“Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you can see I have.” Luke 24:39

Luke 24:35-48

When we read the story of Jesus appearance to the disciples in the Upper Room following his resurrection, to whom do we imagine He is talking?

It is tempting to imagine that Jesus is talking to Bishops, Priests, and Deacons because it is their job to go out and proclaim the Good news of the Resurrection. In fact, we say, the people in the Upper Room were the first priests, and bishops.

That would be an error, a grave error, the kind of error that disables the Church, the kind of error that makes the Church fail.

In fact, Jesus was talking in the Upper Room to the whole Church, because that is what they were at that moment. They were the entire Church of Jesus Christ. When we read that story today, therefore, we must imagine that Jesus is still talking to the entire Church. He is telling all of us what our job is.

All of us.

All who have been baptized and confirmed have the same job. And so that no one would be in the dark, Jesus laid out specifically what that job is.

First, we encounter the Risen Christ: “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). In Baptism and again in Confirmation all believers receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the common life that binds together the Persons of the Holy Trinity. We are brought into the very life of God, and because that is where we are, we already have everything we need to be competent and faithful witnesses. We don’t have to wait for divine blessing – we have it now.

Second, we encounter the Risen Christ in the Bible: “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures” (24:45). The world to which we are being sent is a world that has long since grown accustomed to darkness and error, so much so that their whole world is upside down – they think error is Truth and Truth error – men can be women, boys can be girls, there are no objective moral truths. For that reason, they need clear teaching. They need to understand the basic assumptions that permit them to perceive any Truth at all, which is to say they need to understand the Bible. For love of all the people Jesus loves, for love of the world to which we are sent, we open ourselves to the Bible as Jesus has opened the Bible to us. We dedicate ourselves to the learning and understanding of biblical truths and how they must be understood by the world we live in.

Third, having opened ourselves to Jesus in the Bible, we are sent to proclaim that same Jesus in all we do, in every place we go, starting where we are: “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, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (24:46-48). Start with the people closest to us, and work out from there – be the testimony that heaven has arrived. Be the testimony to all the tyrants and bullies of the world, whose greatest power is to threaten us with pain and death, that there is now a Power emerged on earth that is greater than pain and death, and because we are baptized and confirmed, that Power lives in us.

• Meet the Risen Christ.

• Meet the Risen Christ in the Bible.

• Be the Testimony that it is all true.

It isn’t just for Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. We are not the audience – we are the actors.

We don’t have a mission. We are the mission.