Read Mark’s Gospel chapter 16:9-14. The women saw the angels, the women met Jesus. Rather, He first appeared to them. He responds to love and devotion. It is all a matter of the heart.
Now look at the men, the disciples. They did not see the angels. And Jesus had to come to them, and when He came to them, ‘He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart’. The women did not have a hard heart, they had a loving heart. They loved Jesus, they came to anoint the body of Jesus.
The problem with the men, the disciples, was that they allowed their heads to rule over their hearts. Nothing wrong with this; but they allowed reason to over-rule faith. Nothing wrong with reason either; but they refused to accept the evidence of the ‘open tomb’. Only John the beloved disciple says that he believed, John 20.8. Now John was one of those few who stood near the cross, when the rest fled and remained at a distance.
The men refused to believe the report of Mary Magdalene, Mark 16.11. They refused to believe the news given by the women of Galilee, Luke 24.11. They refused to accept the evidence of the two disciples who walked the road to Emmaus, Mark 16.12,13. No wonder the Lord rebuked them.
Now that rebuke is meant for us also. We have to meet Jesus in a direct way. Like Mary Magdalene we must say, ‘I have seen the Lord.’ Second-hand reports will not do. The resurrection is a historical fact. Yes, it really happened 2000 years ago. But we need something more, an experience that will touch our hearts and change our lives.
Jesus has to meet us. In John 20.20, it says, ‘The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord.’ Nothing less than ‘I have met the Lord’, ‘I have seen the Lord’. Our head may accept the historical fact, even the evidence of the women of Galilee; but our heart rejoices when we meet the Lord. There has to be a fresh resurrection in our hearts, in our spirits, when the Lord comes and meets us deep inside. Then we know the power of His resurrection, we experience His resurrection life, our eyes are truly open, our ears are open [as He calls us by name, John 20.16], and, yes, heaven is open also – and we can see the angels of God in all their glory.
More than history, more than doctrine, more than what satisfies the head and the reason – is the spiritual experience of resurrection [and redemption], when we can say boldly, ‘I have met the Lord’, ‘He came into my life with the power of resurrection on such-and-such a day’. We rejoice because we know in an inward way, an intimate way, a living way. Others may not understand us [their eyes are still blinded], but we can say, ‘Yes, I am born again. And Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and the Life!’
