Eastertide #9:

In their joy they were disbelieving.

 (Luke 24:41)

After the road and after the table when they recognized that it was actually Jesus. Cleopas and his wife couldn’t sleep. So, they headed back to Jerusalem to look up the disciples and to tell them “what happened on the road, and how Jesus made himself known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:35).

Sure enough, they found the disciples huddled together, trying to make sense out of things. It was then “while they were talking about this, that 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?’” (Lk 24:36-41)

Eating with our resurrected Lord seems to settled things. That’s how Peter explained it to Cornelius, that Roman military officer: “God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear… to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Ac 10:40-41). Maybe that’s why the Great Supper awaits us in Glory (Rv 19:9). Maybe we just find ourselves sitting at that eternal table, eating and drinking, and then we begin to notice, “That must be Jesus.”