Easter, Yet Again

SAT., APR. 2, 1994, 6:04 AM
FARM, STUDY

Symbolically, on this Saturday of Holy Week, I, as Jesus, was dead and gone. I was busy during that time, but I was away from the earth, in spirit, and My body was in the tomb where it had been laid. Then came Easter morn, as tomorrow morning will dawn, and I was back in My body, the stone was rolled away, and I was alive again. The details are slightly different in each Gospel account (and I want you to reread each of these when I’m through with this Teaching), but each tells, in his own way, that Easter was Resurrection Day. Death could not hold Me.

Yet now My resurrected body was more mystical than before the crucifixion. I was visible. I talked and could be heard, but I could be recognized… or not. I could appear and disappear. I could walk through closed doors. Yet I could eat solid food. It was an interesting combination of earth and of heavenly existence.

My mission, as the risen Messiah, from Easter morn, was a short one, but important. I had to convince the confused, dispirited disciples that I had truly overcome death, and that I, the Holy Spirit, would soon be with them. I would help them remember My short but potent life, as the basis for the building of My truly lasting Body, the Church. My time was to be short, I knew, so I had to be dramatic and memorable. They knew that I had died on the cross. They knew that My dead body had been prepared properly for the grave, and they had seen the large stone rolled across the entrance to the tomb. And it now was the third day after the death… time for Me to appear among them to complement the empty tomb.

The Road to Emmaus story is a good one (and isn’t it interesting that even after your Emmaus weekend experience you didn’t perceive this as part of the Easter story). I join two of My followers, who certainly should have recognized Me, but they didn’t. (Yes, it is proper to wonder whether the nail holes in My hands and feet were there and apparent. Remember that I was in a semi-mystical state, so they could be there or not, as I desired.) We talked as we walked the road… and I walked, just as a man would. I told them of the Scriptures that were the portent of My suffering, dying, and being raised to eternal life. Still they did not recognize Me, in body or in voice.

They persuaded Me to stay with them in Emmaus, at least for a meal. (It wouldn’t have been much of a story if I had refused, now would it?!) I blessed the bread and I broke it, and in this symbolic, communal act they recognized Me. Perhaps I should have stayed and told them more of what had happened to Me since Golgotha, but, for dramatic effect, once I was sure they both were sure who I was, I disappeared from their midst.

They went back to tell the disciples about this encounter, and there I was in the midst of them. I even ate a piece of fish to show the continuation of My humanness. So, while early in My ministry I had resisted the temptations that were supernatural, the temptations to show that I had spectacular powers, now I am seeing these as means to that good end – the remembrance of Me, embodied in The Church.