Why didn’t the disciples recognize the resurrected Jesus?

Hi, everyone. Our question for today is why was it that the disciples, the people who had walked with Jesus and spent so much time with him over Jesus, three years of public ministry, why didn’t they recognize him immediately after he had resurrected? They had spent so much time with him. This is little strange to us.

And as we head into the weeks leading up to Easter, this is a wonderful question for us to consider.

There are various factors that we can look at in Scripture that might have contributed to what the text tells us. The text tells us that several times they did not recognize him after Jesus had resurrected. Why is that? Well, for one, we can look at a place like Mark 9:32, where, which describes how when Jesus predicted that he would rise again after dying, that the disciples did not understand him.

And how many times does that come through in Scripture where Jesus says something and the disciples just.

They don’t seem to have a framework to be able to track with him and understand exactly what he’s talking about. And in Mark 9:32, it not only says that they did not understand, but they were afraid to ask him about it. And so Paul, perhaps because of their lack of understanding, they weren’t seeking to understand.

And so when he did resurrect and they saw him, perhaps they just weren’t looking for him to actually come back. It never crossed their mind, even though Jesus said multiple times that he would indeed come back.

So if you ever have been in a situation like I know I have, where you see someone completely out of context, you’re out of town, maybe you’re in another state or another country, or you’re someplace, and you run across somebody that you are not expecting to see, sometimes it does a little something where it kind of sets you back and you have to kind of get your bearings a little bit.

Maybe, maybe Scripture doesn’t tell us that contributed in some way to the disciples not recognizing Jesus because they weren’t even looking for him to come back, perhaps that’s some of that. That also we can look at a place like John, chapter 20, where it talks about Mary Magdalene going to Jesus tomb, she too was not necessarily expecting to see Jesus.

And it says that she mistook him for a gardener. Now, maybe there were some physical things going on here.

And the fact that maybe when she first noticed this figure from a distance, we don’t know how far away she was standing from him. It was also quite early in the morning when it was dark. And so she just simply saw a figure. But as she got closer, perhaps she was able to perceive but again, even Mary Magdalene was not expecting to see Jesus, and eventually she did recognize him.

Or you take an account like John chapter 21, where the disciples are out in the boat doing their fishing and Jesus is walking along the shore, and it says they didn’t immediately recognize him.

How far away from Jesus were they? How early in the morning was it that all this happened? They did eventually recognize him. So there may have been some physical factors that contributed toward this. But one of the more curious places is in Luke chapter 24, where Jesus is joining a couple of disciples, it says, who are walking to a place called Emmaus, and Jesus is talking with them and he’s walking with them, and that they do not recognize him until later on.

They share a meal and he breaks bread, and all of a sudden their eyes are opened. How in the world could a person have that kind of time again with somebody like Jesus, that they knew him and he knew them, and they didn’t recognize him until that moment? Well, Luke 24 does talk about how they were somehow supernaturally prevented from recognizing him.

We’re not entirely sure why Jesus did it this way. Perhaps they were kept from recognizing him so that they would be focusing perhaps more on what Jesus was saying and the truth of what he was saying, rather than focusing so much on just being blindly convinced of what he was saying.

Because they just see him right away. We’re not again, entirely sure. But it says that they were supernaturally prevented from being able to recognize him with their eyes and eventually were able to see him. Now, another contributing factor to all of this, and this may solve all of this, is that we believe that Jesus resurrected body may have looked a bit different than his earthly body whenever he came before dying and before rising again, and that Jesus inherited after resurrection.

And we too, as followers of Jesus, are promised that we too will have a glorified body.

And perhaps Jesus veiled himself in such a way after resurrection that he did not look immediately recognizable, and that his body may have looked a little bit different or perhaps a lot different, but he was then recognizable enough that they did notice him and. And recognize him. At some point in time, our resurrected body will look different.

And so perhaps that is some of this. Here’s what we know, and this is the most important part of all of this as we head into Easter, is that we know indeed that this was Jesus.

We know that this was Jesus coming back just as he said that he would come. And it wasn’t just a handful of people who witnessed this. There were several hundred eyewitnesses of Jesus who had seen him in his earthly ministry and then after he resurrected, witnessed him and could then testify to having seen this.

This was not some conspiracy among a handful of people. This was several dozen people who recognized him, several hundred people who recognized him and were eyewitnesses.

We know that. And then we also can recognize that as we go into the Book of Acts, after Jesus has already ascended up into heaven, you look at the changed lives of the followers of Jesus. These people who had been hiding in fear and running away when Jesus was arrested are now in the Book of Acts, completely bold, completely transformed, even willing to put their lives on the line, and even some of them actually being martyred at some point in time in the future.

What could possibly account for. For that kind of a change in their life?

But having seen the risen Jesus, Friends, this is what Easter is all about. As we think about Jesus going to the cross for us, but not simply staying on the cross. He physically died, went into the tomb just as he said, and he rose again just as he said that he would. And if you were a follower of Jesus, we will get to be reunited with him in a glorified body.

And that’s something worth truly rejoicing in.

Well, thanks so much for joining us for today’s question.