Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - A Righteous Violence

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 4.21.22 | Aux. Bishop R. Barron

[MurphsLaw]

THURSDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF EASTER

LUKE 24:35–48

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus appeared alive again to his followers. Upon seeing him, “they were startled and terrified.”
They are terrified because the one they abandoned and betrayed and left for dead is back—undoubtedly for revenge!

Luke’s risen Jesus does two things in the presence of his shocked followers.
The first thing is that he shows them his wounds.
This move is a reiteration of the judgment of the cross:
don’t forget, he tells them, what the world did when the Author of life appeared.

But he does something else; he says, “Shalom”—“Peace be with you.”
In this, he opens up a new spiritual world and thereby becomes our Savior.
From ancient creation myths to the Rambo and Dirty Harry movies, the principle is the same:
order, destroyed through violence,
is restored through a righteous exercise of greater violence.

And then there is Jesus.
The terrible disorder of the cross (the killing of the Son of God) is addressed not through an explosion of divine vengeance
but through a radiation of divine love.
When Christ confronts those who contributed to his death,
he speaks words not of retribution but of reconciliation and compassion.

[MurphsLaw]

+++The disciples of Jesus recounted what had taken place along the way,
and how they had come to recognize him in the breaking of bread.

While they were still speaking about this,
he stood in their midst and said to them,
“Peace be with you.”
But they were startled and terrified
and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled?
And why do questions arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have.”
And as he said this,
he showed them his hands and his feet.
While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed,
he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?”
They gave him a piece of baked fish;
he took it and ate it in front of them.

He said to them,
“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still
with you,
that everything written about me in the law of Moses
and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.”
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
And he said to them,
“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer
and rise from the dead on the third day
and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins,
would be preached in his name
to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.”+++