Right Before Your Eyes (Friday Devotional)

 

Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

- Luke 24:31

“If it were a snake, it would have bit me!”

That’s a phrase I’ve uttered many times after finding something I was looking for, from car keys to sunglasses. I’d scan the room, shuffle papers around, start retracing my steps, and then, voila—the hidden treasure would wind up being so close it was hard to believe I’d ever missed it. I’d been looking everywhere except right in front my face.

That must have been how many of Jesus’s followers felt on Resurrection Sunday when, with them desperate for hope, the Lord began appearing to them. Some, mostly a group of women from Galilee, had remained faithful to the end and were mourning his death together. Others, like the Twelve, had fled and gone into hiding, fearing retribution from the religious leaders who’d opposed Jesus. Still others were swapping stories and rumors about what had happened on that Friday and what it all meant. What they all had in common was that, in the wake of Jesus’s crucifixion and death, they were looking for some reason to hope.

How remarkable then that, one by one, they failed to recognize Jesus when he appeared to them. Mary Magdalene mistook him for the gardener. Two men on the road to Emmaus walked by his side for miles and even shared a meal with him before realizing who he was. And when Jesus appeared to Peter, John, and other disciples by the Sea of Galilee, it was not until he helped them bring in a miraculous catch of fish that they realized who they were dealing with. The resurrected body of Jesus, freed from the ravages of suffering and death, was unfamiliar to them at first. Hope was right in front of their faces, and somehow they didn’t recognize it.

We make the same mistake today, looking all over the place for signs from God when he’s already right there with us. We assume that the Lord will announce himself with fire and trumpets and miracles, and thus we miss him when he speaks to us in a still, small voice. Eyes blinded by fear and doubt, we see a gardener where the King of Kings stands.

The Lord continues to work today, sometimes miraculously and dramatically, but often subtly and quietly. May we have eyes to see so that we don’t miss him when he’s right in front of our faces.