The Risen Jesus

This passage deals with the scene in which Jesus, after his resurrection, appears to his disciples and leaves his final words. It sets side by side the women, including Mary Magdalene, who went to the tomb, found it already empty, and heard the news of the resurrection from the angel but could not easily accept it, and the disciples, shut in by fear and doubt. People have the weakness of finding it hard to believe God's work and the fact of the resurrection unless they see it with their own eyes or touch it with their own hands.

The sermon points out that this human attitude comes not simply from ignorance, but from a stubbornness that wants to be true only to one's own experience and feelings. The women took spices with them because they had forgotten the promise of the resurrection and stayed within the customs for the dead, and the disciples had locked their doors out of fear. Even so, Jesus, while rebuking their foolishness, kept appearing to them to the end, gave them peace, and poured out the Holy Spirit on them. This shows God's deep love and patience, so that they would believe the unseen spiritual reality and carry out the mission of the gospel.

We already hear the promise of the resurrection and the second coming through Scripture, yet we look back on whether we still live bound to the reality we can see. We should live believing in the authority to forgive sins and the protection of the Holy Spirit given by the risen Jesus, and trusting his promise to be with us to the end of the age. Today, though we have not seen the resurrection with our own eyes, we must choose whether to hold firmly to that promise and carry out the mission of sharing the gospel, or to remain in doubt and fear.