Fr. Michael Williams

When Jesus appears to the disciples their minds are initially closed. They are discussing rumours of Resurrection with one another, but discussing something does not mean that we necessarily we believe in it. Jesus wants to take His disciples beyond discussion and into the reality of His Resurrection.

Initially, the disciples are “agitated” and full of “doubts”. This is to be expected, but they, and we, cannot only remain with agitation and doubt. Those first disciples, and we, have to move forwards. Jesus always tries to move His disciples forward; He doesn’t want us to stand still. Standing still in agitation and doubt will lead us to becoming paralysed.

Jesus’ Resurrection appearances are designed to reassure His disciples, and confirm to them, that He has overcome the last enemy of man, namely death. Understandably, the disciples are sceptical. When people died they were buried and that was that.

But when “Jesus himself stood among them” the disciples are challenged to go beyond their fears and doubts, and open their minds to a new reality; they are challenged into believing something new. They are challenged by the fact that this man Jesus whom they had followed for three years and was brutally killed, is now alive and out of the tomb.

Jesus tries to assure them that it is truly Him; He wants to take the disciples beyond their doubts: “Look at my hands and feet; yes it is I indeed. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have”. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is something completely new, and to further reassure His disciples Jesus shares a meal with them.

The Resurrection of Christ is the beginning of God’s new creation. Jesus suffered the pains of the old creation by dying on the cross, but by His death and Resurrection, He has inaugurated the new creation where death is done away with. Jesus is the first to be born from the dead in the new creation.

To accept this truth we have to go beyond the narrow concepts of reality, which state death is our final end. To believe the reality of the Resurrection we have to overcome our doubts and fears, just like those first disciples.

Jesus seeks to reassure us also and help us to believe that He is truly risen. Primarily He does this through His Church, which is also called His Mystical Body. Although we cannot see the Risen Christ with our physical eyes, we can see the Body of Christ, the Church, spread right across the world proclaiming the truth that Jesus “is the sacrifice that takes our sins away” and that “God raised Him from the dead”.

Jesus reassures us that He is alive today and with us as we make our journey from the old creation of decay to the new creation of immortal life. Jesus “opened [the disciples] minds to understand” that He is Risen; He does that for us too in the reading of the Scriptures and the Breaking of the Bread. Jesus is with us now and always, so let us open our minds to this reality, just like those first disciples did, after their initial doubts and scepticism.