By: Rev. Jeffrey O. Smith
I was inspired by the Easter service yesterday—as well as by the Easter Story Walk at the Cathedral and some of my own life experience—to reflect on the idea of recognizing the Lord.
On Easter morning, some of the Lord’s followers came to the tomb to look for Him there; they were looking in the wrong place. When Mary Magdalene first saw Him later at the tomb, she didn’t recognize Him; she was expecting a dead body, not a living Lord. The disciples on the way to Emmaus didn’t recognize Jesus even after walking with Him and He opened the scripture to them; they were expecting an earthly king to drive out the Romans. Thomas doubted the experiences of others that said the Lord was alive.
In some ways, these are stories about our own failures to recognize the Lord in our lives. We may think He is distant, and that He is the God of the dead and not the living; like His followers looking for Him in the tomb. We may feel like our own faith is dead and so we fail to see the many ways that the Lord is actively living right here in front of us; like Mary failing to recognize Jesus alive. Or we may expect the Lord to perform an act of natural salvation by fixing our worldly problems; like His disciples who expected Him to drive out the Romans. If we don’t have our own experience of how we expect the Lord to show up for us, we discredit or dismiss the experiences of others who do experience the Lord in their lives; like Thomas doubting what others saw.
The funny thing is that the demands or expectations that we have of the Lord are nothing in comparison to what He really wants to give us. It reminds me of Jacob in Genesis 28, where God says (paraphrased), “If you worship Me, I’ll give you everything;” and Jacob responds (paraphrased), “If You keep me safe and give me food, I’ll worship You.” The Lord wants to give us eternal happiness, and we are demanding momentary respite from worldly difficulties. The Lord doesn’t show up in the limited ways we expect, and so we discredit His eternal promises.
But the Lord is always closer to us than the clothing on our bodies. The Lord is more than the limitations of physical appearance could ever offer us. Believing and trusting in the Lord doesn’t mean all our natural problems will disappear. Instead, our trust in the Lord will mean that our natural problems are no longer problems. He has overcome the world. “He is not here. He is risen, as He said.”