This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we’re back in that upper room with Jesus’s disciples, grieving unimaginable loss (“How could he have died?"), processing unimaginable news (“He is risen?” “Some of the women saw him?” “Was it just a vision?”), enduring unimaginable terror (“They’re coming for us next…”). Into that swirl of emotions, Jesus appears. He doesn’t come in through a door or a window – he is just there, speaking peace, showing his wounds, explaining God’s Word and naming them witnesses of what God has done and is doing.
And, to quell their fears that they are seeing his ghost, in Luke’s version of the scene (we had John’s on Monday), Jesus invites them to touch the healed wounds in his hands and feet. “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." He asks for something to eat; they give him broiled fish. Not much of a meal for someone who’s returned from the grave, but they get the point.
Luke makes a wonderful statement: “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering…” The joy the risen Christ brings is our gift in the midst of disbelieving and wondering and grieving, not only after. We are invited to be people of joy in all circumstances, and especially this Eastertide. The dislocations caused by Covid-19 may not rise to the level of what Jesus’ followers were going through, but we might have more insight than in other years into their situation. We too are having to process intense and competing emotions, too much information – and too little – and cope with communal trauma if not personal. No wonder so many of us are more tired than we think we should be. (I found this piece very helpful on that subject.)
I was reminded by some post or sermon (they blur together!) that Jesus’ first followers didn’t know it was “Easter” either. It was just a Sunday, and they knew he had died, and learned he was risen, and being seen. And there he was. If we can let go of our expectations of what “Easter” is or should be, and remain present to where Jesus is around us, we might find ourselves filled with joy while disbelieving and wondering.
Here’s another verse from my song “Was That You.” (Modest iphone recording of it here.) This verse didn’t make the cut in what is already too long a song, but it’s the one that goes with this resurrection appearance:
Tonight we hid for safety, just huddled there in fear;
Though we’d locked the doors, he just suddenly appeared.
He spoke to us of peace, and he showed his hands and feet,
As if to prove he’s not a ghost, he asked for food to eat.
Was that you coming back where you’d spoken your goodbyes?
Was that you inciting joy in the face of all our “whys?”
Was that you imparting more than we could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, bearing peace to me.
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