(Today’s audio reading on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7yejqiY585rL9WqBI3N0ao)
In my first book I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit. During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God. (Acts 1:1-3)
Forty days.
Well over a month.
After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples. Not once, but repeatedly. He arose from the grave, and he stayed around. He gave no opportunity for conversational thoughts like the following: “We went to the tomb on that Sunday morning; he wasn’t there; we were gathered in a house that night, huddled together in fear, and he appeared! And then he was gone! But boy, it sure was good to see him! I wish he had stayed longer! Man, that was quick; come to think of it; was that really him? I wish we could have talked to him some more just to make sure! I think it was him; sure did look like him and sound like him. I know I was comforted just looking at him and thinking that it was Jesus. I wish I had had more than a day with him…it all happened so fast.”
By staying over a month, he removed the possibility of that kind of response. His appearances over a 40-day period were repeated. He gave them time to interact. To listen. To be instructed “about the Kingdom of God”. He faced their doubts, and the Scripture says he “proved to them that he was really alive!” If there was any doubt as to the validity of what they had witnessed at Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, he removed it. He had numerous, specific reasons for his 40-day appearance. His resurrection was unmistakable, and his continuing presence with them was undeniable.
We don’t know where he stayed, or slept, or who took care of him. We aren’t told of any efforts by his Roman executioners to contact him. (Surely they heard the news about him! What was possibly running through their minds?! They had to be in shock and denial.) The implication of this passage seems to be that Jesus’ body remained a natural one with physical needs, not a spiritual resurrection body that did not have such needs. We are told at the end of Luke’s Gospel that he was walking around, such as the encounter he had with some of his disciples on the road to Emmaus. But we don’t have any information that he spent the days walking around Jerusalem. He just seemed to appear wherever they were. Acts 1:4 begins, “Once when he was eating with them…” As he said to them on his resurrection night-appearance, recorded by the same author in Luke 24:39: “Touch me and make sure I am not a ghost, because ghosts don’t have bodies, as you see that I do.” Forty days was plenty of time to prove he was alive.
Forty days was not an accidental choice. As the appearance stories of Jesus were passed down to others, no doubt the Jews drew parallels with other important forty-day-events in their history: Rain fell for 40 days in the time of Noah (Gen. 7:12). Moses spent that amount of time on the mountain with God, fasting and receiving instruction (Ex. 24:18). Elijah spent 40 days fleeing from Jezebel to Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:8). Jesus was in the wilderness, fasting for 40 days, and at the end of that time was confronted by Satan (Matt. 4).
I confess it’s so easy for us to wish that we had a record of what he taught them post-resurrection about the Kingdom of God! For whatever reason, the only record of his teaching is a few bits and pieces at the end of the Gospels, and in this first chapter of Acts. We will be satisfied with the content we do have. And thankful that he appeared for such a significant period of time.
Our faith is built around the resurrection of Jesus! As important as Easter is, I’m confident that we have perhaps unconsciously down-played the fact that Jesus stayed around for well over a month after his resurrection before departing. He took significant, intentional time to prepare His disciples for what was next.
I like to hear Steven Curtis Chapman sing about “The Glorious Unfolding!” Though the content of his song is not about this particular story, the title is a great description for what we are preparing to read about in Acts 1 and 2.
Thank you, Lord, for the 40-day period after the resurrection in which Jesus was among his followers—we are awed at this important, though often-overlooked detail of his earthly journey.
Freddy Boswell 