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Thursday, January 19, 2012
Known From The Inside Out
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; John 1:43-51
You've probably seen the picture. It's a portrait of Jesus, with his eyes looking straight ahead at the viewer. If you move to the left or to the right, his eyes appear to follow you. The intention is to encourage you. To assure you that no matter where you are, Jesus is right there with you and he's watching out for you. Well and good, but potentially a little creepy, too.
I'm thinking of the joke you may have also heard.
A burglar stands in a darkened living room. He's cased the joint and knows the owners are out of town. But as he gets set to do his dirty work, he hears a voice: "Jesus is watching." Startled, he stands stock still. Silence. So he starts again, only to hear a second time: "Jesus is watching."
"Who's there?!" he asks.
"John the Baptist," comes the reply.
He turns on his mag light, aims it towards the voice, and he sees... a parrot!
"Who in the world," he mutters to himself, "would name a parrot John the Baptist?"
"Same guy," says the parrot, "who calls his rottweiler Jesus!"
And aren't you glad that Jesus is not a rottweiler? But he has been called "Christ the Tiger" (T. S. Eliot)... And "Aslan the Lion King" (C. S. Lewis)... And "The Lion of the Tribe of Judah" (Book of Revelation, 5:5).
When I preached about this week's assigned Psalm and Gospel passages, I was struck by the mixed emotions they revealed even in people of sincere faith. Especially in people of sincere faith.
The Psalmist sings God's praise for always being there, wherever there might be, and for always knowing exactly what is going on in a person's life, even inside a person's life. Awesome. Wonderful. And more than a little bit frightening. Given that none of us is eager to know everything there is to know about ourselves, let alone have GOD know it all.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus calls out a man named Nathanael, revealing he knows the man's name before they're even introduced. And more. He knows Nathanael is a straight shooter, the real deal, a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. Wonderful. Awesome. And kind of creepy, too. What else might he know about this man he's only just now met?
I don't know. Maybe I'm projecting my own personal problems on these Bible characters. But what if I'm right? What if more of us than we'd like to admit have very mixed emotions about those ever-present, ever-watching eyes of Jesus?
Why not tune in for a few minutes and see where the Spirit took me when I preached about these things the other day?
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:45 PM
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