When I walk into a room full of people I usually scan the room to see if there is anyone I know. Those I’m well acquainted with I can spot across the room and then there are others who may look familiar, but their name escapes me. After His resurrection, Jesus appeared in a different form to two men on the road to Emmaus and they didn’t recognize Him. It strikes me that when I’m in a room full of people I’m like just these two men – I’m looking for familiar faces when I should be looking for Jesus.
1 comment:
Gail;
-----What caused the eyes of these two on the way to Emmaus to not recognize Him can not be certainly known. Mary mistook Him for a gardener at the empty tomb. She definitely knew what Jesus looked like. Maybe Jesus’ form after rising looked different. Maybe everyone’s biases were so effected by the absoluteness of death and the experience of His crucifixion that even the familiar sight of His face failed to cause recognition. When He showed Himself to the disciples in the room at Jerusalem, they thought at first He was a spirit. Possibly they had some recognition, but a spirit is what they would have expected from their experience in the world. But when He showed them His body was as real as theirs by eating, their recognition was complete. Everyone recognized Him after He had interacted with them, and quite some time after for the two on the way to Emmaus.
-----We spot people we know by just looking at them. Thank God, that is a certainty we can rely upon, at least at the party and around and about. But if I turned on my TV and saw Char in a tailored suit behind that big desk in the Oval Office, I would not perceive it to be her even if she had not been home for a week. I just would not believe it, unless I knew she had gone to Washington. Then I would recognize her through her resourcefulness. Isn’t the way we truly recognize people more by who and what they are than by what they look like?
-----If Jesus were at a party where I just arrived, I would not be able spot Him by face, either, until I had spotted Him by character and personality. But He is at the party with anyone who is with Him. I bring Him myself. And the way I, or anyone else, makes Him recognizable is through actions and attitudes towards others. That is not to say Jesus is only a concept of how we think, feel, and behave. He is as really there as are you and others. It is to say that He has chosen not to dwell in an individual body of His own, but in all of ours with us who have chosen to come to Him. And He lives in this world through what we do and say, again, not conceptually, but really. This should give us some cause for thought when we seek to introduce Him to someone we know has not met Him.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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