Acts 3:12-19 Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7 Luke 24:36b-48
Are we different than people who lived 2000 years ago? Are we smarter? Or do we have the advantage of more cumulative world knowledge and the experience gained from all of the traditions of knowledge which we have inherited?
But how are we the same as people like Paul and the disciples? Did Paul and the disciples know the difference between poetry and commonsense reporting of experienced events?
When Paul wrote that he was seated with Christ in heavenly places, did he really think that he had a chair in a place above the firmament? Or was this a mystical poetic expression of his spiritual elation?
I believe that we demean the intelligence of Paul and the Gospel writers if we assume they did not understand the difference between mystical and spiritual discourse and commonsense language about what can happen given the consistency of the natural laws.
A big mistake has often been made by persons who do not understand the priority of the New Testaments as mystical and poetic writings about spiritual relationship.
Paul wrote mystical poetry and theology; Paul never saw Jesus in the flesh, but he believed that he had a real and substantial relationship with the Risen Christ. He did not feel inferior to Peter or the other disciples who walked with Jesus.
After Paul wrote the mystical poetry of relationship with the Risen Christ, the Gospel narratives of Jesus were written.
The Gospel writers presented Jesus as a physically real person as a metaphor for the spiritually real experience of the members of the early church.
There were persons who had spiritual experiences of the Risen Christ. Were they real experiences? And how could they prove that they were real? Well, they said that Jesus ate fish after he appeared to them, so their experience of him had to be as real as an actual physical encounters.
Dreams and visionary experience include people eating together. Is such eating real and meaningful? Yes, but is such eating the same as you and I eating together. No.
The Gospel writers used physical interaction with the Risen Christ to indicate that experiences with the Risen Christ were meaningfully real and actual for the beholders.
The message of the church in the Gospel is that the Risen Christ eats with us in his resurrected life. If Jesus was understood to be really present at a meal in his post-resurrection appearances, then Jesus is also present when the church meets for the meal tradition which originated with Jesus Christ.
So let us appreciate the modes of presentation in St. Paul and the Gospels. Paul uses the mystical poetry to speak about spiritual identity with the Risen Christ. The Gospel writers, who wrote later than St. Paul, presented the physical mode of Jesus of Nazareth as the model for something that is substantial. They wanted people to understand that the spiritual relationship with the Risen Christ was as meaningfully real and true as actual physical encounter.
Can any of us prove that mystical experience has happened? Can anyone prove that they had a specific events within a dream? Can a person who lost a loved one proved that they saw their departed loved one in an apparition or hallucination? Can a recovering alcoholic prove that he or she experienced the higher power to change their lives? We can prove the outcome of such experiences in our behaviors, even as we cannot replicate or make certain events happen again. But you can not tell people who have had such unique, meaningful events that they did not happen, even if you imply they are mentally imbalanced or have some altered mental states.
The Gospel writers presented the fleshly Jesus to say to the post-Jesus church, that the Risen Christ is as real as the fact that Jesus of Nazareth actually lived.
The Gospel writers are writing that Jesus of Nazareth was real, so that the members of the church could affirm that the experiences of the Risen Christ were equally real and meaningful and life changing with significant moral behavior changes as proof of that profound meaning.
Let us not diminish the intelligence of Paul or the Gospel writers and assume that they did not know the difference between mystical experience and commonsense reality.
For you and me let us note the Gospel record: Jesus ate with people when he walked this earth. Jesus ate with his disciples in the visionary states of his post-resurrection appearances. And what does this mean for you and me? Christ in his Risen life still eats with us and shares his presence with us when we eat the Mass of Christ together.
Alleluia, Christ is Risen and in his Risen Life, he continues to be present in our Eucharistic Family meal together. And his presence is still meaningfully true and real. Amen.
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