Convincing Proofs - Presence

Linda Rock
3 days ago
4 min read

We have been looking at how Jesus has been serving His disciples and the provisions which He has made for them, as He spends almost six weeks convincing them of His Resurrection and teaching them about Father God’s Kingdom. We have seen how He has served them Peace and what that Peace has done and is doing for them. We are still on that time when He appeared to them and served them all His Peace. We also noted that they received a double portion of peace which positioned them exactly where Jesus wanted them to be.

Peace is not just powerful, but it holds great settling power. The disciples, once afraid, have been settled and calmed by their Risen Lord’s Peace in His positioning them where He wants them to be. Now, we are taken one step on, as it were, into more of what His convincing Peace leads to. Keep ever in mind that none of this would be happening, if the disciples had remained a group of afraid followers.

Believer, follower of Jesus Christ, unless you and I know our Master’s Peace we will never know His positioning. This Peace is not what we have to work for or even ask for. To disbelieve that we do not have to make some kind of effort to receive this Peace, is to say that you want convincing proof more than Jesus wants you to have it. Remember! Convincing proof, is His idea, not yours. It is His mind and way, nor yours or mine. Just as Jesus went to His disciples, appearing to them in different locations and at different times, times when they never expected Him to show up as He did, so too Jesus wants you, His disciple and follower, to know that He is present with you, as He desires to come to you and when He chooses to appear to you.

Previously, I spoke about a double portion of our Lord’s Peace, where He fixed and fitted His disciples to receive His Presence and His Positioning. We now take a look at what is meant by receiving His Presence. Here is the text again. Again Jesus said, Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. John 20: 21 – 23.

Presence. And with that he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.

Will you join me in looking at this as the Peace of Presence?

Looking at this with one’s natural eye, it is obvious that Jesus is with them so that His Presence is with them in tangible form. In fact, Jesus is with them in flesh and bones and not as some kind of ghost-like form. He was very specific about this and told the disciples that He was no ghost and convinced them of such by having a meal with them. We shall address this further on in the week. For this meditation though, what we want to carefully note and fully understand, as much as the Spirit enables us to receive is the fact that Jesus, a Body was crucified and Jesus a Body was raised to life.

The Presence of Jesus is real and Jesus convinces them of it, by breathing on each one of them. The picture is fully mesmerizing and fully energizing all at the same time. Go back, if you will, to Jesus serving His disciples before His death, when He washes the feet of every single one of His disciples, including Judas. In serving them, He committed Himself to them, giving Himself to them, to faithfully serve them as their Master. We can easily see that and how He gave Himself in Presence to them. Well, we are to see and appreciate the same giving of Presence, as Jesus breathes on them. Is not Jesus serving His disciples, after His Resurrection? What He has done is not just commit Himself to them but He gives Himself to them in that He gives them His very Breath, His very Presence, His Risen Life, within them.

This truth, this sentiment, is beautifully and divinely captured in the 1878 hymn by Edwin Hatch. Listen to the words of the first stanza.

Breathe on me, breath of God: fill me with life anew, That I may love as Thou dost love, and do as Thou dost do.

If this is not Presence, then I don’t know what is. Jesus serves them His Risen Presence, His New Resurrected Presence when He breathes on them or blows on them. Pause, take a couple of deep breaths, with your arms close to your nostrils. You feel the breath which has been exhaled. Breathing has two distinct actions – inhaling and exhaling – and it is in the exhaling that the blowing movement is felt. Jesus blew His Resurrected Breath on them all. That was not all. He did not just breathe or blow His Peace of Presence upon them, but He spoke Presence into them. Receive the Holy Spirit. This is most ethereal, don’t you think? I mean, it is so pure, so sweet, so delicate, so deep, so spiritual, one can scarcely take it in. Jesus blows on them with His nostrils, and then tells them to receive the Holy Spirit. Is that not His Spirit also? He is Spirit, and He has given Himself to them in Flesh and Spirit.

Don’t be misguided here. These are not two separate happenings, but one and the same conferring. Take a Sports Occasion, where trophies are being given out. You are first in the race and have won the gold medal. The judge or whichever official appointed for this task, comes to you on the high podium and places the medal around your neck. You have the accolade, the tangible thing. Then the official congratulates you further by offering you the official handshake. You have received two actions but one conferring; you are the winner. In the same way, Jesus has breathed His Presence on them and spoken His Presence in them. What is there that’s too impossible for our Lord to accomplish?