He has Risen!

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Mark 16:9 “Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene.”

There is a Jewish Feast that speaks about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is the Feast of the First Fruit. Christ fulfilled the feast of first fruits by being the firstfruits of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20-23). He was the first to conquer death and the first to be raised into a new resurrection body, never to die again! He represented the many that ‘shall come from the east and the west’ (Mat 8:11) to faith in Him and be raised from the dead as well!

In John 20:17, when Mary recognized the resurrected Lord, He tells her, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” I never fully understood this statement of our Lord to Mary. Why couldn’t she touch Him? But I discovered the reason when I read what Flavius Josephus wrote about the barley. He explained that the Jews could not touch the barley before the day of firstfruits. Once the barley sheaf was presented to God by the priest, the barley crop could be harvested for use. Since Jesus was the Firstfruits, He had to go to the Father before anyone could touch Him. We see that after He had been to the Father and back, Thomas could touch Him. As John 20:27 states, ‘Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here your finger, and see my hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into my side; and he not unbelieving, but believing