Easter's "Great Commissions"

John 20:21 – “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’”

Luke 24:48-49 – “You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you…”

On that first Easter, the day of Christ’s resurrection, the Risen Lord prepared the disciples for the mandate to witness which would be made fully known at Pentecost. In Luke’s account (which as Volume I of Luke-Acts leads directly to the beginning of the church at Pentecost) Christ’s appearance to the disciples his reminder of the scriptural proclamations of the Messiah’s suffering, death and resurrection. And he said, “You are witnesses of these things.”

In John’s Gospel, Christ appeared that Easter evening to the frightened ten (Judas was out of the picture, of course, and Thomas was otherwise occupied) as they were at prayer behind locked doors. Calming them with the word of Peace, he then said, “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And he breathed the Holy Spirit upon them.

What a humbling and amazing thing it is to think that the disciples – including us – should be ‘sent’ as Jesus was sent by the Heavenly Father! We, too, are “witnesses of these things,” not because we have physically seen the Risen Savior, but because he has touched us in love, mercy, forgiveness and new life.

Christ is risen! Alleluia!