Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Luke · About this commentary
Handle Me and See
Luke 24:36-43
36 As they said these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace be to you.” · WEB
He appears in the room, they think he is a ghost, and he asks for something to eat.
As they said these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, "Peace be to you" Luke 24:36.
The greeting is the ordinary one, and it is the first word to a room that had abandoned him. Nothing is said about the desertion, then or later.
But they were terrified and filled with fear, and supposed that they had seen a spirit Luke 24:37.
Their conclusion is the natural one, and it is the reading this Gospel then spends six verses demolishing. The whole passage is a sustained argument that what stood in that room was not an apparition.
"Why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts?" Luke 24:38. The questions are patient. Doubt is treated as something to be answered rather than scolded.
"See my hands and my feet, that it is truly me. Touch me and see, for a spirit doesn't have flesh and bones, as you see that I have" Luke 24:39.
Three senses are appealed to in one verse. Look, touch, and see for yourselves — and the claim is stated in the plainest physical terms available. Flesh and bones is not a figure of speech, and the invitation to handle him is offered to men who thought they were looking at a ghost.
The hands and the feet are shown because of what is on them. The body that is risen is the body that was crucified — not a replacement, and not a spirit wearing an appearance. This is why the resurrection in Scripture is always bodily 1 Corinthians 15:42–44; what died is what is raised.
While they still didn't believe for joy, and wondered Luke 24:41.
The phrase is one of the most human in the New Testament. Not unbelief from doubt — unbelief for joy, the state of a person who wants something so much that being handed it feels like a trick. Anyone who has received news too good to take in knows the condition, and the account names it exactly.
"Do you have anything here to eat?" Luke 24:41.
The question is the last piece of the argument and it is disarmingly ordinary. They gave him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. He took them, and ate in front of them Luke 24:42–43.
He eats. In front of them, deliberately, because it is the one thing an apparition cannot do — and because this is a book that ends the raising of a twelve-year-old by telling somebody to get her a meal Luke 8:55. The evidence offered for the resurrection, in the Gospel written for a man who wanted certainty, is a piece of grilled fish.
settled What this mark means