From Old Familiar to New Familiar

I try to imagine meeting a friend who has died: for example, in a favorite coffee shop. The emotional, rational and physical dynamics would be overwhelming. This helps me appreciate the struggle of the disciples at Easter and beyond. I can account for Mary’s failure to recognize him. As for the couple on the Emmausroad, it sounds like God hindered their ability to identify the stranger who walked beside them. 

However, I still wonder about the breakfast setting on the shores of the Galilee. After having interacted with Jesus for several days, the disciples approached his campfire and, as John describes it, no one dared ask who he was since they knew it was he. It seems as though, by this time, they should have become accustomed to the change from the bloodied mass of beaten and flayed flesh they saw hanging on the cross. He was whole again. By now, as well, they should have become familiar with the physical effects of being free from the horrendous task that lay ahead of him as he approached Jerusalem and Calvary.

The more I think about it, I believe there was something else about Jesus now – something especially important to us. His was not simply a body brought back to life. His was the flag ship of a new order in which a shadow of the familiar from this life is embodied in a new, unfamiliar, glorified, immortal body free of corruption and the defilement of the curse. The Apostle John would later tell us this difference drives our hope and willingness to change.

Dear friends, now we are children of God.

What we will be has not yet been made known.

But we know that,

when he appears,

we will be like him,

for we will see him as he is. 

(1 John 3:2-3)

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