“Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.” (Mr 16:14 AV)
It struck me as interesting those who were with Jesus the most had the hardest time believing that He rose from the dead. This was after two years of Jesus telling them He would and at least two eyewitness reports that indeed, Jesus had risen. The Bible tells us that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. The women at the tomb and the two on the road to Emaus make four. These two groups of two did not collaborate. They couldn’t have. Therefore, if two groups of two verified the resurrected Christ, then it should have been believed. Especially by those who had the word of God concerning the resurrection for two years. However, lest we be too hard on them, we would fare no better. Having lost our beloved master, grief would make it hard to believe. They were processing His death. They were getting used to His departing. They were adjusting to His death. To accept His resurrection means to stop the healing process from deep loss with the possibility He did not rise. I can understand their reluctance to trust the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Their unbelief was caused by shock from loss; not from rebellion, weakness, or belligerence.
Regardless of their unbelief, the LORD upbraided them. According the Webster’s 1828 dictionary, the word upbraid means, “To charge with something wrong or disgraceful; to reproach; to cast in the teeth; followed by with or for, before the thing imputed; as, to upbraid a man for his folly or his intemperance; To reprove with severity.” This reminds me of God’s dealings with Job. One would think after all he lost, the LORD would be a bit more compassionate. Rather, both here and in Job, the LORD uses shock. He shocks them out of their shock. These eleven lost the most important person to them and the shock of that loss left them unable to feel hope. What Jesus did was bring them back to reality. The LORD shocked them out of shock. He uses language and emotion that shuck them to the core. Like a bucket of ice water on the head, or a slap in the face of one hysterical, the words of Jesus were meant to bring these eleven out of the deep despair they were feeling into a much better place of hope and rejoicing.
When we see no way out, be prepared. The LORD may send extreme circumstances to snap you out of it. When we feel we are in a dark cloud and there is no sunshine to be had, watch for some extreme responses from God to shake us out of it. It the instant these things happen, they are not pleasant. But very soon afterward, we are better off for it. We may not like the slap in the face, but it is what we need to snap out of our mental or emotional prison. God is very wise. He knows exactly what we need. He knows exactly how to accomplish that which is best for us. He loves us enough to do what might seem on the face of it as unkind, but the true motive is infinite love. Praise the LORD for a God who provides what we need rather than what we think we need. The eleven needed to snap out of their mourning. They needed to stop living in defeat. They needed a TENS to the heart and mind. They needed a dose of reality. They needed the kind rebuke of God, who loved them too much to let them stay in their present state. This is what God does for those whom He loves.
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