John saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said,
`After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' I myself
did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he
might be revealed to Israel." And John testified, "I saw the Spirit
descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not
know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, `He on whom
you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy
Spirit.' And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of
God."
The next day John again was standing with two of his
disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is
the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed
Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What
are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which
translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said to them,
"Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they
remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. One of
the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's
brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found
the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus,
who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be
called Cephas" (which is translated Peter).
The discussion over dinner reflected on these questions:
1. How has God
surprised you?
2. How is God
surprising you now?
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| Sunday Supper, Prayer, Theology-on-Tube |
Bob wrapped up the conversation with these thoughts:
The overarching theme that I got from what I heard [in the
discussions around the table] is God’s ability to surprise. So many of us are locked into – or feel
that we’re locked into – this schedule of ‘this is what I have to do today’ and
‘I have to get this next thing done because of this other thing.’ My eyes were really open to this at
Thanksgiving. [Lisa and I] had
eleven guys from Sudan sharing Thanksgiving with us, and one of them said to me,
“You Americans, all you do is work, eat, and sleep.” Work, eat, sleep.
Work.
Eat.
Sleep . . . .
And I thought, wait - what else is
there?
I was surprised that he saw
that so clearly . . . and reflected that back to me. We can get locked into that, can’t we? Work, eat, sleep. But there’s really so much more to this
life.
And if we just have the eyes
to see it, God has the capacity and the ability [to surprise us], and he’s
surprising us all the time –
all of the time.
Even if we have an expectation and things don’t go well or
the way we expected, God has the ability to surprise us. And God often surprises us
in way that our expectations are blown away. We had a great gathering last Sunday evening for our first Sunday
supper, prayer, and theology-on-tube dry run. And I had expected that we’d have a few folks and it would
go well, but we had whole lot of folks and it went incredibly well. The discussion was really deep and
wonderful. What a surprise! Even though we were expecting good, it
was great.
So the question I think I’ll leave you with to ponder as we
leave this place is, where might you be surprised? If you’re feeling sort of locked into that schedule of
work-eat-sleep, work-eat-sleep, where are some places for to pick your head up,
open your eyes, and be open to those surprises – to God’s surprises? This is the season of Epiphany, so
where might you have an epiphany – or, as the Greeks say, a theophany? Where is God opening your eyes in this
season of Epiphany?
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