Tonight at church we read the resurrection accounts from John's Gospel, where Mary Magdalene sees angels, and later mistakes Jesus for the gardener. This is a very different story from the Matthew readings I heard this morning, where guards "became like dead men" upon seeing an angel.
In John's gospel, Jesus somehow had to have changed in appearance from how he looked in this life if Mary Magdalene did not recognize him at first. The angels also seem to be something everyday somehow, and are people one asks questions of, not the terrifying beings we're usually told about.
If we were to just have this gospel account to go from, and if we were to lay over this account into today's world, I'm not sure this account would be very convincing to anybody - especially my agnostic or atheist friends, because it seems so subjective.
Tonight, Mary doesn't recognize Jesus until he calls her by name. In a couple weeks, in Luke, we'll hear about those on the road to Emmaus who don't recognize Jesus until he breaks bread with them.
Jesus's and the angels' appearance looks typical, perhaps, until overlaid with a mystical meaning that is mediated through a very personal experience.
All of this seems to give support to the idea that faith is ultimately an irrational and subjective thing, something that can only come to us through our own unique way we're set up to receive types of holy information. It seems increasingly ridiculous to me that one can successfully reason one's way to faith in God. Yet, we know when we've heard it, because it's unmistakable (and, apparently, life changing) once we have.
What can I do, if anything, to help others hear holy information?
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