From doubt to joy: an experience, here and now.

By Julián Carrón - Exploring the profound impact of the disciples' humanity and doubts on their Easter experience, and its relevance to modern faith struggles

It's comforting to see the disciples' humanity. They experience fear just like us, are troubled‌ and harbor doubts, allowing us to feel represented, making their testimony even more profound. The Gospels don't need to hide anything about the disciples’ humanity. Rather, they present it openly as part of the revelation: their humanity helps to demonstrate the true nature of Christ's victory. Their distress astonishes Jesus, especially since He had already appeared to them and they had recognized Him: “Truly the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon!” Despite this, He asks them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” At the same time, He reassures them without reproach: “Look at my hands and my feet; it is I! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” Saying this, He showed them His hands and feet.

Jesus reassures them that the one they see before them is truly Him, the one they know well, with whom they've spent much time, the one they saw suffer passion and death on the cross. The one standing alive before them is their friend, whom they had laid in the tomb. The Risen One is indeed the Crucified: “Look at my hands and my feet; it is I!” It was truly Him standing before them. The identity between the Crucified and the Risen is crucial. Everything would collapse if He were another or a ghost, but “a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have. Touch me and see.” He confirms this by showing them “His hands and feet,” the tangible trace that the crucifixion had left on Him, facilitating their recognition.

In response to their fear, disturbance‌ and doubts, Jesus doesn't offer explanations, encouragement‌‌ or speeches. None of these attempts would be able to comfort them. A presence can only truly challenge fear, disturbance and doubt. We see this in ourselves: we don't overcome fear with reasoning. The presence of a mother, whose presence alone reassures and pacifies him/her, can only defeat a child's fear. No other method could overcome the fear or disturbance of the disciples or their doubts except the living presence of Jesus, the one the disciples had laid in the tomb and who now stood before them.

The truth of what the witnesses recount is even more impressive because of the joy that overcomes the disciples. Consider those in mourning, consumed by the loss of a loved one: nothing could replace their absence. In the face of such a loss, any word or initiative taken proves incapable of filling the void left behind. Only those who have felt the void can understand what would turn mourning into joy: solely the presence of the beloved person found again. No other activity, memory‌ or nostalgia could fill the void we feel inside when we miss someone dearly.

Therefore, the joy that invades the disciples would be inexplicable if He were just a ghost or another man different from the one they knew and loved. The expressions used in the Gospel to help us understand what they were experiencing even show their embarrassment: “For joy, they still did not believe and were amazed.” Paradoxically, they felt joy before believing they were full of wonder before recognizing Him. We can relate well: how often have we been amazed before we realize we were astonished?. Something unexpected fills us with joy and wonder, and then we realize it. The best documentation is the testimony of the disciples of Emmaus: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road?” (Lk 24:32). The ardor of their hearts had preceded the recognition of Jesus. They only realized it when they recognized Him. All these details, albeit small, demonstrate the reliability of their testimonies, even before He surprises them again with another initiative: “Do you have anything here to eat?” 

They offered Him a piece of broiled fish; He ate it before them.

All that's recounted in these testimonies wouldn't be possible if it weren't true that their lives, scared, troubled, full of doubts, had encountered the living presence of the one to whom they had been bound in cohabitation for years and who now opened their eyes to help them understand. “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything written about me must be fulfilled in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.” Then, He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

The space that the Gospels give to the journey made by the apostles to reach the certainty of faith in the Risen One so that they can become witnesses finds its reason in the words that St. Paul addresses to the faithful of Corinth, among whom some denied the resurrection: “If Christ has not risen, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” Thus, the Christian faith stands or falls, a binary that depends solely on the historicity of the Resurrection.

What does this mean for our lives?

Like the disciples, we often fear, are troubled by our concerns‌‌‌ and are full of doubts in the face of life's challenges. Faced with these situations, we're plagued by the question: can we achieve the certainty of the disciples that changed their fear into joy, or are we doomed to defer certainty to a beyond of history because we don't believe it possible‌ — ‌as they did‌ — ‌that such certainty can occur within history? We're all aware that without certainty, we're always in distress, driven by the fear of losing something we love, something significant, the fear of time passing‌ and a lack of tenderness toward ourselves because the measure that distresses us prevails. How many things clutter our minds daily? All this creates such existential insecurity that we are led to believe that the true peace of which Jesus speaks, that present, profound peace that frees us from the concerns that clutter our days, is unattainable because there is always some shadow that dominates, clutters the soul. The accounts of the resurrection strike because they testify to another possibility within reach for ordinary people like us, so much so that we desire it. Only a living, resurrected presence that's conquered death can enable us to achieve, by grace, what seems to us an unattainable goal.

What makes this possible? His living presence. Here. Now. As the French poet Charles Péguy said:

“He is here. / He is here as on the first day. […] It is the same story, the same, eternally the same, that happened at that time and in that country and that happens every day in every day of every eternity.” (From The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc)

Only His living presence, embraced in the simplicity of faith, can make what we see in the disciples possible for us, giving substance to our fragile selves, often at the mercy of everything, because it fills life with joy and security.
Unrevised translation of the homily - Milan, 04.14.2024