Easter Thursday – Gospel
35Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
36While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41Yet for all their joy they were still disbelieving and wondering, and he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate in their presence.
44Then 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, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things.
Commentary on Luke 24:35-48
We pick up from yesterday’s story of the disciples going to Emmaus. Back in Jerusalem they share their experience of the risen Jesus with their comrades who have also heard that Jesus has appeared to Simon Peter.
Suddenly, Jesus himself appears in their midst. The fact that he comes suddenly, although the doors were locked, indicates that his presence is now of a different kind.
He wishes them peace. It is the ordinary Jewish greeting of Shalom, but one which has special meaning in this Easter context. Before his Passion Jesus had told his disciples,
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. (John 14:27)
The peace of the Risen Jesus is fully a Messianic blessing.
In spite of what they had heard, they are terrified and think they are seeing a ghost. Jesus asks them:
Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?
He shows them his pierced hands and feet. The Greeks mocked the idea of bodily resurrection, but Luke emphasises the physical reality of Christ’s risen body, that is, the wholeness of the person of the risen Jesus.
He invites them to come and touch him. Ghosts do not have flesh and bones. As he shows them the wounds in his hands and feet, their fear turns to a mixture of joy and utter astonishment. They can’t believe their eyes. Jesus has to ask them to give him something to eat. Ghosts don’t eat and Jesus is no ghost; he is no disembodied soul. There is also an emphasis that death is not an ‘escape’ from the body, but that the whole person goes into the next life.
Jesus then goes on to explain, as he did with the Emmaus disciples, how all that had happened to him was fully in harmony with, and the fulfilment of, the Law, the prophets and psalms. Mentioning the three constituent parts of the Old Testament, Jesus indicates that the Messiah was foretold through the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures.
And out of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection comes the mission to proclaim reconciliation with God through Jesus to the whole word. Jesus tells them:
You are witnesses of these things.
It is their mission to carry on the establishment of the Kingdom throughout the world. Or, as it is put here:
…that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in [the Messiah’s] name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
The Kingdom is being realised when people go through that process of radical conversion and change of life (i.e. ‘repentance’—metanoia) which brings about a deep reconciliation of each one with God, with all those around them, and with themselves—when all divisions fall away, when fear and hostility are replaced with a caring love for each other.
If we have not yet done so, let us become part of that great enterprise today.
