21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
Luke 24:36-43
Jesus Appears to the Disciples
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
Acts 1:1-11
Jesus Stays on Earth for a Period of Forty Days After His Death and Then Ascends to Heaven
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
When Jesus appeared to His Disciples after His death, they thought He was a ghost...The Disciples were startled and frightened...How could they not be frightened and startled -they are talking to a dead Man?...So this was a natural reaction, because He had just died on the cross, and now they see Him again...We and the Disciples have heard about ghosts, and they thought they had seen one...But what they saw was a great story continuing to unfold...The story is a hard one to believe, and it took some explaining by Jesus for the Disciples to see the Light...
C. S. Lewis said this about Jesus' Resurrection, "Then we come to the strangest story of all, the story of the Resurrection...It is very necessary to get the story clear...I heard a man say, “The importance of the Resurrection is that it gives evidence of survival, evidence that the human personality survives death.”...On that view what happened to Christ would be what had always happened to all men, the difference being that in Christ’s case we were privileged to see it happening...This is certainly not what the earliest Christian writers thought...Something perfectly new in the history of the Universe had happened...Christ had defeated death...The door which had always been locked had for the very first time been forced open...This is something quite distinct from mere ghost-survival...I don’t mean that they disbelieved in ghost- survival...On the contrary, they believed in it so firmly that, on more than one occasion, Christ had had to assure them that He was not a ghost...The point is that while believing in survival they yet regarded the Resurrection as something totally different and new...The Resurrection narratives are not a picture of survival after death; they record how a totally new mode of being has arisen in the universe...Something new had appeared in the universe: as new as the first coming of organic life...This Man, after death, does not get divided into “ghost” and “corpse”...A new mode of being has arisen...That is the story...What are we going to make of it?"...
A new mode has arisen after Jesus came to earth...And this new mode is that there is a natural law that His Disciples and others were privileged to see...The Disciples did not believe that Jesus was Jesus at first...The Disciples were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost...He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?...Look at My hands and My feet...It is I Myself! Touch Me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”...When He had said this, he showed them His hands and feet...And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, He asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”...They gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate it in their presence...Jesus ate broiled fish after His death...Ghosts do not eat, and have physical bodies...Eating must proven to the Disciples that He was not is not a ghost...This new natural law seen and was observed for forty days is the Resurrection Story...
And what are we going to make of the Resurrection Story?...Although Jesus' Story is not complete with His Resurrection...The Resurrection allows Him to leave earth and go back to heaven...And in His ascension we can understand that while the story remains odd, it still makes sense for believers...And if Jesus did not resurrect nothing He did or said means anything...But this is what we must make of the story if it is true (and this makes all the difference), if Jesus did in fact resurrect from His death and is still alive -one must believe everything He said and everything He did, and everything in the four gospels...