Beyond Belief

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, April 14th, 2024:
Third Sunday of Easter

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Luke
​24.35-48

​The two disciples told the eleven and their companions what had happened on the road to Emmaus, and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

Then 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, the Prophets, and the 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 is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

​Pause. Pray. Reflect.

When I was a kid, there was a show called “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.” The format of the show was to share five different stories, each more unbelievable than the next. By the end, it would reveal what was truth, what was fiction, and what was partially true (and usually embellished with some urban legends). The goal of the show was to help us parse reality from fiction in real-life situations while also wowing us with a few true stories to keep us on our toes.

With the advent of increasingly sophisticated scams, deepfake AI pictures and videos, and everyday conspiracy theories cropping up all around us, we’ve never needed these skills more. In the past, we could have classified things we didn’t understand as the working of some divine or malicious spirit and reacted accordingly. As a kid, I could have sat down and looked up the facts in Encyclopedia Britannica or the microfiche files at the library. Nowadays, I can go on Wikipedia, of course, but even that is crowd-sourced and prone to misinformation. False information moves at lightning speed; it is downloaded and reposted faster than the original poster can make a correction or retraction. If we needed the skills to parse fact from fiction in the ’90s when the “Beyond Belief” show aired, imagine how much more we need them now.

Because we know how hard it can be to distinguish fact from fiction, we can understand the predicament of the Apostles in this Sunday’s Gospel. They were joyful, but still in disbelief and wondering how the resurrection was possible. On the one hand, John had been an eyewitness to Jesus’ death. On the other hand, they all heard the story of the two disciples who had encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Conflicting details: Jesus was dead, but Jesus was also alive. While the Apostles were processing this second-hand knowledge, trying to separate fact from fiction, Jesus Himself appeared — body and soul, flesh and divinity. He immediately offered hard facts to help them understand that He was really there, really alive. He let them touch His resurrected body. He shared a meal with them. He reminded them of the Law and the Prophets, who had foreseen His life, death and resurrection. Their belief in Jesus was founded not just on the movement of their hearts, but on cold hard facts. On the weight of this experience, they became not just holders of this knowledge, but sharers of it — His witnesses throughout the world.

As a Christian, I am an inheritor of the belief of over two thousand years of believers and witnesses. This Gospel reminds me that Jesus does not call me to a belief in Him that is an exercise of my will. My questions are not a sin. I am not putting God to the test by seeking to dispel my disbelief. Rather my questioning helps me to understand the radicality of Jesus’ sacrifice and His resurrection, and the answers God provides my earnest heart empower me in my mission.


Stéphanie Potter

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