The Otherness of the Risen Christ

One of the strangest features of the resurrection narratives is precisely this theme of the otherness, the unrecognizability, of the risen Jesus.  Three major stories (Luke’s Emmaus episode, John’s account of Mary Magdalene at the tomb, and the ‘Galilean fantasia’ which concludes his Gospel) underline the point.  Whatever the experiences of the disciples at Easter were, it is hard to deny that this element must have played a part—that for some at least, the encounter with the risen Jesus began as an encounter with a stranger....  Once again, John crystalizes this most powerfully by presenting the disciples in their fishing boats, as if they had never known Jesus: they must begin again.

So the void of the tomb and the unrecognizable face of the risen Lord both speak of the challenge of Easter to a God who is primarily “the God of our condition.”  The Lordship of Jesus is not constructed from a recollection but experienced in the encounter with the one who evades our surface desires and surface needs, and will not subserve the requirements of our private dramas.

— from Resurrection, by Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury

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