Sunday 14th April. Easter 3

Easter is not only a day, nor an Octave (8 days), but also a Season.  For forty days we travel in the light of the Resurrection until Ascension Day, and then from Ascension Day we await with the light of the Resurrection to mark the coming of the Spirit.  Of course we do this in Liturgical time, as we already have the light of the Risen Lord ad know the Spirit.  However, by walking with the Gospels and pondering the time of physical Resurrection we can engage ourselves more fully in the truth of our faith.

In our Gospel this week, we find Jesus appearance as reported by Luke.  The disciples are frightened by the appearance of Christ, and the possibility of Jesus being a ghost is engaged with. “Jesus said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look 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.”  The fact that they thought he was a ghost tells us that something of his risen form is different from that of his pre-resurrection body, but his response tells us that he was truly physical.  Indeed, he goes on to ask for and eat fish in front of them.

It was easy for early critics of the faith to deny the resurrection as some kind of post-death ghost or hysterical experience.  However, we find that Jesus knows that he must help his disciples understand that as a Risen Lord he remains truly human and physical by that in the light of the glory of God and the re-union of of His humanity with the fullness of God that that physicality is transformed and transfigured in a Spiritual dimension.  Indeed that perfect balance of body and soul is found in Him.  No longer is the spiritual subject to the vagaries of the physical nor the physical subject to decay.

This matters, not only because of the truth of the Resurrection, but also because we are assured in 1 John 3.2, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”  We examine this Risen Lord for He is as we shall be, in the fullness of His grace and salvation.

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!

Love and Prayers,  Fr Clive