The two disciples who had met
Jesus on the road to Emmaus tell the apostles in Jerusalem:
36 While
they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said to them, “Peace be with
you.” 37 They were startled and
frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said
to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your hearts? 39 Look at my
hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have
flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
40 When
he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And
while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked
them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They
gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it
and ate it in their presence.
44 He
said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with
you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written in the Law of
Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms about
me[i].” 45 Then
he opened their mind to comprehend the
Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is
written: The Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third
day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins
will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these
things. 49 And, behold, I send forth the promise of my Father upon
you – but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.
Lord, bless what I say that
is true, and correct my errors in the minds of these kind hearers. Amen
With even the most prominent
people, there can be confusions about identity.
Prince Phillip told the story of when he and the Queen (when she was still Princess Elizabeth) visited the US
in 1951. Churchill had just won the General Election, and a splendid but
somewhat confused elderly lady greeted the Queen with “I’m so pleased your
father’s been re-elected!”
Somebody standing next to her
said “No, No dear, that was Winston Churchill”. At which point the lady turned
to Phillip and said “O I’m so pleased to meet you!”
But here there is no confusion
about Jesus’ identity. In Luke’s account,
the women (inducing Mary Madgalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James) who
come to the tomb are told by “two men in dazzling apparel” that Jesus is risen,
but when they tell the apostles they are not believed. Then Jesus appears to two disciples (one
called Cleopas) on the road to Emmaus. The Catholic & Orthodox traditions suggest that this is the same as Clopas in John 19, whose wife was one of the women at the Cross. But they don’t recognise him until he breaks
bread with them and vanishes. So the two disciples rush back to Jerusalem to
tell the apostles, who say “The Lord has risen indeed” and has appeared to
Simon. And then, for the first time, the
risen Jesus appears in the midst of them.
Before we get onto this passage,
its worth noting two important points. First, we’re pretty sure that Luke names
his sources. Luke is saying: I actually spoke to Cleopas,
Joanna and the two Marys; this is how I know. Secondly: all four Gospels agree
that it was the women who first knew about the resurrection, but only Luke
tells us that they told the apostles but were not believed. This is certainly
not a story you would make up if you were trying to convince people of the
resurrection! Nor if you were trying to show the heroic Acts of the Apostles in
a good light. Luke includes it because he’s convinced it’s true, and important.
(Luke BTW is full of stories where the women come off better than the men. He
tells of Mary, Martha’s sister, sitting alongside the other disciples at Jesus’
feet – this is obscured in English translations but in the Greek, para-kathetheisa,
it’s perfectly clear). And in Acts he pays a lot of attention to Priscilla,
who I think was the author of Hebrews).
And while they were still
talking about this, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said Shalom
– It’s the normal greeting: it literally means “peace” but it doesn’t just mean
the absence of strife, it is God’s peace, that surpasses all understanding. The Psalm set of the day (Psalm 4) concludes:
8 In
peace I will both lie down and sleep well
For You, LORD, solely, make me
safely dwell.
But they are startled and
terrified. Why? Well partly because (as we know from John’s Gospel) they kept
the door locked for fear of the Jewish authorities. But also because they think
they must be seeing some kind of ghost or apparition. Matthew, Mark (and John)
all tell the story of the disciples being frightened when Jesus came to them
walking on water, for the same reason. So Jesus does what he needs to do to
prove to them that he is not a ghost. They can touch him, and he eats with them. This does not, of course, mean Jesus believed in ghosts, just that he knew what the disciples believed about ghosts. And then he explains:
Everything must be fulfilled that is written in the
Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms about
me.” Then he opened their mind to comprehend the Scriptures.
The whole of the Old Testament (the
Law, the Prophets and the Psalms) points to Jesus, and only in the light of
Christ opening our minds can we comprehend the scriptures. The problem with the Pharisees and with the
Jewish leaders was not that they didn’t know the scriptures – they knew it
inside out! But they didn’t comprehend them:
the word (suniEmi) literally means “bring together” but in the NT it
occurs 26x (and 8x in Luke/Acts) meaning comprehension or insightful understanding.
All scripture must be read in the light of Christ. The Lord who has truly
suffered, truly died, and has risen indeed!
There’s another interesting
point in the Greek which doesn’t normally come across in translation. The NIV
says “he opened their minds” but the Greek is singular: he opened their mind.
Luke says in Acts they were “all continuing steadfastly with the same mind (homo-theumadon)
in prayer” and Jesus in John prays that the disciples “may be perfectly
one”.
Jesus says that his disciples
are witnesses to these things, but he says something more. He is going to send
forth the Holy Spirit (“the promise of my father”) on them and from then they will
be clothed with power from on high and can go out from Jerusalem and change the
whole world. As they did. The word for “send forth” is exapostellw the
same root as apostle.
So what does this mean for us?
It’s clear that something
happened at the first Easter! A tiny
band of utterly demoralised followers of an executed Rabbi and wonder-worker,
who never even wrote a book, became a movement that conquered the mighty Roman
Empire and 2,000 years later has roughly 2Bn people worldwide. The disciples
were very clear what had happened: the Lord had risen indeed! And no-one has ever been able to offer a
credible alternative explanation that fits the facts.
Georges Lemaitre was a brilliant
cosmologist who showed in 1927 that what we now call the Big Bang provided a
solution to Einstein’s equations. This idea was strongly resisted – it sounded
far too much like Creation (and Lemaitre was also a Catholic Priest) but in 1965
scientists discovered the Cosmic Background Radiation which is essentially the
echoes of the Big Bang throughout the Universe.
In a somewhat similar way, we
too are witnesses to Jesus’s resurrection. We cannot see the event itself, any
more than cosmologists can see the actual Big Bang: but can read the careful
accounts of Luke and others, drawing on eyewitness testimony. And we can also
see for ourselves, nearly 2,000 years later, the echoes of the resurrection
throughout the world. “Clothed with power from on high” we, as a church, are
called to proclaim the Gospel, so that (to use Peter’s words from Acts) “times
of refreshing may come from the Lord”.
This is not simply an individual
effort. We are all called to play our part in the Body of Christ, each with the
gifts we are given. We are not all evangelists, but we must all support the spread
of the Good News in the ways we are best able. It is a collective effort, best
achieved when we are “all continuing steadfastly with the same mind in prayer.”
And remember, we are not on our own. Jesus says (Mat 18.20) “for where two or
three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” -the
same words as Luke uses in this passage.
Archbishop Justin said this of Prince
Phillip: “He knew who he was, and his faith was central to who he was and how
he lived his life. He worked out his call to serve and follow Christ in the
context of his own unique calling.” None of us has anything like that public
profile. But we are each equally beloved in God’s eyes. God cares for each and
every person just as much as He cares for the most celebrated. We each have our
own unique calling, to serve and follow Christ.
This is our story. This is our song. This is our identity. And let us pray, that as we serve, and as we help to bring the good news to people who need it so badly, they will be inspired to say, without any confusion, “O I’m so pleased to meet you!”
