When they heard that he was alive
and had been seen by her, they did not believe.
The Lord has provided solidly reliable witnesses to his resurrection. He has revealed himself to those who were entirely ready to believe that he was dead, who were coming to terms with the apparent failure of their hope in him.
After this he appeared in another form
to two of them walking along on their way to the country.
They returned and told the others;
but they did not believe them either.
It was not denial or desperation about the events of the Passion that made the witnesses susceptible to belief in the resurrection. They had already given up. Their grief did not make them credulous. We see the result of disciples' grief on their minds and emotions when we see how readily the witnesses themselves were disbelieved. To people dealing with the grief of the loss of Jesus the suggestion that he was still alive only added to their pain, because they knew, or so they thought, that the dead did not come back to life. They were fixated on their grief. The clung to it over and against the testimony of eyewitnesses.
But later, as the Eleven were at table, he appeared to them
and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart
because they had not believed those
who saw him after he had been raised.
When the disciples disbelieved the witnesses they did so because they no longer found in those others the same grief which they themselves were feeling. They felt that that very lack of grief made them untrustworthy. But it was just the opposite. The witnesses had experienced that same grief as much as anyone and could now testify that it was not final, not ultimate truth about the situation. The grief itself, the desolation they felt, was unreliable as a norm of what to believe.
We can learn from these disciples how to better listen to the witnesses the Lord sends to us in our own times of grief and desolation. We can look and see if they are merely credulous or if the joy they have come to know can only be explained by the work of the Lord in their hearts.
I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy (see John 16:22).
We can learn that, as witnesses, we may not always be believed. In fact, we see that we are, like these first witnesses, just laying the groundwork for when Jesus chooses to make himself known. The world is in dire need of this revelation. We speak to a world that is utterly convinced that despair is final and that therefore distraction is the only worthy pursuit. We speak a message of hope, knowing very much what that despair feels like, but knowing that it is not final.
He said to them, “Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
The world often responds to the possibility of hope, even in obvious manifestations, much as did the Sanhedrin.
Everyone living in Jerusalem knows that a remarkable sign
was done through them, and we cannot deny it.
It is in some ways easier to believe grief than to dare to hope again. And so we ourselves may often meet opposition. Therefore we do not see those who oppose us as enemies. Rather we recognize beneath the surface of opposition their need for the same hope we have come to know. And so we will not let them silence us.
“Whether it is right in the sight of God
for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges.
It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.”
No comments:
Post a Comment