Matthew
3:16-17
And
Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the
heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a
dove, and lighting upon him:
And
lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased.
Different people can
look upon the same scene and see it differently. The difference may be one of focus and/or interpretation,
but the difference will have real effects on the people when they leave the
scene. The optimistic prisoner see stars
and is consoled, while the pessimistic prisoner sees mud and deepens in
despondency. It’s just like the glass of
water that can either be declared half-empty or half-full. Half-empty leaves us feeling lacking, while
half-full lends a sense of possession.
Unless, of course, one doesn’t like to drink water and the goal is to
empty the glass – then, half-empty is encouraging, while half-full is
discouraging.
Sometimes, I think of
some of the Bible accounts of Jesus’s life like this. And I don’t just mean how they are viewed and
interpreted now. In Jesus’s time, in His
company, different people could see the same thing differently. The centurion at the foot of the Cross looked
upon Jesus and saw what was happening and declared that He must be the Son of
God. But, there were other people around
the Cross who did not share this conclusion.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus calls upon the Father to glorify His name
and a voice says from heaven, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there heard the sound but
said that it was thunder, while some others in the crowd said that it was an
angel speaking to Jesus.
How many things happen
in our lives that we believe to be ordinary and insignificant and, yet, can
turn out to be of great consequence? Perhaps
today or tomorrow we will literally bump into someone and the only thing will
receive in that moment is annoyance.
What if that moment, that brief encounter with a stranger, is actually
rich with meaning for our lives, but we are too hurried or too uptight to
recognize it? A loved one will say
something in passing to us this week, while we are busy doing something other
than listening, and we will murmur a response without really hearing what was
said. What will we miss? Perhaps a child, confused, will deepen in her
confusion; a spouse, misunderstanding, will feel unappreciated; a friend,
feeling lonely, will grow in loneliness; and none of them will be helped by us,
though their problems could have been rectified by simply hearing what was
coming from their heart (the voice from heaven) instead of ignoring the noise
of talking (the sound of thunder).
And how many of the
trials and tribulations in our lives do we see merely as pain and suffering and
not, perhaps, as something more, as pathways, though seemingly perilous, to more
wonderful, deep and beautiful experiences?
We cannot afford to be surface creatures. We often must take the time to delve deeper
into our lives, into the events around us, and, perhaps most importantly, into
the hearts of the people near us in order to find the great wealth within. Otherwise, we will merely skip about the
surface of things without being submerged into life. Perhaps, we will even be like some of the
people on the banks of the River Jordan who could not recognize Christ… one
among us but not known by us.
Christina Chase
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