Fish, and “baked fish” at that!
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| Pixabay / Public Domain. |
Luke 24:35-48
Today we celebrate the bodily resurrection of Christ from
the dead.
Today we are witnesses as he shows himself bodily to the
first disciples.
Faced with his resurrection, they had to RESHAPE their thoughts and beliefs about
who he was, and about their relationships with him.
They also had to RETHINK
their own lives and what they thought and believed about themselves as human
beings after seeing Christ risen from the dead.
Surely they spent much of the next fifty days RETHINKING everything.
In fact, we see in Sacred Scripture that from Good Friday
until Pentecost, there was no public ministry either by Christ or by the
Church.
Rather, for forty days after he rose from the dead, Christ
came to and spoke to no one else but those who were already his followers— to
no one else but those already inside his Church.
For forty days he answered their questions, and he provoked
their questions, their thinking and RETHINKING.
On the fortieth day, as they looked on, he ascended into
heaven.
For ten more days, that is, until Pentecost, the Church
carried out no public ministry.
The first followers of Christ spent the first Easter Season
interacting INSIDE the Church, surely RETHINKING everything in the light of the
resurrection of Christ.
To RETHINK,
to change one’s MIND— the MIND is the literal root of the Gospel’s
Greek word metánoia that we usually
translate as repentance.
Today in his Gospel, the newly risen Christ said to his
disciples:
Thus
it is written that the Christ would suffer
and
rise from the dead on the third day
and
that REPENTANCE
[metánoia,
change of mind]
would
be preached in his name
to
all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
From Jerusalem, from right
where the disciples stood, from within themselves, within the Church, the
repentance, the metánoia, the change of MIND, the RETHINKING
had to begin.
That was part of their preparation for what the Spirit would
do through them in ministry to those outside
the Church beginning on Pentecost.
But Pentecost was fifty days after today in the Gospel.
Today in the Gospel is still Easter Sunday.
Today the gathered Church finds that Christ has risen from
the dead and now stands in their midst.
He has open wounds from the nails of crucifixion.
If he is risen in victory over death itself, why does he not
close up his wounds— he who had the power to heal broken bodies and erase
disease?
I like to think and RETHINK
that the Risen Christ kept the wounds of death to show his ongoing communion
with us.
To show the first disciples that he was still in communion
with them in flesh and blood, he not only showed his wounded body, he also
asked for their food, and made a show of eating some in front of them.
Food— baked fish—
was part of the first communion after Christ
had risen from the dead.
We, too, are risen from the dead, for God already counts us
so in Baptism.
We, too, bear wounds— in spirit, mind, and body.
When Christ returns, maybe he will no longer have wounds.
When he returns, he will reveal the resurrection into which
he has already planted us through Baptism, the sacraments, his Eucharist.
He will close up all our wounds.
He will wipe away every cause of tears.
He will remake and give glory to our bodies, making them as
his own.
Even now in his Eucharist, we are filled with his Holy
Spirit that sent the Church out to the world at Pentecost.
In the Eucharist we are one body, one spirit in Christ.
In his Eucharist, the Risen Christ is still wounded and his
blood still flows, even though he is forever risen, immortal and glorified.
In his Eucharist, God lets us have his own flesh and blood
as his children.
Like the risen Christ, we still bear our wounds until he
returns.
Until then, we need repentance— metánoia—
we need to RETHINK and take strength
from faith in the covenant of God’s work that the resurrection of Christ and
Christ himself are real food and drink for us in body, mind and spirit.
That is the only way for us as the Church to begin to be
believable in calling the pilgrims of the world to repentance, whether on the
first Pentecost or today or any day to come.
Turn. Love. Repeat.
