Can you see greatness?

Can you see greatness . . . like height or hair color?

Jesus’ followers did not see God standing before them. In fact, that thought was blasphemy.

The God of Israel was not subject to fickle human foibles like Zeus or Neptune, both of whom had been imported into Galilee following Alexander’s conquest. The God of Israel did not share his glory with a man, even though emperor worship had already begun with Caesar Augustus. (Keep in mind that Lake Galilee was renamed for the reigning emperor, Tiberias.)

The devout of Israel rejected the Greek gods and Roman emperor worship. In Jesus, they were looking at one like their pre-eminent king, one like David. But unlike David, Jesus never engaged in a fight. He had no armor, no sword, not even a sling.

But at the same time, a few had seen Jesus calm a storm, and twelve had seen Jesus walk on water. Surely, this power could be weaponized!

Can we pause for a moment? Let us inhabit the story as Jesus and his disciples wait in the remote region of Ephraim. Philip Yancey comments on the challenge of this task:

“The creeds repeated in churches tell about Christ’s eternal preexistence and glorious afterlife, but largely ignored his earthly career. . . . [This] is the problem with most of our writing and thinking about Jesus.  We read the Gospels through the flash forward lenses of church councils like Nicaea and Chalcedon, to the churches studied attempts to make sense of him.”**

Let’s return to the story. Inhabit the moment. It makes us ask, for example, why didn’t Jesus weaponize his power? And why did the disciples continue to follow one who constantly did not meet their expectations?

Did the disciples see greatness in the earthy carpenter-turned-teacher sitting in front of them?

** Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), 22, 24.