The Resurrected Addict*

The risen Jesus and the recovering addict are a lot alike. “Heresy?” You say.  I think not.  When Jesus rose from the dead no one recognized him.  People who had known him thought that he was a fellow traveler on the road to Emmaus, or the gardener to Mary Magdalene, or a ghost to his cowardly disciples.  When he called out to them from shore while they were fishing, they did not know it was him.  Jesus risen was totally unrecognizable.  But he was still Jesus.  When a person gets deep into recovery from an addiction, you can hear their old acquaintances say, “We don’t even recognize you.”  This is what we call a spiritual change.  I call it resurrection, eternal life, a new person, but in fact it is the same person whose spiritual insides have changed their outsides.  Recovery meetings are filled with resurrected people.