Our Gospel reading for today takes place on the evening of the day of the Lord’s Resurrection. The disciples were gathered together in the upper room behind locked doors for fear of the Jews who had recently killed their Savior. Suddenly Jesus was in the room with them (vs. 19). His resurrection body was not limited or restricted like His prior human body had been. Jesus could appear suddenly, disappear, pass through doors and walls, seemingly defying physics and gravity. The disciples had been gathered together, hiding for fear of their lives, and in the next moment suddenly Jesus had appeared to them! The first thing He does is to bless them with His peace, and then shows them His hands and side, to prove that it was really Him (vs. 20).
Jesus then gave the disciples their commission, the job assignment for their lives (vs. 21). “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” Jesus had been sent by the Father to bring salvation to the world. That was His mission, and He did not veer from that to the right or to the left. He stayed on the course. Now, we have an assignment as well, and that is to spread that same Gospel message of salvation through Jesus to the world. Since it was Jesus who instructed His believers to go out and tell others, we go in the authority of God. He has commissioned us. Are we fulfilling our commission and bringing the Light of the Gospel to the lost? As the Father sent the Son, so now He sends us.
In verse 22 we read that Jesus breathed on the disciples, bestowing the Holy Spirit upon them. This was an anointing of the disciples prior to the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. Prior to the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit only came temporarily on people that God chose for specific tasks. After Pentecost the Holy Spirit indwells believers. This anointing of the Holy Spirit that Jesus breathed upon the disciples that evening of the Resurrection was a foretaste of what was to come several weeks later at Pentecost. It was Jesus’s pledge that He would be sending the Holy Spirit permanently upon them. The believers, and us as well today, have been commissioned to do His work. We should not try to do that work in our own power. Instead we need to do all work for God in the power and strength of the Holy Spirit.
Why did Jesus decide to breathe on the disciples, bestowing an anointing of the Spirit on them? God’s breath gives life. In Genesis 2:7, God breathed life into Adam. Here Jesus breathed spiritual life into the new believers.
If we know Jesus as our Savior we have been sent by Him, sent to bring the Gospel of salvation to the lost. Are we going? If so, are we trying in our own power, or are we relying of the Holy Spirit which has been given to us, and indwells us? Let’s be at work with the task we have been given!
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