Already on Easter evening, ten of the eleven were back together. Eight days later, Thomas had rejoined them. His “not with them” turned once again to being “with them.”
These others do not get much attention. We do not know their names. We do not know their back stories. But they were there on Easter morning, and Luke wants his readers to know it.
Rather than trying to tie up all the uncertainties and challenges your hearers are facing into a neat little bow, you acknowledge the difficulties they face...even after the resurrection.
The promise you will make, which brings about the presence of Christ and creates rejoicing, is the peace Jesus brought to the disciples that night behind locked doors.
Like the women who came despite their questions, your hearers will gather despite their uncertainties, and they will be looking for a word of honest hope.
Their hearts burned, their feet ran, and their mouths opened. “The Lord is risen, indeed!” they confessed, because this is what Easter does: It makes confessors.
John chose to write these things for a specific purpose: “So that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name."
After teaching his disciples many things about himself, the world, and the things to come, Jesus concluded his last evening with his disciples in prayer to the Father. And he concluded his prayer with the words in this text. As the old saying goes, you can learn a lot about a man by listening in on his prayers.
When you are not experiencing this kind of tribulation, the promise of “you will” hardly seems comforting. But when you are in the midst of it—when the pressure of this world is bearing down on you—it is comforting to know it has not caught God unawares.