EMMAUS
Divinity and Humanity
Christ died, rose again, and ate baked fish?! What’s going on?!
Following the Emmaus experience, the two disciples (Cleopas and his companion) rushed back to the others and recounted what transpired in that journey. And why wouldn’t they? The joy of seeing our Lord Jesus back from the dead is more than enough to behoove them to let it be known to their brothers.
But Christ probably stopped them mid-sentence when he suddenly stood in their midst. And typical of his appearances to his brothers, he would always begin with the words, “Peace be with you.” If anything, that is one common aspect of both last week’s Gospel from John, and this week’s from Luke.
The disciples’ reactions were quite obvious:
But they were startled and terrified
and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
Many times our thoughts and actions are ran over by fear. In fact, in so many instances, we allow fear to be the overarching emotion that operates in our lives.
But Christ cannot be bound by our fears. He cannot be shackled down by those fears, but overpowers them with the assurance of peace that only he can give us, that we can never find in this world. The invitation of peace from Christ is always present. Christ will continually stir our hearts, minds, and souls, and it is that stirring that gives us the peace that this world can never truly give. Perhaps it is why he had to repeat the words “Peace be with you” and provide words of reassurance.
But what else could be so striking in this Sunday’s Gospel that demands careful and ardent reflection?
This Gospel may not have the dramatic episode that we experienced with Thomas, but it gives us a glimpse of something that could completely strike as incredulous to any skeptical reader of the Gospel, or perhaps even to some of the faithful ones:
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Christ followed with these words:
“Have you anything here to eat?”
Any skeptic of the Resurrection of Christ might be floored by these words. After all, someone who died, was buried, suddenly rose from the dead three days after, appears just wherever he wills it to be, is now hungry!
But perhaps that is where the Gospel should start hitting us to the core. Christ, in this Gospel reading, chose the most mundane of things to prove two things that are of equal weight: his divinity and humanity.
His ability to be physically anywhere, no longer bound by the laws of physics or the flow of time after rising from the dead, expresses his divinity. He is able to rise from the dead, not because someone made it happen for him, but out of who he truly is, God incarnate.
At the same time, he shows to us the fullness of his humanity through the most mundane of activities, these human activities that are just but mere everyday activities that we may take for granted: touch and eating.
Something may even strike the reader, if one tries to really zoom in on the details. Christ is served baked fish to eat. And this element in the Gospel connects us back to Christ’s words to Peter on the Gospel of Matthew, when he first called them:
“Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
We can also recall one key episode in the Resurrection saga, in John 21, when Jesus appears at the Sea of Tiberias. Fish was also a key element in the Gospel, of which the disciples first caught nothing. It wasn’t until Christ was standing by the beach and told them to cast the nets on the right-hand side that they were able to drag a net full of fish.
If anything, there is this two-fold action that happens when fish is involved in the Gospel readings. We notice that the fish are brought to shore, brought to Christ. But Christ also gives it back for the disciples to be nourished with.
But what does this have to do with us?
Here is a reminder of a God who chose to be human like us in all aspects except sin. Here is a reminder of a God who died, only to rise again, that in his forty days before ascending to heaven, we are given a glimpse of the glory that is to come.
Here the Gospel shows us of the disciples’ continuing mission to bring people to Christ, to preach unwaveringly and unceasingly, firm in the faith.
“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer
and rise from the dead on the third day
and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins,
would be preached in his name
to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.”
This continuing mission is handed down to us through the Church. We are called to continue with that mission, to remain steadfast to this mission laid out before us. Some of us may not be adept with words, but to carry on this mission to preach does not rely on words alone, but in all aspects of the Christian life, to be that kind of witness that allows the world to truly see Christ in and through us, even if our backs are hard-pressed against the wall.
And it continues, despite the seeming hard-headedness of the world, despite how people seem to be shunning the faith, despite how people seem to be embracing the world more than God who is the Creator, Provider, and Savior. We forge on as, the Gospel tells us.
We are like the fish, brought to Christ, but must also be brought to others.
When we are meant for Christ, then we are also meant to be shared to the world. It is in this manner that we join Christ in embracing, sharing, and living out his divinity and humanity.
Ave Maria!
