By Scott Dickison
With the arrival of our first son about a year and a half ago, my wife and I have been more intentional about creating our own family holiday traditions. So last Easter, our first together as a family of three (we’re now up to four), I wanted to do something special for Easter dinner after church.
I learned that it’s traditional in the Eastern Church to prepare a whole, spit-roasted lamb on Easter Day, in honor of Christ, the “Lamb of God,” the Passover lamb and so forth. I thought I had talked my wife into letting me try my hand at a roast lamb, until she went online to find a local farm where we could buy one and saw all these pictures of little baby lambs playing in the fields and enjoying life, and found herself unable to order one of these precious ones to the slaughter. I was informed we would have to find another Easter tradition.
So I combed through the Easter stories in the Gospels looking for inspiration, and stumbled upon the story in Luke describing Jesus’ first meal after he was raised from the dead.
The disciples are gathered for supper to discuss the strange events and occurrences of the day: the empty tomb, the angels, the mysterious appearance of Christ to two of them who met him on the road—all these many questions about what had been going on since Jesus had been put in the tomb. All of the sudden, as they’re about to sit down to eat, Jesus appears standing among them. There they are, “in their joy and disbelieving,” still wondering what’s going on, and Jesus, maybe to prove he was not a ghost (because everyone knows ghosts can’t eat) or maybe to provide some levity to this rather tense moment, breaks the silence and says to them (as I imagine it) like a hungry teenager wondering what all the fuss is about, “So, you got anything to eat?”
They give him some fish, he eats it in front of them, the ice is broken, they know that the Jesus standing in front of them is not a ghost, but the same Jesus who was crucified just days before, and the Dickison family now has a new Easter supper tradition.
We’re not told exactly what kind of fish Jesus ate, but ours was a grilled flounder, and it was delicious.
Now, you may not find the same humor in this story as I do, and that wouldn’t be the first time. But what strikes me about this resurrection encounter as important for us today is not why Jesus asked for something to eat or what exactly he ate (although the symbol of a fish was probably the earliest Christian symbol, even before the cross). What strikes me about this resurrection encounter, along with all the other resurrection encounters in the gospels, is not what Jesus does, but what the disciples are doing when Jesus appears before them.
Because what they’re doing, though they didn’t know it at the time, looks a lot like church. Sharing a meal together, yes. But more than this, sharing their lives together in the presence of Christ. “Sharing their joy and disbelieving,” as Luke puts it. Isn’t that church?
One of the great church mothers, Catherine of Siena, tells us that the Holy Trinity is like a dinner party to which we’ve all been invited. She says that at this dinner party, God is the table we sit at and the chairs we sit upon. God is what’s underneath all that we’re doing, supporting us, giving us a place to rest our weary bones. Christ in this scene is the food we eat that nourishes us and brings us together. The bread broken for us, the cup poured for us. And the Holy Spirit, she says, is the host who’s prepared a place for us, who greets us at the door, invites us in and brings us to the table. The Holy Spirit is the one who serves us the food, carries the conversation and makes us feel welcome and at home in this dinner party of the Holy Trinity.
In that first Easter season, in the days following the resurrection, the disciples were doing the work of the Spirit without even knowing it. They were preparing for a divine dinner party that they were hosting, and Christ was served. And in doing so, they were becoming the church. And in the years that have passed, not much has changed.
As the church we hope to do the same work of the Spirit. We host a divine dinner party where all are invited. We set the table and make sure everything is ready, not knowing who might show up. We open the door, invite folks to come in and sit down at the table: Make yourself comfortable, it’s your table, too, after all. We serve the food. Good food. Rich food. And as we all sit down to share this meal, to share this life, we find that we’ve made room for Christ without even knowing it. He shows up so mysteriously, so quietly, that we may begin to wonder how long he’s been here among us and we didn’t know it.
The good news about this resurrection dinner party is that the main course has already been decided. We just have to set the table.