Revealing Christ
Text: Mark 1:4-11
I remember once taking a road trip with a friend of mine… It’s hard to believe that it’s almost 20 years ago now. Keith and I made the trip from Calgary, with our easternmost destination New York City. In all, we were away from home for approximately three weeks… The bulk of our trip was through the United States, and the idea was simply to stop in each place and see what was there. Armed with our handy guides from the CAA, we were going to see as much as we could.
One of our stops along the way was a town called Charlottesville, in Northern Virginia. We were heading towards Washington DC, to simply absorb all the sights there. Our stop in Charlottesville was to visit some of the historical sites there. Thomas Jefferson had made a large impact on the town’s architecture, and even maintained his own private residence there. Our plan really was to take our time, to not be so busy, and spend some time in a place we wouldn’t otherwise have thought about before we went into Washington DC itself.
Yet while we were there, in our efforts to get from point A to point B, to make sure that we saw all the sights, we walked past a handful of people standing around a fairly tall man dressed in a nice suit. Yet Keith and I were so busy, trying to get to see some of these points of American history, that we didn’t stop. There was no reason to really… and we had places to be.
It wasn’t until we had stopped in a store later that day. The clerk asked us if we had seen the person on the street, and stopped to talk to him. When we hadn’t, the clerk shook his head, and told us we had missed an opportunity of encountering real part of American history. We had walked by boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
An irony to be sure: we were so busy trying to visit places of American history, that we walked right past it.
This early in the New Year, after all the hubbub of Christmas is dying down we begin a new church season that we really don’t pay that much attention to. Epiphany is that gap between the end of Christmas, and the beginning of Lent. For many of us, we’re getting ready to make our way south for a few weeks or a few months. For others, we’re either recovering from Christmas, or that we’re now back into the beginning-of-the-year flow at work. Either way, when it comes to faith, this is the season that we’re in the most danger of simply walking past on our way to something else.
Yet on this first Sunday in the season called Epiphany, I think it’s really important for us to consider what we might be walking past. If there is a theme that we need to pay attention to over the next two months, it is all about Revealing Christ. All the stories that we will hear, all the focus of our worship, is about how God is revealed in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth on one level, and reflecting on how God in Christ is revealed in our own lives on the second. Really, for our own Spiritual growth, this is not a season, really, that we should simply walk past on our way to Easter. We can’t be so busy trying to learn about Jesus, that we walk right past him.
So we come to Mark. Mark has always been a simple storyteller. Unlike almost any other story that we read, Mark writes the gospel in the present tense… it’s lost in translation because that’s simply not how we do things in English. Here’s a slightly different take:
So, John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness calling for baptism and a change of heart that lead to forgiveness of sins. And everyone from the Judean countryside, and all the residents of Jerusalem streamed out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan river, admitting their sins. And John was dressed in camel hair [and wore a leather belt around his waist] and lived on locusts and raw honey. And he began his proclamation by saying:
“Someone more powerful than I will succeed me, whose sandal straps I am not fit to bend down and untie. I have been baptizing you with water, but he will baptize you with the holy spirit.”
During that same period, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. And just as he got up out of the water, he saw the skies torn open and the spirit coming down toward him like a dove. There was also a voice from the skies: “You are my favoured son, I fully approve of you.”
Until this point, Jesus was simply Joe Average in a crowd. Matthew and Luke tell these wondrous stories of his early life, but even in those gospels there’s a massive gap in time. Mark seems completely unconcerned with what Jesus’ early life was like. He immediately starts with John the Baptizer, and Jesus simply being one of the masses.
Nobody realized it… and even the way that Mark tells it… John proclaims the Messiah, but it’s not until after he’s baptized, when he comes out of the water, that Christ is first revealed. Matthew and Luke have their own takes on what happened, but Mark reports it very simply. This is a transition point, where an otherwise unremarkable man… that nobody would pay attention to… to someone who would change the course of history. It is a defining moment in the muddy waters of a small river… a moment where God is revealed… and yet it is a moment that could be so easily missed.
It is important for us to ask ourselves how often we take a moment to reflect on how God is revealed in our life. How often do we do that in a given week? Chances are we don’t, because we’re so busy doing other things that it simply slips by. Similar to my own experience in Charlottesville, Roger sent me this story via email. I did some fact-checking, and it was one of the few stories floating around the internet that is, in fact, true.[1]
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.
A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100. This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour:Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?
In terms of our faith, how many times do we miss God revealing something in our midst? If we don’t take a moment, we could be unaware that God is revealing Christ right in front of our eyes.
How many of you still have that coin that we passed out on the first Sunday in Advent? While it us very much themed around the hope of Advent, I would encourage you to keep it with you. It can maybe be a reminder of Epiphany. Maybe it can be a reminder that Christ is often revealed in places that we hardly expect or imagine… because if we’re not careful, we might just miss it.
Amen.
[1] http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bell.asp
I remember once taking a road trip with a friend of mine… It’s hard to believe that it’s almost 20 years ago now. Keith and I made the trip from Calgary, with our easternmost destination New York City. In all, we were away from home for approximately three weeks… The bulk of our trip was through the United States, and the idea was simply to stop in each place and see what was there. Armed with our handy guides from the CAA, we were going to see as much as we could.
One of our stops along the way was a town called Charlottesville, in Northern Virginia. We were heading towards Washington DC, to simply absorb all the sights there. Our stop in Charlottesville was to visit some of the historical sites there. Thomas Jefferson had made a large impact on the town’s architecture, and even maintained his own private residence there. Our plan really was to take our time, to not be so busy, and spend some time in a place we wouldn’t otherwise have thought about before we went into Washington DC itself.
Yet while we were there, in our efforts to get from point A to point B, to make sure that we saw all the sights, we walked past a handful of people standing around a fairly tall man dressed in a nice suit. Yet Keith and I were so busy, trying to get to see some of these points of American history, that we didn’t stop. There was no reason to really… and we had places to be.
It wasn’t until we had stopped in a store later that day. The clerk asked us if we had seen the person on the street, and stopped to talk to him. When we hadn’t, the clerk shook his head, and told us we had missed an opportunity of encountering real part of American history. We had walked by boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
An irony to be sure: we were so busy trying to visit places of American history, that we walked right past it.
This early in the New Year, after all the hubbub of Christmas is dying down we begin a new church season that we really don’t pay that much attention to. Epiphany is that gap between the end of Christmas, and the beginning of Lent. For many of us, we’re getting ready to make our way south for a few weeks or a few months. For others, we’re either recovering from Christmas, or that we’re now back into the beginning-of-the-year flow at work. Either way, when it comes to faith, this is the season that we’re in the most danger of simply walking past on our way to something else.
Yet on this first Sunday in the season called Epiphany, I think it’s really important for us to consider what we might be walking past. If there is a theme that we need to pay attention to over the next two months, it is all about Revealing Christ. All the stories that we will hear, all the focus of our worship, is about how God is revealed in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth on one level, and reflecting on how God in Christ is revealed in our own lives on the second. Really, for our own Spiritual growth, this is not a season, really, that we should simply walk past on our way to Easter. We can’t be so busy trying to learn about Jesus, that we walk right past him.
So we come to Mark. Mark has always been a simple storyteller. Unlike almost any other story that we read, Mark writes the gospel in the present tense… it’s lost in translation because that’s simply not how we do things in English. Here’s a slightly different take:
So, John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness calling for baptism and a change of heart that lead to forgiveness of sins. And everyone from the Judean countryside, and all the residents of Jerusalem streamed out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan river, admitting their sins. And John was dressed in camel hair [and wore a leather belt around his waist] and lived on locusts and raw honey. And he began his proclamation by saying:
“Someone more powerful than I will succeed me, whose sandal straps I am not fit to bend down and untie. I have been baptizing you with water, but he will baptize you with the holy spirit.”
During that same period, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. And just as he got up out of the water, he saw the skies torn open and the spirit coming down toward him like a dove. There was also a voice from the skies: “You are my favoured son, I fully approve of you.”
Until this point, Jesus was simply Joe Average in a crowd. Matthew and Luke tell these wondrous stories of his early life, but even in those gospels there’s a massive gap in time. Mark seems completely unconcerned with what Jesus’ early life was like. He immediately starts with John the Baptizer, and Jesus simply being one of the masses.
Nobody realized it… and even the way that Mark tells it… John proclaims the Messiah, but it’s not until after he’s baptized, when he comes out of the water, that Christ is first revealed. Matthew and Luke have their own takes on what happened, but Mark reports it very simply. This is a transition point, where an otherwise unremarkable man… that nobody would pay attention to… to someone who would change the course of history. It is a defining moment in the muddy waters of a small river… a moment where God is revealed… and yet it is a moment that could be so easily missed.
It is important for us to ask ourselves how often we take a moment to reflect on how God is revealed in our life. How often do we do that in a given week? Chances are we don’t, because we’re so busy doing other things that it simply slips by. Similar to my own experience in Charlottesville, Roger sent me this story via email. I did some fact-checking, and it was one of the few stories floating around the internet that is, in fact, true.[1]
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.
A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100. This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour:Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?
In terms of our faith, how many times do we miss God revealing something in our midst? If we don’t take a moment, we could be unaware that God is revealing Christ right in front of our eyes.
How many of you still have that coin that we passed out on the first Sunday in Advent? While it us very much themed around the hope of Advent, I would encourage you to keep it with you. It can maybe be a reminder of Epiphany. Maybe it can be a reminder that Christ is often revealed in places that we hardly expect or imagine… because if we’re not careful, we might just miss it.
Amen.
[1] http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bell.asp
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