Today’s gospel was pretty much the end of Luke’s gospel:
There are only about 75 more words.
But it wasn’t the end of his writing.
He also wrote a sequel – the Acts of the Apostles –
which provides the first reading today, and throughout Eastertide,
Acts gives an account of developments
from the Ascension until Paul arrives in Rome 30 years later
and is a working through of the last words of today’s gospel:
You are witnesses.
Turning to that gospel,
Two disciples, trudging from Jerusalem to Emmaus,
walk with a stranger who explained the scriptures to them
and who they only recognise as Jesus at the end of the day, when
he took the bread.. said the blessing, …broke it and handed it to them…
and he disappeared from their sight.
They rush back to Jerusalem and, as it says at the start of today’s gospel,
told their story of what had happened on the road
and how they had recognised Jesus at the breaking of bread.
Then Jesus himself stood among them
He is more recognizable than on the road to Emmaus:
and that generates fear and incredulity.
The disciples think that what they are seeing isn’t physical,
that they have before them a spirit, a ghost –
what a more secular age might call
an illusion, an hallucination or even a trick –
and, importantly, the disciples aren’t OK with that:
they feel ‘alarm’, ‘fright’, ‘agitation’, ‘doubts’.
These are not failings.
They are reasonable responses to the situation they perceive:
which is that they are seeing something that isn’t real.
Jesus helps them accept he is real.
Jesus’ physicality is shown
by the wounds on his body and by touching him,
as in last week’s extract from John’s gospel;
and then here, most particularly,
by Jesus eating some of their grilled fish.
He is most definitely not a spectre.
Only now can the disciples really hear Jesus’ initial greeting:
Peace be with you.
They are filled with joy that Jesus is with them;
and, at the same time, they are dumfounded.
They don’t understand what has happened.
Jesus is there, fully alive – but not as he was.
Only now, with fear replaced by peace and joy,
with the risen Lord physically present,
are the disciples ready to grasp the depth of God’s love shown in Jesus.
This is the point of the encounter.
Only now are they ready to learn who Jesus is:
the culmination of the revelation of God in the Hebrew scriptures.
God’s love shown in Jesus is foreshadowed
in the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms:
these illuminate Jesus’ identity and mission,
and are, in their turn, illuminated by Jesus.
The disciples are the first to have the task of communicating how Jesus fulfilled the Hebrew scriptures in a wonderful, but unexpected, way.
Their encounter with the risen Jesus opened their minds for this task:
and the new testament is woven through with what they learned.
The disciples are told to be witnesses.
Witnesses who testify to the significance of Jesus
for themselves, and for the world:
the disciples now have their mission.
Jesus’ words in today’s gospel:
You are witnesses
are not just for the fearful disciples assembled in Jerusalem.
They are spoken, directly, to every person who finds life in Jesus.
Let us give thanks for those who were, and are,
witnesses to Jesus for us,
and let us pray that we are witnesses to Jesus for others.