Why does no one recognize Jesus? Why is this guy so hard to spot? Mary. and Jesus knew each other; wouldn t they have recognized each other?

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1 1 Why does no one recognize Jesus? Why is this guy so hard to spot? Mary and Jesus knew each other; wouldn t they have recognized each other? They had the kind of relationship where her first instinct was to grab onto Jesus when she realized it was him, but she didn t even recognize him until he spoke. Or those two followers of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, who were walking together when a strange man joined them. These were the guys who were supposed to have been close to Jesus, his followers, the ones who knew him better than most, the dedicated ones who were still around even after his death. And they didn t recognize Jesus when they saw him, when they talked with him, when they walked with him a day s journey, they didn t realize it was him until he broke bread with them. And in John 21, just after the chapter where Mary didn t recognize Jesus, there s a scene where Jesus goes to the sea and finds Peter and Thomas and Nathaniel and James and John. These are his disciples, the people closest to him in the world, the inner circle, and they were fishing, without much luck, something we ve seen before, Jesus talking with disciples who were fishing, it s familiar to us, and you d think the familiar scene would have produced recognition in them, but even these familiar people in this familiar place didn t recognize Jesus.

2 2 As a person who s interested in what sometimes gets called the historical Jesus, these stories fascinate me. One instance of not recognizing Jesus we might dismiss as a funny case of mistaken identity, or a plot device to heighten the drama of the tale. But when we see in story after story after story that Jesus goes unrecognized by appearance, unrecognized by sight until he does something familiar that starts to become really interesting. Was Jesus appearance changed that dramatically? Did they all just have terrible eyesight? And here s my favorite possibility: Was there a moment, among the earliest followers of Jesus, was there a moment when they sat down together, after the crucifixion and the terror and grief, was there a moment when they got together at last, just like they had in the old days, and they talked? I d like to think there was that moment. I d like to think that once the dust had settled and things had gotten back to normal, they sat down together to catch up. They told stories and shared memories. Remember that time we went to Tiberias; did you know that Jesus once told me something that I ve never forgotten. You remember how we met, don t you? The kinds of stories you share at a reception after a funeral; fond,

3 3 tender tales of remembrance shared among people who all loved the same man. I d like to think they had that moment. And I d like to think that in that moment, someone sat there silently, willing himself to speak; one of them sat there drumming up the courage. What he had to say was so strange, so impossible, that he dared not say it. He sat there for an hour, for two, trying to work up the nerve, until during a lull in the conversation he ventured a few words. I you know, I think I saw him again. I think I saw him again after he died. And I can imagine the heads around the room popping up, the eyes being raised in confusion and then in recognition. I think I saw him again. It didn t look like him, exactly, but when he spoke, I knew it was him. Guys, I think I talked with him on the road to Emmaus. And there must have been a silence for a moment, as people considered what to say, and then another moment when another person began to say, I think I know what you mean. That morning in the garden at the tomb, I thought I spoke with him there, I know I did, but it was strange. It was him but different. And the stories must have poured out. I saw him when we broke bread, and I remembered that he told us to remember. I saw him when I was fishing, and it was just like it had been before. I saw him, but

4 4 I didn t know it was him. I can imagine a room full of catharsis, as each felt free to say what they had seen and experienced. I imagine that in that room was heard the first good news of the resurrection. I don t know if that moment in that room ever happened. That s certainly not the way the Bible portrays things. But these stories of the unrecognized Jesus, of a Jesus strange but familiar, make me think that something like that happened, that some moment came when they all could admit to themselves and to each other that they had not stopped having experiences of Jesus when he died. Jesus somehow lived on, he was somehow not dead, and there must have been such joy in saying so. There must have been such comfort in that room. So it is with us. If resurrection is to have any meaning for us, it is in the sense that Jesus walks among us unrecognized all the time. We catch glimpses, we see flashes, we overhear hints and insinuations. We see this refracted Christ, never head-on, never fully, but fleeting like something that catches our eye and then is gone. This is the way of resurrection not in a resuscitated body but in a sweet kind of suggestion that lingers in the world and makes us know that we ve seen

5 5 it. This is the resurrection always hidden, always smiling, always beguiling in its playful apparitions. It s there for the seeing, but not the pinning down; it s there for the perceiving, but not for study. And all that is required of us to see this strange familiar Christ is a pair of open eyes.