John 20:20 — And when he had so said, he showed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.

As the year draws to its close, so does our read through the Bible for the year. One of the end points this year is the Gospel of John, and as we read, the end of one verse leapt out at me. “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.” The King James translation might not give full weight to the Greek, which carries a suggestion of joyful fulfillment — but I don’t know if any translation could do justice to what happened in that room.
To get the full picture of how the disciples reacted, we need to put two passages together, Luke 24:36-41 and John 20:19-20. Reading the two passages reveals that when Jesus appeared the disciples first reaction was fear, that when He showed His wounds they believed, and when the truth sunk in they were joyful. It took them a while to grasp the reality, and I’m not surprised!
It wasn’t not just the event itself that drove the disciples reaction. It was the context too. The disciples had been on a three year wild ride following Jesus. Much of the time they had just been completely confused.
When the disciples were in that room, behind closed doors for fear the Jewish authorities, they were looking back on a crazy, emotional, two weeks. There was the celebratory ceremonial entry into Jerusalem, the wonderful — but mysterious and confusing — Passover supper, and then the horrors of the betrayal and crucifixion. They were as low as they could get. They were lost, confused and — for the moment at least — directionless. And then He came …
When Myra and I talked about this moment we couldn’t imagine what is was like, as the light dawned on the disciples that The Light was with them. It seemed go us that the closest we could come to imagining the way that the disciples felt would be to imagine what the moment will be like when we find ourselves in the presence of Jesus. We can’t really imagine — but we expect to be overwhelmed, emotional, incoherent, slightly terrified — and joyful!
Sometimes it might seem, as they wrote about signs and wonders, that the Gospel writers were exaggerating. They were not. This little half verse, “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.” proves it. The disciples were glad indeed!