What Happened to Jesus After Easter?Shembull

The first time Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples was in the locked room when Thomas wasn’t with them. The second time was a week later when Thomas was present. This is the third time, after they had followed his instructions to wait in Galilee. While they waited, they decided they might as well make some money, and they returned to their old jobs as fishermen.

They caught nothing.

Jesus gave them a miraculous catch, and then he fed them. After they ate, Jesus had a strange conversation with Peter. Before his crucifixion, Jesus predicted Peter would deny him three times. Peter insisted it wouldn’t happen, but as he waited outside the trial, huddled around a fire with several people he didn’t know, they accused him of being “one of them”, one of Jesus’s disciples. Peter denied it, once, twice, three times, and then the rooster crowed, just as Jesus said. Three times Peter denied knowing Jesus, and here Jesus asks him three times, “Do you love me?”

With each question and response, Jesus gives Peter instructions, “Feed my sheep.” Jesus restores Peter to his place among the disciples and also changes his world. Before Christ, Peter was a fisherman. Now, having believed in the risen Jesus, he will preach the good news of Jesus Christ.

Peter was not the first life changed by Christ, only one of many. No one can believe in Jesus and remain unchanged. Maybe Jesus will change your circumstances, as he did for those he healed. Maybe Jesus will change your occupation, as he did for Peter and the other disciples. He will definitely change your outlook. He will definitely change who you were, once an enemy of God but now an adopted son or daughter. He will definitely change your eternal future, and he will change your here and now.

Pray: Dear God, I believe Jesus rose from the dead. I believe my life is eternally changed because of it. I look forward to seeing what other things in my life you’ll change, and I look forward to how you’ll change me, from the inside out. Amen