Next in Luke’s Gospel we come to the 11 disciples. They are all gathered in the room talking about the individual appearances of Jesus, when suddenly Jesus appears:
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
Luke 24:26-43
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 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.”
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
Somewhat ironically, given the impact his appearance has his first words are “peace to you”. It is an appropriate thing to say to a group of frightened and now very confused disciples. This peace is not just an absence of terror – which would be welcome to the disciples, it is also a wholeness of life, which results from Jesus’s resurrection.
This peace does not come automatically. It needs Jesus’s interaction with his disciples to bring about this peace. More precisely it needs them to see for themselves that Jesus really is alive. He is standing before them. He can be touched. He can be seen. His nail marks are still there in his hands and his feet. He is really alive.
Their fear turns to joy, and now their difficulty is grasping it because their joy and wonder is so great. It is the most amazing and wonderful thing any of them can possibly imagine. Jesus’s final piece of physical evidence is to ask for food – and the disciples give him some fish. Having given them the physical evidence for his resurrection he now proceeds to explain what it means.
He’s written this gospel so that we can have the same experience. We don’t, it is true, see the risen Christ – but we do have the gospels to read. We can investigate the evidence and see that these are reliable accounts. That the New Testament tells us of a Jesus who suffered, died and was buried – and that the tomb is empty. And if that is true – then everything else written in this book can be true too.
More than that, though, we also need the explanation. The reason for the resurrection. We can know the facts, but until we know why Jesus rose we will not fully know the peace that the resurrection brings in our hearts and in our lives. It is the explanation that Jesus goes on to make in this chapter.
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
Luke 24:44-48
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations,beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 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.”
In v44 he is effectively telling them that they really didn’t need to be surprised – he had told them all this before. Everything that is written about Jesus in the Law of Moses – that is the first 5 books of the Bible, the Prophets – which in our bibles is both the history (Joshua – 2 Kings & Isaiah – Malachi), and the Psalms (which may well also be standing for the rest of the “writings” – all the other books of our old testament) must be fulfilled.
He isn’t saying that absolutely everything in the Old Testament relates directly to him – we don’t have to force texts to mean things they could never have meant to hear them speak of Christ. What he is saying is that in every part of the Old Testament there are things written about Jesus, about what God’s chosen King would do and be. Sometimes there are direct prophecies – more often there are patterns of how Israel and her leaders were supposed to be that Jesus fills out the full meaning of – sometimes it isn’t immediately obvious how this works – which is why Jesus had to open their minds to understand and explain the Scriptures to them.
He explains that the fact of the Messiah suffering and dying and rising was always the intention. The purpose of this death and resurrection was that forgiveness of sins would be available to all nations – starting in Jerusalem. God’s plan all along was that the nations would be included in God’s people. Jesus’s disciples are witnesses of these things.
Intriguingly though, Luke picture them as now being sent out. Jesus is first going to send them what the Father has promised – which, it becomes clear in Acts, is the Holy Spirit, who will clothe them with power from on high.
Having given them peace, through the evidence of his physical resurrection and the explanation of the witness of Scriptures, he now tells them to wait in the city for the promised Spirit who would bring power from on high. They are given peace, and promised power. And just as we can have the peace of the assurance of Jesus’s physical resurrection and eyes opened to see the message of Jesus in the Scriptures, so we can share in this power.
The first disciples will experience the power of Jesus’s resurrection in them when they receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And they will subsequently experience fillings of the Spirit that give them power to do the task of witnessing to Jesus among the nations. Disciples of Jesus receive the Spirit when they first trust in Jesus – but we also need to acknowledge our conscious dependence on the Spirit’s power in our lives. I think that can involve seasons where we need to wait.
Sometimes we just need to get on with general or specific things that Jesus has told us to do. But I think there are also times when we need to take heed of the message to wait. Perhaps if we have become complacent in our ability, and lacking in expectation that God will do anything out of the ordinary we need to wait and ask God to send his Spirit. Perhaps now is a time when many in the UK should perhaps be waiting on God and asking for his power to show us what to do.
We are emerging from the other side of a global pandemic when all our patterns of life were shaken. Do we really want everything to be just like it was before, only a little harder because there are less people and some people have felt a freedom to stop? In evangelical circles in the UK we’ve been rocked by leadership scandal after scandal – whether of outright physical abuse, or of more subtle spiritual manipulation, and as a result we – I – find it harder and harder to trust our leadership. In the Church of England the debates over sexuality threaten to tear the church apart, and show the desperate need for leadership that can hold out grace, at the same time as living by the truth revealed in Scripture.
In this time we have a desperate need for the peace the Risen Christ can bring, and for the power that he clothed those first disciples with on that first day of Pentecost. We may not need another Pentecost, but we could surely do with a fresh demonstrations of that power in our church and nation. So maybe it is time to pray with a fresh vision of what could be. A fresh desire for God’s Spirit to breath new life into our faltering efforts to serve him so that God’s people come alive with joy, bringing life to those around.
Perhaps now would be a good time to pause and reflect. Perhaps you feel acutely your need for peace in the midst of turmoil. Place yourself in that room with those first disciples and ask Jesus to make himself real to you and bring his peace to your life.
Or maybe it is the need for God’s power in your life and work that you acutely sense your need for. Perhaps it has been a time of barrenness. Perhaps you feel you have faithfully fought for truth, but the sense of Christ’s presence is remote, and the reality of his power feels so distant.
Pause now and ask. Pause now and wait. Pause now and pray. Use the words of this hymn.
Lord of the church, we pray for our renewing:
Christ over all, our undivided aim.
Fire of the Spirit, burn for our enduing,
wind of the Spirit, fan the living flame!
We turn to Christ amid our fear and failing,
the will that lacks the courage to be free,
the weary labours, all but unavailing,
to bring us nearer what a church should be.Lord of the church, we seek a Father’s blessing,
a true repentance and a faith restored,
a swift obedience and a new possessing,
filled with the Holy Spirit of the Lord!
We turn to Christ from all our restless striving,
unnumbered voices with a single prayer:
the living water for our souls’ reviving,
in Christ to live, and love and serve and care.Lord of the church, we long for our uniting,
Timothy Dudley Smith
true to one calling, by one vision stirred;
one cross proclaiming and one creed reciting,
one in the truth of Jesus and his word.
So lead us on; till toil and trouble ended,
one church triumphant one new song shall sing,
to praise his glory, risen and ascended,
Christ over all, the everlasting King!
Joshua's Tree Rooted 