And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail.
How the risen Christ is seen
It is not supposed that the impartial Christ, or the Christianity of His gospel, literally prefers one sex to the other. But He respects the nature of each, and does not abrogate the laws of that nature. To that one, therefore, that has the clearer spiritual eyesight, Christ will disclose the first radiancy of His glory. In that sex that loves most, and therefore, suffers most, and is perhaps capable of sinning most, He finds the faith-faculty most ready to recognize Him, and on that, therefore-as if in a kind of compensation for the first sin, and the tender sensitiveness to all injury-He bestows the blessing of the earliest benediction of His resurrection voice. The general distinction thus drawn between the sexes reappears, in its measure, between individuals of each of the two; and there is thus a similar advance of clearness in the other succeeding manifestations. The circle gradually enlarges from the solitary Mary to a great company of men as they are gradually prepared to see and believe.
I. This is the certification afforded by our Saviour’s resurrection to the fact of his divinity. “They came and held Him by the feet and worshipped Him.” They worshipped, and He did not check it. Was He not the one that teaches of what their worship is? The resurrection had transfigured, and as it were had divinized all his mortal signs. It had never been heard before that a man lifted himself, by his own will, out of the grave, and asserted his superiority to all the forces of destruction. Surely here must be nothing less than the Creator’s majesty. In the glorified form the “ Son of God” stood revealed not less than the “ Son of Man.” They worshipped Him. Place beside this truth another. These faithful believers were not believers in a one-sided or ultra-spiritualism-“They held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him.” Here were two signs of a living faith, the touch and the bended knees. Both were welcome to Him who knows every secret spring of the soul’s strength, and who replaces the dead formalism of the Law with the vital forms of a spiritual kingdom. Again, a supreme value is set here, for the Christian life, on the Saviour’s personal presence. To the Church for eighteen hundred years it has been spiritual, not corporeal, yet literal and real. Men of action and thought, if you do not feel anything real about this I know not how to reason with you about it. We can only tell you what we have seen or felt. Those institutions and movements in the world, however active and religious, seem to have no permanent life in them, which are without this living conscious connection with the person and presence of Christ, so as to draw their constant supplies of power from Him. They seem like streams, however full, which run from a cistern and not from the fountain in the hills. He does not say to them “All hail.” I am sure that Christ is with me and has for me all the power and love I need; He lives greatly in me and for me. As it was then, so now; they who are spiritually best prepared by affliction, earnestness, sympathy, with the spirit of His life and laws, and by love for Him, have the clearest and earliest disclosures of His Deified presence. (Bishop Huntingdon)
Meeting with Jesus
All that concerns our Lord after His resurrection is calm and happy. A French writer calls the forty days on earth, “The life of Jesus Christ in glory”; truly it was glory as full as earth could then bear. His tomb was empty, and consequently the disciples’ griefs would have been over, had they fully understood what that vacant grave meant. Then was their choicest time for living fellowship with their risen Lord, and He did not fail to grant them the privilege on many memorable occasions. Since our Lord is risen, we also may have happy communion with Him. These are days in which we may expect Him to manifest Himself to us spiritually, as He did for forty days to the disciples coporeally. Let us not be satisfied unless it is often said of us, “Jesus met them.”
I. Is the way of service Jesus meets us “As they went to tell,” etc.
1. He may come at other times, as He did to those who visited the sepulchre, to those walking out to Emmaus to others fishing, and to the eleven assembled for mutual consolation.
2. He is likeliest to come when we are doing His work, since
(a) we are then most awake, and most able to see Him;
(b) we are then in special need of Him;
(c) we are then most in accord with Him.
3. But, come when Jesus may, it will be a blessed visitation, worthy to be prefaced by a “Behold!” Oh, that he would come now!
II. When Jesus meets us he has ever a good word for us. The fittest motto for resurrection fellowship is “All hail!”
1. A word of salutation.
2. A word of benediction.
3. A word of gratulation.
4. A word of pacification.
III. When Jesus meets us it becomes us to arouse ourselves. We ought at such times to be like the disciples, who were-
1. All alive with hopeful energy. “They came.” In eager haste they drew near to Him. What life it would put into preachers and hearers if the Lord Jesus would manifestly appear unto them! Dulness flees when Jesus is seen.
2. All aglow with happy excitement. They “ held Him by the feet,” hardly knowing what they did, but enraptured with the sight of Him.
3. All ardent with reverent love. They “ worshipped Him.” What heartiness they threw into that lowly adoration!
4. All amazed at His glory. They were prostrate, and began to fear.
5. All afraid lest they should lose their bliss. They grasped Him, and held Him by the feet.
IV. From such a meeting we should go on a further errand.
1. We must not plead spiritual absorption as an excuse for inactivity, but must “go” at our Lord’s bidding.
2. We must seek the good of others, because of their relation to our Lord. He says, “Tell My brethren.”
3. We must communicate what our Lord has imparted-“Go, tell.”
4. We must encourage our brethren by the assurance that joy, similar to ours, awaits them-“There shall they see him.” Thus shall we best realize and retain the choice benefits of intercourse with the Lord. Not only for ourselves, but mainly for the benefit of others, are we to behold our Lord. Then let us go to holy work hoping to meet Jesus as we go. Let us go to more holy work when we have met Him. Let us labour to abide in Him, looking for His promised appearing, and exhorting others to do the same. (C. H. Spurgeon.)