“Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You have faith in God, have faith also in me…Where I am going, you know the way.” (Jn 14,1f)  In the midst of his final discourse to his apostles, Jesus gives his apostles some very simple instructions:  Don’t have troubled hearts.  Have faith.  You know the Way.  Jesus knows us all too well.  He knows our hearts better than we know them.  He knows that our hearts are full of questions, doubts and suspicions.  Jesus often accused his apostles of being people with “little faith.”  In our hearts we wrestle with truth.  How do we know that we are loved?  How can we trust our experiences and know what is real and what is an illusion?  What is the direction our lives should take?  God sent his Son into the world to speak to our hearts and to answer all of our questions.  Jesus is the answer to every question that our hearts could ask.  “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” Jesus will assure his apostles.  Faith in Jesus is the answer, no matter what the question might be.  It seems simple but still we allow our fears and our anxieties to darken our minds and to disturb our peace.  When the risen Christ appears to his apostles he calls them back to peace:  “Peace be with you.” (Luke 24,37)  He finds them disturbed and terrified by his presence among them and he asks them, “Why are you troubled?  And why do questions arise in your hearts?” (Luke 24, 39)  The very thing that Jesus had instructed them to avoid has filled their hearts with doubt and fear.  Why do we allow the world to steal our peace and to trouble our hearts?

    In speaking with people today we still find that people are very reluctant to profess a faith in the risen Jesus.  They struggle to really believe in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body.  They want to believe but they hesitate to commit themselves in faith to the Real Presence of the risen Christ among us today.  Many of those who are skeptical about the resurrection have no problem believing in ghosts.  The apostles at first think that they are seeing a ghost when the risen Jesus appears in their midst.  Jesus reproves them saying, “Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” (Luke 24,40)  Ghosts are still dead but the risen Christ has conquered death and lives eternally in the newness of life.

    The risen Jesus sweeps away the questioning heart and patiently and methodically opens the minds of the apostles to understand the scriptures.  He says to them, “These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me…must be fulfilled.” (Luke 24,41)  He transforms their troubled and questioning hearts into believing hearts that trust in his Word and believe in his love.  “You are witnesses of these things.” (Luke 24,48)  The apostles are transformed from fearful doubters into witnesses before the world.  Peter will be able to profess, “The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.  Now I know brothers, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did; but God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer.” (Acts 3,17f)  The light of the risen Christ shines in their minds and hearts, dispels the darkness of their ignorance and fills them with knowledge of the truth.  John will write, “The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments.  Those who say, “I know him,” but do not keep his commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them.  But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.” (1Jn 2,3f)  The knowledge of the risen Christ is proved in the Way in which one lives in the truth of his Words.  Our lives must bear witness to our faith in the resurrection of Jesus by the Way in which we live our lives in love for one another.

    Now is the time for us to shrug off the ignorance of endless questioning and make a decision of faith in our risen Lord so that we may become witnesses to the knowledge of our new life in the risen Christ.  Now is the time to show the Way to others in the world and to live in a new way of life.  A life of faith brings peace, a life of questioning brings only the shades of new doubts and fears.  No ghosts here, only real love.