When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week,
he appeared first to Mary Magdalene,
out of whom he had driven seven demons.
The public testimony of Mary Magdalene may have been suspect, because she of who she had been, or even, in that time and place, because she was a woman. The disciples may have thought her emotions got the better of her, that she now believed what she wanted to believe in light of the absence of the one from whom she had received so much. Yet this was the person chosen by Jesus himself to be the first witness, who would testify to his resurrection. As usual, he reversed all expectations of the world around him, choosing "what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are" (see First Corinthians 1:27). He commissioned her to be his witness even though he knew well enough that the disciples would not believe her. How frustrating it must have been for one whose world had been so completely upended to be unable to convey that joy to others.
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.
Jesus had opened the heart of these two disciples to the Scriptures and had made himself known in the breaking of the bread. But even all of this was not enough to make them persuasive to the Eleven at first. As with Mary Magdalene, what they told the others was so strange and seemingly impossible as to be practically incomprehensible. Since there was no precedent for the resurrection it was hard to even imagine the possibility that any of these witnesses were describing actual events.
The first witnesses chosen by Jesus did not meet with immediate success. But that was not to say that there was no purpose in that they were chosen or in what they did. The failure of their attempt at witness did not diminish what they themselves gained by recognizing the risen Lord. Giving testimony about that event, even if it was disbelieved, could strengthen them in their own faith, and prepare them for a world in which many would respond in the same way. Their testimony was not necessarily useless to the Eleven either. It might have been the first crack in hard soil, or a foot wedged in the door, that prepared the others for when Jesus himself would complete his good work in them (see Philippians 1:6).
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.
The Eleven became witnesses while at the same time being made aware of their own limitations. Because they now knew the hardness of their own hearts they would be sympathetic when they met others who responded to them in the way that they themselves had first responded.
Once they had been brought from doubt to faith by their own encounter with the risen Lord they received the commission to go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel. They received this commission having already seen a pattern that was not immediate and perpetual success. Faith was required. Persistence was necessary to produce results. It was normal for people to have filters against things that seemed to good to be true. The spirit of so-called 'realism' that now pervades our world is nothing new. And God would not force anyone to believe. But this did not mean faith could not be shared. It did not mean that dialog was impossible. But it did mean that one would need to rely on the Spirit to bridge the gap between himself and other human hearts in order that the message he would communicate could be conveyed. This in turn meant that he would need to trust in God's timing, not his own. But it also meant that he could have confidence like that of Peter and John, unable to be silent no matter the response he encountered.
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.
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