What was different about the risen Christ?
We can infer from the gospels that there was something unfamiliar in his appearance. Last week, Mary Magdalene met him outside of his tomb and mistook him for a gardener. Not until he spoke did she recognize him, and then came the joy of being unexpectedly reunited.
This week we recall his encounter with the disciples, who similarly do not seem to know him at first. He greets them, but not until he offers a sign—the wounds of crucifixion—does the light of recognition dawn on them.
Jesus walks about in anonymity. A resurrected messiah, we know, would have been wild news—people would have wanted to see him. Certainly the crowds would have exceeded those he drew before, even when performing miracles. But the risen Christ is obscure.
Even Thomas, an apostle, does not believe the news. His brethren assure him, in their excitement, that they have seen Jesus, that he has been among them again; but Thomas scoffs, saying, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe" (John 20:25).
This seems a gruesome request. But then, Thomas has been asked to wrestle with an unprecedented idea: that death might be reversed.
Jesus is understanding; he responds to Thomas’s insistence upon tactile proof. Put your hand in my side, if you must; he says. It’s me. And Thomas knows him.
There’s something different about the risen Jesus. Those who walked with him before do not know him until he declares himself. They do not doubt him once he is revealed; but they are hapless until the anonymity is peeled back.
This seems, to me, to be such a powerful injunction to be kind to those who walk among us. It is disquieting that the apostles saw him without seeing him; if they, who had known him in life, were so sightless before him in his new life, how are we, who see him only in the gospels, to recognize him?
Jesus said, “What you do to the least of those among you, you do to me.” He suggested he could be sought in the meek, in those brought low by their circumstances, in the hungry and in the searching. In the eyes which we often avoid meeting, there he is. In the lonely corners we do not visit, he waits.
I read a story this week about a young girl who was taunted and physically abused in public because of her appearance. This young twenties person was shifting between genders, and something about that piqued her torturers; they decided to assault her. To teach her a lesson? To put her “in her place”? Such acts defy reason. We are so illogically prompted to be cruel to one another.
The mystery of Easter is this: Jesus was crucified. Jesus is risen. Jesus walks the world again. We do not see him when we look for the man who healed, who walked on water, who fed the masses and defied Roman authority; that figure has departed us forever.
But what about those from whom we shrink? In the teenager reviled by their peers for daring to be who they are internally compelled to be: can’t we look for Christ there? In the face of the girl who was beaten, do we sense a glimmer of recognition?
The lesson of this season is that God does not abandon us to our fallible flesh. The world, post-resurrection, is a dress rehearsal, is an unset stage awaiting the last revelation. What we do in this moment has bearing on that; we have to ready our eyes to see.
Through our faith, we anticipate clear sight: “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8). By acts of loving kindness to those we encounter, we attest our belief.
Hands which need to feel torn flesh belong to those who have not yet seen. Hands which reach out to greet those who seem, at first, just strangers, trust in the resurrection. We give our love to others knowing that it will someday come back to us, that Christ will someday from them say, “Here I am.”
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