40 days that changed the world
Review of some comments in Philip Yancey’s
‘The Jesus I never Knew’
Some things, they say, stick out like a sore thumb. There’s a short paragraph in Yancey’s book that is so wide of the mark that I feel sure he would like to review it. Why he wrote it baffles me. The rest of the book runs smoothly; it is informative, evocative, and does what it says on the cover and I enjoyed reading it.
‘When Jesus returned after death…he tarried a mere 40 days before vanishing for good. The time between the Resurrection and Ascension was an interlude, nothing more.’
If you could travel back in time, what period of history would you choose?
With the bible in mind, I’ll pick three:
With Daniel in the Lion’s Den and/or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace
Listening in to Samuel as he spoke to Saul on the roof (1 Sam 9v25)
The 40 days between the resurrection and the ascension
Tempting as it is to write about all three, I’d like to think this article could serve to transport us back to Jerusalem three days after the crucifixion at Passover, when thousands of pilgrims were dispersing back to their towns and villages, before returning for Pentecost, fifty days later. Gossip and conversation would have been rife concerning the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.
The New Testament records one of those conversations. Two disciples of Jesus were leaving Jerusalem walking disconsolately along the road to Emmaus. In talking to a stranger (who turned out to be the resurrected Jesus) they said: ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem and have you not…(heard)…of Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet…we were hoping that He would redeem Israel…’.
The disciples – approximately 120 men and women – were coming to terms with early reports of the resurrection and were ‘locked away for fear of the Jews’ John 20 v 19.
Commentators, typically, have either pointed to the Resurrection and/or Pentecost to explain the staggering transformation amongst the disciples from disillusionment and fear to fearlessly proclaiming the resurrection and the gospel, and the phenomenal spread of the faith around the Mediterranean in the decades that followed.
‘It was the resurrection, their belated faith in the resurrection, and the proof that Jesus had risen from the death that dispelled their fears’ would say one commentator.
In essence, this is the Evangelical argument; its proponents having no experience of the Holy Spirit coming upon them in power, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. An Evangelical believer, a true disciple of Christ, knows Jesus as Saviour but has no personal knowledge of Jesus as Baptiser in the Holy Spirit.
The Pentecostal and Charismatic believer, acknowledging, like all evangelicals, the authority, inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures, looks more to Pentecost to explain this phenomenon: ‘Despite the appearances of the resurrected Christ it was only when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost that they were back on the streets fearlessly proclaiming the resurrection and the gospel’.
These two events – and, not forgetting the Ascension – no doubt contributed to the disciples’ boldness and power. But Yancey, and I suspect many of us, have overlooked the 40 days between the Resurrection and the Ascension. Like Yancey, evangelical and Pentecostal/charismatics might think of that period of resurrection appearances as ‘nothing more than an interlude’. But this is not the case.
The order of events, as summarised in Mark’s gospel is this:
Women buy spices on Saturday evening after sunset – the end of the Sabbath
Early on Sunday morning, before dawn, they go to the tomb and find the stone rolled away
Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene (and the other women)
The women go back to the disciples, but the disciples don’t believe their account
Jesus appears to the disciples and rebukes their unbelief
Jesus speaks to the disciples and commissions them to go into all the world and preach the gospel
The Ascension
The disciples go into the whole world preaching the gospel with miracles following
But numbers 5 and 6 and the period before 7, the Ascension, take us to the 40 days between the Resurrection and Ascension. And more details are found in the other gospels.
It is in Luke and John’s gospels, and then Acts, that we derive a fuller picture of what was going on in that 40-day period.
4 (a) Mary Magdalene and the other women tell the disciples about the resurrection. ‘…their words seemed to them (the men) like idle tales (nonsense, old wives’ tales) and they did not believe them’ Luke 24v11
4 (b) But Peter, v12, ran to the tomb. John also (John 20 v 2). Either then or soon after the Lord appeared to Simon (Peter) Luke 24 v34
If you’re familiar with the New Testament you will know that Jesus appeared to the eleven and the others later the same day. But, before you rush over this, you may be shocked to find a small detail that is often overlooked.
For those present, there was an awkward elephant in the room: Peter and the other disciples had disbelieved Mary Magdalene and the women who had accompanied her to the tomb. Imagine the scene: the women on one side of the room sitting around a table, the aroma from the unused spices filling the room as their tears fell, and their anger rose towards the men they’d spent three years with. Dismissed as liars, fanciful thinkers, not as trusted friends, if there were glances across the room, they would not have been friendly. The men over the other side were bewildered and upset, having witnessed the man they had pinned their hopes on, dying on a cross three days ago. And, now his body is missing from the tomb. In addition, fear of arrest and being found guilty of sedition stalked the room. Lookouts on the door kept watch. It was into this atmosphere that Jesus appeared to the eleven and those with them.
‘Later he appeared to them as they say around the table and he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart…because they had not believed the women who had seen him after he had risen.’ Mark 16v14
Jesus appears and speaks to the men after they had ‘disbelieved for joy’. ‘Men,’ Jesus said. ‘Come and sit down.’ At least that’s how I imagine it went.
What was first on Jesus’ to-do-list in this 40-day window? To slay the elephant in the room. To repair the relationship between the men and the women. He gets the men together. Mark’s account is brief. We are left to speculate. Can you imagine the men? Men who had left their nets to follow him, left their tax-collecting, left their terrorist organisation, all to follow him. And now, embarrassed. Looking down at the table. The women across the room, still upset. And what happened as a result of Jesus’ rebuke? In my imagination Peter stands up and walks across to Mary Magdalene with tears rolling down his rough Galilean fisherman’s face. Forgiveness flows as they embrace, Jesus looking on with the peace he had offered them. The elephant is no more; peace re-entered the room. It had been a long day but, at last, they could not only enjoy the fact of the resurrection; watch Jesus eat fish and yet disappear and appear at will, they could enjoy each other’s company once more. Fear subsiding. Joy increasing.
But this was just the start.
Moving on to day two, and the subsequent days during which Jesus appeared until the Ascension.
In the first chapter of Acts we read: ‘(Jesus)until the day he was taken up…presented himself alive after suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God’ Acts 1 v 2,3
There was purpose in these forty days. It was not as Yancey believed, an ‘interlude – nothing more’. Nor were the appearances merely to convince the obdurate (male) disciples of the resurrection. One appearance would have sufficed. Seemingly, if you belong to this school of thought, there was no purpose to this long 40-day period. But the New Testament tells us quite clearly what was going on.
If Jesus’ first task was to heal the division between the men and women and bring peace, his greater purpose was to ‘speak of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God’. He had spent the past three years or so doing this through parables, sermons, and miracles to convey the truth about the kingdom. Surely there was no need for more?
To resolve this conundrum, we turn to a combination of verses in Luke and John.
‘He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.’ Luke 24 v 45. These disciples, from their childhood, had, at home and in the synagogue, been marinaded in the scriptures. Familiarity was not wanting. What was wanting was understanding. Even after three years with Jesus!
In John’s gospel we find the reason for this:
‘I will pray the Father and He will give you another helper…the Spirit…He dwells with you and will be in you’ John 14 v 17
At some point during the 40 days, we read ‘He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’’ John 20 v 22
Paul, when writing to the church in Corinth said this: ‘But the children of Israel were blinded, for until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament…a veil lies on their heart, nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit.’
In other words, Jesus knew all along that his disciples could not truly understand the scriptures until they had received the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost they would be baptised in the Spirit, but in this 40-day period, the Holy Spirit lifted the veil over their hearts and, for the first time in their lives, they understood the Scriptures.
Now can we begin to appreciate the enormity of these days and the ministry of Jesus to his disciples during this period?
‘These are the words which I spoke to you…that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.’ Luke 24 v 44
He had the same conversation, the same purpose in conversation, with the two disconsolate disciples on the road to Emmaus: ‘And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself’ Luke 24 v 27.
Have you ever wondered how Peter could have stood up on the Day of Pentecost and preached such a sermon? That Galilean fisherman. As the rulers were later to express incredulity ‘When the rulers saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marvelled. And they realised they had been with Jesus.’ Acts 4 v 13.
It is difficult to imagine the experience of the disciples, the apostles, during these 40 days. Jesus was appearing to them and opening their understanding; getting them ready, finally, to be sent out, their hearts full of faith and understanding, and, from Pentecost, in the power of the Holy Spirit. It took forty days.
After forty days of revelation, Jesus told them: ‘not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father…you shall be baptised in the Spirit not many days from now’ Acts 1 v 5
Isn’t it interesting how the disciples’ response to everything that had occurred over the previous forty days is dismissed in commentary after commentary as proof that they still did not understand – even when the scriptures tell us quite plainly that Jesus had opened their understanding to the kingdom?
Look at their question again: ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel’ Acts 12 v 6.
It is exactly the right question. The logical conclusion. Here was the resurrected Messiah, the Son of David, the King of Israel, King of the Jews. His rightful position was to be crowned in Jerusalem and bring in the kingdom, to ‘restore the kingdom’ the true monarchy to Israel. And from there the apostles would fulfil the calling on Israel to be ‘a light to the gentiles.’ Jesus’ answer is not as enigmatic as some suggest:
‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority…’ v 7
This is tantamount to saying: ‘Not yet’.
It is not a kind answer obscuring the dreadful frustration ‘Do they still not get it?’ which is often suggested in Commentaries. Jesus was not frustrated. He knew they were ready. He left, ascended from Galilee, ten days before Pentecost. That gave them time to travel back to Jerusalem and wait.
Two bookends:
Jesus rebukes the men for their unbelief for not believing the women
The disciples’ question concerning the restoration of the kingdom to Israel
The 40-day period in between Jesus rebuking the men and answering their question about the kingdom had done its work. It is, as the scripture had said, it is ‘the entrance of the word that brings light.’ The word was now alive in them. Look at Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost. No notes. No rehearsal. No texts up on a screen. No microphone. In the summary of the sermon, recorded in Acts 2 Peter quotes from the following scriptures: Joel, Psalm 16, Psalm 68, Psalm 132, Isaiah, Psalm 110.
He ended his sermon with these words ‘Repent and let everyone of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ (Messiah) for the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’.
About three thousand (Acts 2 v 41) responded to Peter’s sermon and were baptised.
Forty days that changed the world. Believing the resurrection must have been an important step along the way to the boldness we see. It’s the same today. You can’t be a Christian unless you are convinced that Jesus rose from the dead. Resolving disputes and being at peace despite external fears, that helps. Having one’s mind opened by the Holy Spirit to the things pertaining to the kingdom, that’s a vital ingredient. As is experiencing the gift and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Take any one of these away and we need Jesus to renew them.
The time between the Resurrection and Ascension was a great deal more than a mere interlude.