(Author’s note:  this is the introduction to my sermon “Eating With Ghosts” from Luke 24:36-48 on April 15, 2018 at FUMCWinnfield)

A company once hired a recent immigrant and put him to work in the mail room. To the foreman’s shock, the guy was a whiz. He stood in front of the sorting racks and shuffled the letters into slots with amazing speed. The foreman had never seen anything like it. At the end of the day, the foreman shook the new man’s hand, thanked him and said, “I’ve never seen anyone who could sort mail as fast as you.” The new immigrant smiled and said, “You think I’m good now, you wait until I can read English.” (source: The Jokesmith)

Maybe that explains some of the mail in my mailbox. My apologies to anyone who works in the post office. But the truth is that we are cynical and skeptical. Too many times we have been let down. Too many times promises have been broken. And yet, every once in a while, we get pleasantly surprised. Something that seems too good to be true.

That’s the scene in today’s scripture. The disciples are huddled together and Cleopas and his companion enter and add word of their encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus. (you can read that story in Luke 24:13-35). Luke describes the scene like this: “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 they were seeing a ghost” (v. 36). Imagine how we would have reacted to this first appearance of the risen Christ after his resurrection. This account picks us up at a point where — were we to be present at Easter’s ground zero — we also would have been “startled,” and “terrified.” But Jesus seeks to calm their fears. He reassures them that it is he, inviting them to touch him, and then does a simple act that no ghost would ever do- he asks them for something to eat, then eats the food in their presence. Suddenly it becomes evident to the disciples that this is no ghost that they are eating with. It is the resurrected and living messiah, son of God. How would we react? What would we say if Jesus suddenly appeared to us? If one that we thought was dead, was a ghost, showed up to eat lunch with us? Here’s how the first disciple’s reacted.