Third Sunday of Easter, Cycle B
Having had the most convincing proof of Jesus’ physical resurrection story from the Fourth Gospel traditions as our Gospel reading this past Sunday, we turn now for next Sunday to the most convincing proof of Jesus’ physical resurrection story in the Gospel According to Luke (Luke 24:36b-48).
We are grateful for these proof of Jesus’ physical resurrection stories, even though by faith even without them and with only Mark 16:1-8 we could believe that God raised Jesus physically from the dead. We are grateful for them because they indicate belief that after God has also raised us from the dead we too will be able to eat food, to touch and be touched, etc. We express our belief through the use of these texts that we too shall not be limited to a “spirit” existence. More than any other factor, this belief that after God has raised us from the dead we shall be able to relate to God and to one another physically has made Christianity the religion that has the largest number of members in the world today. It is not our ethical system nor the exemplary manner in which we have lived that has led to the immense popularity of Christianity. Instead, it has been this teaching and belief in a meaningful physical being after death and resurrection that has been the most attractive feature within Christianity. (The Greek concept of the immortality of the “soul,” for example, did not result in the ongoing development of a major “world” religion, although some of this concept was incorporated into Christianity. The Sikh concept of the faithful member being “absorbed” into God did not make Sikh religion widely attractive either.)
We are called to proclaim this physical resurrection belief clearly and joyfully. We should proclaim it with the firm conviction that God is active and will continue to be active in our history through Jesus Christ our Lord, without in any way attempting to restrict God to our own limited understanding and experience. This is the challenge that we face throughout the year, and especially during the Easter season and on this Third Sunday of Easter in Series B.
Luke 24:36b-48
This is a typically Lukan account in style, vocabulary, and literary genre. Just as in other accounts that are peculiar to Luke-Acts, this story provides answers in vivid literary drama to questions that “Theophilus” or any other Christian who “loves God” might ask during the last two decades of the first century of the common era. It provides the same answers for us also today.
There are two distinct portions in this text. Luke 24:36b-43 is a “proof of Jesus’ physical resurrection” story. It answers questions that must have been asked frequently among the followers of Jesus decades after his death, questions such as “Was it a spirit of Jesus or the spirit of Jesus that the disciples saw?” “Could this appearance have been merely the result of the imaginations of those first disciples?” “Is their testimony of having seen Jesus alive again perhaps only the wishful thinking of those who missed him and his presence so much after his death?” The answer given to all of these questions in this Luke 24:36b-43 account is the confident affirmation that Jesus was indeed and in every way physically present when he appeared to his disciples numerous times after his resurrection. He had the marks of his crucifixion on his body. The scars remained. Even more convincingly, he actually ate a piece of fish, this story says. A disembodied spirit does not eat fish!
The second part of this text (Luke 24:44-48) is a Lukan “fulfillment of scripture” account in which the disciples of Jesus are given specific directions and told that they are to anticipate a gift of power from God. It anticipates the Acts of Apostles sequel to Luke’s Gospel. We notice because of Hans Conzelmann’s The Theology of St. Luke that the Lukan “Stay in Jerusalem” command is significantly different from Mark’s and Matthew’s “Go to Galilee.” In view of the menu items (bread and fish) served in the feeding of the multitudes accounts and in this story about Jesus eating fish, it is surprising that fish sandwich meals have not been more significant within Christian communities.
1 John 3:1-7
The most obvious connection between this text and the Luke 24:36b-48 Gospel selection is “We do know that when the Son appears we shall be similar to the Son, because we shall see the Son just as the Son is” in 1 John 3:2b. Because the relationship between the Son and the Father is so intimate, there is ambiguity in texts such as 1 John 3:2b about whether the masculine pronoun is intended to have the Father, the Son, or God as its antecedent. It is also difficult to determine whether “he” (the Son) or “what we shall be” from the previous sentence should be considered to be the subject of “is revealed” in 1 John 3:2b. Church usage throughout the centuries, including the juxtaposition of Luke 24:36b-48 and 1 John 3:1-7 in this lectionary, suggest that the Son, or the Son and the Father as God, should be considered to be the subject of “appears” or “is revealed” here.
Acts 3:12-19
For those of us who have been sensitized by the Holocaust and the long history of the horribly damaging effects upon Jews, as well as of the dehumanization of Christians, caused by Christian anti-Semitism, it is deplorable that we have texts with verses such as Acts 3:13b-15 and 3:17-19 in this lectionary, to be read in Christian corporate worship settings.
A decision was made by Roman Catholic liturgical experts during and after Vatican II to use texts from Acts of Apostles rather than from the Older Testament as the “Old Testament” First Readings during the Sundays in the Easter Season after the Day of Easter in each of the three years of the lectionary cycle. This was done because presumably there were very few texts in the Older Testament that could be construed, even with the most skillful fine footwork of casuistry, to be “predictions” fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus. These liturgical experts and their ecclesial superiors and administrators unfortunately, in spite of their very commendable development and approval of the document Nostra Aetate, in which the Roman Catholic Church rejected the history of Christian anti-Semitism, included blatantly anti-Jewish verses such as Acts 3:13b-15, and 3:17-19 in their lectionary. The other Christian denominations and groups and their leaders who have used the lectionary developed by the Roman Catholics after Vatican II, including those who modified it somewhat to produce The Revised Common Lectionary, have also been deplorably insensitive to the use of blatantly anti-Jewish verses such as Acts 3:13b-15 and 3:17-19 in Christian corporate worship.
There is plenty of edifying material in our Bibles to use in three year, four year, or even ten-year lectionaries that is not blatantly defamatory to Jews. I had no difficulty whatsoever in finding far more than adequate edifying material that is not condemnatory of Jews when I prepared the Four Year Lectionary that I published as an Appendix in my The New Testament: A New Translation and Redaction (Lima, Ohio: Fairway Press, 2001). It is unconscionable for us to continue to read verses such as Acts 3:13b-15 and 3:17-19 in our Christian corporate worship.
Acts 3:12-19 is not even appropriate as a pericope in terms of form and structure. It starts within the middle of an account that begins in Acts 3:1 about Peter, John, and a man who had been lame from the time of his birth and it breaks off in the middle of a sentence that continues into 3:20. A pericope should have a beginning, body, and conclusion. Acts 3:12-19 begins in the middle of a pericope and ends within that pericope. To use it as we have it is somewhat like coming into a movie thirty minutes late and leaving thirty minutes before its ending.
Since the Acts 3 account is lengthy and actually with its continuation in Acts 4:1-4 has thirty verses, if our First Reading for the Third Sunday of Easter in Series B must be from Acts, the text chosen and used should start with the beginning of the Acts 3:1–4:4 account and include only the edifying and appropriate Acts 3:1-13a, 16. This adjustment from Acts 3:12-17 to Acts 3:1-13a, 16 should be made by lectionary revisers within all of the denominations and groups that are using this lectionary. Our adjustment to Acts 3:1-13a, 16 this coming Sunday and in succeeding years will contribute to this process.
Psalm 4
This psalm of entreaty and of trust can easily be interpreted from our Christian perspective, in the context of our belief that God raised Jesus from the dead. Our belief in the resurrection of Jesus puts joy into our hearts! It enables us to lie down and to sleep, to live securely. Within our lectionary this psalm also previews the texts for the Sunday that follows this one, the Great Shepherd of the Sheep Sunday, with its Psalm 23 and John 10:11-18 texts.
