Thursday in Easter Week
April 16th
READING: Luke 24: 35-48
Then they told what had happened on the
road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to
them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and terrified, and thought that
they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do
doubts arise in your hearts? Look 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.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them,
‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he
took it and ate in their presence.
Then 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.’ Then he
opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it
is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the
third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in
his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these
things.
REFLECTION
As we move
further into Luke’s resurrection appearance stories, we find him working
hard to convey, for want of a better word, the reality of a period of surreal
experiences. Actually, borrowing from the world of art, I want to say
“super-real,” reality over and above that which is our normal experience. The
“super-realist” school of art emphasized the subjects of their art at the
expense of any distraction: the shop, the can of baked beans, the cat,
whatever, was all that mattered. In photography the same effect can be
achieved, to some extent, by altering depth of field (there’s a related issue
called “circle of confusion.” which may also be a useful metaphor for resurrection
theology, but I might skip that for now!). Reality greater than mere actual.
Mathematician-priest
John Polkinghorne famously used the analogy of a stone in water to convey the
“super-reality” of the resurrection. The super-real passes through the merely
real. Physician Luke didn’t think of that, though with phrases such as “it is I myself” and depictions of Jesus
appearing and disappearing from the realms in which the encounters took place
he is wanting to communicate the same idea. For me, of course it’s easy to
believe. Though illogically claiming to be rationalist in some ways, I have no
understanding of anything mathematical, let alone other sciences, and (equally
and oppositely!) no difficulty believing in the super-real breaking into
reality in God’s chosen moment. Not often, mind you: just sacred moments (like
when a horse told Anne and me to get married, but that’s another story). In
“thin places” when the power of the beyond breaks through, occasional liturgies
similarly, in occasional music, too. For me, in the sacred rite of Eucharist,
this becomes an always (well so far, for 40+ years). That’s not
everyone’s experience, I know. And at the moment it’s pretty much no-one’s
experience (or should be, theologically and legally speaking). So we must sit with that pain … for now.
Ancient,
pre-Christian spiritualities, especially in Australia, have taught me vast
hints about the limits of science. For me there was no thinner place nor
thinner time than where and when heaven kissed earth in the Resurrection. Not a
committee meeting saying, “Yup, Jesus was pretty good, let’s carry on his work”
but the sheer weight of divine love transcending death (and walls) and
impelling us to bear witness. So we must, however stumblingly.
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