What’s the best Halloween costume you’ve ever seen (or worn)?

I’m particularly fond of costumes involving puns.

Like the fellow who wore a tuxedo with the word “Sorry” pinned to his shirt and went out trick-or-treating as “a formal apology.”

Or the lady who taped a dozen photocopies of pictures of her cat to her shirt. Alert people recognized her costume as that of a “copy cat.”

A simple and clever Halloween costume involves wearing a Groucho Marx-style fake nose and glasses combo, along with a name tag that reads: “Blessing.” This makes you a “blessing in disguise”!

Did you know that Jesus occasionally appeared “in disguise”?

There were a few times after Jesus’ resurrection when His friends didn’t immediately recognize Him. It seems His identity was obscured from them temporarily.

One occasion involves several of the disciples as they were walking on the road to Emmaus, after Jesus had been crucified. The story is told in Luke 24:13-35.

The disciples were discussing the momentous events of the past weeks in Jerusalem. As they conversed, Jesus Himself appeared and walked along with them, but they didn’t know who He was. As Scripture says,

“God kept them from recognizing him.” (Luke 24:16)

They told Him of their hopes that Jesus would have turned out to be the Messiah. They also mentioned the rumour that several of His women followers had found that His body was missing from the tomb, and had been told by angels that He had risen from the grave. It was clear they were mystified and dubious about what had actually happened.

Still incognito, Jesus chided them for their lack of belief and explained that the Old Testament Scriptures showed that the Messiah had to suffer. He conversed with them at length, speaking of Himself in the third person. It wasn’t until he broke bread with them that their eyes were opened and they realized it had been the risen Christ talking to them the whole time.

But why did Jesus deliberately veil His identity?

Perhaps He wanted them to think things through themselves and connect up the Old Testament prophecies to what had just happened in Jerusalem. Maybe they needed to do the work of figuring all this out for themselves, based on their knowledge of Scripture. Maybe it was more important for them to learn this lesson than for them to immediately recognize Jesus.

Another post-resurrection case of mistaken identity involves Mary Magdalene, as found in John 20. She had come to the tomb, expecting to find Jesus’ body there. Instead she found it empty.

As she wept, two angels asked her why she was crying. Her answer focusses on the whereabouts of Jesus’ missing body, not on any hope that He had been resurrected.

Then Jesus Himself appeared: Mary, however, mistook Him for the gardener. This could have been due to the dim early morning light, or to her copious tears. But perhaps we have a similar situation to the one on the road to Emmaus.

Jesus asks Mary the exact same question the angels did: “Dear woman, why are you crying?”

Why did Jesus repeat the question? After all, He would have known how she’d answered it the first time.

Perhaps He was trying to get her to recall His own predictions that He would die and be resurrected. Faced with angels, an empty tomb, and repeated questions as to why on earth she would be crying, Jesus was pointing her to the miraculous event she should have clued into: that He had indeed risen from the dead. He was trying to poke holes in her unbelief and get her to piece things together herself.

Sometimes I think God does the same sort of thing with us. He “disguises” Himself, as it were, and doesn’t immediately show up and tell us the reasons for what we’re going through. He wants us to seek Him, dig deeper into Scripture, and trust in the promises we already have. We learn something at a deeper level if we have to figure out the answer ourselves.

There’s another facet to these stories. In both cases, Jesus’ followers were wondering what had become of Him, but where was He really?

Right beside them.

It’s the same for us. In our grief and distress, where is Jesus? Right there with us. He might be in a form we don’t recognize, such as a neighbour bringing over a treat, or a friend from church reaching out to us.

But no matter the “disguise” Jesus adopts, we can be assured that He’ll never leave us or forsake us!

Truly, you are a God who hides himself,
O God of Israel, the Savior.

isaiah 45:15

© 2024 Lori J. Cartmell. All rights reserved.