Risen But Not Seen

Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. Luke 24:22

Aha, it is because you were slacking in bed! The women got up early and saw astonishing things, but you slackers failed!

We find it easy to blame and shame. Failure must come from us therefore we can save ourselves. It is that sneaky humanism that tempts us. It is quicker and easier for us to judge the men guilty of sleeping in before we even check into how late they stayed up. We leap to heap blame and shame on them and miss the astonishing news, He is risen! The astonishment came from the news the women had to tell of our risen Lord Jesus. The humor in the tale is that it was the risen Lord Jesus who brought out the details of the story as He walked with these men, who, the Bible states, were restrained from seeing Him.

The men received their own heap of astonishment when later the Lord serves up some communion bread and then vanishes!

The stories from the gospels of our risen Lord Jesus are many, and impossible to ignore. We are left to decide once again whether to believe the eye witnesses and thus in our Lord, or to discount those people as crackpots or liars and thus do the same to Jesus, for they are His witnesses. We are His witnesses in this age, and the same will be done to us. Always remember that when they decide you are a crackpot or a liar, they are doing the same to our Lord Jesus. And on those perhaps rare occasions when we are believed, it is the Lord they believe in and the glory belongs to Him.

And always be watchful, for He is walking with you, risen but not seen.

In Christ, Bucky