that it was Jesus." A strange thing that! Why did they not know Him?
Because they were not looking for Him in such a scene. It had seemed a
natural thing, if Jesus should appear at all, that He should appear in
the garden, a vision of life at the very altar of death. It seemed yet
more probable and appropriate that He should appear in the upper room,
that room made sacred by holiest love and memory. If any words of
Christ yet lingered in the mind and had power to thrill them, they
were surely these words, "Ye shall see the Son of man coming in the
clouds of heaven," glorified, triumphant, lifted far above the earth
and its humble life. And so, if they were looking for Christ at all
that morning, I think they watched the morning clouds, expecting Him
to come down the resplendent staircase of the sunbeams to call the
nations together and vindicate Himself in acts of universal judgment.
And behold! Jesus comes as a fisherman standing on the lakeside, busy
over a little fire, where the morning meal is cooking; and behold!
Jesus speaks, and it is not of the eternal mysteries of God, not of
the solemn secrets of the grave, but of nets and fishing and how to
cast the nets--the simple concerns of simple men engaged in humble
tasks.

No wonder they did not recognize Him. Once more the Son of Man comes
eating and drinking, and even the eyes that knew Him best can not see
in this human figure by the lakeside the only begotten Son of the
Father, full of grace and truth. They looked and saw but a fellow
fisherman, cooking his meal upon the shore, and they knew not that it
was Jesus.

II. Think for a moment of the earthly life of Christ, and you will
see that it was designedly linked with all the common and even the
commonest things of life.