Picture this:
You know a close male friend who has almost shoulder length hair, he has an easily recognisable goatee and a stubble all over his cheek right to his chin, he wears those rounded-frame glasses and has a stud ear ring on his right ear.
Passing by, people would tend to say he looks rather shabby and scruffy, some would nod and approve it as a hipster look, and finally some might find it unclean.
Then the same guy friend, with you having no knowledge of it, decides to cut his hair, go clean shaven, replaces his glasses with a slimmer and slightly horn-rimmed frame one and remove his ear ring. Lastly, he decides to wear a long sleeve fitting t-shirt tucked in into slacks.
He comes to you, and starts waving from a distance, wide-smiled and the first thing that comes to your mind is "Who is that?!", you smile back being friendly, as he approaches you start to think and recall that you've seen this person before, but can't place him anywhere; he finally stands right in front of you, and asks you, "Are you okay?". You finally give out a loud laugh and tell yourself how foolish you are by not even recognising your own friend.
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When Jesus was risen from the dead, there were more than one time that the His disciples were oblivious to his physical presence. (Just take a look at Mark 16:9-14, the infamous walk to Emmaus in Luke 24:13 - 33 and even in today's Gospel of John 21:1-14). It comes to mind then, what made them blind to see the one whom they love so much literally appear in front of them and yet the couldn't even recognise Him?
After the death of Jesus, the followers scattered and some might even lose hope, despite Him promising eternal life to them. Knowing that He had died brings grief and a sense of predicament to the followers as to why a person who claims to be the Son of God and more importantly the Messiah would abandon them and leave them in the same state that they were. Even those closest to Him such as his dear apostles too, went back to their previous lives.
By them not recognising the risen Lord, shows that even the Apostles and closest followers of Jesus at a time lost faith in Him; lose their confidence in the Risen Lord and were mourning so much that it made them blind when He was standing in front of them.
This then brings us to ourselves. Like the apostles who couldn't recognise Jesus after His resurrection, how often are we blind to the goodness of others. The risen Christ is analogous to the goodness of the people around us. We are thought to see Christ in all that we do, and in all that we meet; how then are we sometimes oblivious to the things that they do in His name.
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In dealing with the everyday world, we often find that goodness and kindness and mercy, hard to come by. We are blinded by the stain of being judgmental and moreover the prejudice of someone we already detest. By doing so, we are not only losing our faith in Christ and others, but also putting a stint on His love for us by not radiating the grace which He has given.
This is definitely easier said than actually doing it. Recognising the good in others is a challenge we all face; in fact for example, there are many times where our civil leaders put on a show and facade of charity only to be swindling our money, or when a lay Church leader praying fervently and only to find him rushing out of Mass while cussing; away from that, worse of all is to see sometimes the people to whom we are closest to, becoming someone we don't recognise, someone whom we fear and as much as it hurts to draw away from them. Despite that, the faith we have in Christ should always be open and to recognise the goodness that they still have.
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The cheeks on the apostles' face could have hurt greatly upon seeing the Christ in their midst again. What joy it must have been to them to have breakfast with Him.
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