The Road to Emaus

​Luke 24:38-40

38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” ​40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.

How do beliefs work? How do we believe something? Beliefs are related to tradition, as well as evidence. Sometimes we believe because something was taught in a certain way, and others because the evidence is unquestionable. We are a community that believes in the same ideas about God and Jesus. The key point is, why do we believe it? Tradition or evidence? What kind of evidence do we need to believe? Empirical? Miracles? Signs, or can we just believe in the truth coming from the bible?

In 2018, an enterprise called YouGov asked the question: "Do you believe that the world is round or flat?" 84% of Americans indicated that they've always thought the world is round. But as the age of respondents decreased, the number of persons who were always sure the world is round dropped. While only 4% indicated they'd always believed the world is flat, a whopping 16% (highest of any age group) said, "Not sure." In sum, 1 in 5 persons aged 18-24 indicated that they always thought the world was flat or just weren't sure. That's a lot of people. For some Flat Earthers, evidence of the Earth's shape may be found in the Bible. More than half of Flat Earthers (52%) consider themselves very religious.

Talking about belief, we can cite the African Proverb which says: "A child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth." Belief coming to us through different channels example: Marriage, it means when we get married we trend to assume a mutual belief about life, also our Family in general, I mean Kids assume their parents' beliefs, also Friendship because being connected to others through a common interest we also assume beliefs, for sure the local Church, because being connected to other believers we share beliefs and doctrine and finally coming from others groups as school or University due connecting people and through educational process we receive beliefs not just information.

Followers of Jesus in the early church were appealed to believe through the resurrection evidence. After Easter, the gospel recounts the appearances of Jesus. At first, in the first years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Christians were concerned with defending the resurrection through apparitions.

They were during the great appearance of the risen Jesus, but to the extent that the enemies' criticism of faith in the resurrection grew and, internally, criticism and debts arose regarding various functions in the communities (cf. 1 Cor 1:12), they will begin to remember the appearances of Jesus. There are two types of apparitions in the gospel: (a) those that accentuate doubts and resistance of the disciples in believing in the resurrection, and (b) those that draw attention to Jesus' orders to the disciples, conferring upon them some mission. The first response to criticism from outside. They show that Christians are not naive and gullible people who accept anything. On the contrary. They had many doubts about believing in the resurrection. The others respond to criticism from within and base community functions and tasks not on the always debatable human qualities, but on the authority and orders received from the resurrected Jesus. The appearance of Jesus narrated in today's gospel combines two aspects: the disciples' debts and the mission to proclaim and forgive received from Jesus.

In Luke 24:35, we find the summary of Emmaus. Upon returning to Jerusalem, the two disciples found the community gathered and communicated the experience they had. They narrated what happened along the way and how they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread. The gathered community tells them, in turn, how Jesus appeared to Peter. It was a mutual sharing of the experience of resurrection, as happens to this day when communities come together to share and celebrate their faith, their hope, and their love.

In Luke 24:36-37, we find that the appearance of Jesus causes fear in the disciples. At this moment, Jesus becomes present among them and says, "Peace be with you!" It is Jesus' most frequent greeting: "Peace be with you!" (John 14,27; 16,33; 20,19.21.26). But the disciples, seeing Jesus, remain afraid. They are scared and do not recognize Jesus. Before them is the real Jesus, but they imagine that they are seeing a spirit, a ghost. There is a disagreement between Jesus of Nazareth and the resurrected Jesus. They can't believe it.

In Luke 24:38-40, we find Jesus helping them overcome fear and disbelief. Jesus does two things to help the disciples overcome fear and disbelief. He shows them his hands and feet, saying: "It is I!", and orders the body to be palpated, saying: "Because a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Jesus shows his hands and feet because the marks of the nails are on them (cf. Jn 20:25-27). The resurrected Christ is Jesus of Nazareth, the same one who was killed on the Cross, and not a ghost Christ as the disciples imagined seeing him. He ordered the body to be palpated because the resurrection is the resurrection of the whole person, body, and soul. The resurrection has nothing to do with the theory of the immortality of the soul, taught by the Greeks.

In Luke 24:41-43, we find another gesture to help them overcome disbelief. But it's not enough. Luke says that because of so much joy, they could not believe it. Jesus asks to be given something to eat. They gave him a piece of fish, and he ate in front of them to help them overcome the debt.

In Luke 24:44-47, we find a reading key to understand the new meaning of Scripture. One of the greatest difficulties of the first Christians was accepting a crucified person as the promised messiah since the law itself taught that a crucified person was "a cursed person of God" (Dt 21:22-23). Therefore, it was important to know that Scripture had already announced: "that Christ must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that conversion for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all nations." Jesus showed them that this was already written in the Law of Moses, in the prophets, and the Psalms. The risen Jesus, alive among them, becomes the key to unlocking the full meaning of Holy Scripture.

In Luke 24:4,8, we find the expression: You are witnesses of this. In this final order is the mission of Christian communities: to be witnesses of the resurrection, so that the love of God who welcomes us and forgives us is manifest and wants us to live in community as his sons and daughters, brothers, and sisters, one of them. 

We are called to believe, as followers of Jesus we face different trials for our faith, sometimes natural and clear enough other they are hidden under the dress of the circumstances. Our beliefs are required to keep our lives under God's providence and to live under His grace and love. Sometime is easier for people believe that the Earth is flat than the resurrection.

There is a mortal power in beliefs. I would like to illustrate it with a brief story. Jonestown, November 18, 1978, was a location where the mass murder, suicide of members of the California, based Peoples Temple cult at the behest of their charismatic but paranoid leader, Jim Jones, occurred in the Jonestown agricultural commune, Guyana. The death toll exceeded 900, including some 300 who were age 17 and under, making the incident one of the largest mass deaths in American history. When people believe in the wrong manner or in error, the consequences can be devastating.
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The bible shows us evidence about Jesus' resurrection, which includes testimonies and facts, but we need to decide to believe it. Even though that sounds too simple, in general, we can assume faith as a tradition, as an influence, or as a belonging, and when the trials come into our lives, we face doubts and resistance to believe as the first followers of Jesus. Something as Thomas did, we demand evidence, and we just need to come to our own lives and check all the mercy and love that God has shown us through our existence. Even if we are sick now, God has taken care of us for a long time before. Even when we lost something, the truth is God has given us a lot of undeserved gifts, and Jesus has given us our salvation. Also, we can recognize the presence of Jesus in our lives through empirical evidence. For example, if we are weak, we can feel his hands giving us strength, we can identify His voice in the comfort coming from people around, the Holy Spirit is guiding us in worship, even when we are sad or experience loneliness. The peace given for Jesus comes to us as well as it did for the first follower in the early church.

We can come as a community to share the testimonies and be encouraged through the work God is doing through us, but also in others around us. We are a Witness Community; we have enough evidence to believe in Jesus as our savior, our healer, and our Lord. Jesus shows us His bounds and tells us the same that He said to the followers: it is I. He won over death to help us to overcome our fears and disbeliefs. His resurrection is the most important evidence of His power, so we can trust in Him as the conqueror over death. As Jesus ate the piece of fish to support the faith of His disciples before, now He gives us a lot of signs coming from the Holy Spirit to support our faith in the midst of our personal crisis. But also, Jesus points us to the Scriptures to come and verify all the coherence of God's plan for our lives. Everything that has been written has also helped us to believe in God's love.

Then we are witnesses of everything about God's kingdom, and because of that our mission is announce Jesus resurrection and the message of love offered by God for all human beings. We are witnesses of His resurrection, we are a community of believers that proclaim and support a mutual testimony of faith in such a way that when one is weak, the rest of the community comes to support him or her, when someone is happy, everyone celebrates together his or her joy. When we pray together, when we learn together, when we worship together, we build a sense of community which is one of the more appreciated values for a world full of loneliness, depression, and sadness, but in Jesus, we find joy and hope because He lives.