Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

John 12:9-19

“His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.”

I’m often struck by the dramatic flair of John’s Gospel. If our only testimony of the early Christians were the verses written here, we might imagine a Jesus that would get top billing on a Broadway stage. Notice what the Pharisee says in verse 19: “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.” Or, from the story, we are tempted to believe that an enormous throng of people interrupted their usual business in Jerusalem to welcome Jesus as a new king.

I’m much more attracted to the idea that Jesus preferred local theatre to large Broadway productions. The events described here were most likely simple and humble affairs but with time took on a much larger meaning. The resurrection event had such an enormous impact on the early Christians that it transformed their lives and their memories of Jesus. While his followers may not have completely understood the simple drama of Jesus riding on a donkey’s colt, Easter gave them new eyes. Armed with a much clearer vision of Jesus’ identity, they plumbed the depths of their collective memory and the seemingly small acts took on greater significance.

The magnifying effects of Jesus’ Easter identity are still available to us today. I read recently that Mother Teresa saw others through the magnifying lens of Jesus’ compassion: “I see Jesus in every human being,” she said. “I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.”

How can the small, ordinary encounters of everyday life take on deeper meaning when we see them from Christ’s perspective? 

-David Shumaker