Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He 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.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then 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.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

We live in a world of deep longing. There are so many, out there, who are lost and lonely. Like an Easter egg hunt, we go looking and searching for meaning here, there and everywhere. Today’s Eastertide Gospel has Jesus profoundly present to the searching and lost disciples. And what does he do? He greets them, “Peace be with you!”

Aware of their confusion and fear he then does some of the most basic and human of things to build relationship – he invites them to touch him and share table with him. As disciples of the Risen Jesus our call is to build profound relationship with the people of God around us. The great Jesuit, Fr Teilhard de Chardin once said, “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God!” Peace and joy are the litmus tests of a God centred relationship and hence of discipleship. We are to be peace builders, peace bringers, peace nurturers, peace sowers – and if we build and bring and nurture and sow peace – we will experience profound joy.

It is no accident that the writer Tertullian writing in 197 AD said, “See how these Christians love one another!” I have no doubt that if we were to visit that ‘upper room’ minutes after the Risen Jesus disappeared from their sight once again, we would have experienced intimate joy, peace and love. Fall in love with the Shepherd and these three hallmarks will gift your everyday. Yes, we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.

How can we witness to a searching and longing world for the “Peace the world cannot give” and a joy which knows no bounds?