but as real to the disciples and to us as anything else we can see, hear, touch and taste in front of us right now.

Theologians sometimes speak of the kingdom of God as already-and-not-yet. The kingdom has begun in Jesus Christ, and it is yet to reach fulfillment. Today’s gospel is all about the already. Jesus has already risen into the fragile, imperfect, anxiety-ridden and even terrified lives of his disciples—and into ours.

The church does not rush from Holy Week and Easter back to ‘ordinary time.’ This week, we are in the Octave, the first eight days of Easter. There are fifty days of Easter before Pentecost and the sending of the Spirit and of the disciples to preach to all nations. This unprecedented Easter, we can’t rush back to any kind of ordinary time. And we may find ourselves with more time together at meals; perhaps more time to share stories of the faith that we rely on in good times and bad. It took time, the church’s cycle of readings reminds us, for the disciples to take in the meaning of the resurrection. It will take time, too, for us to understand the meaning of our present Easter experience. We might do this, today’s gospel reminds, if we linger in the reality of what has already happened, in our own encounters with the risen Christ. Then, perhaps, we will hear his greeting with untroubled hearts: “Peace be with you.”
—BJ Brown

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.