I love that Jesus did not merely make an appearance after His death, like a magician and in a cloud of smoke pronounce "Ta-Da!" Instead He revealed Himself in personal ways, because He is such a relational, loving God. And, as verse 3 says, He "gave many convincing proofs that He was alive." Its quite marvelous! He then spent over a month doing much of what He did in His three years of ministry prior to the cruxifiction> spending time with and teaching His followers. He must have really had their attention!! And it was not as though He died by a single gunshot. Nobody could argue, "maybe it was all a hoax" "it was just a flesh wound" "and besides did anybody REALLY see it?" No. His beatings, His humiliation, every step of that walk to Calvary was public and undeniable! And days later He sits with them again to break bread?!
The disciples, to me, were a bunch of average Joe's, with average smarts, average hang-ups, and average temperaments. They spent much of their time before Jesus death trying to make sense of what Jesus was telling them, through no fault of the Savior. I imagine them walking around after Jesus death in a mixture of grief and bewilderment thinking, "Well, that's not quite how I thought this Messiah-thing was going to pan out." And even after Jesus' resurrection, they were still stuck on matters that were irrelevent in the grand plan of the Almighty God (v.7&8). This is both encouraging because I get so frustrated w/ my own lack of understanding-but they'd witnessed it all first hand and still struggled - so I don't feel AS inadequate. But also discouraging a little too because they'd wintessed it first hand and still struggled- so do I stand a chance?!
Enter: The Holy Spirit!!! "With God, all things are possible." Pre-HS the disciples were knocking heads with doubt, denial, and discouragement. The Post-HS crew were STRONG, solid, super-leaders! BLAM! The TV monitor screen remains black until someone plugs it into a power source!
