The resurrection of Christ marked an end to a week of heightened emotions for everyone, including Jesus; at the same time, it was an unceremonious beginning of an un-named 40-day period during which Christ came back to the world in a changed-state of being, similar to His changed state at His Transfiguration. (Again, thoughts in this entry, like others, are from this blogger's imagination.)
On Christ's Transfiguration, Don Stewart posted the following paragraph [1]:
The Transfiguration was the glorification of the human body of Jesus. On this occasion His body underwent a change in form, a metamorphosis, so that it shone as brightly as the sun. At the time of the Transfiguration, Jesus' earthly ministry was coming to a close. He had acknowledged that He was the Messiah and predicted His death and resurrection. Now He was to reveal, to a select few, His divine glory.
This change of form was from human flesh to a heavenly matter, a spirit-based flesh (a term just invented here) that was able to shine as bright as, perhaps even brighter than the sun. Fast forward from Jesus' Transfiguration to the end of Jesus' ministry, to the third day after His crucifixion, when Jesus again transformed, this time in reverse direction, from (lifeless) human flesh to (living) spirit-based flesh. (See ** below.)
This spirit-based flesh was not readily recognized by the disciples, which could explain why they thought that Jesus was a "ghost" when He appeared to them in Jerusalem. What happened there is quoted below without paragraph numbers and references to footnotes [2]:
[The disciples] were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”
And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?”
They gave him a piece of baked fish;
he took it and ate it in front of them.
In this transformed state, Christ stayed for forty days [3] before He ascended into Heaven [4] probably because He wanted to underscore His divinity and to reassure His disciples that He is close to them always and loves them. They, too, must have missed Jesus terribly, and felt that they had lost Him, and did not at first quite know what to do with their lives in His absence.
These forty days between Christ's Resurrection and Christ's Ascension ought not to be overlooked. This blogger believes that the Spirit of Christ is still very much present on earth with a particular closeness and intensity during this 40-day anniversary period [5], and believes that it is possible for anyone to experience this close intensity, provided that the person has absolute faith in Christ and has a yearning for and a reliance upon Christ that are about equal in magnitude to the love Christ has for the person.
** This part is incorrect and the correction is made in the next post.
[1] https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_786.cfm
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/24 at 37-43
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/acts/1 at 3.
[4] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/24 at 50-53.
[5] There is a reason this blogger has this belief, but he not prepared to share it because it is rather personal but more so because hardly anyone would believe him.
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