Personal Note: I want to thank so much all those who take the time to read these and who take the time to drop me little encouraging notes from time to time. With this post, we come to an end in the Gospel of Luke. Due to our upcoming ministry trip to Africa this will be the last devotional until September. In September we will start back up again regularly with the book of Acts.
Jesus Appears to the Disciples
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
44 He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, "This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."
The Ascension of Jesus
50 When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. 52 Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
Dig Deeper
There was quite a big news splash during this year’s off-season period in the National Basketball Association. Every year, during the off-season, there are always many free agents, men whose contracts have expired and who are free to sign with any team that they choose. Usually a few big-name players switch teams and many other role players switch teams and it usually changes the balance of power between a couple of teams here and there but it usually isn’t a major determining factor in who the best teams in the NBA are. That all changed this off-season as unprecedented events took place. Three of the ten best players in the entire NBA, including two of the three best players in the whole league decided that they wanted to play together and they all worked out their free agency and took a lot less money so that they could join the same team, the Miami Heat. Suddenly, something that had never before happened was a reality. The Miami Heat had become arguably the best team in basketball overnight. They spent the rest of the week signing lesser role players that would fill out their team and make them a complete championship contender, a process that answered a lot of questions concerning who else would be on the team surrounding these three great players.
As it stands right now, all of the questions concerning whether they would be able to get players to surround these three great players have been answered. All of the pieces have been moved into place. They have had the parties introducing the new players and the new team as a whole to the fans. Everything is ready to go for the new season, except for one minor detail. They haven’t played a game yet. The NBA doesn’t just hand out the championship trophy to the team with the most impressive roster. It is now up to this collection of players who have been formed together as a team through rather improbable circumstances to go work things out now. They have to go implement the championship that has been prepared for them.
There is an element like this in this closing passage of Luke’s Gospel. The most incredible things have happened, things that the disciples could never have imagined. Jesus had resurrected from the dead and God’s new creation had come bursting forth into the routine of the present age in a way that no human saw coming. Yes, they were witnesses to incredible things and had been formed together as God’s new family, the fulfillment of all of God’s promises had come through Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). But that wasn’t the end of things. It was now up to them to get busy working out the victory that Jesus had claimed. They were going to partner with God’s Holy Spirit to implement the victory that had already been prepared for them.
Before the first day of the week was even ended, there was one more amazing event that was about to occur. The disciples were still buzzing with all that had happened and were still trying to figure out exactly what was going on. It was, no doubt, one of those times when the mixture of excitement and continued uncertainty as to all of the details and things going on leads to absolute and almost uncontainable exhilaration. In the midst of this fray it would be easy to momentarily miss the fact that Jesus had appeared right in the middle of them. Their normal practice during this time was to lock the door for safety reasons but that was no obstacle for Jesus. As he stood among them, he declared the complete peace of God among them.
Their initial reaction was an understandable one and demonstrates that they were still trying to work everything out in their minds. They still were not quite used to seeing the resurrected Christ, and for some of them this was their first experience, and none of them were still quite sure what they were seeing. The TNIV’s rendering of the word “pneuma” as “ghost” is not only incorrect, it is quite unhelpful in helping us to understand what Luke was saying. They did not think that Jesus was a ghost as we would think of a ghost today, but they probably couldn’t comprehend how he could simply appear among them. To render the word as “spirit” would be much more correct and accurate. Was he like the angels or a spirit whose body was now accustomed to the spiritual realm but not fully at home in the physical realm? His appearance, though, was so unexpected that it frightened them. They just didn’t have categories in their minds to accommodate everything they were seeing, hearing, and experiencing.
Jesus, and Luke as the recorder of these events, wanted to make sure that there was no such misconceptions. He was not a spirit. There is an incredible mystery to the resurrection body, one that Paul spends much time in 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5 working out, and even then most people today easily get confused with what he says. The simple point is that the resurrection body is not a spirit or a ghost-like existence. Jesus had real flesh and bone, meaning that he was just as material and physical as any other person in that room (note that he carefully does not say “flesh and blood” which was a figure of speech referring to the normal, sinful and fallen human state rather than a description of a physical body). If Jesus had only resurrected in spirit it would have not left an empty tomb. But Luke drives the point home to the full extent. They saw him; they could touch him; he even ate some fish. This was no spirit. Yet, how could it be that a normal physical body could just appear in rooms with little concern for doors or walls? The resurrection body is one that apparently is equally at home in both the physical realm and the spiritual realm. It is physical and material, but it is more than that, certainly not less. The resurrection body, then, will be perfectly at home in both realms of God’s creation. This seems difficult to grasp right now in the present age where the spiritual realm and the physical realm are still separated but the ultimate goal of God’s reconciliation and restoration of the universe (Matt. 19:28) is that heaven and earth will one day be brought together as one (Eph. 1:10).
This was all incredible and dizzying for them, but it was not new. Jesus had told them that all of this would happen, they just could not understand it yet. None of this was a surprise to Jesus and so they could rest assured that this was where things were going all along. God’s promises throughout the whole of the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, meaning the entirety of what we call the Old Testament, had pointed to this. It would be difficult to find any specific Old Testament passages that they said word for word what Jesus said in verses 45 to 49 but that’s not the point. Jesus’ point was that it takes insight to see that all in there, but it is there. This is where God’s promises were heading. I once read an online article that referred to verses 45-49 as a contradiction because none of Jesus’ statements can be found in the Old Testament. But if there were such clear and direct statements in the Old Testament then they would have hardly needed their minds opened. The whole point is that these passages need the discernment and the guidance of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in order to understand all of these things and to see that they were they all along.
Yes, this is where things were heading. This was God’s plan all along and all of the pieces have been put into place. The improbable had happened, Jesus had resurrected from the dead and opened the world to entirely new possibilities. But now that everything was in place, it was up to them to work it out and bring it to fruition. As Jesus opened their minds to what the Scriptures had pointed to the whole time, he also laid out what the challenge before them entailed.
The Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. This was God’s plan from the very beginning. The Messiah would not come and be an exalted figure that led the armies of Israel to throw off her enemies and crush the pagans as many in Jesus’ day had hoped. He would suffer and take on the punishment that all human beings in rebellion against God deserved. This is what would open up the opportunity for all people to truly be in God’s family (Eph. 2:19). John the Baptist had preached repentance and forgiveness of sins (Lk. 3:3) but his was a message for people to prepare for such a time not to experience it fully (see Acts 19:1-6 where it makes clear that John’s baptism was a symbolic one that pointed to the real baptism of entry into the life of Christ). In Christ, that time had finally come. Jesus told them that repentance for the forgiveness of sin would be preached and be available in his name. It is important here to remember that first century Jews used the term “name” to stand for the totality of someone or their “life,” so those two terms were virtually interchangeable. His point, then, was that people who would repent (Acts 2:38) or die to themselves (Gal. 2:20) could be baptized into the life of Christ (Rom. 6:1-10), be forgiven of their sins (Matt. 28:19; Acts 22:16; Titus 3:5), and be clothed with Christ (Gal. 3:26-29; Col. 2:12-13; 3:3), meaning that they could enter into the corporate life and body of Christ as their new identity before God (1 Cor. 12:12-13) and receive the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; Titus 3:5).
The time for this was coming very soon but it would not come through their own ability. They should not move a muscle until the Holy Spirit came upon them as he is the one that would change the world through them. This would all begin in Jerusalem but it would not stay there for very long. The message of the gospel and the salvation that was now available in Christ would be preached to all nations (Matt. 28:19) because God’s family would consist of all nations (Rom. 4:17; Rev. 5:9; Acts 10:34-35; Eph. 2:11-3:11). This is an absolutely central aspect of God’s family. Any Christian community that is not made up of all peoples and nations is not a demonstration of the true gospel. As Paul declared in Galatians 3:8 “Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’” This is a particular important reminder as we live in a time when it is quite common for churches to split according to nationalities, languages, or skin colors. That is not the kingdom that God gave us. That is not the one family of many nations that we are called to be.
As Luke brings his Gospel to a conclusion, he skips ahead in verse 50 without any mention of how much time actually passed between verses 49 and 50. He simply prepares his readers for the next act which was, quite appropriately, the book of Acts. What Luke describes here in mere passing, he will return to in more detail in the first chapter of Acts. This then is almost like those scenes at the end of a television show that tease you with next week’s episodes so that you will be motivated to come back and watch next week. Jesus would not stay with them. He would ascend to heaven and the mission would be theirs to carry on through the power of the Holy Spirit.
After rightly worshiping Jesus, the disciples returned to Jerusalem with joy and anticipation, not knowing what would happen next but knowing that Jesus was in control and was not only far greater than they had imagined just a day before, but that he was deserving of something, namely worship, that was reserved for God alone.
And so, as Luke ends his Gospel, he ends where he began, in the Temple. As he opened the story of Jesus Christ, he began with Zechariah in the Temple. He has returned to the Temple time and again throughout the story whether it was descriptions of the young Jesus at the Temple, the warning of Christ of the judgment that was soon coming to the Temple and Jerusalem, or the descriptions of Jesus as the true Temple where people could come to experience the presence of God. God had repeatedly promised that he would come and dwell with his people and that has now happened. The presence of God was no longer at the Temple in Jerusalem but was revealed for all eternity in the person of Jesus Christ.
Devotional Thought
Jesus promised his disciples that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be available through his name and life. Have you truly experienced that life by dying to yourself and repenting and being baptized into his body? If that all sounds new, strange, or unnecessary, then perhaps like the women at the tomb, it’s time to “remember” Jesus’ words and have your mind opened.
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