Today’s Gospel has a very honest feel to it. Jesus has risen, but the disciples are still struggling to believe it. Mary Magdalene tells them she has seen the Lord, and they do not believe. Two others report that He appeared to them on the way, and again they do not believe.
That tells us something important: even the first disciples did not slide easily into Easter faith. They were slow, hesitant, wounded, and confused. The resurrection was not something they invented to make themselves feel better. In fact, at first they resisted believing it.
That can be a comfort to us.
Sometimes we think faith should come easily. We think that if Christ is risen, we should never struggle, never doubt, never feel weak. But the Gospel shows us something more human. The Lord works even with disciples who are slow to understand. He does not give up on them, and He does not give up on us.
Then Jesus appears to the Eleven and reproaches them for their unbelief and hardness of heart. That may sound severe, but it is really a moment of mercy. He is not rejecting them. He is shaking them awake. He is calling them out of fear and hesitation into faith.
And then, almost immediately, He gives them a mission: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel.”
That is the pattern of Easter. First the Lord meets His disciples in their weakness. Then He sends them.
Not because they are already perfect. Not because they understand everything. But because the message is greater than their weakness. The Gospel does not depend on flawless messengers. It depends on the power of the risen Christ.
That is good news for us. We may feel unworthy, uncertain, or spiritually inconsistent. And yet the Lord still calls us. He still sends us, first of all by the way we live, by the hope we carry, by the kindness we show, by the peace we bring, and by the quiet faith with which we face life.
So as this Easter Octave comes to its close, the Church leaves us with a clear invitation: do not keep the resurrection at a distance. Do not treat Easter as something to admire for one week and then move on. Let it change you. Let it strengthen you. And let it send you.
Christ is risen, and now His disciples must go and tell.
Amen.