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The Resurrection : Road to Emmaus
Road to Emmaus
One of the most famous appearances is said to have occurred on the road to Emmaus, west of Jerusalem. The sightings may seem far-fetched to us, but the disciples took them as evidence that a miracle had taken place. Two key things had led the disciples to believe that Jesus had been resurrected. One was the empty tomb and the other was sightings of Jesus. Each of these things on their own wasn't enough. After all, the empty tomb just told them that Jesus' body wasn't there. And the sightings of him could have been hallucinations or visions. It was the combination of the two that lead the disciples to believe that Jesus had been physically resurrected.
It's entirely natural to doubt a story like that. Even at the time, people tried to find a rational explanation of it all. One early theory, mentioned in the Gospels, is that Jesus' body was stolen by his followers to create the legend of the empty tomb. 2,000 years later the Resurrection stories continue to baffle. Some conspiracy theorists say Jesus didn't die on the cross at all; he took a powerful painkiller that gave him the strength to survive the crucifixion. But even if you could explain away the resurrection stories, the key fact remains, Jesus' followers claimed they had experienced and seen things that convinced them he had been resurrected.
I'm not going to try to find an answer to the question of whether Jesus was literally raised from the dead because that's a question of personal belief. What I'm interested in is What did the resurrection mean to the disciples? What did they make of it? Because after all it's they who helped to found the Christian faith.
The idea that a man could come back from the dead was as unbelievable to first century minds as it is to us today. Small wonder then that the resurrection was so absolutely central to Jesus' followers. Above all it made them believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, and that became the hallmark of a world-wide faith. Nonetheless, a puzzle remains.
Miracles of Jesus
Part 3 The Resurrection 8
