While they were talking Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see: for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.....
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem."
(New Revised Standard Version)
In the days after Jesus' death and resurrection, He appears to a variety of people, but the remarkable thing is the number of times we get physical details. We hear that Jesus walks with the two men on the road to Emmaus, he takes bread with them and blesses and breaks it, He allows the disciples to touch his feet and his body, and is hungry and eats some fish. He also appears to some 500 people. Sometimes they don't instantly recognise Him, but all agree finally that it is undoubtedly Jesus.
The disciples have no doubt that Jesus died, they saw the all too obvious reality of this dreadful death, but yet He has risen from the dead after three days as He said He would. He then promises that He will send them "Power from on high", and it is this power - the Holy Spirit - that will change their lives. The power of the Holy Spirit will enable them to take the Good News to all the world, beginning with Jerusalem.
Neither we nor the disciples worship a dead person, we worship the Son of God, who lived fully as a man, who defeated the power of evil and death, and who rose again to change our world.
Lord God,
When we find faith difficult,
help us to simply rest in the
knowledge that you have rescued us from our sin,
and to know that you love us with all our imperfections,
and that you call us to worship you.
Amen.