DO YOU KNOW HIM?
In 1985 neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote a book describing some of the case histories of his patients who had disorders. One of the, a man with visual agnosia, was the origin was the book’s title, The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
It’s a funny title, and kind of a funny idea. But, it’s also kind of sad. Sad because it is true. And sad when you don’t recognize people you ought to know.
As I’m sure you know by now, I’m dyslexic. It does not run in my family, it gallops. My mother, who graduated from HS at the top of her class just a couple of weeks after her fourteenth birthday, could not look at a round clock face and tell you want time it is.
My grandfather, a towering figure at 6’4” was famous in our family for walking past the ticket salesman at a theater where we’d already gone on through with his tickets. Afraid the ticket salesman might think he was dishonest, he smiled broadly, pointed at my mother and said, “It’s OK, I’m her daughter.”
My son, Stephen, who could read over 1200 words a minute in the fifth grade, came upstairs to ask me one time, “Dad, what’s lysdexic?”
Well, dyslexic people have a harder time than most at recognizing faces. Who knows why? Just the way the brain works. Or, in my case, doesn’t work. Our brains just don’t work like normal brains.
But it’s awkward, embarrassing, and sometimes sad when you don’t recognize someone you ought to know.
So, here’s Jesus, standing up in front the best educated theologians of his day and tell them, in his hillbilly Galilean accent, that are in worse shape that the man who mistook his wife for a hat.
John 8:12-19
12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
13 The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.”
14 Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”
19 Then they asked him, “Where is your father?”
“You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
One reason it is easy not to recognize someone is when there isn’t enough light. Light slipping back into my seat at the movies, taking Linda’s hand, and whispering, “Did I miss anything?” only to hear Linda’s voice coming from right behind me, “Ah, just your seat.” Talk about needed to offer a few quick apologies.
Turn up the lights so I can see you, so you can see me seeing you. Before they remodeled the chapel, though, everyone who spoke hear know the problem was not the lack of light, but where the lights were placed. I mean, you’d stand up to speak, Mary would hit the lights and
That can reveal or, in other instances, light can blind.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
So, there’s only place to stand so that the light will not blind you, and that’s following Jesus.
What does it mean to follow Jesus?
Is it like a celestial game of Simon Says. OK, now, Jesus says stand up. Now Jesus says read your Bibles. Now, say a prayer. Ah, wait. Gotchu – I didn’t say Jesus says.
Or, is following Jesus like a game of hide seek. Like “Where’s Waldo,” except if you lose, you got to hell. OK, now, where’s Jesus.
This past December the Millennium Health Club Christmas display was vandalized and someone absconded with the life size replica of Baby Jesus. It seemed appropriate, then, when the Assembly of God church just up the street posted their sermon topic for the Sunday before Advent: “Where’s Jesus Today?” I don’t know about you, but I’d suggest the police take a good look in that church building.
Now, that’s ironic, isn’t it. Everyone looking for Jesus and no one thinking to start by checking in the church?
I mean, isn’t church were we follow Jesus? Or, at least, isn’t it where we study to follow Jesus, or, maybe we should have the candor to say, it’s where a lot of people gather to hear the result of what someone else has studied about following Jesus, most of them hoping to get out in time to beat find a good place to park at Golden Corral.
So, I mean, didn’t the Pharisees do all those things? Go to assembly. Study their Bibles. In fact, study them a lot more seriously than that bumbling group of nobodies Jesus gathered around him. And, how many of them had prayed, over and over again, with utter and absolute sincerity, “God of our Father, send us the Messiah.”
We like the make the Pharisees into clowns. Buffoons who are so self-important and pompous and patently evil that they come off a little like Simon Lagree out to take away the family farm from Ma, Pa, and little Liza May.
The reality was probably a little less comfortable. They were the Bible college professors, the most passionate church goers, the right-to-lifers marching against the evils of pagan society. They were the ones who studied more, memorized more, and, most importantly, discussed issues of theological importance more than ordinary day to day blue collar Jews surrounding them.
The problem with studying something that much is that you can literally miss the forest for the trees. After all, we ask. What kind of messiah were they waiting for? Ahh, that’s there problem. They were waiting for the WRONG Messiah. They wanted a what?
Super King?
Super David?
Super Savior?
That’s the one great pitfall with a Messiah you are hoping for. He can become whatever it is you want him to be. You know. Tall, Dark, Handsome. Republican. Anti-abortion. Pro-gun. Pro-choice. Just war. Pacifist. It doesn’t matter. A not-here-yet Messiah could be dressed anyway you want. And, you know, all we have to do believe in our own image of Jesus hard enough, long enough, click our heals together three times and
We all do that. Even if we don’t think we do. A noted historian, commenting on our movement’s confident assertion that we were restoring the pure NT church, once made the wry observation that Alexander Campbell looked down eighteen centuries of time to see the face of Jesus, and, behold, He was a Protestant. Would we know Him, really know Him, if he showed up. What would we look for?
[NOTE: These were all accompanied by a drawing or picture on PowerPoint slide]
The Jesus of Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ”?
Or maybe the Warner Sallman portrait for 1940 hanging in the Loyal Daughters Sunday School class room since before you were born?
Or the “manly Jesus” of the 1980s?
Or maybe the navigator Jesus of the 1950s?
Do you want a happy Jesus?
Or a not-so-happy revolutionary Jesus?
How about a white Anglo-saxon patriotic American Jesus?
Or, for that matter, how about a black Jesus?
Or maybe a Chinese Jesus?
Maybe a 1960s hippy Jesus
Or an MTV Jesus?
As long as we’re at it, why not a Kung Fu Jesus?
Or a soccer Jesus?
Or just a Jesus to ride along with you and keep you safe on the highway?
Or, of course, we could always go with a Republican Jesus.
Are we so convinced that, unlike those bad ol’ Pharisees, we’ve got an image of the Messiah that is so close to who and what Jesus really is that we could pick him out of crowd? Do we really think He will pat us on the head, smile, and compliment us for not being like all those poor Anglicans or Puritans or Quakers or Amish or, worse yet, all those Papists. We, virtually alone, have stripped away all our prejudices and delusions to see Him in His full and true nature and mission.
That’s the great paradox, you know. Those who have studied the most are the least likely to approach Jesus with that self-aware emptying that says, “I don’t know that I have figured you out. I don’t even know that I understand some of the things you are saying. But I know enough to know that you alone have the word of eternal life and so, the truth is, I’m here because I have no where else to go.”
So, what does it mean to follow Jesus and stand in the Light?
Well, it doesn’t mean learning the Bible. I’ve met people in Africa who can hardly read who are standing in the light. I’ve met people who suffer from learning disabilities so severe they could never finish school, who are standing in the light. And, I’ve met people like Seth Wilson, who depth and breadth of knowledge of everything from the Bible to music to science was absolutely frightening, who are standing in the light.
The one thread that seems common is that these are people who deeply and passionately want to know Jesus better. Better than what? Certainly not better than you, or me, or anyone else around them. It’s not a comparative kind of better. It’s deeper than that.
It is as though they have tasted living water than may satisfy their longing for any other water, but leaves them an unquenchable thirst for more. Like a deer panting for water.
You do not know God . . .
I find those words deeply troubling, because these were men who believed they knew God. These were men who believed they wanted to know God. These were men whose entire lives were devoted to the pursuit of God. How could they not know that they did not know?
There’s a trap here, of course. I kind of irony like we find in Luke 18 in the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in the Temple.
“God, I thank you that I’m not like other men. I obey your word. I fast twice a week. I’m not like that sinful tax collector over there.”
And, then, the good guy. Well, actually, to be honest, a bad guy. Probably a scoundrel. Almost certainly a thief and a cheat and a liar. He can’t even bring himself to look up and beats his breast, saying, “Oh God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.”
And of course, the good humble bad guy goes on his way justified. So, I read it, and fall headlong into the trap Jesus has laid.
“God, I thank you that I’m not like that Pharisee over there. I thank you that I am a terrible sinner. (beat breast three times). I think you that I am humble (act humble here).” And of course, by seeing myself as the Publican I become the revised version of the Pharisee. Whereas, if I were to read the Bible and, blush with shame, seeing myself so clearly in the prayer of the Pharisee, and fall on my knees acknowledging my self inflated self righteousness, well, then, you know.
So, here’s the trap. No one, absolutely no one really had figured out the Messiah thing correctly. You say, well, Peter got it right in Matthew 16. Read it again, Jesus points out that if Peter did get it right it wasn’t because he had figured it all on his own.
When I read through John 8 so convinced that I am able to correctly see Jesus, absolutely certain that I’d be standing there among the silent minority, that I’m certainly following something. But, what?
The problem with studying anything a lot is that, the more I study, that more I tend to find proof that the things I want to believe are true are, in fact, true. Every phrase or verse that confirms my conclusions jumps out at me in bright bold letter, while those occasional verses that some misinformed people tell me go against my conclusions are all just misunderstood on the basis on content, context, or culture.
So, is there hope?
In verse 28 Jesus says, “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be.”
As David Erickson said this past February in what may be the most powerful message I’ve ever heard, we have to all begin by going back to the cross and standing there, in silent wonder and uncertainty, facing that most troubling question of all, “Am I responsible for this?”
And, of course, the answer is yes.
As John says in the beginning of his gospel –
He came into his own, but his own did not recognize him.
As the old spiritual says,
Sweet little Jesus boy they made you be born in a manger
Sweet little holy child
We didn’t know who you were
Sweet little Jesus boy they made you be born in a manger
Sweet little holy child
We didn’t know who you were
We didn’t know who you were
Didn’t know you’d come to save us
To take our sins away
Our eyes were blind we could not see
We didn’t know who you were
We didn’t know who you were
VIDEO: a portion of “That’s My King” sermon by the late Dr. S. M. Lockeridge
