Imagine standing out in the desert in a crowed listening to John the Baptizer proclaim the coming of the Kingdom. He is unconcerned about the attitudes of the ruling authorities, both religious and secular, as he condemns their wrongdoings and proclaims the coming Messiah. He speaks as one emboldened by God, not worried about what might happen to him. There is an energy in the air, an excitement that the moment might have finally arrived. John says, “among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie” (John 1:26-27).
Can you imagine that moment? You begin to look around at all the ordinary people around you. One of them? Maybe you look at their feet to see if their sandals give something away. You go home and all night you ponder if you stood next to God’s anointed and didn’t even know it! You’re intrigued and you make the journey back out to see John again. As you listen to him preach his demeanor changes and his eyes get big, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” You turn to see the guy who shared his lunch with you the day before. You remember the feeling you had in the way he saw you and the joy in his generosity, but you didn’t think much about it. How could someone so ordinary be the promised Messiah? Imagine years later you meet one of Jesus’s disciples and find out that the one you shared a meal with was God in the flesh!
The first step we’re focusing on making this year is a step toward God. John the Baptized recognized Jesus for who he is because he had eyes to see. In his proclamation of Jesus’s identity, he doesn’t announce him as the Lion of Judah, a common title for the King. He points to him as the “Lamb of God.” In the hundreds of years of waiting and expecting the coming of the King, are you supposed to get excited for someone who is identified with dying?
When I am most honest with myself, I often want a god that is different than the God I have. I want him to smite my enemies, bring me prosperity and all my wants, and give me the power I deserve in this world. But that isn’t the God I have. The God I have is the one who breaks the systems of oppression, violence, and brokenness to bring redemption and reconciliation to a creation that he loves deeply. God often acts in ways that surprises his people. This is the God we are called to worship.
As you plan to take steps this year toward God, wrestle with these questions:
Where do you see God in ordinary places and people? Where do you struggle to see God? Pray – Lord, give me eyes to see.
Take time to draw a picture of God or write a description of who God is to you. What does this tell you about your view of God? Does this view match what you see in Jesus? Pray – Lord, give me eyes to see.
What is one small step toward God you can make this year to create space to develop your eyes to recognize God around you?
Years ago, I was reading the book Simply Christian by NT Wright and I came across these two sentences at the beginning of his chapter on worship. They gave me pause and have stuck with me ever sense: “When we begin to glimpse the reality of God, the natural reaction is to worship him. Not to have that reaction is a fairly sure sign that we haven't yet really understood who he is or what he's done.”
This Sunday we are going to turn our attention to one of the most spectacular worship scenes in the Bible – Revelation 4-5. Take some time this week to read these two chapters.
What do you see going on?
What gives cause for worship?
Where in this life are there doors standing open in heaven for us to see God’s glory?
What does it mean to be in the Spirit?
Jesus is the one who is worthy of opening the scroll and sharing the end of the story. How does knowing the end of the story change your perspective of what happens here and now and lead you into a place of deeper worship?