17 April 2026 - bring it to Jesus

Today's Readings
(Audio)

A large crowd followed him,
because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.

The crowds had a shallow interest in Jesus. They were seeking entertainment more than truth. As we will see, they would be content with an infinitely available earthly bread, and did not know how much better a heavenly food could satisfy them. Noticing the supernatural signs that accompanied Jesus without reading more deeply into the reason for the signs caused the people to attempt to drag Jesus down to the level of an earthly king, rather than allowing themselves to be elevated to participation in a heavenly Kingdom. But this was a problem uniquely affecting the spectators. The disciples who were directly involved had a different set of challenges before them.

When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him,
he said to Philip, "Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?"
He said this to test him,
because he himself knew what he was going to do.

Apparently Jesus sometimes allows us to deal with questions that don't have good earthly answers in order that we might respond by placing our trust in him. He allows thoughts about our own insufficiency to arise within us so that we can turn to him in our need. He does not keep the questions from arising in our hearts. But does happily supply us with the answers.

Philip answered him,
"Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough
for each of them to have a little."

Jesus did not immediately and completely resolve the issue, since he wanted to lead his disciples deeper into faith and the circle of grace. Philip hadn't completely surrendered to despair. He had expressed the apparent impossibility of rising to meet the circumstances, but he said so in a way that suggested he may have been open to having his viewpoint corrected. Such a starter place is better than nothing. We tell the Lord that things seem hopeless, at least from our perspective, in order that he can tell us why we're wrong.

Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,
"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;
but what good are these for so many?"

Jesus wanted his disciples to do what they could do so that he could then step in and do what was beyond them. But he was always the necessary center of the action. The loaves and fish wouldn't have been worth mentioning in a normal context. Only in the sense of, 'Maybe Jesus can somehow make use of these', did it make sense to refer to them.

Feeding the crowd was a task that was well beyond what the disciples could accomplish utilizing their own abilities and resources. Normally when we hit a wall like that we expect that if it is to happen at all Jesus will step in and do the whole thing for us without us. But it turns out that he often does something different, something which requires more trust on our part. He asks us to be involved, including our own insufficient ideas and resources in his ultimate supernatural solution. He has, of course, no need of us. But he desires us to entrust ourselves to him so completely as to be actually involved in spite of our insecurities. 

Jesus said, "Have the people recline." 
Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. 
So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.

Jesus became for the crowd the good shepherd who made them to recline in green pastures in order to set a table before them. His heart was moved with compassion for the crowd, shallow and superficial though they were. After all, they were like sheep without a shepherd. They had until then lacked leadership that could guide them to a deeper life. But the way he chose to show his mercy was through the sheep of his flock that were already close to him, who had already begun to learn to hear his voice. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised when he wants show his mercy to others through us, even though we ourselves have no more than five loaves in two fish in the grand scheme of things.

When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples,
"Gather the fragments left over,
so that nothing will be wasted."

There is an obvious reference to the Eucharist in the feeding of the five thousand. Though John did not include the Institution Narrative in his Gospel he was obviously familiar with it, and used the same language in his description of what Jesus did here. He alluded to it obliquely by its absence. Thus, gathering the fragments had a particular significance for the consecrated bread, that was no longer ordinary, and ought not be wasted. But it has significance for us as well, for the times when Jesus does intervene in our own lives and use us as agents of his grace. Such events do happen first for the people he desires to bless, but also for sake of the transformative effects that they are meant to have on the people through whom grace is given. Yet this latter is less obvious. We are tempted mostly to remember the difficulty and the effort of being involved. We must learn to treasure the words and actions of Jesus in our hearts, as Mary did, if we are not to take them for granted. We see this in the extreme from the disciples who were persecuted by the Sanhedrin in our reading from Acts:

So they left the presence of the Sanhedrin,
rejoicing that they had been found worthy
to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.
And all day long, both at the temple and in their homes,
they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Christ, Jesus.

Peter Furler - Psalm 23

 

16 April 2026 - the same only different

Today's Readings
(Audio)

The one who comes from above is above all.
The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things.

Jesus wants us to understand how he is different from other men. He was born of a virgin and possessed a real human nature, and thus looked as human as anyone else. He was found to be human in appearance, but was actually also in the "form of God" (see Philippians 2:6), and "the exact imprint of his nature" (see Hebrews 1:3). People looking at Jesus could see the former but not the latter. But they often noticed that Jesus did not speak as ordinary men did. There was something different about his word. It possessed a unique authority that the words of other teachers did not. He spoke with confidence about what he had "seen and heard", the heavenly realities which he had directly known and experienced from all eternity. Other teachers were limited to discussing of earthly things since they didn't have access to the heavenly realities themselves. When they tried to speak about matters beyond their ken they could offer nothing more than guesses and inferences. That is why the wisest men did not strive to know what was too exulted to be known and too inaccessible to be discovered by unaided human reason.

I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me. 
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me (see Psalm 131:1-2).

However, as it turns out, the heavenly things are not irrelevant to us even though we are creatures of the earth. We are of the earth but our destiny is not meant to remain at the level of the earthly, the finite, and the mortal. We must therefore believe the Son, the only verified expert on heavenly matters, so that he can guide us to our eternal destiny. Thus, anyone who "believes in the Son has eternal life". Note, however, that belief is contrasted, not with doubt, but rather with disobedience. Belief that avails for eternal life is therefore obedience to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The choice to believe or disbelieve is not merely a blind chance or random guess. It is our response to the revelation of the one who is perfectly trustworthy and unfailingly good. To reject him is to reject truth itself and goodness itself. When we do believe our own minds begin to heal from former darkened ways of thinking. The fundamental tenet that becomes the basis for our thoughts is that the words spoken by the one who is the Truth are true. It may seem obvious in hindsight. But all our negative patterns of thinking pretend this is not the case. Instead, we think like Adam and Eve who wished to know for themselves the difference between good and evil. But when we certify that God is trustworthy things begin to change for us. We open ourselves to Jesus, upon whom the Father does not ration the gift of the Spirit, who in turn pours that Spirit out on us as we are able to receive it. It is precisely this Spirit that is our own entry point into the life of the Father and the Son, and a foretaste even here and now of the life we hope to live forever with them.

but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life,
but the wrath of God remains upon him

If we insist on clinging to our own truths rather than conforming our lives to the truth of God we will not be able to avail ourselves of the rescue mission that Jesus came to accomplish. Rather than being delivered from our default condition of darkness we will remain under God's wrath, we ourselves being the ones who have culpably chosen to remain in this state. Instead of this we must learn to be committed to God's words over and against the opposition of any merely human words such as those of the Sanhedrin to the Apostles:

"We gave you strict orders did we not,
to stop teaching in that name.
Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching
and want to bring this man's blood upon us."
But Peter and the Apostles said in reply,
"We must obey God rather than men.

Newsboys - We Believe

 

15 April 2026 - rescue ops

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.

God sent his Son Jesus as a rescue mission for humanity. In strict justice he might well have sent him as a mere confirmation of the condemnation which we had brought upon ourselves. But instead he sent him as a savior, to save us from what we had become. However, the first step to recovery required admitting that there was a problem, something we were loathe to do. Thus, when the light came, we preferred the darkness. We did not want to call sin what it was or to acknowledge the presence of darkness in our hearts. The light did not come to condemn, but it did, by virtue of existing in our midst reveal our fallen condition, our darkness and our sinfulness. Yet multiple responses to the light were possible. Rejecting it may have been the norm, but it was also possible to acknowledge what it revealed. Doing so opened up the pathway to the possibility of recovery. It could lead to salvation, in which state one would no longer need hide his works from the light. Instead, for such a one, "his works may be clearly seen as done in God". 

In order to experience salvation we need to be humble enough to at least acknowledge that we have a problem. Our hearts don't always love as God would have us love. We don't even always love others to the lower standard of how we would have them love us. We often prioritize ourselves, but not in ways that conduce to our growth. We chose addictive behaviors and destructive patterns over constructive choices that can make us grow in virtue.  

God didn't send the light of the world among us merely to punish us or make us suffer. He did so because he loves us and wanted to make us the kind of creatures fit for eternal life, actually capable on enjoying eternity with him forever. After all, all other goals are ultimately unsustainable. If we push too insistently into any other trajectory we will eventually crash and burn. Humanity in it's fallen state is a ship that is sinking, circled by sharks. Let's not waste our time discussing how the water does not in fact look so cold or how the sharks might in fact by dolphins. Jesus is waiting to bring us up into the ark of his Church where we can be safe from the fate that otherwise awaits us. But he will not force us. He'll allow us to go down with the ship of the fallen world if we choose. May we not do so.

Once we know the salvation of God our cozy relationship with the fallen world must change. The fallen world will inevitably try to drag us back down, just as the religious leaders threw the Apostles in jail to try to silence them. They didn't want to hear about the light. But the Apostles did not for that reason condemn them. Rather, because they were trying to love the world as God himself loved it, they did not abandon it in order to content themselves with having themselves obtained salvation. Even when they encountered what, from a human perspective, were insurmountable obstacles, the prison and the guards, they did not despair or give up. And because they did not the world found it was unable to stop or silence them, as it had been unable to stop or silence their Lord.

But during the night, the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison,
led them out, and said,
"Go and take your place in the temple area,
and tell the people everything about this life."

The world needs to know about this life, the life of Christian community that we enjoy in virtue of our baptism. We can't allow ourselves to be imprisoned or pushed aside into religious ghettos. We must take center stage, wherever that stage may be. For the Apostles it was the Temple. For us it will be the places of discourse where we interact with people of other viewpoints. And there is no sphere that can be excluded, including the public square. We can do this without fear. We may well encounter persecution and hardship. And yes, if our goal was ultimately about comfort that would be plenty of reason to fear. But that is not our ultimate goal when we want what God wants. When we do so he will absolutely empower us to do what he wishes and become what he desires us to be: his witnesses. 

I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the LORD;
the lowly will hear me and be glad.

David W Morris - Let Us Exult His Name

 

14 April 2026 - go down to go up

Today's Readings
(Audio)

If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe,
how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

Sacramental realities like baptism contain both an earthly and a heavenly aspect. There is the water, on the one hand, which is richly symbolic. On the other, there is the Spirit, the agent of transformation who imparts grace to the believer. Jesus seems to recognize that he must ground his communication with us in things that are familiar and intelligible in order give us access to realities which are transcendent and invisible. We are creatures compromised of both matter and Spirit, and he addresses himself to us accordingly. But he does want to lead us through that which is earthly into participation in heavenly realities. He wants to guide us to the spiritual and immaterial realm in which the Father himself dwells in inapproachable light. But we can't bypass the earthly and jump straight to the spiritual. If we will not believe Jesus about the necessity of baptism how can we hope to be sufficiently docile to be led into the life of the Triune God? 

There is a certain humility that is required when Jesus deals with us as the sort of creatures we in fact are. After all, we are not angels. We are not beings that comprehend everything at once with no intermediate steps. We must be willing to be taught by means of parables and led by means of Sacraments. These things may seem excessively simplistic to our prideful egos. But what we mistake for superficiality is in fact clarity and profound and inexhaustible intelligibility. The word of God is similar. On the surface there is the literal meaning which educated men like Augustine found embarrassingly inelegant. But in addition to the level of the letter there is also the level of Spirit, which is life-giving. But the historical sense is foundational. Without it, the spiritual sense seems fanciful and irrelevant, in the same way that a prophecy that never comes true is not an authentic prophecy.

No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.

Jesus, by means of his incarnation, is the bridge between the earthly and the heavenly. Only he has perfect clarity and complete understanding of heavenly realities. Only he can revel the Father to us. By shunning parables, Sacraments, and the letter of Scripture, we are in fact also shunning the human nature Jesus chose to assume for our sake. But when we embrace these we embrace not only the human Jesus, but also, through him, the Triune God. We are thus caught up in the invisible realities which Nicodemus wished to know. Such a desire was not wrong. It only needed to be properly ordered.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

One particular instance of realizing the spiritual meaning of Scripture is presented to us today. The saraph serpents in the desert were more than merely a punishment for a specific instance of disobedience. They were symbolic of the poisonous nature of sin itself. So too did the mysterious way in which the effect of the saraph serpents bite was finally negated point forward to the way in which God ultimately dealt with sin itself. Because we can read the literal meaning of the historical text we come to understand things about both the nature of sin and salvation that would be otherwise more obscure. Just as the serpents revealed the ugliness of disobedience so too did the cross reveal the ugliness of sin. Gazing on what the people had wrought in the form of a bronze statue allowed them to be healed. Gazing upon what our sin did to the spotlessly innocent lamb of God allowed us to experience salvation. But we see that there was absolutely no way around reckoning with the problem. 

Let's believe Jesus about earthly things so that he can then reveal to us heavenly things. Then our communities of faith on earth will more and more closely come to resemble heaven itself, as was the case with the early Church described in Acts.

There was no needy person among them,
for those who owned property or houses would sell them,
bring the proceeds of the sale,
and put them at the feet of the Apostles,
and they were distributed to each according to need.

Keith Green - Easter Song

13 April 2026 - bigger on the inside

Today's Readings
(Audio)

for no one can do these signs that you are doing
unless God is with him.

One can see the plausibility of the signs from an outside perspective, external to the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus recognized that the signs that Jesus was doing required a supernatural explanation. He saw that God must be cooperating with Jesus in order to allow him to do things which were not possible in the natural order, but which were full of the goodness and mercy that was characteristic of God. He was unable to determine more than this, however. He was limited by his normal human understanding which obtained only to the natural and the earthly. He heard Jesus talk about being born again and interpreted it in a literal sense. However, since he recognized that resulted in a non-sequitur he asked Jesus to clarify.

Nicodemus said to him,
"How can a man once grown old be born again?
Surely he cannot reenter his mother's womb and be born again, can he?"

Like us all, Nicodemus had been born of flesh, was a member of the human race, created in the image of God. But this did not give him the wherewithal to understand the new spiritual reality that had sparked his curiosity. He needed a new beginning, a new birth, an origin that was rooted in divinity and not only in humanity. Only from the inside could one truly see the Kingdom of God so as to understand it. And only as a child of God did one enter that Kingdom. The way that one who was not a God's Son by nature became a child of God was by sharing in the Sonship of Jesus. This was brought about through the sacrament of baptism by which the believer was united with Jesus himself, in which water symbolized death and rebirth. The new birth, however, was real, and came about through the Spirit was given by the Father, making the newly baptized into sons and daughters of God. What Jesus was by nature believers became by divine adoption through baptism.

Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born of water and Spirit
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

What Nicodemus wanted to see and understand was something that could only be grasped from within. This was not because of elitism, or because of the layered secrets of mystery cults. It was rather because spiritual realities required spiritual interpretation. Or, put another way, what God was doing in the world only made sense to those who had the mind of God. To the those possessing a merely human mind God once said through Isaiah, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (see Isaiah 55:8). But the baptized are able to say with Saint Paul that "we have the mind of Christ" (see First Corinthians 2:16). Normal human intellectual capacity could never discover the fact that God was a Trinity. But the person renewed in the Spirit could believe it. And not only could he believe it, but he had in fact entered into the reality of the love between the Father and the Son, the very Spirit himself who was brought about his new birth.

The wind blows where it wills,
and you can hear the sound it makes,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes;
so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Those born of the Spirit are hard to understand for outsiders. They care an awful lot about things that seem abstract or implausible to others. They are motivated to seek first things to which nonbelievers are entirely indifferent since they cannot perceive them. They seek to move in response to the will of God as sailboats respond to the wind. But it is for the most part the family of God that experiences his guidance in this way. Nonbelievers look upon these waters and seem to see boats sailing rapidly, even on days that seem to them to have no wind. We think of Paul who sometimes initially made plans to go in one direction but was then prevented by the Spirit and then allowed himself to be redirected somewhere else. And we think of Philip whom the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took away somewhere else after he had baptized the Ethiopian. 

It is the Holy Spirit that inspires Christians to withstand tyrants and corrupt leaders as did the disciples described in our reading from Acts. They understood that this sort of opposition was foreseen in the divine plan and were thus not overly disturbed by it. They saw it as a fulfillment of a prophetic psalm.

Why did the Gentiles rage
and the peoples entertain folly?
The kings of the earth took their stand
and the princes gathered together
against the Lord and against his anointed.

But the Apostles did not rage or entertain folly in response. They did not meet the hostile oppressors on their own terms, since they had been indeed shown a different way by Jesus their leader. Instead of human retaliation they chose to rely on the Spirit to equip them to respond and then to guide that response.

And now, Lord, take note of their threats,
and enable your servants to speak your word
with all boldness, as you stretch forth your hand to heal,
and signs and wonders are done
through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook,
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

The reason we are often unable to be bold in the face of opposition is that we tend to try to meet them on their own terms. Let us instead learn from the Apostles and seek the Spirit even and especially in times of crisis. The world absolutely needs bold Christians now as much as ever. It does not need vitriol or even arguments so much as it needs signs and wonders that reveal the lordship of Jesus himself. Once people recognize that reality the rest will work itself out in turn.

David Crowder Band - Here Is Our King

 

12 April 2026 - peace like rivers

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

The way people in the past had treated the prophets poorly and abused them had not resulted in peace. It brought, not the blessings of the covenant, but its curses. This was such a given that, in response to Jesus telling the parable about leasing the vineyard, in which the tenants finally killed the son of the landlord, his audience replied, stating how the landowner would respond: "He will put those wretches to a miserable death" (see Matthew 21:41). Therefore, they assumed that those in leadership roles who were responsible for the death of the son would themselves be put to death. Jesus did not immediately or directly challenge this notion. Imagine that looping through the disciples minds after the events of Good Friday! Once the true Son of the Father had in fact been put to death every shared in complicity to one degree or another. The fact that the disciples of Jesus had fled and failed him in his hour of need probably made it hard for them to imagine that they would not share in God's judgment against those responsible for the death of Jesus. But it turned out that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but rather so that through him the world could be saved (see John 3:17). Jesus did not in fact pray for the death of his persecutors, but rather, for their forgiveness. The result of his death was not the immediately unleashing of curses but rather of blessings. The death of Jesus did not forever confirm and set in stone the enmity between God and humanity, but rather made true peace  possible.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Having peace with God means that we don't act in ways that are hostile to his Lordship and that he in turn doesn't have to respond with punishment and judgment. Before Christ made peace with God possible we lived as his enemies, on a one way road to destruction. We were so committed in our opposition to him that he knew that we could not bear the fullness of his presence among us and would seek to destroy it. Yet he made precisely that the thing that would unleash peace and forgiveness. He set a trap for our sinfulness, showing that however great was our sin, love was still greater. Where sin abounded grace abounded still more (see Romans 5:20).

Peace with God is not merely meant to describe an external lack of hostility between man and God. It is meant to define our inner subjective experience as well. Our old ways of thinking in which we put our selfish egos first were ultimately death directed. But the the cross made it possible for us to receive the Holy Spirit, and through him, renewed minds. Those renewed minds could be at peace since they would need no longer experience the disproportionate fear of death as though it were an absolute evil. They would no longer harbor the subconscious fear that God was against them, waiting for an excuse to issue forth condemnation and judgment. They would believe that if God was on their side than nothing could harm them an any ultimate sense.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace (see Romans 8:6).

that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (see Hebrews 2:14-15).

Because of the death of Jesus we become convinced of God's love for us (see First John 4:16), allowing us to cast our cares upon him since he does in fact care for us (see First Peter 5:7). It is not that we don't have other concerns anymore, or that we only care about God and other purely spiritual things. It is rather that we are able to trust God with all of our other concerns.

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (see Philippians 4:6-7).

We do not always experience this level of transcendent peace that Paul describes. In fact, we are often more like Thomas. Others tell us about the power of the resurrection, the now unshakable reality of the peace of Christ, and we imagine it to be too good to be true. We imagine those witnesses of the resurrection to be exaggerating, or, if not, that what they received is meant for them but not for us. But if we missed the first round of blessing, it might be because God has a plans for a special second round which will have even more profound effects in us than would have been possible otherwise. He may allow us to experience some darkness for the sake of making our eventual conviction and belief all the stronger. So if we feel like we missed out when Jesus was passing out his gift of peace, we should know that he still intends for us to receive it. Unlike Thomas, we probably won't arrive at faith through the visible icon of the Lord's risen Body. But Jesus assures us that, if anything, we will be blessed no less because of it.

Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.

To be clear, this is us! So too are we the ones described by Peter in his epistle:

Although you have not seen him you love him;
even though you do not see him now yet believe in him,
you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,
as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls

So let us live in the peace and the joy that are the fruits of his Spirit, available to us because of his resurrection from the dead.  May they shape our hearts, and then, in turn, our communities of faith, as they did for the early Church:

They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart,
praising God and enjoying favor with all the people.
And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Michael W Smith - You Are Holy (Prince Of Peace)

 

11 April 2026 - witless to witness

Today's Readings
(Audio)

She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping.
When they heard that he was alive
and had been seen by her, they did not believe.

No doubt they thought that, as a women, she was overcome by emotions, clinging to insubstantial dreams that she wished were true. But it was they themselves who clung to a false reality, an incorrect interpretation of the past, leading to a distorted view of the present. Mary Magdalene was in fact only affirming that what Jesus had once said would happen had in fact occurred. But the emotions of despair from seeing the crucifixion clouded their vision of both past and future, making it difficult for them to choose to believe in the possibility of hope. There was a certain sense of finality to the cross that it difficult to believe that things could ever be good or whole again. But it was their hopelessness that distorted the truth of reality, not the joy and hope of Mary Magdalene.

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 must have been hard for both these two and Mary Magdalene to explain how it was that they hadn't recognized Jesus when he first appeared. This was, to be sure, an inconvenient detail. But he desired to be known by Mary specifically when he called her name. So too did desire to be known by the two on the road to Emmaus in the breaking of the bread. But these events were, of course, unprecedented. They only had their prior experiences of the pre-resurrection Jesus for comparison. These experiences held clues and even predictions. But they were not such that the shape of future events could be known in advance. The risen Lord was a new paradigm. He could not be seen by people trapped in old and carnal ways of thinking. He was the same Jesus, yes. But he was now glorified. And that changed everything.

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.

Their old and earthly attitudes had made them fail to believe witnesses who were in fact speaking the truth, good news that was better than anything they could ask or imagine. Jesus rebuked their hardness of heart, but not in order to make them feel condemned. He did so rather for the same reason that he had rebuked the storm at sea (see Mark 4:39). He did so to take control of emotional forces that were normally beyond direct human control, to change the internal atmosphere of the eleven, giving them the peace and great calm of his presence.

He said to them, “Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” 

In order to function as his witnesses they needed to have their hardened, disbelieving, and despairing hearts replaced with new and living hearts filled with hope. It was not a hope which was derived from auspicious earthly circumstances, but rather a hope that was drawn from the resurrection of Jesus himself. Not only did they need to believe that Jesus had done more than they could ask or imagine, they needed to believe that this was now his modus operandi, the new normal from the nascent Church. We see this clearly in the way the power of the resurrection was at work amongst the disciples of the early Church described in Acts.

Everyone living in Jerusalem knows that a remarkable sign
was done through them, and we cannot deny it.

When we are convinced that the goodness of God is really at work among us we will yield to no human authority who tells us not to speak of it.

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.

It is then that we will know and resonate with the experience of the psalmist.

My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
The joyful shout of victory
in the tents of the just.

Newsboys - Million Pieces (Kissin' Your Cares Goodbye)