Spending Time with Jesus

Homily for Easter Friday

As I was reading today’s Gospel, I found myself being intrigued by the last line: “This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead.” That statement got me to wondering whether or not it took three times before the disciples accepted the fact of the resurrection. While they had seen Jesus do many miracles during his lifetime, rising from the dead was certainly far and away the greatest miracle they had witnessed. Each of the evangelists tells us that the apostles and the women who had discovered the empty tomb were amazed and confused in the face of the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. Who could blame them? Nothing like this had ever happened. Nothing like this has happened since. The Church teaches that we will all rise from the dead at the end of time. We have placed our hope in this article of faith. Yet we can hardly criticize the early Christians for their amazement and confusion.

Today’s appearance story comes to us from the Gospel of St. John. If we boil this episode down to its basic meaning, Jesus asked his disciples to spend time with him. This is exactly what he asks of each of us. It is only by spending time with Jesus that we learn to trust and to believe in the Gospel which proclaims that Jesus died for us and then rose from the dead. While we do not have the good fortune of being able to sit down to breakfast with Jesus, we are invited to gather around the table of the Lord to remember all that Jesus has done for us. Like that scene on the shores of the Sea of Tiberius, it is an invitation to spend time with Jesus and to experience his love in the sacrament of his Body and Blood.

By spending time with the apostles after the resurrection, Jesus was preparing them for the task of proclaiming the good news. In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear Peter and John boldly proclaiming the power of the name of Jesus before the Sanhedrin, the very group which had condemned their master to death. Just as Jesus prepared them by spending time with them and eating with them, Jesus prepares us for the same task of proclaiming the good news of his resurrection through the example of our lives. We are indeed fortunate to spend time with Jesus. It goes without saying that his invitation makes it possible for us to be with him whenever we turn to him in prayer.