READ SCRIPTURE (Luke 24:36b-48)
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.
Then Jesus said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, “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.”
REFLECT ON THE READING
The author of Acts, in seeking to appeal to the Gentiles and exonerate Pilate, has Peter blaming “the Israelites” for the death of Jesus. Peter here does not even remember his own guilt. The Christian tradition has rather seen the death of Jesus, however it came about, as bringing the possibility of repentance and forgiveness to us all. The scriptures are closed to us when we use them to judge others for their sins, forgetting our own. But the risen Christ in the power of the Spirit opens our minds to understand the scriptures. In them, when they are truly opened, we see his wounds and encounter his resurrection. In them we see the risen Jesus eat a fish, that representation of the chaos of the sea — of death — made into life-giving food. Every Sunday, the scriptures are opened for us. And every Sunday, when we are able to gather, Christ gives us life in his meal. When we cannot gather, we eat his body and blood in the scriptures themselves, by faith. In word and sacrament we meet the author of life and are given forgiveness, made children of God, and sent with words of witness and forgiveness to others.
PRAY TOGETHER
Holy and righteous God, you are the author of life, and you adopt us to be your children. Fill us with your words of life, that we may live as witnesses to the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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