Third Sunday of Easter Year B Luke 24,35-48

We about the wolf and the wolf behind the door. You must have experienced it several times. You are talking about someone, and suddenly, that person enters the door, knocks, or rings the bell. The one you were talking about is with us. Or, conversely, have you entered a company and been told: “We are just talking about you…” What usually follows immediately after this information? If I came somewhere and found out they were talking about me, I would immediately want to know what they were talking about… Because I can comment on it, argue with them, and tell them how it all is. Society often talks about someone in their absence, and the reality they mention may be inaccurate. So, when the disciples were talking about Jesus, I would expect that he would sit down and continue to have a spiritual conversation with them when he came among them. It would be appropriate. After all, who else should we expect to talk to people about God and spiritual things like the Son of God?

They certainly had a lot of confusion and questions. It is appropriate for him to sit among them and explain them to them. But what followed on that day can quite significantly disrupt our idea of ​​what Jesus’ presence among us means. Jesus comes among men and speaks as if he were not God at all. Reach out and touch my hands and feet. He does not explain any theology or lead a philosophical argument. – look at me. And then he asks, like any other person: “Do you have anything to eat? Come, let’s go together.” Although the apostles must have been startled and perplexed by His appearing among them (and yet not using the door!), something completely ordinary every day occurs in His presence. They didn’t even have time to prepare the feast. They didn’t have stock. What they did together then seemed not pious, as if we felt the food could have been put off. Jesus is among them, so something completely different would be more critical.

The Evangelist tells us this event, which occurred shortly after the first Christian Easter, i.e., after Christ’s resurrection, in great detail, almost naturalistically. He touched, put his hand in, sit at the table. It uses “tangible” verbs, which are still commonly used today. The apostles gathered again after a week in the Last Supper and were the first to announce Jesus. However, it was also a problem for them since they could no longer point their fingers at him and direct people to some place where they could look at him. As the first ambassadors, they had to sort out their thoughts and clarify how they could announce Jesus to the world when he was no longer physically present among them.

Let’s jump ahead a few days for a moment. In the first reading, we heard the story of one participant in the mentioned event who writes to his believers, his parishioners. He is the apostle Peter, one who saw Jesus when he came among them, had his hands touched, and wanted to eat with them. Peter addresses his believers with a fascinating speech. First, he explains theologically: “The God of our forefathers glorified his servant, Jesus,” In the second part of the text, he clearly says something directly from their lives: “You betrayed him and denied him before Pilate.” From that first sentence, one would almost feel intellectual elevation, floating to the philosophical plane.

On the other hand, the second part brings a person back to reality, and I must point out that it is not very joyful. It reminds me of moments in one’s life that didn’t quite work out. However, Peter says: “What God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets was fulfilled.” So, okay, we only stayed for a short time on that unpleasant level. Again, we are in a sermon that can be listened to: it explains, analyzes, and compiles already-known things from the Bible or theology. However, Petr does not stay there for long: “I know, you did it out of ignorance. Even your leading men.”

It can be seen that the first sermons that the apostles addressed to their believers are an example of how they announced Jesus – as someone who affects their ordinary, everyday life. Already in the first moments after the resurrection of Jesus, the apostles, and their disciples learn that faith cannot be separated from everyday life. Theology, i.e., the science of God, cannot be separated from morality, i.e., the principles of living correctly. This interweaving is beautifully traceable not only in this sermon by Peter but also in the mentioned presence of Jesus among the apostles right after his resurrection.

Since then, for two thousand years, not only preachers behind the microphone or in the pulpits but almost everyone who has believed in Christ suddenly faces the question: “So how should I show my faith?” What is required of me?” It would certainly be pleasant to give lectures about faith, God, and Christ, especially when someone is gifted with eloquence. Lectures are also significant because they help us expand and pass on our knowledge. However, only a tiny fraction of those who believe in this can speak. What about the rest of us?

So again, we have to return to the essentials: Jesus is not separate from other parts of our life. There isn’t a moment in your life and mine when it’s simply not there. Either I am with him, and then I never have to be ashamed to address him and be aware of his presence and that he hears and sees me, or I have made him only an accessory to my life when I only let him in at certain moments, to see him again locked or sent in front of the door. Do not simply drag faith and Christ into your marriage, your struggles, politics, or the bedroom. We cannot give Jesus a place there. Realizing how we sometimes allocate only certain moments and places of our lives to Jesus will help us understand at least a little why sin can hurt so much. Any, not just the publicly known ones. Because Jesus is present with me and in me even when I sin. Even then, he doesn’t want to leave me and leave me alone. Perhaps this very realization will make me feel more ashamed – before myself and before God – that I have fallen into sin. And the more and the sooner I will try to say to His face: “I’m sorry, I know you know about it. And I know you wanted it differently.”

When Jesus comes among the apostles and eats with them, When he talks with them about things that are so everyday and common, he gives a clear signal in which direction our testimony of faith should go and our proclamation of Christ. When I was a parish priest in Slovakia, a Hungarian Catholic weekly called Remény carried the testimony of a man who talked about his conversion. As a young widower, he was left alone with his two young children and needed someone to help him raise them. A lady applied to the ad whom the gentleman liked, and it seemed he might be satisfied with her as a nanny for his children. However, after a few days, when this man noticed she was wearing a chain with a medallion of the Virgin Mary around her neck, he asked her if she was a believer. When she answered him in the affirmative, he instructed her that he did not want her to influence his children in any way religiously and to tell them anything about God.

The lady went to her confessor to question whether she could even be in that family if she could not say anything about God. She ended up staying. When both children got a high fever, and it was necessary to get up and be with them at night, this woman remained in the house and took care of another family, who was a stranger to her and her family. After a few months, however, she fell ill herself, and the doctors discovered the total exhaustion of the organism in combination with untreated cancer. She died a few months later. At the funeral, the father of the family was standing by the coffin when the priest approached him, and they started talking about her. It turns out that he is the confessor who once gave her the answer to whether she should stay in this ministry. The answer was: “If you cannot talk about Him, let Him live in that family.” A man who had not wanted to hear about God all his life, thereby that body, sacrificed by tireless service, began to seek and know God, and after a few years, he testified about it in the periodic above.

Sometimes, we look for terribly complex constructions to bring someone to God; we invent various methods and tricks. However, sometimes it can be easier than we think. What we can do today is not to be ashamed to live as He wants. Do not worry about yourself, your reputation, or yourself. Allowing Him to love through us, even when the world around us is knocking on our forehead. Wanting to be involved, even if we won’t get anything out of it. Our vocabulary, expression, respect, and tolerance evidence it. When we are at school, at work, or on vacation, this is evidenced by our way of driving and our approach to protecting other people’s rights. I also learned how to keep my promises and if I go to work on time.

An ordinary coffee, which I gladly and lovingly make unexpectedly for my partner, or a small surprise that touches my mom precisely because she was not expecting it, can testify to His life in me. He can be in us even when we sit down at the table and are not ashamed to say thank you for the food in two sentences before eating, even when, while scooping from the tray, I can think of leaving the best for the others at the table. God is not only found in churches or catechism books. There, we only feed ourselves, draw energy, strengthen, and encourage ourselves. So that we can find a way to proclaim it further, even behind the church gates, and people can tangibly recognize Him through us and our lives.

Because where and how could they know Him? Do you remember – You were hungry, and someone gave you something to eat; you were thirsty, and someone noticed; you needed a handshake, and someone bent over to help you get off the tram; you were in trouble, and someone just squeezed your hand so that you knew he was thinking of you… Even today, He enters this community and this table. He sits down to eat with us, and we will receive him as food. Then he will want to stay even if we go out. Is it I, Lord, who then allows you to act? I let myself be influenced by you; for example, in the first hours after mass, when I get on the bus, I’m waiting for the train, I start preparing lunch, and my mother-in-law calls me… So ordinary. And such a strong testimony of Him coming to abide with us.