A Few Words On "The Word"

April 30, 2006
The Third Sunday of Easter

Luke 24: 35- 48

Ghosts Don't Eat

(In a television announcer's voice:) Earlier on Easter... (cut to episode from two weeks ago. Mary of Magdala, Mary, James' mom, her sister Salome at the tomb. Strange, shiny guy talking:) He's not here! Go and find him! (Close up on the women's faces, mix of terror and puzzlement. Creep music in background. Cut to last week's episode. Thomas, to the other apostles:) You're whacked! Won't believe it till I see it! Till I see the nail wounds in his hand and feet!" (Enter Jesus, risen from the dead and very much alive. Jesus:) "Peace be with you! Put your finger here and see my hand..." (Dissolve to opener and theme song.)

This week's gospel episode opens with two travelers talking excitedly about what happened to them on the road-meeting the stranger who seemed so familiar, the talk of what happened in Jerusalem last Friday, being bummed out about what the government did to Jesus, stopping to eat-hey, the stranger's Jesus! The angel had told the women to go ahead to Galilee and to find him, and here we are on our road trip stopping at Wendy's in the Deerfield Oasis and who sits down with us but Jesus!

And what happens when they tell this story to the others? Jesus comes to them. (Tell the story and he will come!) And what's the first thing the Risen Savior says (again)? "Peace be with you!"

OK, so maybe we're seeing things, they thought. Maybe we're going crazy. Maybe it's just wishful thinking. Maybe we need more sleep. (Oh, yeah!) So how does Jesus show he's not a hallucination, not a ghost? "Have you anything here to eat?" he asks them, and together they dig out the Fillet o' Fish and chow down.

Ghosts don't eat. You need a mouth and a stomach to eat a fishwhich-with or without the tartar sauce. Jesus is no ghost-he is risen in his body, like we will some day. They don't always recognize him at first cuz his body's changed-all bright and shiny, what they call "glorified." But when they all look a little harder, they see the wounds in his hands and his feet, his head and his side. All the ugly violence changed to beauty.

Hmmmm. See a pattern here? Tell the story. Share the sign of peace. Eat and drink the meal together. Maybe this is what the angel in the empty tomb meant when he told the three women (and us) to go and find the one whom we thought was dead but is alive.

Reflection Question

Why is the sign of peace at Mass so very important?

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