The Eye of the Beholder
Isaiah
49:1-7; John 1:29-42
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world!”
According to legend, a young man was
roaming the desert one day, and he came across a spring of delicious
crystal-clear water. The water was so sweet he filled his leather canteen so he
could bring some back to the tribal elder who had been his teacher.
After a
four-day journey, the young man presented the water to the elder, who took a
deep drink, smiled warmly and thanked his student lavishly for the sweet water.
The young man left his gift with the elder and returned to his own part of the
village with a happy heart.
Later, the
teacher invited another student to taste the gift of sweet water. He spat it
out, saying it was awful. “Master, the
water was foul. Why did you say it was sweet?” The teacher replied, “You only
tasted the water. I tasted the gift. The water was simply the container for an
act of loving-kindness, and nothing could be sweeter.”
How sweet it was when John the Baptist saw Jesus
coming toward him that day. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world!” (v 29b) It was not John’s lips that spoke but his heart. John knew that Jesus was the “container” for
an immense act of loving-kindness from God.
The sight of God’s own son, the irrefutable,
unrepeatable and all-out amazing, living, breathing, walking, talking
sacrificial gift of loving-kindness, was so profoundly sweet to him that John
could taste God’s love at the sight of Jesus, God’s greatest gift to us all.
Why was it so sweet? Could it be—that John, feeling
deeply grateful to God for the gift of the promised Messiah, desired only one
thing: to point people to God’s gift, the Lamb of God.
In pointing out Jesus to John’s own disciples, the
Baptizer was releasing them to the one of whom he said, “After me comes a man
who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”
I marvel at John’s words because he’s not showing any
jealousy toward Jesus; John doesn’t seem to mind that his cousin is basically
“stealing his thunder.” After all, John’s own disciples take off after Jesus
and leave their teacher behind in the dust.
I think John’s not destroyed because he is grateful
for what God has done for him, even though the ride is now over. It’s like he’s
saying, “Lord, it’s been great having people coming to me from all over the
countryside so that I could baptize them with water, I loved every minute of
it; but the next phase, a new stage, of your divine design is beginning.
I know it is time for me to let go. As I step back, I just
want to say, ‘Thank you, God, for including me in your plan. Behold, I am truly
humbled and exceedingly grateful.”
You see, John’s biggest role in the divine plan was
not to be the greatest but to point people to the one greater than himself: Jesus,
the Lamb of God! He was grateful to be in the play no matter how small the
part.
It feels great to make a contribution to the world,
doesn’t it? When our efforts are recognized it’s like someone is saying, “You
did a really awesome job!” And inside, you’re saying, “I feel good! Doo doo doo
doo doo doo do!” Feeling that what we’ve
done in life is appreciated is very important to our sense of well being.
Yet so many folks believe they have nothing to
contribute and nothing for which to be particularly thankful. Words attributed
to Mother Teresa bring this point home to us: “There is more hunger for love
and appreciation in this world than for bread.” Why is that?
Dr Ira Byock suggests that “Our relationships and
indeed our lives can too easily become habitual, insulating us from
experiencing what a miracle it is to be alive and how much is given to us each
moment.”
It’s tasting the foul water and spitting it out, even
when it’s given to you at great expense to the giver. If you think about it,
isn’t that reaction a lot like what many people have had to the gift that is
most precious to God, the Son, the Lamb of God?
The key to being thankful is to recognize the little
things. Are you able to identify the gifts that hide in the midst of the everyday
troubles and little annoyances we all experience in our lives?
It is easier to be thankful to God for the obvious
things. The holiness of gratitude comes when we are able to be grateful in the
opposites. Here’s what I’m getting at: Ask yourself if you can be thankful --
- for the teenager who is complaining about doing dishes because he or she is at home and not out on the streets?
- for the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means you have enough to eat?
- for your huge heating bill because it means you are warm?
- for a driveway that needs shoveling, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it means you have a home?
- for the pastor who preaches to you about growing in your personal relationship with Jesus Christ because it means she cares about your soul and where you will spend eternity.
Gratitude doesn’t always come so naturally to us, but
with practice we can learn to say thank you during even the most difficult of
circumstances. To speak words of thankfulness in all circumstances is a life
changer, because thankfulness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Each person sees beauty in different ways. I don’t
recommend seeing it the way Miss Piggy does. She once said, “Beauty is in the
eye of the beholder, and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid
or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
Professor Johannes Gaertner put it much better: “To
speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and
noble, but to live gratitude is to touch heaven.”
One
of these days, we may see Jesus, the Lamb of God, walking toward us. He won’t
look like any sacrificial lamb you’ve ever seen, probably. He won’t look like a
Messiah, for sure.
He just might look like a homeless person asking for
money—be thankful because you have a job and money to give him.
Or he could be
the person driving much too slow in front of you when you’re running late—be
thankful because he’s forcing you to slow down, be careful and arrive safely.
Friends, practicing gratitude helps us focus on the
positive even in the midst of the negative. Gratitude actually breeds joy,
that’s why “thank you” is one of the most important things to say at every
opportunity that presents itself.
Don’t
let ingratitude, or the inability to be thankful for what God has done for you,
plant a black eye on your faith. Let’s learn to speak gratitude as fluently as
we speak English.
Then God, our beholder, can make of our lives a
testimony of thankfulness; each of us can be that “light to the nations,”
Isaiah was talking about, so that salvation may reach all around the world pointing
all people to follow the Lamb of God to the day another great prophet from our
own time preached to the poor and the oppressed, to the downtrodden and to the
visionaries, in effect,
“I have a
dream today… when all of God's children, black and white, Jews and
Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, (Buddhists and Muslims, gay and straight,
deformed and denied, poor and persecuted) will be able to join hands together and
sing in words like those of the old Negro spiritual…” Saved at last; saved at last; Thank God Almighty, we are saved at last!
Oh, how sweet it is! Amen.
January 19,
2014
The First
Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend
Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
