“Have you anything here to eat?” The risen Jesus asks the startled and terrified disciples. They give him a piece of baked fish; he takes it and eats it in front of them. Earlier in Luke (24:30), Jesus breaks bread with two of the disciples at Emmaus. And in John (21:12), Jesus cooks some fish on a grill and invites the disciples, “Come and have breakfast!”
It comes as no surprise that meal sharing marks the appearances of the risen Lord. In his public ministry, Jesus is known for his table fellowship. He likens the kingdom of God to a wedding banquet. He works his first sign, in John, at a wedding in Cana, turning water into wine and saving the newly married couple from embarrassment. He multiplies bread and fish to feed thousands of people. He accepts dinner invitations from Pharisees. He shares meals with friends and disciples. He eats with outcasts and sinners. His enemies call Jesus a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.
This characteristic becomes a distinguishing mark of the risen Jesus as well. At Emmaus the two disciples recognize the stranger to be Jesus when at table he takes bread, says the blessing, breaks it, and gives it to them. On the shore of Tiberias, when Jesus invites the disciples to have breakfast, they realize it is the Lord.
In today’s Gospel, the disciples remain incredulous even after the risen Jesus shows them his hands and his feet, so he asks for something to eat. Jesus then opens their minds to understand what the Scriptures say about his suffering, death, and resurrection. He declares them as his witnesses who will call people to repent and accept God’s forgiveness.
At the eucharistic celebration, as friends of Jesus we gather around the Lord’s table. We share the meal where we clearly experience the presence of the risen Lord who draws us together as community and brings us closer to God. The risen Jesus nourishes us with the words of Scripture and with his body and blood. We are fed to overflowing; our eyes are opened and we begin to understand how we are sent to call people to repent and accept God’s forgiveness.
The Eucharist is a foretaste for us of the ultimate messianic banquet in heaven. Until then, as Body of Christ, we witness to the Lord’s presence by proclaiming the word and sharing the meal. We are to be the body of Christ broken for the world, responding to the varied hungers and thirsts of the human race.
In an Easter sermon, St. Augustine puts the Christian challenge this way: “You are the body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken; you are to blessed, broken, and distributed; that you may be the means of grace and the vehicles of the eternal (love).”