I know you young people feel sorry for older ones like me when you see gray hair (or no hair) and wrinkles sprouting up like Spring wildflowers in the mountains.
Don’t waste your sorrow. We’ve lived through a lot of things you’ll never experience. Some really cheesy television, for example.
When I was seven or eight years old, I used to love the adventures of Superman on tv. Sometimes I’ll flash back to the past on You Tube and watch part of an episode.
These days those, I kind of cringe and laugh. You’d have to be eight-years old to take any of that seriously.
The thing I couldn’t understand about Superman, though, was why he didn’t let people know who he was. Louis Lane would have been impressed if she had known that the milk-toast colleague that she ran around with, reporter Clark Kent, was the mighty Superman.
As a matter of fact, old Lois must have been a bit slow between the ears because even the eight-year old version of me saw that Clark Kent looked a lot like Superman.
A lot like Superman.
(if you want a laugh, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2l4bz1FT8U)
Another hero that I really liked was the Lone Ranger. He had a cool theme song, which I later found out was called the William Tell overture. I just thought it was the Lone Ranger song.
My white-hatted cowboy buddy mounted a white horse and rode around with an Indian sidekick named Tonto. Tonto tried his best to speak bad English but unless you are eight years old, his accent wasn’t very convincing–closer to San Francisco than to Sitting Bull.
The Lone Ranger always wore a mask. Sometimes he did his good deed by saving whatever needed to get saved between the cereal commercials that week. Then he would ride off without saying, “good-bye.”
People would ask, “Who was that masked man?”
“Why, that was the Looooone Raaanger!” Do, tee, doo, tee, doo, doo doope, etc.” (that was a poor attempt at the William Tell Overture if you didn’t recognize it)(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9-o-YDcq6)
Bigger than life masks impress us. We want our heroes with muscles, curves and a beauty beyond compare. Careful, though. Heroes often hide behind everyday masks.
Jesus probably looked like the guy who lives down on the corner. But, He kept doing extraordinary things—teaching that gripped men’s hearts, miracles that rolled back the works of the devil, life-changing power in devil-controlled lives.
Lots of people missed Him when He was came. They were expecting a curly-haired Messiah riding in with the Seventh Calvary raising dust behind him, cutting the Romans into pieces. He would put Israel back on top of the world like they were in King David’s day.
And God the Father sent His Son Jesus—who must have looked more like Clyde who works down at the grocery store than a Hollywood movie star.
Most looked over Him and kept waiting for someone who met their requirements of a Messiah.
Especially the religious people, those who were constantly in religious meetings (like I am). They missed Him.
You know where else we often miss seeing God? Right next to us.
We want our “MEN OF GOD!” (you pronounce this with a bit of awe), to be larger than life. How could little Sarah who runs the church nursery be a “WOMAN OF GOD!” ?
She is though. And how. Anybody who put up with whining and stinky diapers on Sunday so others can enjoy the worship and the message, those folks are Supermen and Superwomen in my book.
We miss a wonderful opportunity to see God when we refuse to see him in that ordinary friend who loves Jesus and serves Him.
But David, “We want to see miracles, power, and miracles and power and mighty men of God and miracles and power, etc.”
Paul may have startled some people when he wrote in a letter, “… that sacred mystery which up to now has been hidden in every age and every generation, but which is now as clear as daylight to those who love God. They are those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendour of his secret plan for the sons of men. And the secret is simply this: Christ in you! Yes, Christ in you bringing with him the hope of all glorious things to come.” ((Colossians 1:26, 27, J.B. Phillips )
Gideon, Too
And God sent a special message to a to a trembling young man, “One day the angel of God came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, whose son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress, out of sight of the Midianites. The angel of God appeared to him and said, ‘God is with you, O mighty warrior!’
Gideon replied, ‘With me, my master? If God is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all the miracle-wonders our parents and grandparents told us about, telling us, ‘Didn’t God deliver us from Egypt?’ The fact is, God has nothing to do with us—he has turned us over to Midian.
But God faced him directly: “Go in this strength that is yours. Save Israel from Midian. Haven’t I just sent you?”
Gideon said to him, “Me, my master? How and with what could I ever save Israel? Look at me. My clan’s the weakest in Manasseh and I’m the runt of the litter.”
God said to him, “I’ll be with you. Believe me, you’ll defeat Midian as one man.” (Judges 6:11-16, The Message).
Don’t discount that little lady warrior in the nursery or that teenager at school or that fellow at work—or yourself.
I need to be careful when I judge someone who loves the Lord and set them aside as ordinary.
Christ is in us. That makes all the difference in the world. Don’t miss that!
Hmmm …
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
― Dr. Seuss
Images: Flickr, creative commons, Katherine Johnson Superman, iwishmynamewasmarsha Frog2, Insomnia Cured Here Clayton Moore