Easter: Forty Days Later

Like the disciples, we have heard the good news that Jesus has risen from the dead. Death is unable to have a grip on Him. If, according to Paul, “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26), then death is already destroyed. “Death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor 15:54), so that we can taunt death and its powerlessness: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55). God “gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:47).

This is the good news of the resurrection. This was the good news that the disciples heard on the first Easter. But the question is this: How did the disciples receive the good news of the resurrection? How did the first Easter affect the lives of the disciples from the time Jesus rose from the dead up to the day He ascended to heaven?

Let us look back at the gospel stories and narrate what happened:

Day 1 Morning          

           

John 20:1-2	Women saw the empty tomb, and reported to the disciples that Jesus’ body was stolen. “While the women were on their way,” the chief priests conspired against Jesus’ resurrection (Matt 28:11-15).
John 20:3-9	Peter and the disciples went to the tomb. The disciple who went inside “saw and believed” (20:8). Peter ran, saw the empty tomb and went away, “wondering to himself what had happened” (Luke 24:12).
John 20:10-18	The disciples went home. Mary stayed and Jesus appeared to her. Mary went to report to the disciples: “I have seen the Lord” (20:18). People who heard the women’s testimonies did not believe them (Mark 16:11).

Day 1 Afternoon and Evening

Luke 24:13-35	“That same day… two of them were going to a village called Emmaus” and Jesus appeared to them. They recognized him when He broke bread. “They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem… they found the Eleven… ‘It is true! The Lord has risen’” (24:34). But the disciples “did not believe them either” (Mark 19:12-13).
Luke 24:36-40	“While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them” (24:36). He showed His hands and feet (Luke 24:40).
John 20:19-23	“On the evening of that first day of the week…, Jesus came and stood among them.”

Later…

“Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven… he rebuked them for their lack of faith and the stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen” (Mark 16:14).

Day 8

John 20:26-29

“A week later,” Jesus appeared to the disciples. Thomas was not with the disciples when Jesus appeared last time and he did not believe (20:24-25). Thomas saw Jesus and said: “My Lord and my God!” (20:28).

Days between Days 9 to 40

John 20:30-31	“Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples.”
John 21:1-14	“Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias” (Sea of Galilee). The disciples were fishing. They did not recognize Jesus (21:4). “This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples” (21:14).
John 21:15-19	Jesus reinstated Peter.
John 21:25	“Jesus did many other things as well.”

Day 40

Jesus appeared to the disciples in Galilee, as He said to the women (28:10). The Great Commission pronounced (Matt 28:16-20; Mark 16:15-20).

The resurrection changed everything. This is particularly true in the lives of the disciples. But if we think that the changes were dramatic and instantaneous, we are wrong. We realize that the good news of the resurrection was gradually understood and received by the disciples. They heard the good news early Sunday morning, but they were not able to fully appropriate it in their lives immediately.

• Mark 16:11 indicates that people did not believe the testimonies of the women.
• Mark 16:12-13 tells us that the disciples did not believe the testimony of the two disciples who walked and ate with Jesus in Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35).
• John 19:19 vividly portrays that they were still afraid of the Jews even though they already heard that Jesus was raised from the dead.
• Mark 16:14 records that Jesus had to appear to the disciples and “rebuked them for their lack of faith and the stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.”
• John 20:26-29 narrates the unbelievable story of Thomas still doubting even after a week!
• John 21:1-14 reveals that the disciples went back to Galilee not to be “fishers of men” (Matt 4:19; Mark 1:17), but to return to their old profession as fishermen.

If I were Jesus, I would have been really mad at the disciples. But Jesus is patient. Luke writes that Jesus “appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). What does this mean? It means that the disciples are very slow in appropriating the good news of the resurrection. It required 40 days for them to finally understand it. It required 40 days until their lives were fully affected by the resurrection. The good news of the resurrection was a good news, true, but it was a good news that has yet to permeate their mind, heart, and life.

Let us ponder for a moment: How many days or years does God need in order for us to fully understand and appropriate one simple good news? It is amazing that on the very day that Jesus was risen from the dead, the disciples were still afraid of the Jews (John 19:19). This might be the same with us. On the very same day that we have received the good news, we immediately forget about it, and live our lives as if nothing happened.

The post-resurrection stories reveal, once again, the sharp contrast between human stubbornness and God’s remarkable grace. In the words of the Psalmist, we can only marvel at the fact that “the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love” (Exo 34:6; Num 14:18; Deut 4:31; Ps 86:15; 103:8; 145:8). The post-resurrection stories re-enact the relationship between the Israelites and Yahweh: “They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them” (Neh 9:17).

The forty days that Jesus spent with the disciples might be more meaningful than we think. There seems to be a connection between the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness and the experience of the disciples. We need to remember that “the Israelites have moved about in the wilderness forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord. For the LORD had sworn to them that they would not see the land he had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Josh 5:6). If in the Old Testament, God used forty years to kill stiff-necked and disobedient Israelites so that they would not enter the promised land, in Jesus Christ, He spent forty days so that His stubborn disciples might be reinstated into the kingdom and receive the promised Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-8). He stayed with them. Jesus was patient, not wanting anyone to perish. He wanted His disciples to be able to enter the place which He was preparing for them: in His Father’s house which has many rooms (John 14:1-2).