Issue 419
Sometimes, what is directly in front of you becomes invisible because it is directly in front of you. The co-worker you have known for years, the friend who has been in your life forever or the possession you have never been without. The eyes can play tricks on you anywhere. Perhaps, right beside you now, is a person who cannot see – your busyness has blinded you or your familiarity with their presence has visually innoculated your mind so that they may as well not exist.
This blindness can affect your view of yourself. You may have a talent or a flaw that has been in your life for so long that it no longer features in your awareness.
In a workplace context, this can result in team members not discovering each other’s strengths, companies not releasing talent, reverting to old habits and innovation disappearing due to the constant repetition of the usual.
All we can be certain of is that countless opportunities have not been taken due to blindness.
Now take your mind to an execution site. A thirty three year old craftsman-turned-teacher is experiencing a slow death at the hands of those who were too blind to see. But it is not at their hands you need to look, but at his hands. They are pinned to wood but in the intense moment of his life’s work he sees – he always did – no one ever went unseen when he was around. He saw pain, he saw flaws, but he saw potential, gifting and hope.
So what did he see in this moment of moments? He saw a mother in need of a guardian in a male-run society. He saw a friend in need of the counsel of the one human who knew Jesus better than any. He saw real people in need of the comfort they could give,uniquely, to each other.
What do you see when you look at that tender, painful, massive moment?
Here is a Jesus with whom you are possibly familiar – someone who you had perhaps assumed was so complete he never wanted or needed anything. It is possible you have seen him as so divine that you have missed his humanity. For, as a human, he will have hopes, dreams, ambitions and wants. Here in this moment, you can, if you will but see, observe his own answer to the ‘what do you want?’ question.
Here is the moment Jesus wants his mother to have a home. He wants that home to be, not with his brothers or some wealthy dignitary, but his best friend. Right now, there is no evidence that the rest of his family were disciples, but John was.
He wants his mother in John’s home, but he also wants John to write a gospel with a woman’s touch. He knows Matthew would write the best connected tax collector’s gospel, Mark will consult Peter and Luke will take advice from everyone.
He wants John to learn from the same woman who taught him her ways. He wants every woman to read John’s gospel and know there is a feminine voice in a male choir. He wants a team of two to realise its potential as well as change the world. He wants the two of them to work together as well as care for each other. He wants to provide his best friend with a female partner who will release him into his calling. He wants to give his mother the voice that was denied to women. He wants a man capable of handling the Patmos Revelation, just as Mary handled the Christian angels announcing the Son of God had come to her womb when she had known the terror and joy of destiny.
Can you see it? Can you see the people next to you? Man or woman who can change your life? Can you see Jesus giving people to each other?
There is world in a moment – a gift in a co-worker and a life changing opportunity right before you. If you will but to see.
John 19:26
Dear woman, here is your son – here is your mother.
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Geoff Shattock
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