Encountering the Risen Lord
In Luke's vivid account of the Risen Christ's appearance, we witness the disciples' journey from fear to faith. As the two disciples recounted their Emmaus experience, Jesus stood among them, offering peace to their troubled hearts. Their initial reaction - terror and doubt - mirrors our own struggles when confronted with divine mystery. Yet Jesus patiently invites them to see and touch his wounds, to witness that he is not a ghost but truly risen flesh and bone. In this intimate moment, Jesus bridges the gap between human limitation and divine revelation, showing that the resurrection is not merely spiritual but a transformation of the entire person.
The disciples' astonishment turns to joy, yet Scripture notes they still struggled to believe. How profoundly human this response is! Even when faced with the miraculous, our hearts resist what our minds cannot fully comprehend. Jesus meets them - and us - in this very space of uncertainty, not with rebuke but with further invitation. By consuming broiled fish before them, Jesus demonstrates the reality of his resurrected body and confirms that salvation encompasses our physical reality. This is no dualistic separation of spirit and matter, but rather the redemption of the whole person, body and soul.
Most powerfully, Jesus "opened their minds to understand the Scriptures." The disciples needed more than physical proof; they needed illumination. The Risen Lord reveals how his passion, death, and resurrection fulfill what was written in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. This divine pedagogy transforms their confusion into comprehension as Jesus places his suffering and glory within salvation history's grand narrative. Through this scriptural encounter, the disciples begin to see that Jesus Christ's wounds are not merely evidence of his identity but the very means of our redemption.
Today's gospel concludes with Jesus commissioning his disciples as witnesses to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all nations. The encounter with the Risen Lord does not leave them unchanged—it propels them outward with a message of hope and transformation. So too are we called to move beyond our doubts and fears, to allow our minds to be opened to Scripture's deeper meaning, and to become witnesses of Christ's resurrection. The same Lord who showed his hands and feet to the disciples continues to make himself known to us—in the breaking of bread, in the wounds of our brothers and sisters, and in the living Word that still speaks to our hearts today.
©2025 James Dacey Jr.
