This article originally appeared in Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly, but is no longer available online on the OSV website. For some of my other articles of for OSV that are available on their site, see here.
Have you ever wondered what it was like for the first disciples to see Jesus in the light of the Resurrection?
Imagine being inside a dimly lit, windowless room and then suddenly walking outside into the brightest part of the day. The sunlight is all around you; everything is bright. By reflex, you close your eyes to protect them. You try squinting, maybe even using your hand as a visor to cast a little shadow on your now teary, hypersensitive eyes. You may see a blurry figure here and another there, but you can’t focus or gaze at anything. You alternate between blindness and misperception.
From the gospel testimonies, the first disciples’ experience of seeing the risen Christ was pretty might like this. In fact, it would be better to call it unseeing.
The Witnesses to the Resurrection
John and Luke are especially keen on establishing this motif. Consider these four episodes:
1. Mary Magdalene at the tomb on Easter morning: “Mary turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know it was Jesus…” (John 20:14, RSV).
2. On the Sea of Tiberius: “Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus” (John 21:4)
3. On the road to Emmaus: “Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him” (Luke 24:15–16)
4. In the Upper Room: “Jesus himself stood among them… But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit” (Luke 24:36–37)
Every time the risen Christ appears to his disciples, they cannot see him, even when they see something. But in each instance, a change occurs and they suddenly see.
We might be tempted to think that something about Jesus suddenly changes so he becomes recognizable, but in fact the gospels attest something else. It is the disciples who move—or rather, they are moved. Yes, Jesus acts in each instance to bring about the change, but what unlocks vision and moves the disciples from a place of unseeing to a place of seeing and recognition is a change within themselves:
1. Mary hears Jesus call her name.
2. The seafaring disciples receive their calling again in the same way they had before.
3. On the way to Emmaus Jesus teaches the disciples the Scriptures before feeding them with the bread he takes and blesses and breaks.
4. In the Upper Room Jesus gives peace and shows his wounds and forgives and commissions them.
With each of these actions, it is as if the disciples’ eyes grow accustomed to the light of day, and they see.
As the Disciples See
As they become capable of seeing, the disciples are no longer limited by what they wanted to see or what their dim expectations had prepared them to see—now, they see Jesus as he is, in all his glory. They change; Jesus is the one who changes them.
St. Thomas captures expresses what each of them has come to see in their various encounters: that Jesus is “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Not only do they see him, but they also become his witnesses. They tell others who he is.
Easter is the time for disciples to become witnesses. For disciples today, being changed into a witness is no less demanding or dramatic than it was for those first disciples. It requires a change in vision, moving past dim expectations, becoming accustomed to Christ’s light.
This is painful at first—in fact, it has to be. We grow comfortable with wanting too little and confine ourselves to our own preferred ways of seeing things, which is like being holed up in a windowless room where we don’t realize how dark it is until we walk out into the light of day. To become witnesses means being shocked into seeing the dazzling beauty of Christ and proclaiming to others both what we have seen and how we see in this new light.
As the Disciples Tell
The two disciples in Emmaus to whom Jesus gave himself enact the basic pattern of witnesses: they are encountered, they learn to see, and then they tell. “And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the Eleven gathered together and those who were with them… Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:33, 35).
Here in Easter, the duty of penance and longing that marked the Lenten season ought to give way to the duty of joy and proclamation. At first, this might seem easier than the preceding Lenten practices, but in truth it is more difficult and demanding. How do you tell others that you have glimpsed what matters most and that this has affected the way you see everything? That’s what it means to become a witness to Christ, who is himself the light by which disciples see.
The way to learn how to do this is not to try to do everything all at once. Instead, we learn this craft of witnessing to the grace of Christ in our lives the way we learn everything else: by practicing small, basic skills to which we grow more accustomed. For disciples to become witnesses, this means practicing the skills of storytelling, and to make our storytelling about encounters with grace.
7 Principles for Crafting a Story of Grace
Stories of grace are sometimes dramatic and sometimes simple stories of particular experiences, relationships, obstacles, sufferings, joys, and even epiphanies by which those whom the Lord has looked upon in love have begun learning to see themselves—and in some way, the world—in God’s light. It would be really hard to try to tell your whole life as a story of grace all at once. That is asking too much for those who are unpracticed, which includes most if not all of us. Instead, you eventually learn to see and tell about your whole life as a story of grace by practicing seeing and telling shorter, more contained stories from your life as stories of grace. When your vision’s blurry, you start to refocus by focusing on one thing at a time, and when enough time passes, everything starts to come into focus.
In the third chapter of my book Witness (Ave Maria Press, $16.95), I offer excerpts from nine such stories of grace. These stories reveal just how diverse the settings for grace may be, for Christ enters into every aspect of our human condition to bring the light of his love. The range of experiences where grace is made present include: battling an anxiety disorder, struggling with a loved one’s Alzheimer’s, absorbing the repercussions of alcoholism, learning from people with mental disabilities, dealing with an eating disorder, fighting against pornography, experiencing forgiveness, renewing one’s vocation to teaching, and wading through the pain of infertility. In each case, seeing in the light of Christ requires a change in the storytellers themselves, and therefore in the listeners.
Easter is the time to practice crafting, telling, and receiving stories like these. Especially for Catholics who typically have less experience articulating their faith and witnessing to it, these stories are powerful means of formation and evangelization. Over a couple decades of working with teenagers, young adults, and mature adults in crafting these stories, I have discerned seven principles that, if followed, guide one towards the change in vision that grace demands, and the skillful articulation that storytelling requires:
1. Tell it as a story. When attempting to craft a story of grace, don’t try to deliver a sermon, get a message across, or write a lecture. Tell a story.
2. Begin with what happened. We all have a tendency to gloss over the concrete stuff of life, opting instead to “skip to the point.” The disciples returning from Emmaus “told what happened to them” and didn’t just say what it all meant. Stuff matters.
3. Express it in style. Stories of grace are not just about stuff, they are about the storytellers themselves. Personality matters in a story. A story of grace offers to someone else both what the storyteller has witnessed and how she came to witness it.
4. Modify for your audience. A story is a gift you give to someone else. It is not primarily something you craft and tell for yourself. A good storyteller always considers the needs and capacities of his listeners.
5. Ensure there is sufficient closure. Even though a story of grace is a gift given to others, there are some gifts that we may not yet be ready to share, if ever. If a wound is still raw, it is not time to share a story about it. Good mentoring helps here, as with the whole process.
6. Embrace natural emotions. Some stories have real emotional depth, while others do not. Sharing a story of grace is not a competition in eliciting emotional responses—at the same time, hiding emotions also does a disservice. Go with the emotions natural to the story.
7. Pray and practice. To pray about a story from beginning to end is an act of humility, recognizing that the grace encountered is a gift and not one’s own creation. And yet, storytellers have work to do, and practicing the craft of storytelling make us better storytellers.
Through the demanding practice of crafting, telling, and receiving stories of grace, disciples are formed into witnesses. They become more accustomed to Christ’s light, they help each other to see in that light, and they get better at telling others about “my Lord and my God.” Stories of grace enrich a wide array of ministries in multiple settings, including Confirmation and RCIA prep and follow-up, marriage preparation and enrichment, high school and college campus ministry, high school and college theology courses, youth and young adult ministry, and ongoing formation for parents.
Easter witnesses are those who learn to see the one the first disciples saw and tell others who he is from within their own life experiences. Stories of grace prompt us to see and challenge us to tell.