When Jesus Leaves, What then?

How would you feel and what would you do if you suddenly lost the most influential person in your life?  Suppose there was someone who was so strong and yet loving, so compassionate and yet convicting, so powerful and yet vulnerable that you felt you could not live without him -- and suddenly he is gone.  How would you feel?  What would you do?  This happens in Luke 24.

Two post-resurrection appearances of Jesus are seen in Luke 24.  In the first, two disciples on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus are joined by Jesus but they do not recognize him.  When they reach their home he acts like the host at a meal, takes the bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to them.  When he does this their eyes were opened and they recognized him, or it could be said that they experienced His presence.

Luke continues by saying that Jesus then vanished from their sight.  Immediately they hurried back to Jerusalem and told the eleven apostles and others how they recognized Jesus "in the breaking of the bread."  Luke adds, "While they were telling these things, He himself stood in their midst and said to them, 'Peace be to you.'"  It is not surprising when Luke comments that they were both startled and frightened.

Jesus urged them to not be afraid, to look at him, even touch him, see that he has flesh and bones -- they are not seeing a ghost.  Here he is in his resurrected body, a body appropriate to the environment, so much so that he says, "Have you anything here to eat?"  They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he ate it before them.

Then Jesus began to teach them, as he had the two disciples earlier.  As Luke says, "He opened their minds to understand the scriptures," telling them that the Messiah would suffer and rise again from the dead, and that "repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  And I am sending forth the promise of my Father upon you ... and you will be clothed with power from on high."

When he had finished teaching Jesus led them out of Jerusalem as far as Bethany where he lifted up his hands to bless them -- and as he did so he was carried away into heaven.  Jesus was gone.  This man who had changed their lives, who opened their minds to God's word, who loved them with sacrificial love, was gone.

You might expect Luke to describe how sad they felt, but he doesn't.  In fact he says the opposite:  "they worshiped him and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising God."  First they had a worship service and then went back to Jerusalem with great joy where their witnessing would begin.

I believe that Luke meant this to be a model for the church.  In any event, His disciples continue to this day, meeting to worship him, to experience his presence in the breaking of the bread, and then going out with joy to their place of witness.