NOTES for Mar 16:9-20

Having risen, Christ did not appear to the apostles at once, but first to Mary Magdalene, one of the women who had buried Him, and only then to some of the disciples. Even the apostles found it hard to believe those who first saw the Risen One. For this, when He appeared to all the apostles, He reproached them not simply for unbelief, but also for hardness of heart.

Reasoning in human terms, one can acknowledge the fairness of the reproach and begin recalling what else the guilty ones had done to deserve it. But it is precisely to them, the hard-hearted, that Christ immediately entrusts the task of carrying the Gospel to the whole world. More than that, He gives them the ability to support their preaching with signs confirming the truth of the saving teaching. This means that the disciples' hardness of heart is not fatal; its ice can be melted by the sun of the Resurrection.

The Lord does not push away those who have stumbled, but calls them, and us, again to follow Him, precisely because His gifts, salvation and transformation, can be received only by following Him.