For Sunday
Easter 3B

Collect

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Reading

From Luke 24:36b-48

“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.”

Reflection

This Easter encounter from Luke shows the disciples as a bit more freaked out than we heard last week. Honestly, this strikes me as being true to life. Nobody actually wants to touch these wounds. I mean, gross! And then there’s the part
about thinking he must be a ghost. And I get it! A paranormal event is actually more rational than the resurrection.

These resurrection stories are enchanting. But this one has a little something extra.

Jesus talks about his fulfilling scripture by dying and rising again. And he calls the disciples “witnesses of these things.”

But I’ve skipped over something.

“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,”

Jesus then says “You are witnesses of these things.” Witnesses, not just to the suffering and the rising, but also to the repentance and forgiveness and the proclaiming.

We often treat the death and resurrection as belief stuff on the one hand and then the repenting and forgiving and proclaiming as action stuff on the other. But it is all of a piece; all of it we are witnesses to. It is all the stuff of proclamation.

This Easter Season is all about having received the repentant sinner, forgiving them, and proclaiming the restored body to the world. It strikes me that this is our part in proclaiming the resurrection story.