Jesus had been raised from the dead but they just didn't get it or, as John says, they didn't understand the Scripture that said he must be raised from the dead.
They were a pretty, unhappy, confused bunch, meeting together behind locked doors - when Jesus turned up and transformed everything in a moment.
As I explained this morning at St James, he did three things: he said, he showed and he sent. He said 'peace be with you.' He showed them his hands and his sides. He sent them: 'as the Father sent me, so I sent you.'
The change that come over the disciples towards the end of the first Easter Day is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the resurrection because it was the physical, bodilly resurrection of Jesus in their midst that changed everything for them.
Incidentally, as bible scholar Tom Wright suggests, the reason for them not initially believing in the resurrection (until Jesus convinced them) was rather different from that of your average sceptical Brit in 2013.
Your average sceptic today would say resurrection is impossible (ie dead man don't rise) - and, indeed, so far in the history of the world that has been generally true - with one exception (see above).
Believing Jews however did believe in resurrection, they just did not believe in resurrection yet. They believed that the resurrection would take place at the end of the age, so, when Jesus said he would rise from the dead, they thought to themselves 'of course you will - like us, at the end of the age' and then thought nothing more about it
The big surprise for them on the first Easter Day was not that a dead man had been raised from the dead but that the resurrection of one man at least had been brought forward to the here and now.
Either way - to Jew and Sceptic, the resurrection of Jesus on the first Easter Day came as a bolt from the blue, overturned their expectations and made everyone rethink their theology.
No wonder the resurrected Jesus in revelation says 'behold, I make everything new!'
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