The fact that the disciples didn’t acknowledge Jesus immediately following his resurrection isn’t their fault, nor is it a result of negligence. During the years they had spent living with Jesus, they had seen God in the form of a human being who was like them. After the resurrection, Jesus appears to them as the Lord. He is no longer perceptible in the same way as before.
Luke’s Gospel recounts the story of the two disciples who, after the crucifixion of Jesus, had lost hope and resolved to leave Jerusalem and return to Emmaus, which we can presume was their native village. Luke says that even though Jesus was walking with these disciples—the Jesus they had lived with for several years—they did not know it was him. A major obstacle to recognizing Jesus is that the two disciples were so caught up with their take on the events that they were not able to pay attention to the stranger who had joined them. They were focused on the past, “conversing about all the things that had occurred” and afraid because their expectations for the future had been crushed: “We were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:14, 21).
Interestingly, their sorrow, anxiety, and distraction were heightened to the point that not only did they lack awareness of the Lord’s presence by their side, but they also had no self-awareness. They were unable to realize at the onset that something inside them began to change the very moment the stranger joined them. They acknowledged this reality only after “their eyes were opened” as he joined them for a meal: “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:31, 32).
Too often, we prevent ourselves from being in the present with worry about the past, anxiety for the future, sorrow, and disappointment. These mental blockades keep us from abiding in the present moment and realizing that the solution and the salvage to our woes are right under our noses.