Jesus Appears

 

Scripture: Luke 24:36-40 (ESV)

³⁶ As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” ³⁷ But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. ³⁸ And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ³⁹ See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” ⁴⁰ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

Devotion:

            Jesus does all he can to calm and reassure His disciples after His resurrection. His disciples were slow to believe, just as we sometimes are. In their minds, they thought, dead people stay dead. We hold this same belief. Therefore, Jesus had to prove that He was alive and ready for eternity with the Father in heaven.

Indeed, this resurrection appearance raises as many questions as it provides answers. How? What? Jesus attempts to assure them that it is He. He shows his wounds and later eats a piece of fish to prove that He is really there, not just a spirit or apparition. The disciples experience joy even in their disbelief.

We must confess that we, too, struggle with this. It had never happened before, and it has not happened since. As wonderful as it is, the human brain struggles with things that have never happened before. We simply have no categories in which to put situations like this. Our spirit is willing, but our flesh is weak.

Those first disciples, not unlike us, are slow to believe; today, in our scientific age, we search for ways to explain this to a world that disbelieves in miracles. The appearances of Jesus to these first witnesses were incredible. To our minds, these appearances are impossible. It is essential that we open our minds to understand what was happening in that room so distant in time and space. Our God refuses to be put into a box. God continually surprises us.

Faith in Christ is diminishing in the Western world, making belief in Jesus’ resurrection even more difficult. Who likes to be told that they believe in a fantasy? That is what the world tells us about our faith in Christ’s resurrection. Even if we assert that this belief is in line with those first eyewitnesses and has been attested to by 2,000 years of faith by Christians around the world, our culture holds that we are gullible and naïve. Let us pray that we will hold our faith with tenacity and strength.

Prayer:

            Lord, strengthen the faith and resolve of your people living in this modern age. Help us proclaim with winsomeness and clarity that the resurrection happened. Jesus did walk out of that tomb, appear to His followers, and ascend to heaven. Give us the quiet confidence to answer all the world's objections to Christianity. Help us to have faith in you, Lord. May the resurrection power fill us. In Jesus name, Amen.