A Fish
How do you explain a mystery?
How can a minds be unlocked to the fathomless? How does one open oneself to supreme knowledge? How can anyone face the enigma of the resurrection, how can the mystery of the Risen One who returns from the dead be unveiled? What encrypted code will the King of the Universe use to unveil his victory over death?
What mystical way will he set out on to help his followers comprehend and to believe in that earthshattering secret? What sublime revelation will the Master uncover to explain the final victory over the horrifying jaws of death? What ancient, hidden code will the Master reveal to his followers to bring to light the occult? Will he use rings of fire or magic dust? Will angels descend from heaven or will He use cosmic signs; will He make use of astral entities, hypnosis, pendants, magic cards, signs, wonders, mixturse, potions, fumes or flying objects?
A fish. Or more precisely a piece of fish, a piece of baked fish which he took and swallowed in one biteful. Here is Jesus, here is God, here is how the Almighty moves, here is how God does things.
A piece of baked fish to chew and swallow calmly is the obscure way used to make the announcement and the revelation of the greatest event in all of human history. The dead man is alive, death has been overcome, Jesus is alive, Jesus eats and the baked fish becomes a bridge of knowledge, a rational bond, an existential adherence. Dead men do not eat; if anything they are eaten.
Shocking, disarming, embarassing. The Lord needs nothing more than a piece of baked fish to say who He is and that He is alive and has risen. The Lord does not need mysterious alchimies, hidden codes, miles of underground libraries, obscure sects, intrigues, or impenetrable enigmas. To announce his resurrection after being masscred by a death on the cross, all the Lord needs to do is bite into a piece of baked fish.
How happy and blessed is that baked fish which shows us with what simplicity, what placidness and holy humorism God does things and explains them to us. A blessed piece of fish used by Jesus to open the minds of his followers to the beauty and magnitude of the word of God revealed in the Holy Law, in the Psalms, in the Prophets. How lucky was that piece of fish caught by the apostles, roasted on the fire which became food for our Creator, chewed by the Risen One, who, when he returned from the dead, used it to remove any doubt or fear.
Our Lord Jesus Christ just Risen from the dead, lovingly, in complete tranquility, and with eyes clear with eternal light, smiling and beautiful caresses the hands and the heads of his followers and with the good taste of that fish still in his mouth he communicated and announced to all of His children of all times that in Him in His name all men can make peace with God and can have and ask for forgiveness and peace. This is the first announcement, the first revelation of the Resurrected One: a fish to sing the resurrection. A fish will be the symbol of the First Christians in the catacombs.
God’s simplicity is equal to His love and His beauty. Jesus invites us to make known His simplicity and divine beauty everywhere, his simplicity and divine beauty which have the power to change hearts and minds. Simplicity and divine beauty which are revealed to man first of all, above all, and always in the gift of mercy, forgiveness and peace.