Kelsi Vanada

Dear Friends,

When I was little, the idea of heaven made me very apprehensive. I was particularly concerned with what age I would be in heaven—if I died in my old age, for example, would I always be old in heaven? To comfort myself, I reasoned that each day that I spent in heaven, I’d be able to choose which age I wanted to be for that day.

Questions about what comes after death are, of course, not unique to children. What will happen? What will we be like? 

In today’s Gospel, Luke 24:36b-48, Jesus appears to his disciples after his death and resurrection. They “were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.” To prove that he is not a ghost, Jesus shows them his pierced hands and feet—and even eats a piece of broiled fish!

Just before this section is the story of the Road to Emmaus, where Jesus walks with two of his followers, who do not recognize him until he breaks bread with them. “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.”

So: Jesus has a physical body; he’s not a ghost; he can appear or vanish instantly from sight (including going through walls or locked doors, as is implied in John’s gospel); and his appearance is somehow different or can be concealed (think also of Mary Magdalene mistaking Jesus for the gardener in John).

I’m grateful to Mother Paula Datsko, who pointed out in a recent Mosaic adult formation session on the Resurrection of the Body that what these texts all point to is that what Jesus was like after his resurrection was very hard to describe—the risen body is not like our earthly bodies, but rather it is something else entirely.

Our tradition holds that at death, life is changed, not ended. We who are raised with Christ will have new, resurrected bodies. Thanks be to God for the hope of the resurrection!

In Christ,

—Kelsi