Have You Seen The Lord?

Have You Seen the Lord?

John

{20:11} But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, [and looked] into the sepulchre, {20:12} And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. {20:13} And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. {20:14} And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. {20:15} Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. {20:16} Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. {20:17} Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and [to] my God, and your God. {20:18} Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and [that] he had spoken these things unto her.

What an opener! That is my favorite Easter scripture. I’ve always been amazed that they didn’t recognize Jesus when they went to the tomb. I’ve always wondered why. Did he look different? Was it that they just could fathom seeing him?

When my wife and I were first married, there was this video that kept coming on MTV. (Now I’ve dated the story because yes, at one time, MTV actually played music) Anyhow, there was this guy’s video that kept coming on and he was playing his guitar and kept singing about a steal horse and he’s wanted dead or alive. My wife kept say how familiar that guy looked. He look just like a guy she knew in high school. The guy she know was a friend of a friend and was always at the high school parties singing and playing his guitar. What a coincidence, his first name was even John.

I asked what’s the chance it’s that guy.

Not much she said, different last name. Besides she said, the guy at the parties couldn’t really sing. In fact, she told him to keep his day-job!

This went on for a month or two, and then she was on the phone to one of her old high school friends and the subject of the guy in the video came up.

From my end of the conversation, I heard:

“Remember John? His mom was the hair dresser on the corner. Doesn’t he look just like the Bonjovi in the videos? I’d swear they were the same guy but the last names are different.”

<muffled other end>

“Wait… What??”

<more muffled talk from Jersy>

“That IS John?! He changed his name?!”

Now she always jokes about it. How was she supposed to know he’d become famous?

It’s so funny that we can run into people we knew for years and there is that flash of non-recognition. People can always tell from the look on my face, the mental Rolodex spinning. (Well, that dates me again! We said that to my son, and he asked, “What’s a rolodex?”)

If you think about the popularity of Jesus, he should be the most recognized person ever. The Bible is THE most printed book of all time. The estimates are, since Gutenberg first began printing the Bible in 1455 there have been over 8 BILLION copies made! (8 Billion copies) It has been printed more times, in more languages than any other book since writing began. You would think that if there are that many copies, and that there are 2 billion Christians on the planet, Jesus would be the most recognized person in the history of humanity. But I would be willing to bet there are un-told numbers who have seen him and have failed to recognize who he was.

We know as Christians that we can see Jesus everywhere. Lots of people think they’ve seen him. It’s in the news all the time about people seeing Jesus on grilled cheese, pancakes, and a pirogue with the burnt image of Jesus just sold for $1775 on eBay. But where can we really find him? I found a game on line “Where’s Jesus”. It’s kind of like the game “Where’s Waldo” where Jesus in amongst thousands of faced and you have to search and find him. When you click on the face it takes you to the next picture.

But do we really have to look that hard?