To help our unbelief

Here are some thoughts that I shared with those who came to pray with us this weekend, inspired by the gospel account of the return of the disciples from Emmaus, and by the encounter the disciples had with the risen Jesus.

Can you believe it?

My maternal grandfather died when I was still a teenager.  After his funeral had been celebrated, my grandmother would sometimes tell us that grandpa would appear at the foot of the bed during the night.  He wouldn’t speak to her, but he would stand there, as if to reassure her that there is indeed life after death.  Since that time, others who have experienced the death of a loved one have spoken on occasion about similar experiences.  Although you might think that the natural human reaction to such occurrences might be fear, in reality it’s often a very peaceful encounter.

Today’s gospel passage continues the story of a series of such encounters that the disciples had after the death of Jesus.  The two disciples had found the eleven and their companions and were telling them what had happened on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:35).  Can you imagine what that conversation was like?  These two would have been excited to tell the others about how their hearts had burned within them as their travelling companion had spoken to them.  Others in the group would also have had their own stories to tell about an encounter at the tomb early that morning, and since excitement would still have been mixed with incredulity on the part of some of those who heard these words, Jesus himself stood among them and said: Peace be with you! (Lk 24:36).  Of course they were startled and terrified; who among us wouldn’t be? … but Jesus’ words to them immediately put them at ease: Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? (Lk 24:38). Encounters with Jesus are never terrifying; instead he has a very calming influence and time spent with him is never wasted.  He’s endlessly concerned about putting our preoccupations to rest so that our hearts can be at peace, like the silent but peaceful encounters that the dying often have with angels who have come to accompany them on the final steps of their journey home.

Human beings are not always quick to believe in the supernatural, or to accept the stories that are told about moments when the veil that separates earth from heaven is so thin that we can see through it.  Jesus knew that even if this were true, his disciples wouldn’t immediately believe, so he showed them his hands and his feet (Lk 24:40) and he asked them for something to eat (cf Lk 24:41) so that he could prove to them that he was not a ghost.

These weeks of the Easter season allow us the precious opportunity to re-tell the story of those first days following the Resurrection.  Like the disciples, we too need concrete proof at times in order to believe that what we have heard can really be true, and only when we believe for ourselves that Jesus is risen, will we be concerned about living as he has told us (cf 1 Jn 2:1-5), but once we ourselves have come to believe, we will also be able to share the joyful news that we have come to know about Jesus, about his love for us, about the fact that he was willing to die for us and about the fact that God raised him to life again.  This is what Peter and the other disciples did when they went out from the Upper Room and began to speak with others in Jerusalem and in other places about all they had seen and come to believe.

I like to think of Peter standing there at the gate of the temple, not accusing but rather explaining: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers has glorified his servant Jesus (Acts 3:13).  In fact Jesus had to suffer and die for us, so that we would be convinced about the lengths he is willing to go to in order to show us how much we are loved.  In this way, God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the Prophets, that his Anointed One would suffer (Acts 3:18), but that wasn’t the end of the story.

Like the first disciples, once we have come to believe that Christ suffered and died because of his love for us, we too discover the folly of our ways, and want to repent for our unbelief.  When we believe that Jesus is truly risen, stories about wordless encounters with loved ones who have returned home will not scare us; they will fill us with hope.