Letter writing has fallen out of fashion these days, replaced by quick texts, tweets, emails, maybe even phone calls. That’s a shame for many reasons, not least being the ephemeral quality of our electronic communication. I have tucked back in a closet preserved letters my grandmother sent to my father during World War II. They include mundane details of small-town activities and family updates with references to people both my grandmother and father would have immediately known but who are a mystery to me. Though I can read those words 75 years later and understand most of them, they were written with the original reader in mind.
I doubt that Luke knew when he wrote his two-volume history of early Christianity that it would be read by billions of people over a period of at least 2,000 years. By all indications, he wrote what we know as The Gospel of Luke and The Acts of the Apostles for one particular reader. Theophilus may have been Luke’s patron, and so Luke probably did not expect the letters to be private. He likely knew Theophilus would show them around. In any case, Luke wrote with that audience in mind, and so any details he included must have seemed significant to them.
The wonder in the mundane
That’s why I find interesting Luke’s inclusion of a seemingly random detail in his recounting of the appearance of Jesus to his disciples before he ascended.
He said to them, “Why are you startled? Why are doubts arising in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet. It’s really me! Touch me and see, for a ghost doesn’t have flesh and bones like you see I have.” As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet. Because they were wondering and questioning in the midst of their happiness, he said to them, “Do you have anything to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish. Taking it, he ate it in front of them. (Luke 24:38-43, CEB)
It particularly strikes me that Luke introduced the emphasized words with “because.” In other words, the reason he asked for something to eat and then ate in front of them was that they were wondering and questioning. They were happy, but they were also unsure of …. what? Whether this was really Jesus? Whether he was a figment of their imagination? Whether he was a ghost? Verse 37 explicitly says they thought he was a ghost. Jesus knew that, which is why in verse 39 he points out that he has flesh and bones.
Still, they wondered and questioned, so he ate in front of them.
Later, perhaps, they looked at each other and said, “Did that really happen?” At that point, they could look at the plate on the table with the bites taken out of the baked fish and have evidence.
So simple, so impactful
Jesus knew his followers in that room needed the reassurance that, yes, it was truly him, that he wasn’t a hologram, that he had truly risen.
Luke knew Theophilus needed to read that story.
The Holy Spirit knew that the story needed preserving so that we could read it.
When we declare, “He is risen!” we have evidence that supports our faith. We may not understand everything preserved in Scripture, but as Mark Twain is reputed to have said, it’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that disturb me. It’s the parts I do.
May the truth embodied in Scripture disturb you as well!