Luke 24:36-53
Dear RTB’ers,
Today we finish Luke’s gospel with another of Jesus’ Resurrection appearances. Although we are never certain of the exact chronology of Jesus’ activities in the gospels, today’s incident possibly occurs on His Easter Resurrection day, late afternoon/early evening. If so, we see (again) that Jesus is fully committed to His disciples. They have seen His arrest and Crucifixion and He wants to assure them before too much time has passed that He is alive, that He has risen as He said He would. Even though they have heard reports of Him being alive from the women and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, it was important to Him to appear to them all in person. That’s the Jesus that we know; He is not unconcerned with whatever is troubling us, but rather is there for us. Live in that!
The disciples were unbelieving when they heard the women’s story, then again when the two men reported their meeting with Jesus. (Mark 16:12-13) Now Jesus appears in the flesh and the disciples …were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. (v. 37) So Jesus had to convince them otherwise. As with so many other items in Scripture, His convincing was in three parts. First, He appeared in the flesh and spoke to them, even commenting to them that …a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. (v. 39b) Second, He explained about Himself from Scripture, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead… (v. 46a) Finally, He asked for something to eat.
So, for us…? If you’ve been sharing the Gospel over and over again with your family and friends and they still do not believe, don’t quit. It took Jesus appearing in person to convince His disciples that He was alive – and then even with multiple signs. Just pray again that He will appear to the ones with whom you’ve been sharing, in the person of His Holy Spirit. Don’t be unbelieving, but believe – wait and pray, pray and wait.
Blessings!