The Meaning of Christ’s Eastertime Message

Dear Friends,

The risen Christ in Luke – indeed, the risen Christ in every post-resurrection account – says and does things that bring newness out of His followers. In each case, what they saw was something beyond what was before their eyes. They experienced the divine presence, and it truly affected them.

Take today’s portion of Luke. Jesus, who before His death, healed people through His touch, now, in His post-resurrection presence, wants to be touched Himself. “Touch me,” he says. “See that I am real."

And what about this irony: that Jesus, the Compassionate Feeder of Many, asks for food. “Have you anything to eat?” He asks His disciples. “Feed me.”

Christ’s Eastertime message to His disciples then and now is the same. Touch me, Feed me. Know that I am real. I am with you. Now.

There’s a kind of knowledge in us that we store up in our minds and there’s another kind of knowledge in us that spills over into our daily living.

The kind of knowledge of Jesus the disciples had after Easter and most especially after Pentecost, made them act in new ways. After Pentecost, they would speak with power, go fearlessly into the marketplace and preach with eloquence and persuasiveness. Persecution and prison would not dissuade them, because the roots of this new way of being began in those days when Jesus met them, after the resurrection in unexpected places – where He said to them, “Touch me. Feed me.”

Take the members of the World Central Kitchen, who died during a food delivery mission in Gaza. The need to feed people compelled them. They did not wish to die. Jose Andres, the founder of the WCK, wept as he talked about his volunteers who had died. Touch me. Feed me.

The workers who died in the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge were Hispanic, working to support their families here in the States as well as their countries of origin. Touch me. Feed me.

Even in ourselves, as we consider touching and feeding others, something has to die – a certain sense of self, a way of living. Dying could even mean a different use of our time and talents for the Body of Christ in our time.

This Sunday’s Gospel gives us a week-long opportunity to consider what it already means, what could it possibly mean to us when the risen Jesus says: “Touch me. Feed me.”?

~ Sister Joan Sobala