A reading of the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke. The disciples recounted what had happened on the road to Emma House and how they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of the bread. And now while they were still speaking about all of this, of course, this is back in Jerusalem now, up in that upper room wherever it was. While they were still speaking about all of this, Jesus himself stood in their midst and said to them, peace to you. In their panic and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost.
But he 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 he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. They were still incredulous for sheer joy and wonder. So he said to them, have you anything to eat? They gave him a piece of cooked fish which he took and ate in their presence. Then Jesus said, those words that I spoke to you when I was still with you.
Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and Psalms had to be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to the understanding of the scriptures. And 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 nations beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses to 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. I'd like to remind you that the book of the acts, the acts of the apostles, which we're reading these days in the first week, that was written not before '70, but at the latest ninety AD. It was written in between there, twenty years. So it was written when there were plenty of people still living who were witnesses to Jesus Christ and were his contemporaries. Just keep that in mind.
Now I've been dwelling on what I would call the credibility of the resurrection of our lord. The thing I wanna stress this morning is this, that when our rule in all of his appearances, there's not the slightest suggestion in the text we have that they expected him to rise from the dead, that they expected him to appear to What in in every instance except one, and that's the last appearance up in Galilee when he rose when he ascended into heaven, what is their reaction every time to the appearance of Jesus? Their reaction is, it ain't so. We're seeing a ghost or something. And our blessed lord says, eat.
Give me something to eat. Touch me. Do ghosts eat? Do ghosts have flesh? Do ghosts have wounds in their hands and in their feet?
Now there's something very odd about all of this. In all of his appearances, except those appearances in the upper room, they don't recognize Jesus at once. They the women in the garden did not recognize him. The on the road to Emmaus, they did not recognize. They recognized him in the breaking of the bread.
This marvelous apparition up on the Lake Of Galilee when Peter and John and the and the rest of them from Galilee, when they left Jerusalem, the whole show was over. They were in despair. All their hopes were dashed. Their great vision of the restoration of the kingdom of Israel where they would be the the big shots, it's all gone. So they go back to Galilee and take up fishing again.
And then they're out there fishing one morning, and they see the man on the shore. Says, throw your net on the other side of the boat. You'll catch some fish. And they did it, and they caught fish. And when they came ashore, they saw that he had already prepared a fire and was cooking fish, but they didn't recognize Jesus right away.
They did later on. Now this is the point I wanna make. While I was down in Cartagena, I ran across a picture of mother Teresa, and it it was a picture taken of her as she was opening a door. Maybe a thought. I don't I don't know what paper I saw it in.
Anyway, as mother Teresa is opening a door, the first thing and the only thing she sees is a most repellent, ugly, gruesome man's face and shoulders and hands. It's all she sees. I don't know what the connection was or what the picture, but the thought struck me right away because immediately I thought of Holman Hunt's picture. The famous picture you know, I stand at the door and knock, where we have the beautiful door and a magnificent Christ garbed in a beautiful white robe, is carrying a lantern. It's also called the light of the world.
And there he's standing at this magnificent door with great big hinges and nicely varnished in their vines growing a magnificent scene and he's his knocking on the door. The text, is is taken from the book of Revelations. That's a magnificent picture. I I I've used it many times. Holman Hunt's picture.
But the point is, when we open the door to Christ or when we open the door, what do we expect to see? Do we expect to see the Christ of a Holman Hunt in this beautiful white luminous robe, the golden curls down to his shoulders, a most benign face, a most lovable figure? Or do we see what Mother Teresa saw when she opened that door and saw this caricature of a human being. That thought struck me. Do we recognize Christ?
See, this is the problem. It's very easy to follow Christ when it's comfortable. Now I don't wanna make too much of that because that's there's nothing wrong about that. Only an insane person seeks pain for its sake. That's craziness.
It is literally craziness. We call it we call it masochism. Now, the problem with us, we have a view of life in which we have which Christ has a place, and we have our expectations. You take the young people looking for their vocation. What does god oh, I've never heard one of them say this.
What does god want me to do? I have yet to hear one say that today. Yet that used to be piled into us day in and day out. What you hear today is fulfillment. And where can I go and get a good college education?
What what for? To get a good pay envelope. Now there's nothing wrong in a good pay envelope, but if that's the end of education, there's something wrong with it, you see. But the point I'm making is we have a view of the of Christ, of life, of following him which may be totally contradictory of the reality. I think of C.
S. Lewis. Here he is on the way to the zoo and on a motorcycle with his brother Warren. Now something happened. I don't know what happened.
He didn't know what happened. But that night, from being a first class atheist, C. S. Lewis fell on his knees beside his bed and prayed to God. Now what does C.
S. Lewis say about that? He says, I was the most reluctant, reluctant Christian on God's earth. He didn't want it. Who, when mother Teresa opens that door and sees that poor man, there's nothing there lovable.
There's nothing lovable in that man himself as such. It takes more than nature to see god in that man. And that's why mother Teresa said and she said this. It's in that picture made of her life. Someone said, how do you love these people?
They're so unlovable. They're so repellent repulsive. She says, I don't love them. I love god. Now this is what we've gotta get into our heads, that god went god doesn't ask me to do the impossible.
He shows me the way. I am the light of the world. He said that. But remember, it's his life, not what I want always, or not what I would like, or not what is to my fulfillment. That's the key word, fulfillment.
It may be nothing along that line as I see it. When I open the door, when I think Christ is knocking, what do I expect to see? And am I in a receptive mood to recognize Christ even when he is when it appears most unlovable. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.