Easter Sunday (April 20). WITNESSES

Prepare to Listen.  You are witnesses of these things.
 
Prayerfully Read Luke 24:36-48
36While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’  37They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  38He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  39Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.  Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’  40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.  41While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’  42They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate in their presence.  44Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’  45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  48You are witnesses of these things.’
 
Prayerfully Wonder and Reflect
What caught your attention in today’s reading?  Wonder why it did.
 
“Peace be with you.”  Perhaps Jesus’ most significant words after his resurrection.  No rebuke for failure to believe he’d rise again.  Just a compassionate, Peace be with you.  Their reaction?  “They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.”  Jesus then gave them an opportunity to trust their own sense experience—look, touch.  He didn’t demand belief, merely encouraged it on the basis of their senses.  They still struggled, as Luke states, “In their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.”  Jesus’ response?  I’m hungry, guys.  Have you anything to eat?
 
Jesus then patiently “opened their minds to understand” the scriptures about him.  He then commanded, “You are witnesses of these things.”  Witnesses of his life, death, burial, resurrection.  Witnesses, not definers or explainers, but witnesses.  Witnesses don’t need to understand, are often incapable of explaining or defining.  But that’s okay.  Their job is to tell what they saw and experienced.  We’re now witnesses, not definers; witnesses not problem-solvers.  We don’t make it up, adapt Jesus to fit our desires.  We’re witnesses to our face-to-face encounters with Jesus as we live with what the first witnesses recorded of their experiences.  Face to face with Jesus we discover our true selves and can then change to become mirror images of Jesus, reflecting him to the world.
 
In what ways have you experienced Jesus face to face this Lent and Easter and how is it changing you?
 
Prayerfully Respond
Lord, keep me seeking you face to face so that I may be a faithful witness, even if I don’t fully understand all you’ve said and done.  Thank you for the life you make possible for the world.  Amen,
 
Live obediently.  You are witnesses of these things.