Easter Perspective: A Matter of Seeing

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A Matter of Seeing

They were prevented from recognizing him.

Luke 24:16 (CEB)

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord

Open the eyes of my heart

I want to see You

I want to see You

From "Open the Eyes of My Heart" by Paul Baloche

In the Gospel of John, we read that, on the Sunday morning after Jesus was crucified, Mary Magdalene goes out to visit Jesus' tomb.  When she arrives, she finds that the tomb had been opened.  She runs to Jesus' disciples and says, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they've put him."  Two of the Disciples then go to the tomb to investigate the situation for themselves.  When Mary returns to the tomb and looks inside, she sees two angels sitting where Jesus' body had been laid.  They ask her why she is crying, and she says, "They have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they've put him."¹

Mary then turns around and encounters a man she assumes is a gardener.  He asks her why she is crying and whom she is seeking.  She says, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him."  The supposed gardener says Mary's name, and Mary realizes that she is talking with Jesus.²

In the Gospel of Luke, we read that, on the same day, two of Jesus' followers are walking to Emmaus with their heads hung low and talking about recent events.  A fellow traveler joins them and asks them what they are discussing.  They tell him about Jesus, about their hopes that He would liberate their people from oppression, about His untimely demise, and about the news that His body was missing from the tomb.  Their fellow traveler then tells them all the things that the Scriptures foretold about their long-awaited Messiah and suggests that all of these things had to happen.³

The two followers of Jesus' reach their destination and insist that their fellow traveler stay with them for the night.  While they are all seated for dinner, the mysterious traveler takes some bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to the other two.  The two, recognizing these actions, suddenly realize that they had been walking with Jesus the whole time.⁴

In the Gospel of John, we read that, one night later on, Peter decides to go fishing, and a number of the Disciples decide to go with him.  They spend the whole night sitting in a boat, not catching any fish.  In the morning, a man calls out to the Disciples from the seashore, asking if they have caught any fish.  They reply that they haven't caught anything, and the man tells them to throw out their net on the right side of the boat.  They do so and miraculously haul in a net full of fish.  They then realize that the man on the seashore is Jesus.⁵  According to Luke's Gospel, Jesus originally called a number of them to follow Him after performing a very similar miracle.⁶

Every year, people around the world hear these three stories during Eastertide.  What stands out to me this year about each of these stories is that, though the Risen Christ is present, people fail to recognize Him.  Some have suggested that Jesus' appearance was changed by the Resurrection, but I wonder if maybe there were other reasons that people who clearly knew Jesus could not recognize Him.  I wonder if maybe, for some reason, they were blinded to His presence.

Near the tomb, Jesus stood right in front of Mary, yet she did not recognize Him.  I wonder if maybe her grief is what kept her from recognizing Him.  She kept saying that someone had taken the Lord away, yet the Lord she was seeking was a dead man.  She did not realize that her Lord was standing right in front of her, alive and well.

On the Road to Emmaus, the two travelers walked with Jesus for miles without realizing who He was.  Perhaps they did not realize who He was because their heads were hung low in disappointment.

On the Boat, a number of the Disciples saw Jesus on the seashore, but, even though they had already seen Him alive and well at least a couple of times, they did not recognize Him.  I wonder if maybe they were blinded to His presence by a sense of failure.  They had failed to catch any fish during the night, but I think that maybe Peter decided to go fishing in the first place because he felt like a failure as a Disciple and had decided to return to his former life as a fisherman.  Before Jesus was arrested, Peter swore that he would remain faithful to Him even if it cost him his life.  A few hours later, he denied that he even knew Jesus.⁷

When I was a freshman in college, I watched a short-lived television show titled Joan of Arcadia.  In this show, the titular character Joan is a teenage girl who sees God.  She might see God as boy her age, a woman working in the school cafeteria, a little girl, a man walking a dog, or a number of other people.⁸  On the very first episode, Joan makes a comment about God's appearing to people, and God says to her, "I'm not appearing to you.  You are seeing me."⁹  I always thought this statement was theologically profound.

Maybe the Risen Christ is always present with us, as He was in the stories we hear around Easter, but maybe there are things in our lives like grief, disappointment, and failure that keep us from experiencing Him.  Maybe, like the people in the stories, we need to be awakened to Christ's presence in some way.  Christ awakened the frustrated Disciples to His presence with a miracle.  Christ awakened the disappointed travelers to His presence by doing what they had seen Him do in the past.¹⁰  Christ awakened the grieving Mary to His presence by simply saying her name.

As I noted previously, Easter just doesn't seem like Easter this year.  The Risen Christ is no less present in difficult times, but we might have a bit more trouble experiencing His presence.  Let us pray for eyes to see and for a wake-up call if we need one.


Notes:

1. John 20:1-13 (CEB)
2. John 20:14-16 (CEB)
3. Luke 24:13-27
4. Luke 24:28-31
5. John 21:1-8
6. Luke 5:1-11
7. John 13:36-38; 18:15-18, 25-27
8. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367345/
9. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0616128/quotes/
10. See Luke 9:16 and Luke 22:19.

The Supper at Emmaus was painted by Caravaggio around 1601.