Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. – Mark 16:12

Today's Scripture Reading (February 22, 2024): Mark 16

Have you ever laid on your back looking up at the clouds in the sky on a summer afternoon and watched as dinosaurs or alligators slowly crossed the sky before your eyes? Or looked up into the stars at night to see the constellations seem to dance before you? When I was a kid, I delivered newspapers in the early morning hours, and I spent time looking at the stars above my head as I walked from house to house. My favorite constellation was Orion the Hunter. I often saw him stand just above the horizon with his sword raised above his head and a dagger hanging from his belt as he appeared to watch over my early morning walk.

There is a scientific answer to our pastime of seeing images in the sky. Our brain is actively looking at things and trying to give them meaning. It uses our past to accomplish the task. And so, we see recognizable profiles in what is really just random shapes. But our brains also do something else. They often reveal what we expect to see rather than what is truly there. We see what our brains tell us we should see; we also see with all our prejudices intact shaping our thought process rather than understanding what is actually happening. And as incredible and impossible as that seems, it is one factor that makes eyewitness testimony so unreliable. It all starts with our expectations.

It is also the reason for the similarities and differences in our testimonies regarding the afterlife. I have read many of the books on heaven and hell and, you may not want to hear this, I don't think these individuals have received images from God of either heaven or hell. It seems that the visions these people have received have matched well with the expectations of the one receiving the vision. A friend recommended a book to me, written about a dream that a woman received about hell, and in reading the book, I was reminded of the worst of all the hellfire and brimstone sermons that I had heard in my youth. It was what she expected, and so it is what she saw.

Mark here seems to allude to the story about a couple of disciples on the road to Emmaus that Luke tells in more detail. Maybe one of the most often asked questions about the story is how this pair of disciples did not recognize Jesus as they walked and talked on the road. But Mark offers us an answer: Jesus appeared in "a different form." Essentially, Jesus was disguised, so Cleopas and his friend didn't see their new friend for who he really was.

But there is another possibility. Cleopas and his friend had been in Jerusalem for the Passover. Now, Sunday morning had arrived, all the Sabbath Day travel restrictions had been lifted, and these two people were making their way to Emmaus. As far as they were concerned, Jesus had died on the cross on Friday Afternoon. Peter and the apostles might have had some hard decisions to make, but for those not part of the core group of the apostles, now was time to get out of town.

They weren't expecting to see Jesus, so they didn't see him until that moment in Emmaus when Jesus broke the bread. They saw what they expected to see, or maybe more to the point, they didn't see what they didn't expect to see. But before this day was over, they would receive a gift that they didn't expect to get but greatly needed: the presence of Jesus.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Luke 24