Did You See Him?

 

by Jason Lovelace

 

 

Key Scripture:

Luke 24.13-18 – ¹³And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.  ¹⁴And they talked together of all these things which had happened.  ¹⁵And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.  ¹⁶But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.  ¹⁷And he said unto them, “What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?  ¹⁸And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering, said unto him, “Art thou a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass therein these days?”

 

John 20.11-16 – ¹¹But Mary stood without the sepulchre weeping:  and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, ¹²And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.  ¹³And 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.”  ¹⁴And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.  ¹⁵Jesus 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.  ¹⁶Jesus saith unto her, “Mary.”  She turned herself and saith unto him, “Rabboni;” which is to say, “Master.”

 

John 20.24-28 – ²⁴But Thomas, one of the twelve called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.  ²⁵The other disciples therefore said unto him, “We have seen the Lord.”  But he said unto them, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  ²⁶And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them:  then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace be unto you.”  ²⁷Then saith he unto Thomas, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side:  and be not faithless, but believing.”  ²⁸And Thomas answered and said unto him, “My Lord and my God.”  ²⁹Jesus saith unto him, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed:  blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

 

John 21.1-4 – ¹After these things, Jesus shewed himself again to his disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise, he shewed himself.  ²There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathan of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.  ³Simon Peter saith unto them, “I go a fishing.”  They say unto him, “We also go with thee.”  They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night, they caught nothing.  ⁴But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore:  but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.

 

This past week, two big holidays in the calendar took place, and both of them are important to Christianity.  The first was Passover, in which Christians and Jews remember the time when God led the Children of Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.  The second is Easter, the time of year when the resurrection of Jesus Christ is remembered.  Much like Christmas, Easter is a holiday in the year that is becoming more and more commercialized.  Many people, if you ask them, probably don’t have really a clue or an idea as to why Easter is celebrated.  Many people believe the secular reason for Easter, that being the Easter Bunny and Easter Eggs (both of these being non-Christian symbols of Spring and fertility, recognized especially in Roman times as such).  What is the reason for Easter?  Why do Christians, truly, celebrate this day with as much importance as Christmas?  A Better question is, what does Easter mean to you?  Is Jesus Risen?  Did you see him?  He is easy to miss in these days and times, when more and more people are turning off Jesus Christ and anything having to do with God.  Did you see Jesus this Easter, or did you miss him?  How can someone miss the Savior at such an important time of the year?  How can we see him?

 

Jesus is With Us on our Emmaus Road of Sadness and Lost Hope

It’s easy to miss Jesus when we have a long road to walk.  The two disciples in Luke 24 were walking a long, heavy road.  The distance between Emmaus is about 11 miles (18km), and walking that distance can take a good part of a day.  While they walked, the two had heavy hearts, were sad, and very likely, ready to give up on Jesus.  Usually when we have broken hearts, shattered dreams, and have lost our hope, we easily miss Jesus.  Just as in the case of the two walking to Emmaus, Jesus will slip up beside us, and, if we are not careful, we will miss him.  He will walk all the way with us to our own Emmaus, and will keep on walking if we fail to ask him to stay.  The good news is, that, just as with these two disciples, Jesus will come into our houses if we ask him to stay, and, at just the right time, when we need him most (just as with these two disciples), he will reveal to us that he has been with us all the way!  In Revelation 3.20, Jesus says that he stands and knocks at the door of our hearts.  If we invite him in, just as Cleopas and his friend did after their journey to Emmaus, Jesus will come in and dine with us, breaking bread, and showing us that he was right there with us all the way.  Friends, sadness, disappointment, and broken hearts come, but they don’t have to be the end of us!  Look up and listen, and you will hear Jesus coming up beside you!  Just as he did with Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus, Jesus will open up the Scriptures and truth to us, and help us to understand that all is not lost!  He may rebuke you, but he will heal the wounds of your heart if you open to him, just as these two disciples did.

 

Jesus is There in the Garden of Broken Heartedness

Mary, in John 20, had a big problem:  she had come to the Garden Tomb to mourn and grieve and remember Jesus, but the tomb was empty of Jesus’ body, and the rock was rolled away from the mouth of the tomb. Mary was already terribly broken hearted, but to come and find Jesus’ body gone was an even worse tragedy for her.  How many of us are in the same situation?  How many times have you, reader, had a broken heart, so much so that your tears blinded you to an extraordinary event?  Mary spoke with two angels, and still, her heart was shattered because Jesus had died, and his body was gone.  How often have we seen the supernatural, only to pass it off because of our broken hearts?  Mary even missed Jesus when she turned around and saw him.  So broken was her heart that Mary failed to recognize Jesus’ voice:  she thought he was the gardener.  Friend, if we let our broken hearts dictate our lives, we can miss wonderful events, we can miss supernatural visions, and we can miss the Savior.  The good news for Mary is that the best time to seek for Jesus is with a shattered heart!  Mary was looking for Jesus, her heart broken in a million pieces, and just when she needed to know him, Jesus spoke her name.  Jesus waits to do the same for us!  Just as the shepherds and the wise men were seeking for the Messiah at his birth and found him, so Mary found Jesus when seeking for him at his resurrection.  We too can find him, if we seek for him just as Mary did.  Jeremiah 29.13 promises us that we will find Jesus if we seek for him with all of our hearts.  Bring your broken heart, seek him, and find him!!!  He will be there!!!

 

Jesus is On the Shore of Our Escapes

Simon Peter – the one who’d denied knowing Jesus – needed to get away and get this whole thing of resurrection and Jesus being alive straight in his head and his heart.  Very likely, Peter didn’t have the whole thing squared away in his head, in his heart, nor in his spirit.  What Peter did know was fishing, and he went straightaway to the sea to see if he could work out what he’d seen and experienced following the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Since Simon Peter had been a fisherman for much of his life, fishing on the sea was likely a way for him to try and sort things out.  Using the familiarity of the sea, the boat, and the nets, Peter probably let his mind escape to figure things out.  How many of us have an activity or method of doing the same thing?  This writer’s way of doing that is by lifting weights.  Nothing relieves his stress and lets his mind escape like pumping iron for a couple of hours.  It was very likely the same with Peter and fishing.  He could go through all the routines of fishing, casting the net, pulling it back in, checking the net, and so on like a machine, all the while, his mind and spirit were trying to figure things out.  Did Peter pray during that all-night fishing expedition?  Did he seek the Lord’s face, and work out, in, and over the events of the past week?  What we do know is that peter and his brother Andrew, along with James, John, Thomas, Nathanael, and two other disciples went to fish. There’s an old song by Bill Gaither that speaks of God being able to talk to boys while they’re fishing.  In this case, it was true!  The problem is, these guys had been fishing so intently, that when Jesus called, they didn’t recognize him.  We can miss the Savior, as well, in the same way, if we focus too much on what we are doing.  He will stand on the shore of our Sea of Tiberias, calling to us, and we can easily miss his voice, or dismiss it as worthless chatter.  The good news here is that God will come to us in our stress-relieving, escapist activities and speak right to our need.  Peter and his gang were fishing, and Jesus called to them.  He told them to do something quite simple, really.  How easy would it have been for Peter and the rest to ignore Jesus’ advice, to cast the net on the other side?  Hadn’t they tried that before and met with disappointment?  Yet when Peter obeyed (just as he did when he met the Savior in Luke), not only was there a miracle of a large amount of fish, and breakfast waiting on the shore, but it led to Peter being restored, received again by Jesus Christ.  Friend, it is the same for us today!!!  Sometimes what seems so simple, so easy, can be dismissed by us as not worthy of our attention.  However, that simple thing that Jesus is calling us to perform may be just the way he wants to unload a huge miracle into our lives!

 

Jesus Waits to Test our Doubts!

We tend to get on Thomas for being the doubter.  After all, the term Doubting Thomas comes from our friend Didymus precisely because he needed more than just the other disciples’ word.  However, when we take a look at the big picture, who else among the eleven and the disciples of Jesus dared to touch the nail scars and the spear wound?  This writer has often heard and read of heavy criticism of Thomas for doubting the word of the disciples.  However, the Bible states time and time again that we should test God, to come and taste and see that he is good.  There is nothing wrong with seeking proofs of Jesus.  Thomas, despite his doubt and apparent lack of faith, received Jesus when he saw him, and felt the scars in his hands and side.  Too often in today’s world, we miss the Savior, and follow a counterfeit, precisely because we don’t test the spirits, as 1^st John 4.1-3 tells us to do.  Often we miss the Lord himself because we follow the false Christs and the false prophets that Jesus himself warned us of in the Gospels.  However, we can also miss Jesus if we seek for too much proof, or if we rely on signs, miracles, and extraordinary too heavily.  There does come a time when faith must become mature.  As Hebrews 11 states, we cannot have a relationship with Jesus Christ without faith.

 

Conclusion – Did You See Him, or Did You Miss Him?

This is an important question today.  Easter is a time when we remember the Risen Savior.  People, Jesus Christ is Risen!  He is Risen, Indeed!  Don’t be afraid to seek for Jesus, because if you do, you will find him!  In each of the points above, we see that the disciples were looking for Jesus in one way or another following his resurrection.  Thomas could have easily stayed away from the meeting of the disciples in John 20.  The two on the road to Emmaus could easily have let their Walking Companion walk on.  Mary could have turned away from that Gardener.  Peter and the disciples with him could have rejected the advice given to them by the Stranger on the Shore.  The good news for them, and for us, is that they all recognized the Savior when he spoke to them in their deepest needs.  We all have troubles, doubts, fears, times of disappointment, and failings.  Nobody failed nor fell further than Peter, but Jesus restored him.  How about you, friend?  Whether are a sinner or a saint, we all need the Savior!  We all need to seek him, especially at the darkest hours of our need!  While the dark times are easy times to miss him, they are also easy times to find him!  Sinner, reach out to Jesus Christ today!  You will not be disappointed!  Jesus will not turn you away!  Saint, forget not where your salvation has come from!  Jesus waits to help you!  Turn to him today, seek him, and be able to say, “Yes!  I DID see him!  He IS Risen, indeed!”  Let’s pray…

 

Prayer – Father, there are times in our lives when we can miss seeing you.  There are long, hard roads where we are walking and we don’t always recognize you as you walk up beside us; there are times in gardens of broken hearts where we see you as merely the gardener; there are times where we try to escape and get away, when you follow us right to where we are; there are times where we need the proof and need to be reminded that what you said is true.  In these times, Father, help us – saint and sinner alike – to seek you, to seek your hand of salvation, restoration, and healing, and to hear you say our names and call us from the world!  I pray for the salvation of everyone who reads this message and lesson today, Father, and for comfort and healing for any brother or sister who reads this and needs this!  Bless thy majestic and matchless name, and we pray this in Jesus’ Name, Amen!

 

Verse to Remember

Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

–John 20.24