A Ghost Story
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April 13, 2024The Third Sunday of Easter for Year B takes us out of the Gospel of John and into the Gospel of Luke for one of the resurrection appearances of Christ. We are reading the episode that follows the famous account of Jesus appearing to the disciples on the road to Emmaus - the famous story where he takes the bread, blesses the bread, breaks it and disappears, and then the disciples recognize him. Subsequently, Jesus appears to the disciples as standing among them and says, “Peace be with you.” In this case, though their reactions are a little different, it says that “they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.”
The Greek word for spirit is pneuma. But in this context, spirit can also mean what we would consider to be a ghost or the spirit of a person who has departed from this world coming and appearing to us after their death. It is one of the examples that we see in the Gospels where the disciples might seem to believe in the existence of the soul after death.
In order to allay their fears and to also prove to them that he is not a ghost, Jesus shows them his hands and his feet. He is giving them evidence of his crucifixion. The likelihood here is that he is showing them the wounds in his hands and his feet so that they can see that not only that he has a body, but it is the same body that was crucified on Good Friday. This is a very important point, especially in a 1st century context, because there were all kinds of beliefs about the afterlife, including reincarnation (that somebody’s soul could leave their body and come back in a different person’s body).
Then the Gospel says something that is very important: “Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” The Scriptures that are being referred to here are the three parts of the Jewish canon of Scripture, namely the Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nebi’im) and the Writings (Ketubim). The disciples knew their Scriptures but still did not understand it. They needed Christ to open their minds to understand what referred to him in the Scriptures.
We are reminded that whenever we are studying the Scripture, especially the foreshadowings in the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the New Testament, we need the grace that comes from Christ so we can see the connections. The reading and studying of the Scripture are not just academic exercises but spiritual. Pray before you read the Scripture. We can learn a lot on our own powers, but they are not enough. We need God’s help in order to see the full depth of the meaning of his own word.
This is important in our witnessing. We can only be “witnesses of these things” when we ourselves know not just the truth about Christ, but the Truth who is Christ. This is what we are called to proclaim to those whom we love – to our family, friends, coworkers – and the people whom we encounter in our daily lives.