Recognizing Jesus
Dear Friends,
In our gospel reading for this Sunday, we will hear the story of Jesus’ resurrection appearance to a group of his disciples, whose fear had led them to meet behind locked doors. The disciple Thomas had not been with the group that day, and he refuses to believe their reports: he needs to see for himself. A week later, Thomas is with the disciples when Jesus returns among them. All his doubts melt away, and he instinctively exclaims, “My Lord and my God.”
Reflecting on Thomas, and the entire handful of Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearances, I’m struck with the centrality of what biblical and literary scholars call the “moment of recognition” in these accounts. Whether in a Greek play or a bible story, there is a split-second shift when the hidden identity of one character in the story becomes perfectly clear to another character (or set of characters). For instance, in the post-resurrections accounts, Mary thought that Jesus was a gardener until he spoke her name; the disciples who were walking on the Road to Emmaus recognized him only in the breaking of the bread. And, though Jesus had appeared to them twice before, his presence among the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee was only recognized when he filled their fishers’ nets to overflowing.
So much depends on the “moment of recognition!” God is always asking us the question we find in Isaiah 43:19, “Behold! I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it?” But its very newness makes it nearly impossible to see with just a first look: usually we see only what we already know to look for.
As one writer puts it, “The Resurrection is one of the biggest New Things God has ever done. Seeing the Resurrection requires a second look, another glance.” This is as true for us today as for Jesus’ followers 2,000 years ago. Often, he is revealed when we aren’t looking all that closely. And then most often, there is this little gap between what we originally experienced or sensed and the dawn of recognition that Christ was present in that particular person or moment all along.
Seeing and knowing the face of the risen Christ as it was revealed to the disciples, then and now, isn’t the kind of knowing that’s like learning a new fact, or reading a news article, or watching a YouTube video. It’s more a matter of learning to see with the eyes of the heart. “Were our hearts not burning within us as he spoke with us on the road?” the travelers to Emmaus asked themselves. Resurrection invites us, like them, to tune our perceptions to a different frequency, and see what we find there.
Resurrection also invites us to expect the Risen One to meet us where we are just as he met his early followers where they are—whether holed up in their doubts and locked rooms, or walking on the road in travel, or casting their fishing nets at work. They did not have to change who they were, or how they acted, or what they did for a living, and we should not expect to have to do that either. We just need to be on the lookout, and ready to look again.
In Christ,
Amelie+
