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While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, \u201cPeace be with you.\u201d\xa0 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. (Luke 24:36-37)

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We quickly forget that worshiping a risen Lord is actually a very odd thing to do.

Jesus has just appeared to the disciples on the Emmaus road.\xa0 In fact, he\u2019s appeared to Peter and likely to others at this point as well.\xa0 The Upper Room is all abuzz with Jesus sightings and the news that he\u2019s alive and on the move!\xa0 \u201cIt is true!\u201d they had just been saying: \u201cThe Lord has risen and has appeared\u2026\u201d\xa0

And yet: when Jesus appears among them: they\u2019re startled and scared of what they see.\xa0 They think it\u2019s a ghost.\xa0 Which, to be fair, is what any sane person would\u2019ve thought.\xa0 Regardless of whatever news that happened to be circulating at the time: the only picture or sound of Jesus that most of them had was the memory, accessed only through their own minds now, of the Jesus they had known before he had, well\u2026 died.\xa0 And, a mere rumor of this good news was not immediately enough to overpower the empirical truths that their own senses had perceived.\xa0 A mere rumor could not bring the voice and image of Jesus that lived only now in their memories back to embodiment before them.

So, for Jesus to appear, embodied and speaking before them: what a shock to the system!\xa0 It\u2019s one thing to hear some good news, it is an entirely different thing to witness something for yourself.\xa0 For their own eyes to see and recognize a familiar face that they\u2019d last seen dead, for their own ears to hear a familiar voice that they\u2019d last heard on the cross\u2014what a strange experience.\xa0 Almost like that sensation your body gets when you\u2019re sitting in your parked car and a large truck that fills your entire scope of vision begins moving next to you.\xa0 You feel like you\u2019re moving, but you know it can\u2019t be true.\xa0

So it must have been for the disciples.\xa0 To hear that Jesus was alive was not the same as the visceral, sensual experience of seeing and hearing the Jesus who was alive.\xa0 To perceive him for themselves was disorienting.\xa0 And yet, without that experience of disorientation, the reality of Jesus\u2019 life would never have had the power or force to re-orient them to a radically different understand of the world, of Jesus alive, and of the Kingdom of God he would send them to proclaim.\xa0

I think in some ways the same is still true for us.\xa0 We can sit in church, engage in Bible studies, and join in ministry ventures all our lives and never face that radical disorientation and reorientation that Gospel transformation\u2014an encounter with the risen Christ\u2014entails.\xa0 The Bible everywhere promises that we cannot meet Jesus and remain the same.\xa0 Encountering Jesus means a transformation of our hearts and lives: a repentance, a turning around, a dying to ourselves so that the new life of Christ might take hold of us and in us.\xa0

So: an invitation to pay attention.\xa0 With your eyes.\xa0 With your ears.\xa0 Watch for Jesus.\xa0 Listen for him.\xa0 Seek him out in prayer.\xa0 Attend to the ups and downs in your day today that might betray his movement in your life, inviting you to repent, to turn, to trust, to remember, to believe.\xa0

Jesus appears to the disciples who had gathered in his name and were eagerly seeking him.\xa0 It is to they that were paying attention that he appears, and to them that he speaks his word of \u201cpeace.\u201d

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