Seeing Jesus

Christianity holds that Jesus rose and then ascended into heaven, but a long line of believers across nearly every century has reported seeing, hearing, meeting, and even touching him in bodily form. Robert Hudson takes up these reports in Seeing Jesus, following the people who described such encounters, from the apostles Thomas and Paul in the first century to Charles Finney in the nineteenth and Sundar Singh in the twentieth.

Hudson moves between history, biography, spiritual reflection, and skepticism, with a tone that is both wry and reverent. Some of the accounts he examines are moving, and others seem almost ridiculous, including one in which Jesus turns up in a cup of coffee. He also looks at Julian of Norwich, who said that Christ appeared to her during a life-threatening illness to reassure her that everything would turn out well.

The book introduces readers to figures of deep conviction, among them Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Silouan the Athonite, and Sojourner Truth, all of whom describe direct encounters with Christ. Throughout, Hudson draws out what these experiences might mean for believers today.

The result is a history of Christian experience that is closely analytical and also devotional in spirit, suited to readers interested in church history, mysticism, and the claims people have made about seeing Jesus.