The One About Tears, Lenses and Seeing Reality
Dear Congregation
I hope and pray that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Every year, around this time, I go for my annual eye-exam. I was told that once I turned 40 my vision would plummet faster than a falling anvil and so I have made it a discipline to get it tested every year. Fortunately, I still have 20-20 vision, although the rest of my middle-aged body seems to be trying to catch that anvil in a race to the ground … literally. The process to determine my ongoing eagle-eyed capability is interesting, though, and one that I am sure many of you are painfully familiar with. You sit in a chair that looks like it might be designed to extract important information from terrorists, and you look at a chart on the far wall to see which direction a tiny letter “E” is facing. The examiner will then adjust lenses and continue to ask you questions as they do, so that they determine which lenses your eyes need in order for you to be able to see reality as it really is. For me, added lenses cloud my ability to see properly, as the lenses in my eyes are still somehow able to rightly see my surroundings. For some, the right added lenses are needed to assist or override their own lenses in order for them to see rightly.
The right lenses allow us to see the world as it really is.
The wrong lenses give us a distorted view.
All of this was in my mind when my bible reading plan had me in John 20 the other day. John 20 is my favorite of the resurrection accounts, not just because it repeatedly highlights the relative running speeds of John and Peter, but also because it focuses so strongly on Mary Magdalene and her experience of the resurrected Christ, which is distinct from the others. I love how faithful Mary is in Jesus’ death, how visceral her sense of loss is, how she mistakes Jesus for a gardener, and of course how gentle Jesus is with her when she realizes that He has resurrected.
There is a detail in the story though that I love, and which I heard NT Wright talk about on a podcast recently. Peter and John are there, probably still arguing over their respective mile speeds, but they don’t seem to see the two angelic beings that Mary sees.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. - Jn 20:11–12.
Now I have no idea why Peter and John don’t see the angels but NT Wright offered a wonderful take when he said that perhaps Mary’s tears functioned as necessary lenses that allowed her to see the world rightly. Her pain magnified reality to the point where she was able to see beyond the blurry outlines of our physical world into the vivid hypercolor of spiritual reality. Her tears were the lenses she needed to see the world rightly.
Friends, I know that some of you have tears right now that you wish you didn’t have to shed. But … don’t waste them. It is my experience that most often it is those who have to look through the most tears who get the clearest view of ultimate reality, of empty tombs, of gardeners who are kings, of angelic beings journeying with us on our rocky road home.
Don’t waste your tears.
Ask God to use them as lenses through which you can see Him as he really is.
I look forward to seeing you Sunday where I will get to preach from Luke 1 as we kick off our advent series.
I will be answering the holy debated question of Christmas music origin … “Mary, did you know?” Spoiler alert. She did.
The music this week is a strange one for me, I know, but I heard this song playing the other day while I was in a Target of all places, and I was reminded of the tragic genius of Whitney Houston. Yup, I said it. Genius. This song is incredible.
Whitney Houston - My Love Is Your Love (Official Video)
Much love to you all.
Ross
