I read an extract from Milton's "Paradise Lost" today. The angel who encountered Satan could not recognise in him the glorious Lucifer, bright morning star, that he had been before his rebellion against God and fall into evil.
It made me think of how a man I first met in a Maximum prison has experienced the same reaction but for the opposite reason.
He was a gangster from the age of thirteen, involved in drugs, prostitution, murder, full of hatred and bitterness, the epitome of the fallen Lucifer.
He was in and out of the prison system, from juvenile to adult, always involved in gangsterism until he encountered Jesus whilst serving his latest sentence in Maximum.
That meeting completely turned his life upside down.
The first time his mother came to visit after he'd committed his life to Jesus she walked right past him, not recognising her changed son.
Recently he's been moved from Maximum to Medium. Men from his past who knew him as the gangster lord on the outside and who'd been in and out of prison during his present sentence, didn't recognise him, he's changed so much.
Today his concern is how best to serve Jesus, to live and speak the gospel to those who are still living the life he once knew so well.
It could feel insulting if old "friends" and definitely if your mother walked past without recognising you but what a wonderful reason if it's because you once resembled Satan but now reflect Jesus.
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