A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. The disciples recounted what had happened on stood in their midst midst and and said said to them, peace to you. In their panic and fright, the disciples thought that they were seeing a ghost. But Jesus said to them, why are you disturbed? Why do such ideas cross your mind?
Look at my hands and my feet. It is really I. Touch me and see that a ghost does not have flesh and bones as I do. As Jesus said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. Now notice this.
They were still incredulous for sheer joy and wonder. So Jesus then said to them, have you anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of cooked fish, which he took, and he ate it in their presence. And then Jesus said to them, recall those words that I spoke to you when I was We're to that. Understanding of the scriptures.
Then he said to them, thus it is written that the messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. In his name, penance for the remission of sins is to be preached to all the nations beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of all of this. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
These readings that we are having in sequence morning after morning from the books, the the acts of the apostles that the the readings we've been having during Easter week, report a struggle between, on the one hand, the disciples and our blessed lord. And the struggle involves the identity of what they're seeing or feeling or hearing or touching. Notice our lord has some today, he says, come and touch me. Look, eats, and notice the text says, in their presence. They saw him meeting.
In other words, you well, our blessed lord is giving is giving him giving them here are indisputable, undeniable. They cannot you cannot deny the testimony of your senses. Proof that he's not a ghost, that he's not a projection of their imagination, that he's not a product of wishful thinking, he is not the consequence of a Passover plot. Jesus is an objective fact, which the dis the disciples discover. They come to know it.
They don't project it, create it. Now in within the last few days, I, for one reason or another, have been exposed to a number of articles and conversations which are all high level and very elegant, very we are pursuing the spiritual. We are pursuing peace. We are pursuing meditation. That's the big thing.
All kinds of meditations are abroad today. The twentieth century has discovered meditation. That is great. Fine. I saw a summary of courses which will be offered in a smallish southern school within the next few months.
And at least three or four of them have to do with the pursuit of the spiritual. Notice how that's phrased. Has to do with meditation. Has to do with the with the how to meditate. And some of the words used are copyrighted, if you please.
Maybe you'll know some of the things I'm talking about. It's a patented thing, believe it or not. Now I'm not opposed to people who want to pursue peace and tranquility of mind, who want us to get rid of their aggressions. I'm not opposed to people who want to get rid of of depression. You see, depression is a very extraordinary and abnormal state.
You all know that. You're not supposed to have depressions. Of course, we have them, and some of us kill ourselves because of depressions. Don't forget that. And then you you have all this sort of stuff.
Now I anybody wants to take these courses, economically, they're wonderful. They support the school and the teachers, so I'm all for it. I'm all for it. If people wanna pursue these things, fine. I'm not opposing that.
But let's not make a grievous mistake that we're that is religion. And that's to my point. All of this stuff is being identified with religion. Courses and seminars and retreats are given, but and using the New Testament text, but people don't even believe in God. What do you think of that?
So it's the pursuit of religion without god. God's name doesn't even appear. I I return to that good article, The United States News and World Report. The pursuit of the sacred. What's the sacred?
What's the spiritual? Now there you see, we have got to come back to some solid basic truths that if God exists and we're his creatures, then our first responsibility is not to myself but to God. The object of my pursuit is not my tranquility, not my freedom from depression, not my freedom from aggression, not my tranquility, not my ability to meditate, whatever that is. I spent years and years doing it. That's 05:30 in the morning wrapped up in a cloak, semi somnolent.
These things may be good, but let's not mistake them for religion. God is first. We don't create God. We don't project God. We don't make God.
I discover it. I come into contact somehow or other. I don't want to use that word as experiential at all. You all know that. That's what we have got to get into our heads.
And what we call all of these things, what is the object of meditation? To make money, to run a good business, to run your family? That's good meditation. Nothing wrong with that. Even if it's metaphysical meditation, whatever that is.
But you see, don't mistake all this stuff of religion. Don't mistake your pursuit of peace as the pursuit of God. Remember, in most instances, and I speak here on fact, verifiable in history, when God enters your life, for the most part, it's not going to be peaceful. You name a saint. You name any canonized saint, not that that's the only kind of saint, but the other kind we can deal with, in in which this is not true.
So let's not make any mistake that god is is disturbing element for the simple reason, he's calling us to himself. He's not calling us to be fit and comfortable citizens in this world, not in the remotest slightest bit. And yet that's what we read this liberation theology business. Read so many, and I'm not the sincerity of the people involved, I do not question. I don't even care about their sincerity.
That's between them and God. But you remember, we we have got to come back to fact read say the the first letter of Saint Peter, where he talks to slaves. Slaves, he doesn't say, let's get rid of slavery. Slaves, rise up against your masters. That Christ was a great revolutionary.
He came to make you free. What does said what does Peter tell us Greek slaves? Be faithful to your master even when they're unreasonable because when they are most unreasonable and you follow their and you go along with their unreason, you are most rejecting self and accepting god. Now when did you see that on an Easter card and yet read it? It's in the first letter of Peter.
See, when god comes into our lives, usually trouble because god is a troublemaker, because he injects he injects a standard. He injects he his either everything or his nothing. I can as I say, I can deal with atheists. I respect atheists. But all of this other kind of malarkey that we're getting, I don't get what how do you deal with it?
It's very gentlemanly. It's very cultured. They even read Plato. Now you can't you do much better than that, you know. But it's not religion.
You cannot have honest to godly religion without god, And then God comes first, and my first obligation is to him. And look how Saint Peter today, in regard to this miracle, how he brings Jesus into focus. He doesn't say, look at us. Look how much more you are now. Look how God has saved you from your illness and all of that.
He uses this to bring God more proximate, to make God more actual and real to these unbelievers, And then he uses that to try to bring them back to sin. Notice, he even dares to talk about sin. That's pretty horrible stuff even to mention sin today. You know? We only make errors.
And so in this Easter week, when we say that Christ rose from the dead and our faith rests upon that, believe it. It does. We have a savior, Objective. It's not how I act towards him that makes him more or less a savior. It may have a great effect upon me, but it doesn't change Jesus Christ.
It is I who have to go to the tomb. And if I expect to find Jesus Christ, the son of god, in a tomb, I am horribly mistaken. That tomb that covered and Jesus Christ once covers him no longer. Our lord rose from the dead, and our faith is not in vain. In the name of the father and the son and the spirit.
Amen.