Resurrection appearances

Christianity would never have taken off without Christ’s resurrection. The apostles witnessed the risen Christ and it transformed them into fearless proclaimers of their Lord and Saviour, died and risen to bring us salvation. Their transformation is enough to show it really happened. 

Here is the evidence, the main facts as they are recorded in the Gospels:

• The roman centurions ensured Jesus was dead on the cross, by piercing his side with a spear.
• His corpse was laid in an unused sepulchre, dug out of the rock, and a heavy stone was rolled over the entrance and sealed by the roman soldiers who guarded it to make sure the disciples would not come and steal the body and claim he was risen. (The Jewish leaders had taken note that Jesus had taught that he would rise after three days).  
• There was an earthquake, and the guards fainted, and then fled in fear.
• Mary Magdalene came to embalm the corpse and saw the tomb was open, and the stone had been rolled away.
• She went and told Peter who ran with John to the tomb.
• Peter and John saw the tomb was empty, and went away.
• Mary stayed, and saw Jesus who spoke with her and told her “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20.17).
• The same evening, when the disciples were behind locked doors for fear of the Jews, Jesus came into their midst and showed them the wounds of his crucifixion and the spear-wound in his side. He spoke to them and asked “have you anything here to eat?” (Luke24.41) so that, as he ate the fish they gave him, they could see he was not a ghost. He also said to them: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20.21). 
• A week later he came there again, showing himself in the same way, particularly to Thomas, one of the eleven faithful disciples who had been absent the time before. “Put your finger here, and see my hands,” said Jesus to him, “and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20.26-27). 

More appearances of the risen Jesus are recorded, but the most significant is the last just mentioned, for Thomas had doubted the report of Jesus’ resurrection. When he saw the risen Christ, he answered Jesus in an expostulation of faith: “My Lord and my God!” Jesus’ response to that was by no means to rebuke Thomas for blasphemous exaggeration. Rather, he says, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20.28 NIV). This was his way of saying, “Happily, you have finally got it, Thomas! That is indeed who I am – both Lord and God”.

Numbers of unbelievers down the centuries have sought to discredit Jesus’ resurrection, and several, checking it out, have changed their opinion, writing books to explain how the evidence led them to conclude that Jesus was indeed the divine Son of God. If we, too, come to that conclusion, we have the basis of real hope for answers that come from the most authentic of sources, God himself.

This leads us to listen with more confidence to the truths Jesus brought which can enlighten us as we face our deep existential predicament as human beings.

We will examine these life-giving teachings in blog posts to come.

Clive Every-Clayton