Given the importance of the Resurrection and the appearances of Jesus after his death, it’s perhaps surprising how little consistency there is in the various accounts we have of these events.
Today we hear Luke’s story of the first meeting that anyone has with the risen Lord (Lk 24:13-35). In his telling the women went to the garden first, as in John’s account. But while John tells of Mary Magdalene meeting Jesus in the garden, in Luke’s account Jesus isn’t there. The disciples get to meet Jesus later in the upper room where they are hiding out (with no further mention of the women). In Matthew’s gospel the disciples get to meet Jesus in Galilee, not in Jerusalem. Mark, curiously, has elements of all the stories mixed up.
Paul puts all this in order when he writes to the Corinthians, in what was probably the first letter he wrote: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; he was buried; he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.” (1 Cor 4-5). This sounds right. Peter gets the message first , followed by the other top dogs (with Paul hanging on to their coat-tails), then the message spreads out. A nice clear, clean top-down process, of course with men at the center of it. After all we are an Apostolic Church – it all starts with the apostles. But is it really as clear and clean as that?
Despite Paul’s efforts to create order out of God’s way of doing things, it’s apparent that when the Gospels were being written, some decades later, this systematization hadn’t really taken hold. It does seems most likely that the women closest to Jesus were the first witnesses, although since they were women they couldn’t really be witnesses, so they can safely be ignored. Luke’s story of the meeting on the road to Emmaus is harder to dismiss, despite the fact that Jesus apparently shows himself first to a couple of random guys who never get mentioned anywhere else. Why them? Luke does tells us Jesus also shows himself to Simon (Peter), but he doesn’t focus on that meeting, and presents it almost as an afterthought.
Despite our deep need for systematization, as we noted last week when considering how Thomas’ resurrection experience fits in, scripture really doesn’t give us much support in this. Jesus doesn’t follow some well-scripted roll-out plan, following all the best marketing theory. He appears to people apparently at random, and certainly not to the “most important” first. “My ways are not your ways”, says the Lord (Isa 55:8). Get over it!
Thomas helps demonstrate that Jesus takes us as he finds us, but we also have to take him as we find him, which will very likely not be when or where we expect him – that’s what we learn from Cleopas and his friend. He will speak to us when we are on our way somewhere and open the Scriptures to us, then our hearts will burn and we will recognize him in the breaking of bread – if we are open to that possibility.