Luke 24
I went out the morning after the Sabbath, wandering around the city, ending up at the gate to Golgotha. I had not intended to come here, where I had carried his cross.
There I saw some women come running towards me. One of them was shouting that he was alive. Who did she mean?
The rest of the women had gone ahead, on to the men they called the disciples. Joanna, the one who stopped and talked to me, took me to another house, a house packed full of people with red, puffy eyes, people who had not slept for two days.
She didn’t even knock on the door, just blew it open. And without waiting for any kind of greeting, she announced firmly, cheerfully, “Jesus is NOT dead! He’s alive! He is risen!”
As you can imagine, with some twenty people in the room, different reactions followed. Some faces lit up with joy. “Oh, how wonderful! Praise God!”
Relief filled others, but doubt was the most common response. “We saw him dead. We saw them carry away his body, his very dead body.”
And some responded with anger. “It’s bad enough that he’s gone. Now you try to give us some kind of false hope! Trying to make us forget what happened.” One woman even stepped forward with her arm raised to slap Joanna.
“No, no! Listen to me. Listen to me.”
She turned to me as if to ask for verification, but I had not been there. I only knew what she had told me. That was only that he was not dead after all.
They settled down and she told them what had happened.
“We left early, even before dawn. The others had prepared the spices, since we didn’t have time to anoint his body on Friday. As you would expect, Mary Magdalene set a fast pace. We could barely keep up with her. I didn’t think we would have the energy left to roll away the stone, even with five of us there.”
Remembering, her eyes widened. “But we didn’t need to! The tomb was open! We looked inside, and the body was gone! And while we were standing there, two men appeared. At least, they looked like men, but their robes were whiter than any I’ve ever seen before. Not just white, but … looking at them was like looking at the sun. Blinding white.”
She certainly had everyone’s attention. Nobody had even noticed me yet. I slipped over to the side wall.
An expression of fear flashed across her face. “We were terrified! Afraid to even look at them. Then one of them spoke. ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ [1] ”
Leaning against the wall, my mind flashed back to that horrible day and I almost missed what the angel said next, “’… and on the third day be raised again.’”
“And this is the third day,” someone whispered.
Joanna repeated, “and on the third day be raised again.”
“And he has?” a male voice asked.
The mood in the room changed slowly, as people began to remember, as the pain began to disappear from their faces. These people had been with Jesus. They had seen him perform miracles. And they had heard his words. Within a few minutes, they went from the deepest sorrow to rejoicing, to laughing, to hugging each other, to celebrating something they had not seen, the resurrection of the man they had followed.
I still didn’t understand. I couldn’t go there. It simply was not something I could believe. I didn’t doubt Joanna’s sincerity. But she hadn’t actually seen Jesus alive. She hadn’t touched him, felt him, heard his voice, only the testimony of those two dazzling men. Who were they? Were they angels? And where was Jesus?
So I stayed over to the side until Joanna remembered I had come with her.
“You’re still sad. You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, I believe what you said, but … you didn’t see him. They said he has risen, but …”
I looked down at the floor. I wanted to believe, but everything I knew about death told me that nobody rises again.
She reached out and gently touched my arm. “You didn’t know him. You didn’t know what he could do, what God could do through him.” Her tone was soft, comforting, understanding. “This afternoon I’ll introduce you to the disciples. They knew him best. They spent three years with him.”
I spent the rest of the morning listening to their stories. Some of them the young man at the shelter had told me, but most of them were new. After all, Jesus spent three years traveling around the country, even crossing into Gentile territory. They were delighted to tell me what they remembered, and I listened intently.
Finally, as the sun passed noontime, Joanna took me to the other house where the disciples were. She simply introduced me as Simon from Cyrene. I’m not particularly good at remembering names, and there were too many for me to grasp with my brain in the shape it was in.
Thaddeus (the last one introduced to me) had just asked me, “So how do you know Jesus?” when the door resounded with a loud series of knocks. James (I think that’s who it was) unbolted the door and a man burst in.
“Peter! Where have …” Joanna started to ask, but he quickly cut her off.
“I’ve seen him! He talked to me! He’s alive! He’s really alive!”
Instantly everyone gathered around him, asking questions. “When?” “Where?” “How?” “Are you sure?”
The smile on his face and the brightness in his eyes lit up the whole room. “Just a few minutes ago. I went back to the tomb to think. That’s where the women said they had seen the angels. I thought maybe, just maybe, I might see them, too, and I had some questions for them.”
He laughed, as though considering the logic of asking angels any questions.
“I stood there in front of the open tomb for … I don’t know. It seemed like a long time. Finally, I headed back to the city. And then I knew I was not alone. I turned, hoping to see one of the angels. But it wasn’t an angel. It was Jesus! And he spoke my name! Softly. Gently, in that way of his. Like when I have said something stupid, and he wants me to know that it’s alright.”
A soft laughter passed through the other disciples. Obviously, they had seen and heard that happen several times.
“He spoke my name. ‘Peter,’ and then again, the same way, ‘Peter.’ I fell at his feet. What else could I do?”
His voice betrayed his sorrow. “Three times I had denied knowing him. Three times. ‘I don’t know him,’ [2] I told them at the trial. But there, standing in the street, Jesus stood right in front of me with that look on his face, that look that says, ‘It’s alright.’ He forgave me, for all three times.”
Another knocking interrupted us. James, or whoever it was, opened the door again, and a man and a woman, breathless from running, almost fell in.
Cleopas and his wife told their story. They had been returning to Emmaus when a man joined them. For the rest of their journey, he had explained the scriptures to them. And when they arrived home and invited him to stay the night, he broke bread with them. That was when they recognized him, and he disappeared. Jesus! Jesus risen and alive!
Now all this time I’m standing against the side wall, where I can see the door, trying to stay out of the way, but trying to sort this all out. I had heard many stories by now about Peter, so I had a pretty good idea who he was. Not just outspoken, but sometimes brash, he was often in trouble with Jesus. But Jesus had called him the rock and named him Peter instead of Simon. Could he have really seen Jesus?
Cleopas and his wife, they weren’t part of the inner circle, but they had been with Jesus off and on for several months. Would Jesus really have appeared to them?
But we had one more visitor, only this time nobody knocked. This time nobody opened the door, and nobody came in through the door. Just … there he was, hand raised in blessing. “Peace be with you.” [3]
Now Peter had just told us he had seen Jesus, and Cleopas and his wife had offered the same testimony. In theory, we shouldn’t have been surprised. To tell you the truth, we weren’t surprised, we were terrified! Even Peter and Cleopas and his wife. And certainly me!
To be honest, he didn’t look like the same man I had seen before, blood running down his face from the crown of thorns, weakened by the flogging, staggering under the weight of the cross. But the voice, when he spoke, it was the same voice that had pardoned the soldiers, that had accepted the thief.
A little smile played at the corner of his lips. “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” [4]
The others gathered around him, looking, touching, feeling. His head, his hands, and his feet were bloodied, just as one would expect. I stepped forward, then stopped. I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t feel I had the right to join them.
He looked over at me and smiled. “Ah, Simon. It’s good to see you here. Thank you again for your help with the cross.” [5]
Well, that did it. I broke down crying. Tears of joy, tears of relief, tears that washed away all my doubts, tears that told me that I believed.
He ate something, not because he was hungry but because he wanted us to see that he really was flesh and blood, a human being.
Then he explained, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” [6]
Then he led us out to Bethany and blessed us. Hands still raised, he … what can I say? How can I say it? He just went up into the air, into the clouds, up into heaven.
And we returned to Jerusalem to wait. We didn’t know what we were waiting for, but he said to wait, so we did.
For consideration:
General questions:
1) How does this story follow its Scripture?
2) How does this story expand its Scripture for you?
3) What is the message of this story?
4) How does the message apply to us today?
Specific questions:
5) How would you have reacted that first Easter morning if someone burst into the room to tell you Jesus was alive?
6) If you had been in the room with the people in the morning, what story would you have told Simon?
7) Why would the disciples and others have been terrified when Jesus appeared?
8) Jesus ate something to prove to them he was real flesh and blood. What did it take for you to believe in the resurrection?
[1] Luke 24:5-7 (NIV)
[2] Luke 22:57
[3] Luke 24:36 (NIV)
[4] Luke 24:38-39 (NIV)
[5] Not in the Scriptures
[6] Luke 24:46-49 (NIV)
