Daily Retreat 04/30/06

2006 Apr 30 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 3: 13-15. 17-19/ Ps 4: 2. 4. 7-8. 9 (7a)/ 1 Jn 2: 1-5a/ Lk 24: 35-48

From today’s readings: "Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.... When I call, answer me, O my just God, You who relieve me when I am in distress.... Those who say, ‘I know Him,’ but do not keep His commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them.... Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures."

Ghost?

Have you ever seen a ghost? Even the most rational and skeptical among us have probably experienced something that was both eerie and inexplicable, and even if later, a plausible explanation was eventually discovered for the mystery, there still exists questions in our minds about what we really saw and what really happened.

But generally, most apparent ghosts can be dispelled with a simple appeal to logic: ghosts cannot be seen, so what I’m seeing, or think I’m seeing, cannot be a ghost. However, when the risen Lord appeared to His disciples, in a way, it was painfully and paradoxically logical for them to rationally conclude that He was a ghost, since some of them had seen Him die and helped to bury Him. How could He now be physically standing before them, in full health? He must be a ghost, as they had once reasoned before, when they saw Him walking on water.

But Jesus was very concerned that He not be mistaken for a disembodied spirit. Last Sunday’s gospel recounted how the Lord commanded doubting Thomas to probe Him with his fleshy standard of proof: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." In today’s gospel, Jesus offers a more palatable but just as palpable proof as He takes and eat some baked fish, something no ghost could do.

So it’s proven that the risen Jesus is not a ghost, and yet, ironically, the materialists of our time are the most anxious to brand Jesus as a ghost. "He’s a ghost," they say, in the fanciful sense of the word, meaning, "He’s just a figment of your imagination." Or, "He’s a ghost," they say, in the scientific sense of the word, meaning, "He’s confined to the dead now, a feeble spirit of the past." Or, "He’s a ghost," they say, in the menacing sense of the word, meaning, "Even after 2000 years, he still haunts us, and we need to rid ourselves of this specter!" Or, "He’s a ghost," they say, in the terrifying sense of the word, meaning, "He frightens us!"

Jesus took great pains to prove He was no ghost, pains indelibly seared with the crucified nailmarks. So we, especially, who count ourselves as believers, must put to rest today’s terrible temptation to still see Jesus as just a ghost, to dismiss Him as too good to be true, or as confined to the past, or as confused with the occult, or as coldly frightening.

For in fact, Jesus is true good; and the same yesterday, today, and forever; and the revealed and resurrected Redeemer; and the loving, living Lord, the Spirit and Body of Christ, greeting us this Sunday with those words of comfort, "Peace be with you!"