In the various post-Resurrection accounts in the Gospels, the disciples of Jesus respond with a variety of emotions. Some respond with fear, some are sad, and still others are just deeply confused. Even when Jesus stands among them with His gift of peace, their response is one of alarm and fright, thinking they are seeing a ghost. Jesus addresses them as people who are very agitated and full of doubt. He reassures them.
When He shows them his hands and feet, however, joy becomes their dominant emotion. Indeed, the Gospels say, for example, “their joy was so great, they could hardly believe it.” Fear has given way to joy and yet they still struggle to believe that Jesus is actually alive and standing among them.
For reflection: The Risen Jesus had to go to great lengths to convince the disciples that He was alive, and not only alive, but alive in a new and more powerful way. Are there times when we too can be tempted to think that the message of Easter is too good to be true? Yet, Easter is at the core of our faith. Without Easter, the Friday on which Jesus was crucified would never have come to be known as Good Friday. It was only in the light of Easter that Jesus’ death came to be understood as “not just one more tragic execution of an innocent person,” but as a revelation of God’s love and life. This Easter Season, will we allow ourselves to savor something of the joy of those first disciples?
