Acts 3:13-15, 17-19 / 1 John 1:1-5 / Luke 24:35-48
As we come to the third Sunday of Easter, things have slowed down a bit, and in a way the excitement has also kind of faded off.
On Easter Sunday, there was the empty tomb and people were running around excitedly.
On the second Sunday of Easter, the Risen Lord Jesus appeared to His disciples, breathed on them in the Holy Spirit, and then He appeared again for Thomas and asked him to touch His wounds.
On this third Sunday of Easter, the Risen Lord Jesus was still appearing to His disciples, but things were not as dramatic as compared to the previous two Sundays.
As we heard in the gospel, Jesus had earlier appeared to two of His disciples, but they did not recognize Him until He broke the bread with them.
And then when He appeared to the rest of His disciples, they were initially frightened, but as Jesus showed them His hands and feet, their fear turned to joy, but they still could not believe it and they stood there dumbfounded.
Then Jesus made a rather amusing request. He asked them if there was anything to eat.
They offered him a piece of grilled fish, which He took and ate before their eyes.
That is rather amusing, because the Risen Lord Jesus, besides saying “Peace be with you”, the other thing that seemed to be on His mind was food.
He broke the bread with the two disciples, and so it was over food that He revealed Himself, and then they recognized him.
He took the grilled fish and ate before their eyes, and it was another revelation.
Through an ordinary commodity like bread and an ordinary act of eating grilled fish, Jesus was telling His disciples that He is risen from the dead and that He is real and alive.
So, if we were to ask the disciples what was their experience of the Risen Lord Jesus, they would say this: He showed us His wounds. He broke bread. He asked for food and He actually ate something.
The first experience of seeing the wounds of the Risen Lord Jesus was dramatic and amazing enough.
But it was the ordinary act of breaking bread and eating grilled fish that revealed the reality of the Risen Lord Jesus.
So as Jesus sent the disciples to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins, they were to witness to Jesus not in dramatic or spectacular or amazing acts.
Rather it is through the ordinary acts of life that they will bear witness and reveal Jesus to others.
There is this story of a group of salesmen who went to a regional sales convention. They had assured their families that they would be home in time for Friday night dinner.
But the convention overran the time and they rushed to the airport and to the boarding gate.
With boarding passes and briefcases and other stuff, one of the men accidently knocked over a table which held a display of apples.
Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane just in time … all but one.
That man paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned. He told his colleagues to go on without him, waved good-bye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight.
Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor. He was glad that he did.
Because the girl selling the apples was blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as people rushed around her.
The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display.
As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.
When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, “Here, please take this money for the damage we did. Are you okay?” She nodded through her tears.
As the salesman started to walk away, the blind girl called out to him, “Sir ….” He paused and turned to look back at the girl.
She continued, “Are you Jesus?” He stopped in mid-stride … and he wondered. He went back and said, “No, I am nothing like Jesus – He is good, kind, caring, loving and would never have bumped into your display in the first place.”
The girl gently nodded: “I only asked because I prayed for Jesus to help me gather the apples. He sent you to help me, so you are like Him – only He knows who will do His will. Thank you for hearing His call, Sir.”
Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight, with that question burning and bouncing about in his heart: “Are you Jesus?”
We witness to Jesus by being Jesus to others. We make Jesus real for others in the ordinary acts of kindness, compassion, generosity, patience and understanding.
In a word, we witness to Jesus and make Him real for others by acts of love.
So, like how the girl asked the salesman, “Are you Jesus?” let us ask ourselves, “Am I Jesus to others?”
Let us ponder on that question and we will experience the Risen Lord Jesus for ourselves.