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Luke 24:12-27: '?'

Have you ever gotten a text from someone and their number was blocked or they or you had just gotten a new phone so their number didn't show up? The person is texting you and you figure you must know who it so you just keep texting until you either figure it out or give up and ask?

Or have you ever had the same experience on the phone? The person's voice sounds familiar (don't we all sound a little different on the phone?) But you just can't place it. You keep talking and listening, hoping that they will reveal themselves to you before you must admit that you don't know who they are?

I must confess that I have had that same thing happen to me in face-to-face situations more than once. People that I knew well but haven't seen in a long time, they run into me in a different city or in a strange context or they have had a new haircut or are wearing different style clothes and so I don't recognize them.

When I was a teenager and throughout most of my 20s I had really long hair. I have usually sported facial hair of some kind since I was 18 as well. And until I was 24 I often wore a black leather jacket, torn jeans, a bandana and fedora on my time off. Every couple of years, for one day, I would shave, cut my hair, take off my hats and jacket, put on dress clothes and sit at my regular spot in the coffee shop I frequented and would see how long it took people to recognize me. Even my closest friends did not usually know me until I spoke up.

In our text today, Jesus has changed in someway. His friends and acquaintances at first do not recognize him and are quite surprised when they realize that it is him and that everything has happened exactly as he said it would happen.

This is the same with us today. Jesus is alive. He has changed into his resurrected body. He is however waiting for us to notice him and engage him. Today let us do just that and experience all the joys of our friendship and more with the resurrected Christ.

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