The Lord with His Disciples After the Resurrection
The Lord with His Disciples After the Resurrection
The forty days that followed the Resurrection were joyful and happy days, in which the disciples lived with the Lord, who visited them and strengthened them, removed their doubts, and established them in the faith… They lived with Him, enjoyed His companionship, and when they saw Him their hearts rejoiced… Let us contemplate those joyful days…
Sanctifying Joy and Sorrow
The period of fasting and asceticism during the Holy Forty Days and the Holy Pascha is a sacred period in our spiritual life, and likewise the period of joy in the Holy Fifty Days.
And thus, as the Lord sanctified sorrow and pain, He also sanctified joy in Him. All of them are sacred periods: the hymn Ki Eperto and the hymn Ekhristos Anesti.
We live with the Lord in constant fellowship, in the fellowship of His sufferings, and also in the fellowship of joy in the Resurrection and in the establishment of the Church…
The period of the Fifty Days is a period of joy, but it is joy in the Lord.
And this is the true joy that the Scripture desired for us: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4) (Philippians 3:1).
And the first joy was the joy of seeing the Lord.
“The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord” (John 20:20). And He Himself had said to them, “I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22)…
Here we contemplate the Lord’s words to the Magdalene and to the other Mary: “Go and tell My brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me” (Matthew 28:11). And this is what the angel also announced: “He goes before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said” (Mark 16:7).
The joys of the Resurrection, after the fatigue of Golgotha, gave a wondrous hope.
Hope that every darkness has light behind it, and every tribulation must have a period and pass, and lead to something better… Who would have thought that the raging crowd on Good Friday shouting “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” would later become a people believing in this crucified Christ… But it is a lesson from the Resurrection that we learn: never to despair, no matter how much the forces of darkness seem to prevail.
The period of the Holy Forty Days, in its joy, was a symbol of the unending joy in eternity.
It was a taste of this Kingdom, making the disciples desire to depart from this world, so that they might be with the Lord always: “I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.”
And the disciples never forgot this period throughout their preaching.
Thus St. John the Beloved begins his first epistle by saying: “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled…” (1 John 1:1).
That which they saw physically was a symbol of the vision by faith.
At least, seeing God in our lives and perceiving His work with us…
The first thing we notice about the forty days is that they were a period of visitation.
A Period of Visitation and Pastoral Care
He did not wish to leave His disciples to doubt, fear, weakness, and the psychological shocks caused by the impact of the Cross…
Those who were in special weakness among them, He appeared to especially…
The Apostle Peter was in a psychological crisis after his denial. He was terrified by the Lord’s saying: “Whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before the angels of My Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:33). Therefore the Lord appeared to Peter and reassured him concerning his apostleship (John 21:15–16).
When the Lord Christ rose, He did not think of Himself, but rather of others… He did not rebuke those who left Him and those who denied Him, but He healed all of these and visited them in love…
He alone trod the winepress. All left Him. Yet He did not reproach them… His beloved ones had weakened in faith and were afraid. He did not rebuke them for their fear or weak faith, but worked on bringing faith into their hearts…
Strengthening the Faith
After His Resurrection, He began strengthening and healing the faith of His disciples.
The disciples had their faith shaken in the event of the Cross and what preceded it… Some fled, some denied, some hid in fear. And they did not believe the Resurrection when they heard the news from Mary Magdalene or from the two disciples of Emmaus (Mark 16:11,13). Likewise, when the women told them, they did not believe them, and their words seemed to them like idle talk (Luke 24:11).
Also, Thomas denied. And when Christ appeared to the rest of the disciples, they thought Him a ghost or spirit (Luke 24:37)… And they were all seized with fear and hid in the Upper Room, and it seemed that the entire structure of faith had been shaken…
Then Christ rose, visited the disciples, strengthened their faith, restored confidence to their souls, and established them so they might preach the faith with conviction…
We gain from all this a spiritual experience in the Lord’s visitation of His people and His strengthening of their faith. And this gladdens us… because the Lord, after the Resurrection, did not reproach or punish for mistakes… but arose to heal and repair, restoring the Church’s morale and the disciples’ courage and faith…
The Resurrection of Christ also gave the Church a sense of power…
Christ rose with a wondrous power that frightened the guards and made them like dead men, with the awe of the angel who rolled away the stone for the women. And the power of Christ appeared in His authority over death, for no one raised Him, but He rose by Himself… And thus death lost its power when Christ trampled death, so much so that the Apostle Paul mocked it, saying: “O death, where is your sting?!”…
This sense of power accompanied the disciples, so they preached the Resurrection of Christ with strength, fearing not death.
Does the power of the Resurrection work in you, and have you become unafraid of death, in the joy of a better Resurrection…?
A Period of God’s Presence With Us and His Abiding in Us
The Lord could have strengthened the disciples’ faith in a single day or less, but He spent forty days with them because He loves to be with His children… “His delight is with the sons of men”… He met them in the Upper Room (John 20:19), by the sea (John 21), and in Galilee… He visited them repeatedly and spoke to them about the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3).
And not only does Christ want to be with His children, but even more to be in them, to dwell in them, and to abide in them and they in Him forever.
He said to the Father concerning them: “I in them, and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:23). And He said to His disciples: “Abide in Me, and I in you… I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit” (John 15:4–6). And He also said: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56).
Thus it is not merely companionship with Him, but mutual abiding… Christ lives in us, and we in Him, we are found in Him. As the Apostle Paul said: “…that I may live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
A steady companionship with God, not only in this world, but also in eternity, in the world to come.
Thus the Lord Christ reassured His disciples, saying to them: “I go to prepare a place for you… and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:2–3).
And in His long prayer to the Father on behalf of His disciples, He said: “Father, I will that those whom You have given Me be with Me where I am” (John 17:34). And the heavenly Jerusalem was said to be “the dwelling of God with men” (Revelation 21:3).
And on earth, the Lord said to His disciples: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). And: “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).
Thus we may consider the forty days a “taste of the Kingdom”… where they tasted life with the Lord, to live with Him forever… He dwells in us, unites with us, and abides in us, and we in Him. Thus the forty days became a period of being with His own.
The Resurrection also carried another meaning: the presence of the Lord with His people.
And this presence during the forty days was a sign of the permanent presence that He promised when He said: “Behold, I am with you all the days, until the end of the age,” and was manifested in the Lord’s presence among the seven churches as seen by St. John the Revelator (Revelation 1:13,20) (Revelation 2:1).
And this earthly presence was a symbol of the heavenly presence.
Where the Lord is in the midst of His people in the heavenly Jerusalem, the dwelling of God with men, fulfilling His true promise: “Where I am, there you may be also”… What occurred in the Holy Forty Days is completed in the blessed eternity. And the disciples here are symbols of all the righteous.
“There They Will See Me”
The Lord said to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary: Go and tell My brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see Me (Matthew 28:10), see also (Mark 16:7).
He meets a person in the place He Himself determines. That is, the Lord. Just as He led Abraham the patriarch to the land which He showed him, and just as He led Moses and Aaron, and designated for Moses the mountain upon which He would speak with him.
The island of Patmos was a place determined by the Lord, not by John. And the oak of Mamre was a place chosen by the Lord, not by Abraham.
But unfortunately, in our relationship with the Lord, how often we determine for Him the places, the times, and perhaps the type of work and the type of gifts.
But the Lord chose a place for meeting Him (“there they will see Me”), just as He chose a place for His dwelling: in the Tabernacle, in the Temple, and in Jerusalem. “This is the place the Lord desired to dwell in”… “This is My resting place forever. Here I will dwell, for I have desired it” (Psalm 132:14).
The phrase “there they will see Me” reminds us of another phrase in the Song of Songs: “Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields, let us lodge in the villages… there I will give you my love” (Song of Songs 7:10,12).
Many think that freedom is to do whatever they wish… but we walk on the path the Lord has drawn.
Just as Moses did everything according to the pattern the Lord showed him (Acts 7:44). Even concerning the vessels, the Lord said to Moses: “See that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain” (Exodus 25:40)… And the altar: “As it was shown to you on the mountain, so shall they make it” (Exodus 27:8)… The Lord designed everything in all its details…
The people were distinguished in that they walked not according to their own wisdom, but according to the pattern drawn by the Lord, with divine worship…
The Lord commanded, saying: “When you pray, say: Our Father who…” Scripture also says: “When we gather, each one has a psalm” (1 Corinthians 14:26). Thus we pray the Psalms… we do not depend on our own wisdom, but follow the pattern that the Lord set in all things…
The period of the forty days shows us the depth of the relationship between the Lord and His own.
It was also a period of preparation and handing down of all the mysteries and traditions.
A Period of Tradition (Handing Down)
Thus the forty days were a period in which the Lord handed to His disciples all forms of worship, its rites, and all its mysteries, and they followed them…
During those days He “spoke to them of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3)… telling them the matters that should be handed down to leadership, and the leaders handing them to the rest of the people… and the Church lived by tradition…
Consider what the Apostle Paul says to the Corinthians:
“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you” (1 Corinthians 11:23). And he says to his disciple Timothy: “And the things you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).
Christ handed to His disciples, and they handed to others, and by tradition the doctrine was established. And the period of the forty days was a period of handing down from the Lord to His disciples.
These mysteries are not for everyone, not a general teaching given to all, like the Sermon on the Mount, but they are for the leaders. They receive them from Him, then hand them to the generations after them, just as Paul said concerning the mystery of the Eucharist: “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you” (1 Corinthians 11:23). And just as Moses received from the Lord on the mountain all the forms and rites of the Tabernacle of Meeting and its worship, and made everything according to the pattern he received.
Our Spiritual Life in These Days
The most important thing in these holy days is that we receive Christ in our hearts just as the apostles received Him… that we become His own as they were… and that we live their life.
Saul of Tarsus was not one of the twelve, but his inner readiness made him receive from the Lord what the apostles received, and surpass many of them.
Let us ask the Lord to reveal Himself to us as He appeared to them, so that we may say with them: “That which we have seen, which we have heard, which our hands have handled” (1 John 1:1).
Or let us ask the Lord to visit us in these holy days as He visited His pure disciples, with all care and love.
The phrase “Let it be to you according to your faith” frightened some… What shall I do then if my faith is weak? Does this mean that I receive nothing? Surely, if the Lord judged us at all times according to our faith, our fate would be destruction…
But the Lord Christ showed us that love is greater than faith. It is enough first that you love, and it is not impossible for God to grant you faith as a reward for your love…
This shows us that Christ does not work only with the perfect. He also works with the deficient to complete them… The two disciples of Emmaus did not have faith, so they said of Christ that He “was a prophet mighty in deed and word…” (Luke 24:19), merely a prophet, merely a man mighty in deed and word!! They did not believe in His divinity, nor in His Resurrection, nor did they recognize Him… but Christ granted them this faith from Himself…
It is good to believe that God can grant us faith and can strengthen the weakness of our faith, and not treat us according to our weak or lost faith…
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An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, published in Watani newspaper on 1–6–1997.
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