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The wonder of the resurrection takes our attention in the great narratives at the end of the Gospels, and it's easy to miss that on each resurrection appearance of the Lord — and there occurred at least ten resurrection appearances in the forty days that followed Christ's resurrection — there is a distinctive ministry to the people gathered, whether disciples, or the women, or the five hundred brethren at once.
In each of the appearances, there's something distinctive in the ministry and the words of the risen Lord toward His people. It's a little ambitious, and I don't think we're going to get through them all, but I'd like to rapidly survey as many of the ten as we can, just to glimpse the gifts of the Lord Jesus Christ during the course of the resurrection appearances.
We begin with the first appearance, here in John chapter 20:
The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
Actually, there was a group of women, as the other Gospels tell us. John focuses only on Mary. That is because John's Gospel is the last to be written. The other Gospels were in good circulation by the time John wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit of God.
All the Gospels stress certain different aspects of the coming, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ. There is no contradiction between them. All the supposed and alleged contradictions can, chiefly, 99% be easily and sensibly resolved as you harmonise the records. They accord completely.
But John, being the last, assumes his readers know the other Gospels. So he doesn't tell you everything — he picks out just the elements the Holy Spirit inspires him to expand on. This is a case in point: he focuses on Mary, whereas there were others with her — Mary the mother of Jesus (probably the same as "the other Mary"), Salome, Joanna, and others.
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These women came out while it was still dark, early, to anoint the body of Christ. They had spices with them and were ready for the work. They see the sepulchre, and they see the stone taken away.
Elsewhere we learn the women were concerned about how they would deal with the gigantic stone at the entrance — a boulder, flattened and tablet-shaped, but very, very large. How would four or five women ever get it moved? We know too that there had been an earthquake before they arrived, and the stone had been rolled aside.
Mary sees this from a distance and takes alarm. They've opened the tomb, they've taken the body. What are we going to do? She detaches herself from the other women and runs back to the home of Peter and John.
She runneth and cometh to Simon Peter and the other disciple, who is John, and saith unto them, "They've taken away the Lord, and we know not where they have laid him."
You know the famous narrative — how they ran together, and John outran Peter and arrived first. Stooping down, he looked in, and saw an orderly scene. The linen wraps that had enshrouded the body lay aside, and the napkin worn around the head of the Lord was folded neatly in its own place.
It wasn't the scene of a grave that had been rifled by robbers or disturbed by guards. It was orderly. Peter, being the more impulsive, went right into the sepulchre.
Then went in also that other disciple, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead.
Now, they did know the prophecies that He would rise. At least three times — probably four — the Lord had told them directly: "I go to Jerusalem. I'm going to die. I'm going to rise from the dead." But they didn't take it in. Naturally, they didn't want to grasp it. Our Lord perish? Our Lord die? They didn't fully understand He'd come to die. That's what's meant here: they knew not the scripture — they didn't understand it. But now they begin to be reminded.
John and Peter return home, but Mary is back at the tomb, standing outside weeping — sobbing her heart out. The one she trusted in for so much had perished, and she couldn't understand why. She stoops down and looks into the sepulchre and sees two angels in white, one at the head and one at the feet where the body had been.
They say to her, "Woman, why weepest thou?"
They know, of course, but she must articulate it — for our benefit, for the record.
She saith unto them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him."
So it's on the record: she had no expectation of resurrection. None of them had. They were going to be taken completely by surprise.
Then something calls her to turn back — perhaps the movement of Christ who'd appeared on the scene. She turns and sees Him, but doesn't know it's the Lord. Her recognition was withheld by God. Again He asks, "Woman, why weepest thou?" — and for the second time the answer is on the record. Supposing Him to be the gardener, she says:
"Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where, and I will take him away."
Then Jesus saith unto her, "Mary" — actually "Miriam," the Aramaic form, her familiar name that He'd always used. At once she recognised the voice, her gaze riveted, and she says, "Rabboni" — "Master."
The better translation is Teacher — but "Rabboni" wasn't used for any teacher. It was reserved for the very foremost teachers of the day, only two or three of the most famous rabbis. That's the name she gives the Lord: my special teacher.
"Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father."
Perhaps she'd gone to cling to Him. No, no, He seems to say — that's not the time. I will be glorified, I will ascend, I will be in heaven, and one day you will be too. That's the time for the closest fellowship. Not now — I'm appearing just moments early.
Then comes a distinctive gift:
"But go to my brethren."
What a wonderful term. Who are these people? The disciples, the inner circle. And yet they've deserted Him. When He was arrested, they forsook Him and fled. Peter denied Him three times, with oaths. Only John seems to have crept back to Calvary's cross so Christ could hand over the care of His mother to him.
Won't they feel conscience-smitten? Surely we need restoration. Surely he will reject us — we abandoned him. And yet Christ calls them brethren. He'd never called them that before. He'd called them friends: "You are my friends." Now He calls them brothers. Because while they're brothers, they're forgiven. They can be restored. He welcomes them back.
But mark how carefully He says it:
"I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God."
He is the Son of God by right — He is divine, equal with the Father, truly God. God is His Father as divine Father; they are both Father and Son, equally God. But the disciples — and you and I, if we believe in Christ — are sons by adoption. We're in the family, but we're not God, not divine. So although we're brethren, there is a distinction: His sonship is by divine being and right; ours is by adoption, redemption, and conversion. That is why He says "my God and your God."
Consider what Mary was not. She was not an apostle. She was not one of the eleven. She was not one of the first stage of church leaders. She was not a preacher or a prophet. She was a woman.
But that didn't mean she was secondary in the eyes of the Lord. Consider the foolishness even of some Christians who are so patriarchal — where the men are everything, and the husband is head of the family in too elevated a sense. It is true the husband is the head, and must be held responsible for what happens in the family — but he's not the only one who matters. He must take account of his wife, because they are equal before God.
Christ appears to a woman first. She's not an apostle, not a man — but she gets the first appearance. "I have seen the Lord." And they didn't believe her. Perhaps some thought, if he were going to appear, he'd come to us first. But that's not how it happened. Mary Magdalene is precious to Him. She served Him in love, she was loyal — and she receives the reward of the first appearance.
Turning to Matthew chapter 28:
In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake... His countenance was like lightning, his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
The angel says to the women:
"Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay."
So the second appearance is to these other women — Joanna, Salome, and Mary. And they're given a message:
"Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him."
As they went, Jesus met them: "All hail" — or as we might say, "Hello." They came and held Him by the feet and worshipped Him. And the gift is "Be not afraid."
Don't be afraid, dear friends. It's different now. He's risen. It's the risen Lord who is our Lord and Saviour. And "tell my brethren" — that word comes in again — "that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me."
In Luke's Gospel, when the women returned, their words seemed to the disciples as idle tales. The poor women — so excited, overjoyed, having seen the Lord — and the eleven don't believe them. No, they're not expecting the resurrection at all.
From Luke chapter 24, the same day of resurrection:
And behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus... talking of all these things which had happened.
These were not of the eleven, but the next class of disciple. They were downhearted, crushed — the one they expected to be Saviour had been crucified. There was talk of His having risen; the women had come back from the tomb saying they'd seen a vision of angels and that He was alive. But they couldn't bring themselves to believe it.
Christ's gift to these two — Cleopas and his companion — is a wonderful exposition:
"O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?"
He explained how Moses predicted Christ throughout the books of Moses, and how all the other scriptures foretold His suffering, death, and resurrection.
As they drew near the village, they constrained Him to stay. But it was the guest who blessed the bread:
As he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it... and their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.
Still, this third appearance was not to an apostle. There's a wonderful lesson here. The apostles had a special authority, yet they were to be humble men, never lording it over the people. There is never to be in the church of Christ a pyramidal structure of authority.
This applies today. Ministers are just helpers in your joy — proclaimers, explainers, exhorters — not authorities, not bosses and chiefs and lords, and never rich.
Never trust a rich minister. He's nothing like the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing like the Apostle Paul, nothing like the pastors of the New Testament. If he's enriched himself, there's a problem there. He may speak much truth, but he's a speckled bird. Be careful.
I didn't mean to digress, but here it is — a lesson in the appearances of Christ and His great grace to the people.
Recorded in Luke 24, in one short verse:
The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.
That's all we learn. But Peter is a central apostle — why is nothing else said? Because this was the most deeply personal encounter. In a later appearance Christ will touch on Peter's denial again to bring about his total consecration to the ministry. But this fourth appearance is to restore and forgive him.
Remember, when Peter was in the courtyard of the high priest's house and Christ had endured His first wretched trial, He was bundled across the courtyard, and Christ saw Peter — and they looked at each other. There was no chance to speak, but there was something in Christ's look: compassion, a readiness to forgive, an element of reproof. Peter completely broke down, went out, and wept.
Now Christ appears face to face. That would have been a time of intimate and total repentance, of sorrow and contrition, and a time when Christ forgave and restored him. It's too personal, too affecting to be recorded. All we learn is that Christ appeared to Peter — and that's all we're allowed to see.
In Luke 24, Thomas is not present:
As they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, "Peace be unto you."
He'd come through the locked door without opening it. For Peter, the gift was forgiveness; here, the gift is peace — the peace of reconciliation.
"My peace I leave with you."
His legacy to us: union with Himself, a close walk with Him. I am ever by your side, ever near you, and my Spirit is within you. You need never feel forsaken. The softest prayer I hear, and I answer in power.
But they were terrified and affrighted, thinking they'd seen a spirit. So much unbelief.
"Behold my hands and my feet... Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."
Within three days the wounds had healed, and the gaping wound in His side was visible. Christ had assumed a human body in His incarnation, suffered in it as a man so He could bear away our suffering — but He was God and could endure it. And now He will wear that body forever.
So we will have a visible King. The second person of the Godhead, equal with the Father, will be eternally visible to us in a glorified body — an astonishing body no preacher on earth could begin to describe. When you die and get to heaven, you'll be overwhelmed to see the full glory of the risen Lord. And to prove His humanity, He ate before them.
The sixth appearance is to the eleven (in John), where the stress is that they must trust Him — the imparting of joy.
The seventh appearance takes us to Galilee, in John chapter 21, at the Sea of Tiberias:
After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias.
Only seven disciples are here, and they've gone fishing. Are they despondent? Peter seems to have gone back to fishing and taken others with him — because though excited at seeing the risen Lord, the penny still hasn't dropped that they are His ambassadors and servants.
So there's a special miracle:
"Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find."
There was an immense catch of fish, and Peter is first to recognise it must be the Lord. Here is the grace of this appearance — a demonstration before the words come: You are here not to fish for fish. You're here to fish for men. You're called to be my apostles, my ambassadors, to spend your life preaching the gospel and gathering the saved to form the church.
And notice — in spite of the enormous catch, the net didn't break. The unbroken net. You'll be persecuted, you'll be attacked, but the gospel net will be unbroken all the way until Christ comes again.
Then Christ begins to teach, starting with Peter. He's forgiven, but now he must be reminded of his denial. Three times Christ asks him, because He wants from Peter his complete love and dedication to the ministry. Peter gives Him his life, and there is the prophecy that Peter will live and die a martyr, faithful to the end.
The remaining appearances include the great commission — to the five hundred at once on a mountain by the sea (Matthew's Gospel), and to the eleven (Mark's Gospel). Then He appears in Jerusalem, teaches them further, and leads them out to Bethany, to Mount Olivet, and ascends into heaven.
What an amazing thing, that last appearance when He ascends from Mount Olivet, and they are enabled to see Him returning into heaven. He is going to be their Lord from heaven — the risen Lord, untouchable and all-powerful. They'll serve Him, one day come to Him, and some will be martyred for Him.
It's often said that the Book of Acts ought to be titled the Acts of Christ, because that's what it is — the Acts of the risen Lord.
The apostles never achieved anything on their own. It was Christ, His Spirit, and His power. They were only the spokesmen, only the messengers. And it's the same with present-day ministers, pastors, preachers, evangelists. Who are we? Just the spokesmen. It's the power of God — the Acts of the risen Lord entirely.
That's why we must never take the credit, never seek the glory, never be applauded, never be written about as though we're special and great and grand. All of it steals from the glory of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.
We are those who keep high in our minds that we serve the risen Lord. He is alive. By His Spirit and by His power, everything is accomplished and everything is achieved. The ten appearances of Christ — I haven't done them justice, but just a hint, just a glimpse.
