Why does no one recognise the risen Jesus

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Nik

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Probably a stupid question but:

Why does no one recognise Jesus after the ressurection? Does He literally not look like He did before He was crucified?

Mary of Magdala thought He was the gardener.
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognise Him until He broke bread with them. It also says He appeared under a different form at this point whatever that means.
Then at the Sea of Tiberias no one recognises Him until James (he is the only disciple who didn’t abandon Jesus at the crucifixion right?) points out that it’s Jesus on the shore and Peter jumps into the sea to swim to him as quick as he can.

So I understand the “their eyes were opened and they understood” type argument but there seems to be more going on here. Did He actually look different to what they remembered?

Also - is the story of Jesus meeting the two people on the road to Emmaus some kind of pre-figuring of the Mass? He explains scripture to them and they listen. Then he breaks bread with them and disappears…

Sorry for the excess of questions but this is probably the first Easter I’ve celebrated and I literally know no Catholics IRL so you guys get my queries instead lol
 
Nik said:
Why does no one recognise Jesus after the ressurection? Does He literally not look like He did before He was crucified?
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It’s a good question. I think there are probably a number of ways to approach it:
  • You just saw the guy whipped, tortured, crucified, and then his corpse taken off the cross and buried. (Or, someone told you the story.) Your first thought, then, isn’t gonna be, “oh, hey! you died yesterday, and here you are!”
  • Having been a witness to the events, given who you thought He was and what He was going to do, you were crushed. I mean, we’re talking soul-crushing, heart-rending, psyche-destroying pain even worse than when your favorite team loses the Super Bowl on a last-second TD pass! So, you’re probably not in your best, most observant, most rational frame of mind.
  • Maybe he did look different, given that he was now in his “glorified body.”
  • Maybe he just looked sufficiently different than the beat-up corpse you had just seen the other day.
Lots of possibilities…
 
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Gorgias said:
  • You just saw the guy whipped, tortured, crucified, and then his corpse taken off the cross and buried. (Or, someone told you the story.) Your first thought, then, isn’t gonna be, “oh, hey! you died yesterday, and here you are!”
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But it’s not like he didn’t already told them that he would rise again. And all the various individual aspects of a person should be the same after he rose. So this would be yet another example of his followers being described as a bit on the slow side.
  • Having been a witness to the events, given who you thought He was and what He was going to do, you were crushed. I mean, we’re talking soul-crushing, heart-rending, psyche-destroying pain even worse than when your favorite team loses the Super Bowl on a last-second TD pass! So, you’re probably not in your best, most observant, most rational frame of mind.
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Yet again, it wasn’t like Jesus didn’t tell them this was going to happen.
  • Maybe he did look different, given that he was now in his “glorified body.”
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Why would he?
  • Maybe he just looked sufficiently different than the beat-up corpse you had just seen the other day.
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But they hed seen him plenty of times in the pre-beat up state that the pre-beat up state should be pretty familiar.
 
Michaelangelo said:
But it’s not like he didn’t already told them that he would rise again.
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Yeah, but they were confused by those statements. You know, of the “what? Die ??? And rise again ???” variety…
Michaelangelo said:
So this would be yet another example of his followers being described as a bit on the slow side.
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They weren’t picking up what he was laying down. Got it. Yet, if we put ourselves in their shoes… wouldn’t our reactions be similar if not identical?
Michaelangelo said:
Why would he?
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We’ll have that answer when we have our glorified bodies in the eschaton, no?
Michaelangelo said:
But they hed seen him plenty of times in the pre-beat up state that the pre-beat up state should be pretty familiar.
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And the “pre-beat-up state” was gone. Dead. A rotting corpse.
 
But plenty of them DID recognise Him - when He appeared.to the 12 they didn’t fail to recognise him.

I think He may have had an.ability to disguise Himself when He wanted to. Even in life the Gospels indicate that on one occasion the Jews wanted to stone Him.and He somehow simply walked out through the middle of them.

Another thought - He knew that His human bodily form was.shortly to ascend to heaven, never to return. He may have been getting them to understand that He was present even in ways that didn’t appear like.His human body.
 
1 Cor: 42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible. It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised powerful. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one.
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Sown weak, raised powerful? A poor itinerant rabbi with a penchant for long periods of fasting and who ate small bits of fish and bread probably wasn’t the most robust man, maybe his glorified body was just fuller?

Or maybe he was wearing a hood 🤷‍♂️

Also, I have heard sources explain the appearance on the road to Emmaus as mass as well. And the most important thing is that the disciples asked him to stay, but then his body vanished, but he DID STAY with them in the bread.
 
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I see what you’re saying about Him not looking so good during the crucifixion so people not recognising Him when He was risen but it kind of feels like more than that? I’m not sure.
You make a good point about the trauma that the disciples went through seeing their friend and teacher being taken away and tortured. I guess that would make you see things differently.
 
Gorgias said:
Yeah, but they were confused by those statements. You know, of the “what? Die ??? And rise again ???” variety…
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Again, a bit on the slow side. Especially after they had witnessed him performing exactly the kind of miracle he said would happen to him; raised from the dead. It is as if they never witnessed those miracles or heard of them.
They weren’t picking up what he was laying down. Got it. Yet, if we put ourselves in their shoes… wouldn’t our reactions be similar if not identical?
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After witnessed a number of occasions were he raised the dead? No. But if they never witnessed any such miracle or even heard of them, yes.
We’ll have that answer when we have our glorified bodies in the eschaton, no?
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Apparently Moses and Eliah was recognised. Even though none of them had ever seen each other.
And the “pre-beat-up state” was gone. Dead. A rotting corpse.
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Yes but if they alreday had forgotten what he looked like in that pre-beat up and pre-rotten state then goldfish has better memory. Lazarus was recognized after he rose so apparently a rotting corpse was restored to pre-rotten state upon being raised back to life.
 
That’s true I guess that Jesus slips out of crowds and disappears in the gospel some times. I hadn’t made that connection at all.
But why would He want to appear in a disguised way to His followers?
I just don’t get it, but I would like to.
 
Ok cool so there’s sources that talk about the metaphor for the Mass there? That sort of makes sense then especially as applied to us maybe not recognising Him in the Mass even though He is present.
 
Grief does weird things to people and their ability to perceive the world around them. The disciples were mourning their murdered God, some probably blaming themselves for His death, so I doubt they were paying very much attention to what some stranger on the road looked like.
 
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Mary Magdalene was standing in the garden. She looked at Jesus for only an instant, in poor lighting (it was before daybreak), through her tears, thinking all along Jesus should be dead. She was terrified and bewildered from the earthquake. Do you think it is reasonable she first took him for a gardener (considering she was, after all, in a garden)?
 
The relationship between His “new body” and His old, dead self, is confusing. It seems clear He had the same hands and feet . But no doubt all the abuse He received during human life, when restored, resulted in profound change to the body.

But also, Hard Lesson No. 1 in human life is when someone dies, you DO NOT get them back; so no-doubt, everybody was in a state of mind-block when they saw Him.

ICXC NIKA
 
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Michaelangelo said:
Apparently Moses and Eliah was recognised. Even though none of them had ever seen each other.
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Recognized by each other, or by the apostles? In the version in Luke, they’re conversing with Jesus. Not too difficult to guess that they might have been calling each other by name, or that the conversation would have given them away. (“Gee, mystery man, when you made your Exodus from Egypt and Pharaoh was chasing you, how’d you feel?”)
Michaelangelo said:
Lazarus was recognized after he rose
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Ahh, but they saw him come out of his tomb.
 
Yeah, the first time I hear it specifically is a tract by a priest named Father Larry Richards called “The Mass Explained”, which I highly recommend, I actually found it on YouTube, and he starts talking about Emmaus around the 18:00 mark

The entire talk is fantastic though!
 
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Nik said:
Why does no one recognise Jesus after the ressurection? Does He literally not look like He did before He was crucified?
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Perhaps because it defies human logic. Those he showed himself to both knew him and loved him, in regards to his humanity, but like us even today, they were not mentally equipped to deal with his divine nature.

Logic tells us we will not have encountered with the physical manifestation our departed loved ones on the street, at their grave site, or at table, and therefore those he did show himself too, only had this very human context to consider.

A more important question might be, why do we, despite our faith, sometimes not recognize Jesus, or even if we do, ignore him, in our day to day life?

Perhaps those events where the risen Christ was not immediately recognized are a message to us, to accept the truth and revelation presented in scripture.

Rejoice!

And, on this day, “For the sake of his sorrowful passion; have mercy on us and on the whole world”.

Amen!
 
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Dan_Defender said:
Mary Magdalene was standing in the garden. She looked at Jesus for only an instant, in poor lighting (it was before daybreak), through her tears, thinking all along Jesus should be dead. She was terrified and bewildered from the earthquake. Do you think it is reasonable she first took him for a gardener (considering she was, after all, in a garden)?
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Apparently Mary was unaware of him raising a number of dead people and him explaining exactly what would happen. Odd, for someone reportedly being so close to him… 🤔
 
Michaelangelo said:
Apparently Mary was unaware of him raising a number of dead people and him explaining exactly what would happen. Odd, for someone reportedly being so close to him…
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It seems most of the disciples were. Yet the chief priests knew enough to ask Pilate for the guard at the tomb.

Something I’ve noticed that seems interesting.
 
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