The Hiding Jesus

UNRECOGNISABLE FRIENDS

I was just visiting my family for a week.

When I'm there, I spend the majority of the time with my folks. However, I (and they!) still have work that needs to be done, so I spend some time working at coffee shops. Without fail, at least once I'll run into someone that I 100% don't recognize until they say - "It's me, 'so-and-so.'" And then, it's like my eyes are opened and I'm I think, "Woah! I see it now!"

It's the "Oh-zer-you-are-Peter" moment from the classic movie Hook.

Something similar is happing in Luke 24.

LUKE 24:13-16

Jesus has Risen from the dead, and as Luke tells it, no one has quite seen him yet. Folks have seen the empty tomb - the Easter moment - but they have experienced Jesus resurrected in-person.

The text picks it up like this.

¹³ Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles^[a] from Jerusalem. ¹⁴ They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. ¹⁵ As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; ¹⁶ but they were kept from recognizing him.

What a wild deal.

Jesus is no doubt excited to see his friends.

His friends no doubt would like nothing more than to see Jesus in their downtrodden state.

And yet, Jesus chooses to hide himself from them for a time (roughly a day).

Jesus is patient and doesn't mind hiding from his disciples so he can nudge them to seek him.

SEEK AND YOU WILL FIND

An old pastor friend of mine used to talk about Jesus in such a way that he was the God that liked to play hide and seek.

The younger you were in your faith - the easier he made the finding.

The more mature you were in your faith - the more difficult he made the finding.

In other words, God enjoys hiding, because he enjoys our seeking after him.

The promise is always this - if we seek we will find.

But be encouraged - if God feels distant or abset, he's actually very close.

He's just hiding, so lean into the seeking.