During my meditations on the resurrection, I decided to read through some places in the Bible that seemed relevant to that topic. So I began reading through the gospels, and noticed something that I didn’t notice before. I read in the beginning of Matthew 28 that as soon as the disciples heard that Jesus was alive, they ran to tell the others. As they were on their way, they ran into Jesus himself. When this happened, they did something remarkable: they took hold of his feet, and they worshipped him. This simple picture of the disciples holding Jesus’feet and worshipping him is beautiful, because it gives us a clear picture of the goal of the resurrection (as well as the whole plan of salvation) - that every knee should bow before Jesus and worship him, which is to the
glory of God the Father.
But, I have not shared yet what caught my attention. Later in Matthew 28:17, the eleven disciples and other followers were gathered at a designated mountain to meet Jesus. Here too, it says that they worshipped him. I remembered having read both instances of worship in the past, but it was startling to see them both back to back in the same reading. As I stopped to read more slowly, I noticed that there was not much detail. Both were mentioned as a matter of fact. But, what was striking was the fact that these disciples naturally seemed to worship first, whenever they gathered around the resurrected Jesus.
This behavior may seem like an obvious point since we are so used to the idea, but we need to appreciate the shock value for the original disciples. Remember that they had spent every day of the last three years with the human Jesus, the rabbi Jesus, the Jesus who had been their beloved leader and teacher. Yes, it’s true that they recognized that Jesus was more than just a teacher, but at least this Jesus still fit within their mental categories. And then, they thought it was all over as they watched the Roman soldiers brutally and publically execute him. So when he appeared again to them as the resurrected Jesus, they realized that he was not merely human, but God incarnate. And when this truth set in, they did the only thing that they could do - they worshipped him.
Every year, when Easter rolls around, we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. We go to church, think about it, and then move on to other things. But perhaps, our worship would be fuller if we saw the resurrection like the disciples did. We might be able to capture a bit of their amazement if we focused not only on the divine Jesus who rose again from the dead (which does not seem so amazing), but the human Jesus who rose again and revealed that he was God. This Easter, may we not only watch the disciples worship, but may we worship knowing that these human feet belong to God Himself.