READING: Luke 24:36-43
As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit 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. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.The newspaper headline would be: “Resurrected Christ appears in crowded room, eats broiled fish.”
I find the fish particularly interesting, because it fits in with a series of events in Jesus' ministry connected to food and drink. Think of the turning of the water into wine, feedings of thousands, the Last Supper.
Food is a particularly recurrent feature of the resurrected Jesus. Earlier in Luke 24—just before the account we read—St. Luke tells us of Christ's appearance on the road to Emmaus, during which he breaks bread with the two followers of Christ. On Thursday Sarah will give us a no-doubt brilliant exegesis of Jesus' post-fishing breakfast with some disciples. And here, of course, here we have Jesus snacking on some broiled fish. It says he “ate it before them,” which paints an odd picture to me—Jesus chowing down on fish, everyone staring at him, mouths probably still agape.
These food details interest me, and not just because I like food. Growing up, I interpreted the appearances of Christ between his resurrection and ascension as primarily about proof that he was in fact raised from the dead. That's obviously a huge part of these stories. It wasn't until much later that I started thinking about those appearances in light of the promised and yet-to-come resurrection of the dead.
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