Not all that long ago
John, Mary Cate and I took a trip to the
There have been many more deaths
from heat stroke … mostly because people have too much confidence in
themselves and too little respect for nature.
The rangers post a cautionary tale of a young marathoner who set out on
a 105-degree day in 2004 for a 15-mile run. She carried 1½ quarts of water, two
energy bars and an apple. She and her companion had miscalculated the route and
ended up on a 27-mile course. When the
companion collapsed from exhaustion, the marathoner continued in search of
water and ultimately died.
But canyon oddities have a way of
turning heads almost as much as tragedies do.
Tales of the naive, the foolhardy or the just plain stupid abound. There
was the Dutch woman, who perhaps out of misplaced national pride or just plain
ignorance, was hiking down in wooden shoes.
Immigrants were found toting a Coleman stove, gas can and a chicken.
There was the vagabond destined for the canyon floor believing he'd find a
palm-shrouded paradise. People have been
spotted descending into its depths lugging ice chests and pushing baby
strollers. One guy was playing a tuba.
John and I had
been there before, but it still knocked us
out. Gazing into the chasm makes you feel small and
insignificant and vulnerable. Well,
maybe not everyone does. There were a variety of people on our bus,
many of them from foreign countries. For
the most part they were just as excited as we were…except for this one
young couple from
Just another pile of rocks! I wanted
to grab them by the shoulders and shake them awake. I wanted to shout,
"Don't you realize what happened here? Don't you understand what you are
seeing? This canyon was carved out by
the sheer force of water and time. This
is one of the true wonders of the world.
Don’t you see that?" But of course, they didn't. They
couldn't. They were too busy believing that they
were one of the true wonders of the world. They were, as Thomas Carlyle put it,
"a pair of spectacles behind which there is no eye."
On the other hand, several others
helped me to see things that I had not seen.
The children were the most fun to watch of course. Turns out, even
though we were all seeing the same thing, we each had different capacities for
comprehending what our eyes beheld. And at some point we all needed someone
else's help to turn our view into vision.
Life is a lot like one of those puzzles
I used to see in the Sunday paper when I was a child. You know,
a picture of a living room in which twenty five objects are hidden. Can you
find them all? You probably wouldn't even notice if they didn't tell you they
were there. What you see in life is greatly determined by what you are looking
for. There is more - so much more - to every moment than we observe, but we
could observe more if we only stopped to look … thought to ask …
"Where is God in this picture?" That is the message of Epiphany
… that God is manifest in the world around us … that God is with us
… and to see … we only need to look.
Jesus grew up in a dusty little town in
the hills of
John the Baptist noticed first: "Here
is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29),
this is a reference to the Passover lamb, or the sacrificial lamb by whose
death the Jews ritually rededicated their lives to God in the
We all need guides at times
…those who are better trained … more experienced … more aware
… spiritual directors who can open our eyes to what is sitting in plain
sight. The two disciples followed Jesus, and he asked them, "What are you
looking for?" (John 1:38). Like all of Jesus' questions, it was loaded. He
meant much more than "How can I help you?" but also "What are
you looking for in life?" "What are you longing for?" "What
are your expectations and are you open to God's expectations and plans?"
They asked where he was staying. "Come and see," Jesus told
them (John 1:39). Does he mean simply, "Come and see my place," or
"Come and see how I live … who I am … who God is?"
Philip quoted him later. He went to
his brother Nathaniel, and told him, "We have found him about whom
Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from
We all have our own prejudices and
we tend to react to good news warily, as those too sophisticated to be
embarrassed again. A little skepticism is healthy after all. It protects us
from harm. But we must also question our skepticism, lest it harden into
cynicism, lest it keep us from opening our sails to the fresh breezes of God's
Spirit. Nathaniel is not open to the possibility that the Promised One might
come from so ordinary a place as
God is all around us, in the
ordinary places, in the unguarded moments, in the flesh of those we don't even
notice - a grocery clerk, a harried waiter, a hungry child, the person next to
you in the pew today, or even some guy from Nazareth, of all places. But we do
not see God in these places, in these moments, in these people because we are
not looking for God, we are not mature enough or alert enough or experienced
enough to see what is right there in plain sight before our eyes. "Come
and see," Philip urged Nathaniel. But seeing takes time and energy. We
must focus our attention, look hard, follow a while,
before the vision of God's glory shines through.
What is it Jesus kept telling the
disciples? "Let whoever has ears, hear. Let whoever has eyes,
see." We cannot go by first impressions. It takes some discipline, some
commitment, some consistent connection. Truth is, we
don’t follow Jesus because we immediately
see him for who he is; we follow in order to see who he is, and across the years God is disclosed ever the more
through our discipleship.
I like the pattern of discernment in
these stories from our gospel today. Everyone is at different stages of seeing.
Those who see point out what they see to those who cannot yet see. And surely,
none of them yet sees all that will be in this man from
So I say to you today, look around
you. Look for God everywhere you go, in every person you meet. Listen to God's
opinion of you, to what Jesus blesses in your being. Come and see what Jesus
might make of you. We have found the Messiah! Can you believe it? He is from
May we pray?
Lamb of God, Open our eyes to the sight of you in the places and faces of
our lives. Open our ears to the word of you in the voices of those proclaiming
good news or crying for help. Open our hearts to the love of you poured out
among us in our own flesh and blood. And let us come and see you for who you
are. Let us come and see you in each other. Let us come and see you in
ourselves, blessed and beloved of God just as we are, in all our ordinary
humanity. Lamb of God, let us behold you! Amen.
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa