The Mystery of Christ
The Liturgy as Spiritual Experience

by Father Thomas Keating

Chapter 2 Part XV

The Easter-Ascension Mystery

The Appearance in the Upper Room

    Late in the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, although the doors of the place where the disciples had gathered were bolted for fear of the authorities, Jesus came and stood before them: "Peace be to you," he said. [John 20:19]
    They were in a complete panic, fancying they were seeing a ghost. "Why are you disturbed?" he said to them, "and why do you let doubts come into your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. Surely it is my very self! Feel me, and convince yourselves; no ghost has flesh and bones such as you see I have!" With that, he showed them his hands and his feet.
    But they still refused to believe; it was too good to be true, and continued in their perplexity. So he said to them, "Have you something here to eat?" Then they offered him a piece of broiled fish which he accepted and ate before their eyes.
    He said to them, "These events are the fulfillment of what I predicted to you when I was still with you, namely that anything ever written concerning me--in the Law of Moses, in the prophets, or in the psalms--must be fulfilled." He then gave them the key to the understanding of the scriptures. "This," he said to them, "is the gist of the scripture: The messiah must suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead. Furthermore: In his name the need of a change of heart and the forgiveness of sins must be preached to all the nations."
[Luke 24:37 - 47]
Gospel of the Third Sunday of Easter

    This appearance of Jesus took place after the two disciples had returned to Jerusalem and heard the other disciples joyfully announce, "It is true! The Lord is risen! He has appeared to Simon!" 

   In the midst of their conversation, Jesus suddenly appeared, throwing the group into a state of panic. They thought he was a ghost, even though they had just been talking about his appearance to Peter. Jesus' words to them are fraught with significance: "Peace be to you!" Peace is the tranquility of order. It is true security. True security is the direct consequence of divine union. There is nothing wrong with desiring security. Everybody wants it and needs it. The problem is that we look for it in the wrong places. Peace is the result of the principal benefit of Christ's resurrection--the experience of the divine Presence as permanent. Peace is the treasure that Jesus triumphantly and joyfully bestows, or tries to bestow, on his crushed and demoralized apostles. 

   "Peace be with you!" he said again. But these words made no impression on them because they were preoccupied with the fear that they might be seized and put in jail as his disciples. They were a little band of frightened people just beginning to revive from their crushing bereavement. Suddenly, Jesus is visibly in their midst. Their first thought probably was, "I thought we bolted the door!"

    Jesus had now passed beyond spatial limitations. He came in through the bolted door. Or maybe he was already present on another level of reality, invisible to the disciples. He had previously said to them, "Wherever two

    He said to them, "Why are you disturbed?" As usual, Jesus goes to the heart of their motivation. At this point, their emotional programs and their imaginations were working overtime: they were projecting a ghost where there was obviously a person of flesh and blood. They did not even have the courtesy to invite him to sit down.

    Jesus, perhaps with a certain amusement, asked them again, "Why do you let doubts arise in your minds?" He was trying to reassure them. 

    Failing in that approach, he tried to calm them by engaging their external senses. "Look at my hands and my feet. Isn't it I?" Holding out his hands to them to satisfy their curiosity, he said, "Feel me and convince yourselves." "No ghost has flesh and bones such as I have!"

    Yet still they could not accept the plain fact of his visible presence among them. It was too good to be true! As they lingered in their perplexity, he continued to try to put them at ease.

    "Have you something to eat?" he asked. Nothing could convince us more quickly that an apparent ghost is a real human being than a request for something to eat. The disciples frantically looked around and came up with a piece of broiled fish.

    This detail is not without significance. Everything in the Gospel narratives of the resurrection has symbolic overtones. Fish, at the time these Gospels were written, had already become the symbol of Christ or one of his followers. In Greek the first two letters for Christ are also the first two letters for the word "fish". If a fish is the symbol of Christ, a broiled fish is the symbol of his transformed humanity. Jesus is standing before them, but in a transfigured humanity.

    After he had consumed the broiled fish, the disciples began to calm down. At last they were ready to receive his instructions. "These events," he said, "are the fulfillment of what I told you would happen." He had predicted on numerous occasions that he would be handed over to the authorities, put to death and rise on the third day, but the disciples' emotional blocks had not allowed them to hear what he was saying.

     "Everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the prophets and in the psalms must be fulfilled," Jesus continued. Then he gave them the key to understanding the scriptures. The key to understanding the scriptures enables one to perceive the spiritual meaning contained in the text. Jesus showed the disciples that the meaning of certain prophetic texts was fulfilled in the events that had just taken place: "The Messiah must suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that in his name the need for a change of heart and the forgiveness of sins must be preached to all the nations."

    The need for a change of heart is the need to change the direction in which we are looking for happiness. The same key that opens the scriptures opens the door to happiness.

    The forgiveness of sins and the consequent restoration of friendship with god is the great triumph of Jesus' sacrifice. This is the true security that every human heart yearns for. Jesus' sacrifice frees us from the separate-self sense and from the alienation that flows from it. This is the peace which the world cannot give. The peace of Christ comes from the inner experience of his resurrection, the realization of the union of our true self with the Ultimate Reality.

More information can be obtained by reading the book The Mystery of Christ by Fr. Thomas Keating.  It is offered in our Book Store.