“This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. . . . Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”
—Acts 2:32, 36 (NASB)
Imagine what it must have been like for Jesus’ disciples and followers, who had just seen His bruised and broken dead body taken from the cross and buried.
Even though Jesus had said, “When I die, I will come back again; and because I live, you will live also,” they didn’t understand. So unbelievable was it, that, when the disciples first heard that Jesus was alive again, from eyewitnesses, they did not believe it. But when they finally did believe, they were transformed.
We have immortalized the disciples as men of incredible courage and remarkable understanding. But they were not always that way. When Jesus Christ breathed His last gasping breath on the cross, these men returned to their homes and their former lives. The fishermen returned to their nets, sorrowful and totally disillusioned. And they were scared.
Each one of them could be identified with the Jewish insurrectionist who had just been crucified. They denied, they doubted, and they fled. And yet, no more than thirty years later, these same disciples and their converts were described as “these that have turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6 KJV).
Imagine it. Just a few days before, they had walked with Him and talked with Him. Then came that horrendous betrayal in the darkness of Gethsemane—that turning point, after which nothing was ever the same again. Death in its most horrible form came between them and their beloved Master. Their dreams were dashed, leaving them frightened and doubting, until . . . He came back! The power of God was unleashed in His new body!
Only Christianity is based on a living person—the resurrected Son of God, who offers sufficient power to transform our lives.
He appeared in a different form to two of them, while they were walking along on their way to the country. And they went away and reported it to the others, but they did not believe them either.
—Mark 16:3 (NASB)
Adapted by Insight for Living staff from The Darkness and the Dawn by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2001 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com
