At Even

Just after darkness fell at the end of the first day, the disciples were gathered together in one place in Jerusalem. Since morning, both Peter and Mary Magdalene had seen Jesus, risen from the dead. They had gathered to make sense of it. Some of the disciples still didn't believe it was real. They thought Peter and Mary had wanted to see Jesus so badly that their minds had played tricks on them.

Two other followers suddenly rushed in. "We've seen Jesus!" they exclaimed. "We were on our way home to Emmaus when a man joined us. We invited him for supper and when he broke bread, we knew it was him. Then he just disappeared."

As they were talking, Jesus just appeared, out of nowhere, in the room with them."Shalom lechem," he said, Peace to you.

When they were convinced that it was he, he reminded them that he would appear to them again in Galilee. Over the next forty days he appeared to them at different times and places. He appeared to Peter, Thomas, and Nathaniel by the Sea of Galilee. He commissioned the disciples on a nearby mountain. Then forty days after his resurrection, back in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost, over five hundred believers saw him ascend to the skies.

He would appear to others at various times for the next three years. The most notable were James, his own brother, and last of all, the apostle Paul.

No one has ever claimed to find Jesus' body. Indeed, one of the earliest rationalizations about the empty tomb comes from individuals who accused the disciples of stealing his body. But you'd think they would have confessed when they were about to die for their faith. They didn't.