Late on the first Easter Sunday, after the Lord had risen from the sepulcher, ten of the disciples gathered for the evening in the upper room of a house in Jerusalem (John 20). They were afraid and probably confused. Since their leader had been crucified by the Roman power, as organized by their own Jewish leaders, they feared that now his followers might also be hunted down and punished. They closed and locked the doors. Were any of the women there? The story does not say, but Peter and John were, who saw and talked with the angels that morning, and the stories of the women were known. Some time must have been spent wondering and perhaps arguing - was He really alive? How could they know it was really Him? This kind of thing, coming back to life after you’re dead, this doesn’t happen in this real world, there must be some mistake!

Then two of the followers, not of the twelve, but the two that had gone to the village of Emmaus, came in, excited and bursting with their news. They had seen Him! They had walked with Him for seven miles and He had told them wondrous things! They had only recognized Him when He broke bread and ate with them. "Don’t doubt us, it really was Jesus!"

And then as they all talked and argued, there He was, standing with them in the room. "Peace be unto you," He said, and He showed them His hands and feet and His side, where he was wounded. He calmed them, and told them that just as he had come down to mankind, so they must go out and teach to all people all the true things that He had taught in the years He was with them.

It was these truths about how to live one’s life that were saving, not the disciples themselves. These saving truths have the power to remit or retain sins, because they were from the Lord, the disciples only transmitted them from the Lord to those who would listen and take them to heart. Then He breathed on them - representing His holy spirit - so that they would not only want to pass these truths on to people, but would also be given the words to say whenever the times came. And then He was gone again.

Thomas was not there that night. We don’t know why. And Thomas, when he heard the story, just could not swallow it. "Except I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe", he said. (John 20:25.)

The next verse tells us that the next Sunday they gathered again, and that Thomas was present this time. As before, the Lord was suddenly there, saying again, "Peace be unto you", and then directly to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger… and reach hither thy hand… and be not faithless but believing". Now Thomas's response was, "my Lord and my God". It seems as if the Lord came this time just to convince Thomas, because it was Thomas who needed Him.

I think He does work this way. I am reminded of another story, from the gospel of Mark (Mark 9:17-27) where a father comes to Jesus with a young son who is possessed by a devil, and asks Jesus to cure him, and is asked in turn: "Do you believe I can do this?" In Mark 9:24 the father responds. Crying out, he said with tears, "I believe, help thou my unbelief."

I think many people have this conflict between lingering doubts and a desire to have the doubts taken away. If we carry on and make our decisions in life as if the doubts were indeed gone, then indeed they will lose their strength and actually will be gone.

These are the only details given of these two meetings in Jerusalem. Chronologically the next post-Easter stories are the ones that take place in Galilee.

John does go on to say at the end of his gospel "...many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God...." (John 20:30-31). Perhaps there were more post-Easter stories that weren't written down, but the ones we do have are strong. For the disciples who were involved, there was an unstoppable impact from the life and teachings of the Lord, and His crucifixion, and physical death, and now - in these stories - His resurrection. Hearing the Lord's charges to them, these Galilean fishermen and their colleagues launch out into the wide world, and work to achieve the Great Commission, enduring hardships and persecution, and succeeding - probably beyond their wildest dreams!

7290. 'When he says, Perform a wonder' means and they therefore wish to receive proof. This is clear from the meaning of 'wonders and signs' as proofs or corroborations of truths, dealt with in 3900, 6870. With regard to the wonders and signs described in what follows from here onwards, it should be realized that they were performed among the kind of people whose worship was external and who had no wish to know about internal worship. For those whose worship was like that had to be coerced by means of external things. This explains why miracles were performed among the Israelite and Jewish people, for their worship was entirely external and not at all internal. What is more, since they had no liking for internal worship, external worship was the kind they were required to engage in, to the end that they might represent things of a holy nature within their external observances. This would establish a channel of communication with heaven as if through something of a Church. For correspondences, representatives, and meaningful signs link the natural world to the spiritual world. This then was why so many miracles were performed among that nation.

[2] But no miracles are performed among those whose worship is internal, that is, who have charity and faith residing with them, since miracles are harmful to them; for miracles compel one to believe, and what one is compelled to believe does not remain but is thrown to the winds. The internal constituents of their worship, which are faith and charity, must be implanted in freedom; for then they make them their own and what they make their own in this way remains, whereas what is implanted under compulsion remains outside the internal man, in the external man. This is because nothing passes into the internal man except by way of ideas seen in the understanding, that is, seen rationally, since the soil which receives what is implanted in the internal man is enlightened reason. This is why no miracles are performed at the present day. One may also conclude from this that they are harmful, for they compel a person to believe something and give the external man fixed ideas about the truth of it. If after that the internal man refuses to believe what the miracles have proved, the internal man and the external become opposed to and clash with each other, and when at length the ideas implanted under the influence of miracles are driven to the winds, falsity becomes joined to truth, that is, profanation occurs. This shows how harmful miracles are at the present day in a Church in which the internal qualities constituting worship have been made known. This is also what is meant by the Lord's words to Thomas,

Because you have seen Me, Thomas, you have believed; blessed are those who do not see yet believe. John 20:29.

This shows too that they are 'blessed', those whose belief is not induced by miracles.

[3] But miracles are not harmful to those whose worship is external, devoid of anything internal, for with them no opposition between the internal man and the external is possible, nor thus any clashing, nor consequently any profanation. The fact that miracles do not make any contribution towards faith becomes quite clear from the miracles performed among the Israelite people in Egypt and in the wilderness; those miracles had no effect whatever on them. Although those people had not long before seen so many miracles in Egypt, after which they had seen the Sea Suph divided, and the Egyptians drowned in it, with the pillar of cloud going before them by day and the pillar of fire by night, and with the manna raining from heaven each day; and although they had seen Mount Sinai smoking and heard Jehovah speaking from it, and other miracles besides, nevertheless, while yet in the midst of such wonders, they fell completely away from faith, and from worship of Jehovah to calf-worship, Exodus 32:1-end. From this one may see what effect miracles have.

[4] They would have even less effect at the present day when nobody acknowledges that there is anything which has its origin in the spiritual world, and when anything miraculous that occurs and is not attributed to natural causes is refused recognition. For a refusal to recognize that the Divine flows in and governs on earth reigns everywhere. If at the present day therefore one who belongs to the Church were to witness utterly Divine miracles, he would first deduce that they had a natural origin and sully them with this, then dismiss them as fantasies, and finally mock whoever attributed them to the Divine and not to natural causes. The fact that miracles have no effect at all is also clear from the Lord's words in Luke,

If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead. Luke 16:31.