Day 34 - Issue 22
Luke 24:23 NLT
They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive!
Traditions and scriptures are both the product of reports from others. These disciples recount how the women had reported an empty tomb and a message from angels. Self-evidently these disciples were uncomfortable with this account. They don’t dismiss it, yet their lack of positive endorsement and dejected mood suggests they did not embrace it with any great conviction.
Although I’ve been unable to find God during various seasons of life, and indeed got positively frustrated and cross in those seasons, I have found it impossible going back over my life to discount my conversion experience and process. I met with God. I can’t lose the sense of substantial reality to that friendship. So I know the tradition and scripture passed down by the Church are true.
For these well-intentioned disciples, they required Jesus to fall in step beside them, challenge their ignorance of God’s presence and explain the meaning within scripture. The story of how a fractured world was delivered through the incarnate life, death and resurrection of its creator. Following Jesus requires a confidence in the reality of the risen Christ. If this is mere fiction or metaphor, we can hardly be expected to order our lives around Jesus’ words, for they may prove as ethereal as his own eternal nature. These disciples had to discover the reality of the risen Jesus as completely as they’d embraced and believed the call and message of the incarnate Jesus. Reason may prove useful as part of the discernment process, yet alone can never bring us face to face with Christ nor sustain a life committed to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.
Much like these disciples, you may be on a journey, yet ultimately will you recognise the risen Christ or be left with little more than a sincere and ever-deepening reasonable understanding of scripture? I am glad I am a friend of God today.
QUESTION: How have you encountered the risen Jesus?
PRAYER: Thank you, God, that you raised your Son from the grave and we can know him today.
