While they were still speaking about this,
he stood in their midst and said to them,
"Peace be with you."
But they were startled and terrified
and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
It was only natural for them to be surprised because of, "the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews" (see John 20:19). Regardless of who it had been, that fact alone would have been startling. But, since it was Jesus, they were not just surprised, but "startled and terrified" because they "thought that they were seeing a ghost". Perhaps if he were a ghost it would explain how he could enter even when the door was still locked. They had heard that Jesus had been raised from the dead and that he had appeared to Simon. But now they had less certainty about what that meant. Had he been raised? Or had he instead returned as a vengeful spirit?
Then he said to them, "Why are you troubled?
And why do questions arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have."
Jesus wanted them to understand what it meant to say he was risen from the dead. It was not simply the same kind of body one had before death. After all, such a body, like that of Lazarus, would go on to die again. But Jesus was raised from death and "will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him" (see Romans 6:9). It was a different sort of body, as Paul also taught, writing, "What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable" (see First Corinthians 15:42). But this new form of embodiment, while in some sense "spiritual" was also, in a real sense, still physical. It was the sort of body one could touch, to which one could even cling, as did Mary Magdalene. Unlike ghosts, the risen Jesus could even eat as he did here, or share a meal with his disciples, as he did on the Sea of Tiberius (see John 21:9-13). There was some discontinuity with his former mode of existence. But all that was left behind was weakness, limitation, and infirmity. He did not, however, abandon all physical aspects of reality. There remained what was truly important and necessary, empowering the continuity of relationships, and celebrating the goodness of creation. It wasn't that he became less embodied, or that physical reality was made for him more vague, ambiguous, and irrelevant, so much as that it now opened out to a new and higher dimension of being.
they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed
This was another instance of Jesus surprising his disciples with his presence. So what was the lesson of this particular surprise? No doubt it was what we saw, an understanding of what was meant by resurrection that they could not have attained from a merely verbal explanation. But there was more. He demonstrated precisely why the old ways that his disciples related to reality, were no longer appropriate. Fear and terror did not have the last word, because death had been defeated. Jesus himself had the last word, and that word was "Peace".
He said to them,
"These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,
that everything written about me in the law of Moses
and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled."
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
Only people that experienced the presence of the risen Christ, who felt the peace that came from hearing his word, and who had their minds opened to understand the big picture of his plan, were fully prepared to go and set the world on fire as his witnesses. This is not to say we need to be Old Testament scholars before we can tell people about Jesus. But at a minimum we need to understand, if not in detail, that all of history was leading up to Jesus, and in particular, for his death and resurrection. The corollary of that truth is that every individual human heart is made for him, and those who do not know him yet are awaiting him, even if they themselves are unaware. It is this confidence, that everyone is made to receive what we ourselves have found in the risen Lord, is what will give credibility to our witness, and allow God to persuade others through our testimony.
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