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SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with Him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen Him, they did not believe it.
Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. They returned and reported it to the rest, but they did not believe them either. (Mark 16: 9-13)
Talk about unbelief! First the women at the tomb when the young man told them Jesus had risen; then the disciples when Mary reported to them that she had seen Jesus; then the two whom Jesus had accompanied home from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
I suppose it was understandable seeing to them there was no such thing as someone rising from the dead. O yes, they had seen Jesus raising people from the dead, but that was different. They had come back to life in their old natural bodies.
But the reports about Jesus may have seemed spooky to them. He seemed to come and go like a spirit, and yet, He was a real person. They recognised Him as Jesus. These reporters must have described in detail what they had seen. Best they just dismiss the reports rather than raise their hopes only to be dashed when He failed to show Himself to them.
But that’s where they were dead wrong. It was not only Thomas who refused to believe the good news that Jesus was really alive until he had verified it for himself. The others were in the same boat. They wanted to see Him personally before they would finally abandon themselves to the truth that He was really alive and they could rejoice without reservations.
What is so wrong about that? Perhaps people in this generation could take a leaf from their book. There are too many “believers” walking around today, thinking they are disciples of Jesus but having done nothing more than given mental assent to Him, or ”accepted Him as their personal Saviour” because of what He could do for them – sins forgiven, a free pass to heaven and all that.
Is that how the disciples understood Him and His call to them? If that was so, what difference did it make to them whether He was dead or alive? They had His teaching, and they could carry on with His mission as He had taught and trained them to do. He was no different from any other founder of a religion. After all, they believed in Moses and held to his teaching even though he had been dead for many centuries.
But was that what Jesus had actually taught them? Not by a long shot! All the other rabbis with authority who had ever lived could do no more than pass on their teaching. Their disciples were taught to imitate them but they were, at best, human and fallible. However closely their followers stuck to them, it would make no difference to their hearts. They could copy their rabbis as carefully as they liked – it was all external. Their sinful hearts remained unchanged.
But Jesus was different. He promised His disciples a union with Him that would recreate them from within. He told them of the Holy Spirit, His “other self”, one just like Him, who would come when He left, “another Counsellor” who would be “in” them. He said that they would see Him again and that He would return to take them to where He was. All empty promises if He were dead – or were they? Did they die with Him and prove Him a liar, or would He really be able to make good on His promises? From what they had seen up to that point, everything He told them had disappeared with Him into the tomb behind the stone. They were left helpless, hopeless and alone.
The stories that the witnesses of the resurrection of their Master persisted in telling them, only served to make their loss more poignant. Why raise their hopes when they knew His resurrection was impossible? Whoever added the last few verses to Mark’s story to set the record straight, since Mark’s story ended abruptly with the women fleeing from the tomb, made sure that Mark’s readers would know that Jesus’s story did not end there.
What the disciples dismissed as impossible, actually happened and much more. Everything that Jesus taught and modelled hung on His promise that He would rise again. Did He or didn’t He? If not, then He was just another hoax!
Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son - The Way to the Father's Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You'll love it!
Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.
Watch this space. My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), companion volume to Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master, will soon be on the bookshelves.
Check out my Blog site - www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com
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