Nobody can see God—even when he’s standing right in front of them.

When the Bible says this, the claim is more than merely that God is some sort of dark matter: It’s saying you cannot even look at the world and reason your way to understand him. He and his work do not seem to make sense to us. That is what it means for him to be truly unseen.

And yet whoever and wherever you are: He is there. He is speaking to you. You just don’t recognise him, because of the way you rely on your own senses and thoughts.

You might not believe God exists. But belief does not begin with what you can work out.

This is, at least in part, the message of Easter Monday. On the day Jesus rose from the dead, this happened (Luke 24:13-16):

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

The failure of these disciples to recognise Jesus wasn’t because of a lack of information. Jesus demonstrates this with a couple of well targeted questions that reveal these people know about everything that’s happened, including that Jesus had risen that morning (Luke 24:17-24):

And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”

These men are living examples that the reason people cannot see God in the world is not lack of information. In reality, God’s existence, his nature as God, and his power are evidenced by the world (as the apostle Paul explains in Romans 1:20). But this information simply cannot open our eyes to recognise him. Because God cannot be seen in information and evidence. If men who walked with Jesus every day, watched everything that happened closely, heard the women tell them the tomb was empty and an angel testify that Jesus had risen from the dead—if even these men cannot recognise Jesus standing in front of them, then absolutely nobody else could recognise God if we saw him walking around today.

You can have all the right information about Jesus—and still not recognise him.

Jesus explains that the problem is not a lack of information or evidence, it is their inherent belief in their own faculties of belief, rather than simple trust in God, that keeps them from seeing the truth (Luke 24:25-26):

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”

And so what does Jesus now do to “open their eyes”?

He gives them the Word from the scriptures that on the cross he forgave all people (Luke 24:27; cf. vv. 44-48) and his own body and blood that actually delivers this forgiveness to all who receive it (Luke 24:30-31).

Jesus opens people’s eyes to see and know him. He doesn’t do that through reasonable arguments, evidence, logic, or any dose of “more information.”

Jesus opens people’s eyes simply as they hear and receive the Gospel: the universal declaration that God has forgiven all sins in Jesus—God is in a good mood with you! And you see that when you look at Jesus.

This story has been read on Easter Monday from some of the earliest times of the church, because on Friday Jesus died to forgive everyone, on Sunday he rose from the dead to declare it to everyone, and on Monday he says “Now receive it.”

The problem is not that Jesus is absent from your life. It’s not that you don’t have enough information. Nor that you need to do something to figure him out.

The problem is you don’t recognise him.

Hear this Gospel Word that actually delivers this forgiveness of sins any Sunday at Manchester Lutheran Church, or Wednesday online with the Confessional Lutheran Church.