What does it mean to evangelise? What does it mean in our modern world to be an evangelist? The very early disciples, after they had scattered – frightened, broken, disappointed, disillusioned, after the death of Jesus – they were in hiding because they were frightened and they thought that everything had collapsed, and then they experienced the Resurrection. They saw and touched and knew Jesus in a new way. First, they didn’t even recognise him. But when they understood and recognised his presence to them – he didn’t say anything to them, he didn’t say ‘Oh you failed me, you are bad disciples’, he didn’t rebuke them or reprove them in any way, he just showed himself to them — as a result of that experience, they were transformed. They were filled with a new energy, new hope, new courage, and a new spirit of life, a new way of engaging with life, no longer controlled by fear, but by the overflowing quality of the Good News that had touched their lives in the risen Christ.
( Christian Life in the Light of Christian Meditation 3, Laurence Freeman )
