"A Clearer Picture"
July 26, 2016
Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him He said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is He, sir, that I may believe in Him?" Jesus said to him, "You have seen Him, and it is He who is speaking to you." He said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped Him. Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." John 9:35-39
Let me ask you a question: have you ever taken a completely satisfactory photograph?
No? Me either.
My U.S. passport photo makes me look like a prizefighter who has lost his last 20 fights. Maybe that's why the border guards of various countries wave me through when I'm leaving, but try to put me into quarantine for a month when I'm arriving.
None of us ever takes a good picture, do we?
In some junk drawer or high closet shelf we've tucked away the cute pictures that someone snapped of us when we were babies. Since then we've all had other pictures that didn't turn out well. There were the mandatory school pictures we were ashamed to take home. In high school we picked the graduation photo in which we didn't look too bad.
Then there are wedding photographs. I stand in awe of any photographer who tries to take a good picture of four hung-over groomsmen, four bridesmaids who rightly question whether they look good in bubblegum pink dresses, and a father-of-the-bride who is convinced his daughter is making the biggest mistake of her life.
The truth is most of us don't like our photos.
It occurs to me that Jesus had the same problem. Jesus never had a good picture made of Him. No, no, I'm fully aware that cameras hadn't been invented when the Savior walked this earth. But that doesn't change the fact that, while He lived, nobody ever got a good picture of Jesus -- who He was, and why He'd come.
I mean, think about it, the Pharisees had a bad picture of Jesus. They thought He was a devil, a deceiver, a fraud, and a fake. John the Baptist, from his prison cell, found his picture of the Messiah had become a little blurry. Even the disciples had a bad picture of Jesus. Just before the risen Redeemer ascended into heaven, those men who had been closest to Him asked, "Lord, is it now that You're going to restore the Kingdom?" (See Acts 1:6.) Their picture of Jesus was a bad one.
This leads me to ask do you have a good picture of Jesus?
Do you see Him as God's sinless Son who came to this world for the express purpose of carrying our transgressions, fulfilling the laws we had broken, and dying the death we deserved? Do you see Him as the risen Redeemer who has conquered death and saved you? I pray you do and I pray all those around you also see the same. If not, I encourage you to share your picture of the Savior with them so they might see.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, help us see Jesus most clearly and let us help others see Him more clearly too. In His Name I ask it. Amen.
