Resurrection Sunday is just a few days away, and as you reflect on Luke 24, consider the power and glory of God in that indescribable event! If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you came to believe in His literal, physical resurrection from the tomb, and did so without actually seeing the risen Savior with your own eyes. You are one of whom Jesus spoke when He told his disciple Thomas (the notorious doubter), “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

What is interesting in Luke’s account, though, is his record of the reluctance of those who had firsthand experience with the risen Lord to believe what had taken place! When the women who had encountered the empty tomb returned to report their findings to the apostles, “their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them” (Luke 24:11).

Then there are the two on the road to Emmaus. After recounting to the stranger who had joined their journey all that transpired in the last few days, and revealing their own uncertainty and perplexity, the “stranger” remarked, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26).

And even when Jesus is standing in front of his disciples, showing his wounded hands and feet, Luke records that “they still did not believe for joy and marveled…” (v. 41).

In His marvelous grace, the Lord Jesus doesn’t leave them in a state of perplexity. Instead, He opened their understanding so that they might understand the Scriptures. When all was said and done, they worshipped the resurrected, living Lord Jesus Christ.

May we do likewise!