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!

4676. 'For he was the son of his old age' means its own life within it. This is clear from the meaning of 'old age' as the casting aside of the previous state and the assumption of the new one, and also as newness of life, dealt with in 3492, 4620. For in the internal sense 'old age' does not mean old age, for the reason that the internal man, or man's spirit, does not know what old age is; but as the body or the external man grows old, so he passes into newness of life. As he ages man's spirit is made more perfect, at the same time as his physical powers diminish. This is truer still in the next life, for those in heaven are constantly being led by the Lord into a more perfect life, and at length into the bloom of youth, including those people who have died at a ripe old age. From these considerations it may be seen that in the internal sense 'old age' means life. What is meant by the expression 'its own life within it' has been explained above in 4667.

[2] Just above it was said that man's spirit or the internal man does not know what old age is, and yet before that it was said that it is in this spirit within the body where thinking takes place, and also that life flows from the spirit to the body. The reason why that thought belonging to the spirit cannot be communicated to the body, enabling the person to know that he lives after death is that as long as his spirit remains within the body he cannot do other than think from the assumptions which his natural man has been adopting. And if he has made the assumption and is convinced that only the body is living and that when this dies the whole human being does so, the influx of that spiritual reality is not received. Evidence of the existence of that influx may nevertheless be seen in the fact that most people are concerned about their own burial and the tributes paid to them after death, some about their reputation then, on account of which they also erect splendid monuments to themselves so that the memory of them may not be lost. These are the kinds of things into which the influx from heaven regarding the continuance of life is channeled by those who otherwise have no belief in that life. Without that influx they would treat with utter disdain all remembrance of themselves after they have died.