So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven gathered together and those who were with them, who said, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Miracles are exciting things.
Miracles appeal to our imagination. Who wouldn’t want to believe that magical things can happen? And miracles are indeed magical.
Miracles amaze and astound, and even confound. Miracles challenge what we think we know about the world.
Certainly the miracle of Jesus’ Resurrection challenges what we know of this world. For a man to die, be buried for three days, and then to reappear completely alive defies all logic and all reason. What we know of this world tells us that when a man dies, he remains dead. Death does not get undone, particularly after three days.
Yet Jesus returned to this world three days after having died on the Cross at Calvary. Just as He said he would do.
Rising from the dead is definitely a miracle!
Yet after Jesus rose from the dead, after He appeared to His followers, He vanished.
When He met two of His followers on the road out of Jerusalem after His Resurrection, He talked with them. He taught them the Scriptures. He sat with them, breaking bread to reveal Himself.
Then He vanished.
Jesus appeared to Mary Magdelene. Then He vanished.
Jesus appeared to Simon called Peter. Then He vanished.
Jesus appeared to the eleven remaining Disciples. Then He vanished.
Yet Jesus did not simply depart from this world. He appeared to various of His followers, letting them see the miracle of His Resurrection, before vanishing again, to appear to more of His followers elsewhere.
The Disciples all responded differently to seeing the Risen Jesus. Thomas refused to believe the reports of Jesus’ Resurrection until he saw Jesus standing before him. Others were amazed, and even a bit frightened.
The two Jesus met on the road were inspired by His teachings, yet did not recognize Him until He broke bread with them. They were not expecting to see Him on the road, believing him dead and buried.
After the Crucifixion, all of Jesus’ followers, even the eleven remaining Disciples, believed Jesus to have died. They witnessed Him being nailed to the Cross, and then they watched him die. They watched as He was laid in the tomb of Joseph of Arimethea.
They knew Jesus had died. They believed Jesus was dead. They believed Jesus was buried, and would remain dead and buried.
They did not believe Jesus would rise again, nor would they believe Jesus was risen until they saw Him, and some not even then, at first.
Despite being told by Jesus what would happen, that He would be crucified, that he would die and be buried, that he would rise again after three days, His followers, though they believed His teachings and followed Him unhesitatingly, did not believe that, after He died, He would be Resurrected.
Even though their hearts burned with inspiration whenever Jesus taught them, and revealed the Truth within the Scriptures to them, their belief did not endure past His death.
For all the miracles they had seen Jesus perform, for all the certainty of their belief while Jesus was alive, none of them were so completely transformed as to be able to put aside all that they knew about the world to believe that Jesus would be Resurrected.
When they believed He was dead, the world reclaimed its hold on them.
Yet when they saw Him Resurrected, when they believed He was risen from the dead, that belief endured. That belief remained even after He vanished again.
Once they witnessed the Resurrection, all that Jesus taught them, all that Jesus was to them, remained with them.
Witnessing the Resurrection left Jesus’ followers completely transformed. Despite what they knew of the world, they believed that Jesus had died and had risen from the dead, returning to this world.
When they believed Him Resurrected, the world did not reclaim its hold on them.
Was their transformation also a miracle?
I believe it is. Certainly the transformation of a person’s heart and mind is a magical thing. Certainly the persistence of their transformed belief is also at odds with how we see the world work, where daily experience subtly shapes and reshapes what we know of the world, grinding down the beliefs that come to us through faith.
After the Resurrection, the Disciples’ belief would not be ground down.
So it is that the Resurrection is not one miracle but two. There is the miracle of Jesus returning from the dead, fulfilling both prophecy and promise. There is also the miracle of His followers’ complete transformation and rebirth, endowed with a new and powerful faith able to withstand the rigors and trials of this world.
That is a miracle every bit as momentous as Jesus returning from the dead. That is the miracle that has gone on to transform the world. Being transformed, Jesus’ followers would do as He charged them, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them all that Jesus Himself had taught.
That is a miracle that continues even today, with every follower who is transformed and reborn after hearing the Gospel message of Jesus, and the Good News of His Resurrection, the Resurrection by which all men are redeemed. That is a living miracle, magical and wonderful, which spreads God’s light ever farther into a dark and sinful world.
Jesus was Crucified. Jesus died. Jesus arose from the dead, a miracle of Resurrection by which Jesus performed an even greater miracle, transforming His followers, giving each of them—giving each of us—new life, new faith, new hope.
Jesus has Risen. Through His Resurrection, Jesus has transformed us all. Two miracles, both magical, both exciting, both worthy of celebration today, and every day.
Grace and peace to you Peter,
CHRIST is RISEN! ☦️🪨🔥🪽🔔
“There is also the miracle of His followers’ complete transformation and rebirth, endowed with a new and powerful faith able to withstand the rigors and trials of this world.”
This happened to you, didn’t it, Peter? A story that maybe you don’t want to share with the world, but I thank God that He led you to this transformation. Praise God and love Him with all your heart!
There is actually a scientific pathway for miracles to occur. We’ve all heard that, at the quantum level where matter comes into existence, a tiny speck of energy is both a particle and a wave. This mathematical wave is a *probability* wave, where *all* possibilities can come into existence. What actually does come into existence is usually the most probable one. But God has the ability to create even the most improbable occurrences, even bringing back the dead. In that sense, the Resurrection is both proof of God’s love and proof of God Himself. In that sense, this was a third miracle!