This morning, while out jogging, one of our readers walking her dog greeted me adding “you’re the minister aren’t you?”
I meet others less observant.
They get the I-know-I’ve–seen-his-face-somewhere look but struggle to make a connection. Then there are those who know me but to my chagrin I’ve forgotten either their name or where we met.
What “tabs” are on the files in the department in your head where you keep record of your acquaintances? How about: Those with odd names, The ones serving in stores and waiters, Parents of my kid’s friends, People at gym, or Business people I’ve only talked to on the phone.
Whatever happens don’t get those files mixed up!
Once, on a visit to Orlando, I was to meet a fellow pastor at 5pm outside a shop at the airport. I knew his name and he had mine. How hard could it be?
When I showed up there was a row of people standing outside the shop. Even discounting the ladies I couldn’t think how to recognize him. The things you imagine about someone mostly turn out wrong. I went from one startled person to the next with the hearty greeting “Rev. Jerry Applebee, I presume.”
Last year a weekly newsmagazine ran an article on the most likely structure of the face of Jesus I got to wondering if I’d recognize Him in a crowd. Having visited the Middle East I am here to tell you that all those Hollywood portrayals – the ones with the long brown hair and the piercing blue eyes are dead wrong. The light skinned complexion – wrong too! The six-foot frame is also very unlikely. I could easily have walked by on a busy Jerusalem street the One whose Name I have revered for decades.
What irony. No faces from antiquity are more reproduced in art than that of Jesus of Nazareth, yet most would be far off the mark. You need something else to help you recognize Jesus. He doesn’t wear a nametag.
In the first chapter of John the disciple’s account of the life of Christ I found a sad observation: “Though the world was made by Him, the world did not recognize Him.”
The narrative starts with the assertion that the Creator of the world so loved us that He stepped out of eternity into time. Not with pomp and ceremony. He identified with the poorest and the most humble of humanity.
That was the problem. The self-exalting, power worshiping, evil system that we pass on generationally rejected this divine love offer.
Driving home his point John added: “He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him, yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His Name He gave the right to become children of God.”
We grumble that its so much harder now, thousands of years later, to believe that Jesus was indeed God in an “earth suit.”
Jesus was born in Bethlehem at the zenith of the Roman Empire. Many messianic predictions in Old Testament prophecy were fulfilled in His remarkable life. Add to that the charismatic preaching of John the Baptist. He had thousands of followers and yet boldly called Jesus “The One, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
How come they didn’t recognize Him? He was not what was desired in the popular concept of a national redeemer from slavery to Rome. He preached love, forgiveness, charity and compassion on your enemies. On the other hand the prophet Zechariah predicted His entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. Either He was the One or that whole scene was just a shabby, mismanaged and ultimately futile attempt to grab power.
The reasons they didn’t get it then are still with us today. I’m surrounded by people who have the same battle with recognizing Jesus that I do.
We are looking for One who will answer our prayers, give us happiness, help people like us and keep difficulties out of our lives.
He’s the one who says selfishness must die for you to be a disciple.
That’s the clash. Therein lies the failure to recognize who Jesus really is.
To believe in His Name implies to surrender your ambitions of personal aggrandizement.
