A Piece Of Fish
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"A Piece of Fish" by Keith Hewitt
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A Piece of Fish
by Keith Hewitt
Luke 24:36b-48
He asked for a piece of fish.
I wanted to laugh...which, I guess, is a step up from wanting to cry -- which is what I had been wanting to do ever since he appeared in the room with us that day in Jerusalem. I make no apologies, because it had been a stressful day -- a stressful couple of days, beginning with his arrest, through his trial and crucifixion...then huddling together with the other disciples that night as we heard Joseph tell about taking him down from the cross and laying him in the tomb.
Then the long Sabbath, when none of us felt like we could dare go outside, and instead sat in a locked room and told stories about our experiences on the road over the last few years. It could have been a nice time of remembrance, except the unspoken ending to every story was, “...and then they nailed him to a cross and mocked him while he died, in a slow, agonizing dance of death.”
And then, when Sabbath was over and Sunday came, there were the confused reports from the women about the body being gone from the tomb, and some men -- angels, maybe--telling them he had got up and walked out. It was ridiculous, of course, and Peter went to prove them wrong, because it had to be some kind of awful mistake, but then he found the tomb empty, just as they’d said, with just the stained grave clothes lying on a bench, where his body had been two days before.
We had spent the day trying to figure out what kind of monster would have stolen him, when two of our followers -- his followers, I mean -- came back and pounded on our door ‘til we let them in. They had left for Emmaus earlier in the day, and now they came back with this ridiculous story that the Lord had appeared to them while they were walking...had walked with them, and talked with them, even broke bread with them.
It was unnerving, and somehow it made me angry, that they would not let his memory rest in peace. I was unreasonably irritated with them as they were forced to repeat, and repeat, and repeat their story until they would have no more of it. Only Peter seemed to give them the least bit of credence; the rest of us spent what seemed like a long time debating whether our brothers were drunk, insane, or trying to put over some kind of sick, horribly miscalculated joke.
I fell into the insane camp, myself, as we could smell no wine on their breath.
I felt uncomfortable being around them, then, as I was afraid that being so close to two lunatics would render me unclean, and I was not sure I wanted to chance going to one of the mikvas to cleanse myself. What should I do, I wondered, and then automatically I thought, I’ll ask the Master -- Jesus will know what’s right. It was an automatic, unbidden thought, coming to me as such thoughts and questions had so often over the last couple of years.
And then my heart sank at the realization that there would be no chance to ask Jesus, this time.
I was digesting this realization when I heard a familiar voice say quietly, behind me, “Shalom aleikhem.” Peace be with you.
Jesus! I thought, and turned to see him standing there among us. The door had not opened, I was sure of that -- it was bolted securely, in vain hope to shut out Temple guards or Roman soldiers who might come to finish the job of stamping out what they perceived as the threat from Jesus and his followers. And there had been no voice of greeting, no startled gasps, nothing at all to mark his entrance until those words were uttered, and then he was suddenly standing there, his face fixed in the knowing sort of half-smile he always had when he knew we were struggling with a particular teaching or idea.
There was a burst of joy, quickly followed by a feeling of dread as I realized this must be some type of spirit visitation, and I wondered if this could possibly be good, or if it was the Evil One at work. Close on the heels of those thoughts, I began to wonder if I, myself was going insane. It seemed like a plausible explanation, as I stood there staring at a man I knew to be dead.
As though he could read my thoughts, he looked straight at me -- or so it seemed -- and said, “Why are you frightened? Why do you doubt? You can see my hands and feet -- you can see that it’s me.” To make the point, he raised both hands, as he had so often done when he was blessing us, or blessing a crowd, and we could see as clear as day the wounds in his hands...a ragged, nasty hole in each hand, unhealed, with blood dark and crusty around it, where Joseph had not been able to clean it away during Friday’s hasty burial.
Through the hole in his left hand, I could see the flickering flame of a lamp, set on a shelf on the far wall, and the realization made me queasy.
This cannot be, I thought. This must be a spirit, or a demon, or some other kind of being we don’t understand, but it cannot be our Lord. It isn’t real. It is some kind of vision, or a hallucination. I was utterly certain of this, but though he invited us to touch the wounds to prove he was physically there, I wasn’t about to check. Nobody moved, nobody took the invitation...we just looked at one another, nervously, trying to see if someone else had a reasonable explanation for this vision standing before us, daring one another to make the first move to actually touch him.
And then he asked for a piece of fish.
Such a simple, ordinary thing -- the kind of thing he had done a hundred, a thousand times before. At the end of a long journey between towns, or of a hard day of teaching, or to celebrate a particularly joyful day, he would look to whoever was cooking that day, and ask for a piece of fish. There were plenty of nights when fish was all we had, but even on those nights when we were fortunate enough to have lamb, or fowl, for dinner, he would ask for fish.
He said it reminded him of his childhood -- took him back to simpler times that were getting harder and harder to remember. Though he tried not to fall under the spell of worldly things, it was one of the simple pleasures he enjoyed, moreso for what it meant than how it tasted. It was an island ot calm, a tangible link to simpler times, when the weight of the world had not yet begun to descend upon him.
“You still yearn for simplicity,” I said, almost involuntarily, as another disciple handed him a piece of fish. “You have been in the shadow of death, and yet you find comfort in a simple piece of fish.”
He smiled the half-smile again, and said, “If you had been through what I’ve been through, my brother, you would take any opportunity you had to touch your childhood.” He put the fish in his mouth, chewed slowly, and his eyes sort of half-closed, as though his being had been suddenly summoned somewhere else, even though his body still stood before us. His throat bobbed when he swallowed, and his eyes opened again. In that moment, I had no doubt that the man, himself, stood before us -- alive, somehow, in a way that none of us could have predicted or believed...a way only he, himself, had foreseen and trusted. For only that man would think to do what he had just done to show his physical nature.
A thousand questions tumbled over one another, trying to find their way out of my mouth, but instead they blocked one another, got in each other’s way, I stood in silence as he smiled once more, raised his hands, and repeated, “Shalom aleikhem.” And then he was gone. With no sign of effort, no noise, no smoke swirling in his spot, he just suddenly disappeared.
We were still marveling at it when Thomas -- Didymus -- came to see us. He had been out, talking to other followers, and had returned to report to us on what he’d found. Instead, we reported to him that Jesus had found us. And he refused, point blank, to believe us. He looked at us as though we had all gone mad -- probably the same look I’d had for Peter and the women who’d gone to the tomb that morning.
And no matter how hard we tried to convince him, he would have none of it. “I will not believe you,” he said, “not until I have touched with my own hands the wounds I know he bore. Not until I have felt the body, to prove to me that it was not a spirit that took you in. Or a delusion.” We gave up, and he just looked at me with an expression of mixed pity and frustration, and said, “You -- you’re a level headed man, I know that. How could even you have been taken in? What makes you think whatever you saw was our Lord?”
I started several times, but once more the words wouldn’t come. Finally I just smiled and shrugged, and said simply, “He asked for a piece of fish.”
It would just have to do...until he experienced the truth himself.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). Keith's newest book NaTiVity Dramas: The Third Season will be published September 2012. He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 19, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"A Piece of Fish" by Keith Hewitt
* * * * * * *
A Piece of Fish
by Keith Hewitt
Luke 24:36b-48
He asked for a piece of fish.
I wanted to laugh...which, I guess, is a step up from wanting to cry -- which is what I had been wanting to do ever since he appeared in the room with us that day in Jerusalem. I make no apologies, because it had been a stressful day -- a stressful couple of days, beginning with his arrest, through his trial and crucifixion...then huddling together with the other disciples that night as we heard Joseph tell about taking him down from the cross and laying him in the tomb.
Then the long Sabbath, when none of us felt like we could dare go outside, and instead sat in a locked room and told stories about our experiences on the road over the last few years. It could have been a nice time of remembrance, except the unspoken ending to every story was, “...and then they nailed him to a cross and mocked him while he died, in a slow, agonizing dance of death.”
And then, when Sabbath was over and Sunday came, there were the confused reports from the women about the body being gone from the tomb, and some men -- angels, maybe--telling them he had got up and walked out. It was ridiculous, of course, and Peter went to prove them wrong, because it had to be some kind of awful mistake, but then he found the tomb empty, just as they’d said, with just the stained grave clothes lying on a bench, where his body had been two days before.
We had spent the day trying to figure out what kind of monster would have stolen him, when two of our followers -- his followers, I mean -- came back and pounded on our door ‘til we let them in. They had left for Emmaus earlier in the day, and now they came back with this ridiculous story that the Lord had appeared to them while they were walking...had walked with them, and talked with them, even broke bread with them.
It was unnerving, and somehow it made me angry, that they would not let his memory rest in peace. I was unreasonably irritated with them as they were forced to repeat, and repeat, and repeat their story until they would have no more of it. Only Peter seemed to give them the least bit of credence; the rest of us spent what seemed like a long time debating whether our brothers were drunk, insane, or trying to put over some kind of sick, horribly miscalculated joke.
I fell into the insane camp, myself, as we could smell no wine on their breath.
I felt uncomfortable being around them, then, as I was afraid that being so close to two lunatics would render me unclean, and I was not sure I wanted to chance going to one of the mikvas to cleanse myself. What should I do, I wondered, and then automatically I thought, I’ll ask the Master -- Jesus will know what’s right. It was an automatic, unbidden thought, coming to me as such thoughts and questions had so often over the last couple of years.
And then my heart sank at the realization that there would be no chance to ask Jesus, this time.
I was digesting this realization when I heard a familiar voice say quietly, behind me, “Shalom aleikhem.” Peace be with you.
Jesus! I thought, and turned to see him standing there among us. The door had not opened, I was sure of that -- it was bolted securely, in vain hope to shut out Temple guards or Roman soldiers who might come to finish the job of stamping out what they perceived as the threat from Jesus and his followers. And there had been no voice of greeting, no startled gasps, nothing at all to mark his entrance until those words were uttered, and then he was suddenly standing there, his face fixed in the knowing sort of half-smile he always had when he knew we were struggling with a particular teaching or idea.
There was a burst of joy, quickly followed by a feeling of dread as I realized this must be some type of spirit visitation, and I wondered if this could possibly be good, or if it was the Evil One at work. Close on the heels of those thoughts, I began to wonder if I, myself was going insane. It seemed like a plausible explanation, as I stood there staring at a man I knew to be dead.
As though he could read my thoughts, he looked straight at me -- or so it seemed -- and said, “Why are you frightened? Why do you doubt? You can see my hands and feet -- you can see that it’s me.” To make the point, he raised both hands, as he had so often done when he was blessing us, or blessing a crowd, and we could see as clear as day the wounds in his hands...a ragged, nasty hole in each hand, unhealed, with blood dark and crusty around it, where Joseph had not been able to clean it away during Friday’s hasty burial.
Through the hole in his left hand, I could see the flickering flame of a lamp, set on a shelf on the far wall, and the realization made me queasy.
This cannot be, I thought. This must be a spirit, or a demon, or some other kind of being we don’t understand, but it cannot be our Lord. It isn’t real. It is some kind of vision, or a hallucination. I was utterly certain of this, but though he invited us to touch the wounds to prove he was physically there, I wasn’t about to check. Nobody moved, nobody took the invitation...we just looked at one another, nervously, trying to see if someone else had a reasonable explanation for this vision standing before us, daring one another to make the first move to actually touch him.
And then he asked for a piece of fish.
Such a simple, ordinary thing -- the kind of thing he had done a hundred, a thousand times before. At the end of a long journey between towns, or of a hard day of teaching, or to celebrate a particularly joyful day, he would look to whoever was cooking that day, and ask for a piece of fish. There were plenty of nights when fish was all we had, but even on those nights when we were fortunate enough to have lamb, or fowl, for dinner, he would ask for fish.
He said it reminded him of his childhood -- took him back to simpler times that were getting harder and harder to remember. Though he tried not to fall under the spell of worldly things, it was one of the simple pleasures he enjoyed, moreso for what it meant than how it tasted. It was an island ot calm, a tangible link to simpler times, when the weight of the world had not yet begun to descend upon him.
“You still yearn for simplicity,” I said, almost involuntarily, as another disciple handed him a piece of fish. “You have been in the shadow of death, and yet you find comfort in a simple piece of fish.”
He smiled the half-smile again, and said, “If you had been through what I’ve been through, my brother, you would take any opportunity you had to touch your childhood.” He put the fish in his mouth, chewed slowly, and his eyes sort of half-closed, as though his being had been suddenly summoned somewhere else, even though his body still stood before us. His throat bobbed when he swallowed, and his eyes opened again. In that moment, I had no doubt that the man, himself, stood before us -- alive, somehow, in a way that none of us could have predicted or believed...a way only he, himself, had foreseen and trusted. For only that man would think to do what he had just done to show his physical nature.
A thousand questions tumbled over one another, trying to find their way out of my mouth, but instead they blocked one another, got in each other’s way, I stood in silence as he smiled once more, raised his hands, and repeated, “Shalom aleikhem.” And then he was gone. With no sign of effort, no noise, no smoke swirling in his spot, he just suddenly disappeared.
We were still marveling at it when Thomas -- Didymus -- came to see us. He had been out, talking to other followers, and had returned to report to us on what he’d found. Instead, we reported to him that Jesus had found us. And he refused, point blank, to believe us. He looked at us as though we had all gone mad -- probably the same look I’d had for Peter and the women who’d gone to the tomb that morning.
And no matter how hard we tried to convince him, he would have none of it. “I will not believe you,” he said, “not until I have touched with my own hands the wounds I know he bore. Not until I have felt the body, to prove to me that it was not a spirit that took you in. Or a delusion.” We gave up, and he just looked at me with an expression of mixed pity and frustration, and said, “You -- you’re a level headed man, I know that. How could even you have been taken in? What makes you think whatever you saw was our Lord?”
I started several times, but once more the words wouldn’t come. Finally I just smiled and shrugged, and said simply, “He asked for a piece of fish.”
It would just have to do...until he experienced the truth himself.
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). Keith's newest book NaTiVity Dramas: The Third Season will be published September 2012. He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 19, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
