Luke’s
Gospel recounts the appearance of Jesus to the disciples in the Upper Room in
Jerusalem. The two disciples who had
encountered Jesus on the Road to Emmaus had rushed back to Jerusalem to share
incredible news. They had seen the Lord and recognized Him in the breaking of
the bread. The faithful, gathered in the
privacy of the Upper Room, were now putting all the pieces together-sharing
other eyewitness stories of the resurrection of Jesus (Luke24:35-48).
Then,
without warning, their mood shifted from joy to fear. To their great surprise, the Lord appeared in
their midst and proclaimed, "Peace be with you."
Jesus, observing that they were distressed, asked "Why
are you troubled?" Jesus then showed them His hands
and feet. And, to further demonstrate
that He was no ghost, He asked for something to eat. Fish was what was available on the table,
which He ate “to the full”.
Now the disciples knew that this was no ghost!
Once again,
just as Jesus had done while walking with the disciples on the Road to Emmaus,
He pointed the gathered back to the Scriptures which foretold His death and
resurrection—and the revelation that "repentance, for the
forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning
from Jerusalem."
We can
relate this teaching in the Upper Room to the account in the Acts of the
Apostles, and Peter fulfilling Jesus’ call to preach repentance–beginning in
Jerusalem (Acts 3:13-19). Filled
with the Holy Spirit,
Peter preached with vim and vigor the message of the Risen Lord and the need
for repentance. Peter could relate to
this need for repentance from his own personal experience.
He knew what
despair and emptiness comes from denying Christ. Clearly, to be a good preacher of repentance and
a life in Jesus Christ, we must be willing to repent our own sinfulness.
In this
Easter Season, let’s focus on our ongoing conversion and renewal in faith—that we
too may join in active discipleship and preach in action and words our belief
in the power of Jesus Christ. To
strengthen our faith and knowledge, we must take time to break open the Word
and recognize Jesus in "the breaking of the
bread." We
need to do all of this in community, just as the disciples did while gathered
in their Upper Room.
Like the
disciples, we too may experience times of fear or confusion. Nevertheless, if we remain faithful to our
call, we can and will experience the power of the Risen Christ in our lives.
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