Our faith becomes certain when Jesus comes to us

By John Pearring

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041820.cfm
Acts 4:13-21
Mark 16:9-15

When I read the gospel for Saturday I recognized a familiar pattern. Familiar to me, and also to many people with whom I've shared testimony paths. Unbelief, even in the face of startling new evidence, does not easily change into belief. 

These short eight verses from Mark, 16:13-21, report on three subsequent events involving the apostles after Jesus' death. As close to Jesus as anyone, the eleven remaining apostles could not fathom the factual resurrection of Jesus, much less his divinity. Jesus had to appear to them before they would submit to a truth that made no sense.

Recall and review your own path to Jesus. You may discover the same thing. Until Jesus reveals to you who he is, you cannot accept either his resurrection from the dead, his divinity, nor the idea of God's incarnation as one of us. Unless I'm wrong, of course. You can argue that there are ways to accept Jesus intellectually, emotionally, and even spiritually, without ever having a transcendent experience of the person of Jesus. I'm not going to deny those arguments. I think physically, however, we need to grasp Jesus' existence with our senses to be certain.

First, Mark summarizes Mary Magdalene’s encounter with Jesus, and her rush to tell the apostles. Then, shortly afterward, two disciples have a face-to-face faith experience on the road to Emmaus with Jesus. The two also rush to Jesus' hand-picked leadership to give them the incredible news. The appearances of Jesus to Mary and then to the Emmaus men offer clear witness accounts. The apostles, however, will require Jesus’ appearance to them before they can believe. I didn’t say “would” believe. I said "can" believe. I think Mark is telling us that Jesus’ appearance is, practically speaking, crucial for a consummated relationship to Jesus. 

Faith, certainly, carries us forward toward a relationship with God, along with our brothers and sisters in faith, by mere — meaning honest and attentive — hope. Faith, hope, and love are our banners as Christians. Love eventually encompasses our entire beings. In our next life, faith is not a necessity, and our hope is fulfilled. All is love. So, our faith remains mere faith until we are "certain." That, hopefully, will get me out of too much trouble. 

What am I saying? Remember, the apostles spent three years with Jesus by the time of his crucifixion and resurrection. Also, they’d been raised as Jews, familiar with scripture and the yearning for a Messiah. Our reading of New Testament scriptures certifies Jesus' explanations of who he was. Yet, after he was killed the apostles were drained of their hope and their faith in the sustenance of a Messiah in Jesus. If anyone would believe in Jesus as the Christ, and subsequently his divinity, it would have been them. 

The steps Mark outlines toward the apostle's eventual belief in Jesus’ divinity did not come to them in the two rapid, powerfully presented witness events. They did not awaken to belief until Jesus appeared. All of them. The apostles are grief-stricken and under a cloud of doom. When Jesus shows up he tells them not to be afraid. Mark says Jesus rebuked them. “Guys!” he says to them as he shows up. “Look! It is me!” Jesus must pull them out of their gloom with his presence.

For reference, in the other gospels' telling of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples, each has a different angle, but they also confirm the hypothesis that his presence is required. John skips the rebuke part in his gospel but does tell us that Thomas insisted on seeing Jesus before he would believe. He, just like the others, requires Jesus in physical form in order to believe. Luke also tells of the failure of the apostles to grasp the reality of the risen Jesus, but he goes into greater detail to show their overwhelming fear. Fear locks them down. Matthew places Jesus’ appearance to them at a hill in Galilee. He reports that Jesus explains his divinity to the apostles through his words, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.”

The different emphasis in each gospel amplifies the complexity of Jesus' resurrection. Separately, each account draws us in a different direction. Together, however, they announce the same thing. Jesus was resurrected, and that has cosmic implications. Even though the inability of the disciples to grasp Jesus’ divinity is apparent, Mark’s positioning of Mary and the Emmaus men helps us in our difficult path to accept Jesus as the one, “given all authority in heaven and on earth.” This unequaled reality of Jesus in any historical record (including mythical multi-god stories) logically needs a cross-reference of evidence. God's insistence upon lots of evidence should not be ignored.

The mental position of the apostles, when Jesus finally appears to them, is hopeless grief. Luke quotes Jesus’ consternation over their depression, which we initially take as frustration. “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 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.” Jesus knows what he must do with anyone human and overcome by death and sin. He touches each one of them and has them reach out to touch him. I believe we are no different.

Aren’t we, all over the world, going through doubts about God, right now? Even as we act insistently firm in our faith the windswept reach of a virus rattles us. We know this life is temporary. We know the brokenness as creation acts out with fatal delivery. Nonetheless, here we are, prone to anguish. Our fears and doubts are not unfamiliar or even rare. In groups, like the apostles and the disciples, fear and doubts are as contagious as the virus itself. Naturally, people are afraid to believe fully in the good news. What if it’s not true, we ask ourselves. We are trained to be hesitant. "Trust, but verify," as Ronald Reagan said. Well, In a worldwide pandemic, where the entire world is under the strain of imminent illness and possible death, those group-think fears are simply unavoidable.

So, even with an unforgettable double whammy of three certified sane and heady followers of Jesus telling the apostles that Jesus had risen and was alive, the apostles balked. “Nonsense,” they said openly.

First, came a woman they all knew — Mary Magdalene She reported an eye-witness account that Jesus was alive. You can see her, hands wildly putting exclamations on her story. She is excited and wide-eyed. Mary Magdalene is known as an over-the-top sort of a gal. It’s the way scriptures present her. Her past reputation as a multi-demon-possessed person surely still hung there as she spoke to the apostles. She carries all the baggage of the seven demons Jesus exorcised. We don’t know what kind of demons they were, but our imaginations can grasp the horror of such an overwhelming number of possessions. By my calculations, three demons would make anyone crazy. So, seven? Well, that’s a lot of angry Rottweilers on parade. 

Mary, though, was cleansed after the dog pound was released. So, she now had both street cred as a reformed sinner and sisterly status as Jesus’ friend. Those are hard badges to ignore. She wasn’t a nobody. Some commentators like to fashion gender dismissal as the apostles' issue. I don’t think the apostles ignored Mary’s report because she was a woman. They ignored it because they couldn’t register the facts. Nothing prepared them mentally for a resurrection. They had bits and pieces of a coming metaphorical event, but a real resurrection? More to the credibility of Mary's report, she did not come to them by herself. Luke’s version explains that several women went with her to the disciples — Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and “others.” In fact, in different gospel accounts, many women were also with the apostles during their hiding out. 

Luke explains what happened. “But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.” I don’t believe they discounted Mary, or the other women, because of gender. It’s the weeping and mourning of the apostles that set the stage for their disbelief. Their mindset and memory were fixed upon Jesus in the tomb.

The same happened with the two men from the Emmaus journey on their walk with Jesus. The apostles didn’t believe that report either. It’s not due to the men’s disciple status. It was due to the incomprehensible idea that Jesus would be alive. 

Mark doesn’t go into great detail about anything in his gospel. His concise tending to the events, however, reveals that a resurrected Jesus knows he will meet a consistent pattern of disbelief. He must appear to overcome their fears and doubts. Jesus delights in these encounters. He desires to be with his friends.

I know that it sounds dangerous, maybe quasi-heretical, to put into our minds that we’re not going to believe until Jesus appears to us. Yet, the scriptures tell us that Jesus is alive and then clearly over and over asks us to believe in him because we also can have a Jesus experience — a confirmation of our faith — that will make Jesus’ presence known to us. 

There is the Eucharist, which places Jesus physically into our body. There is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. There is the Father who extends the gift of faith to everyone if we would but accept it. There is the Body of Christ, a constant witness and intimacy of Jesus in our midst. And, there is this very Word that we read, more than just a telling or a recording of history. The scriptures come alive in our reading and are written upon our hearts. How do those things not translate into Jesus appearing to us? This is not a metaphor. This is interactive communication and physical body and spirit engagement.

Because it may bother some as dangerous to say this, allow that I am likely overstepping my bounds — reaching for a very high bar — to offer assurance that Jesus will make himself visible in some way to each of us. This set of verses draws us into giving God the opening. Let us give God the ability (that he certainly already has) to speak to us, reveal himself to us. He knows of our frailty, and our broken, even despondent, mindset.

Is the danger that I say Jesus will make himself known to us that is so disturbing to hear? God wants to reveal himself to all of us, doesn’t he? He’ll present his son, Jesus, to us, no matter who we are. I know it is true. The danger, I believe, is that Jesus does exist. God did incarnate as one of us. He is our King, our brother, our comforter, and our creator. That makes everything subservient to him.

If I’m wrong, and any kind of certain Jesus encounter hasn’t happened for you. OK, I am wrong. But check your watch. Look out the window. Pinch yourself. Are you still alive? Hmmm. The time may not yet have arrived. Admit it. Maybe I’m not wrong. 

Keep the faith and the hope, and live in God's love. Be ready for your Jesus encounter.