What does Luke 24:38 mean?

Jesus has risen from the dead, but His followers are having a hard time believing it.

When the women arrived at the tomb, they found the entrance open and the body gone. An angel asked them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5). He then reminded them what Jesus had said in Galilee: that "the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise" (Luke 24:7). The angel gently chastised the women, but they remembered (Luke 24:8). Shortly after, when they meet Jesus, they believe (Matthew 28:9–10).

When they tell the male disciples, however, their testimony is declared an "idle tale" (Luke 24:11). When Jesus, hiding His identity, hears the account of two of the men, He calls them "foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken!" (Luke 24:25). Not only did these two have Jesus' prophecies of His death and resurrection, but they knew the Jewish prophets who had declared the same thing.

The people in the room have heard the women, the two traveling friends, and Peter, all of whom have seen Jesus. Now, Jesus is in front of them. But they still don't believe. They're so startled, they think Jesus is a spirit (Luke 24:37). Many of them saw Jesus' dead, brutally broken body. They can't reconcile this image with Jesus' healed and glorified body.

These doubts are not like Mary's when she found she would be pregnant: a puzzled request to explain "how" this was possible (Luke 1:34). It's closer to a full-on rejection of the truth they should know, like when the angel told Zechariah his wife Elizabeth would have a son (Luke 1:18).

Jesus steps in before their doubt can harden. He invites them to see the scars on His hands and feet and to touch His body. He eats fish (Luke 24:39–43). Even later, when He gives the Great Commission, some doubt (Matthew 28:17). Jesus will tell Thomas that believing what you see is easy. But "blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29).