What They Can’t See
Something happened this week that sent me absolutely reeling. My 11-year-old son was sitting with my wife in the den when she asked him what time it was. He looked across the room to the DVD player to see the digital registry. Then he got up and walked over to it to get a better look and told my wife the time. She said, “Son, could you not read that from over here?” (My wife could clearly read the time on the VCR from where they were both sitting). He said, “Well not really, I could read the seven.”
More questions needed to be asked immediately. I was called into the room to hear what had taken place. We soon learned that our son could not read the words on the board at school if he was not in the front of the classroom. I remember that feeling. I am near-sighted and have glasses. We took him into our kitchen and set him at a distance from a readable picture. He could not read it. I put my glasses on him and suddenly he could read every word. We realized that after eleven and a half years on this earth our son had not been seeing everything there was to see! He is obviously near-sighted like his dad and needs glasses. He is going to the optometrist tomorrow.
There are several things I learned from this experience that have caused me to do a great deal of thinking. First, there is the obvious sadness that my son had been missing out, and that we should have been aware of it and should have done something about it before now. Second, was the reality that he had been subjected to vision screenings in the past but there was not a high enough standard or adequate follow-up testing to detect the problem my son was having. Finally, there was the reflection that there are many children who do not see well, whose parents don’t know it, and who may never even get to be tested or see an eye doctor. These children will likely have uncorrected vision problems for as long as they live.
In a spiritual context, this is our world. Some people will never even know they are missing out on Jesus and His church. They will never know what they are missing because they have never had anyone pay enough attention to them to notice. They may never be approached by anyone who is willing to put them to the test. There may be no physician or means available to help them fix their problem. Sadly they may go their entire lives without the Lord and never know the difference. It may be hard to imagine, but people sometimes spend an entire lifetime in this world without the only vision that matters, the vision of Christ.
When we found out our son was not seeing everything our first order of business was to actively address the problem and provide the solution. It just bothered us that he wasn’t getting what he deserved – an equal opportunity to see for the first time everything we have been seeing all along. We immediately did something about it. We are excited about how this improved vision will affect the quality of his life.
In the same way, there are people out there who deserve to see Jesus. They deserve to behold for the first time what many of us have been enjoying and embracing the whole time. If we understand the beauty of Christ fully, we know that His glory stands far above the most majestic landscapes that human eyes have ever seen. To not see Jesus is to have never completely existed. To not have an opportunity to witness the Christ is to live a life of blindness when there is no reason to remain blind.
I wonder sometimes if it bothers us enough that people have never seen Jesus. If it does, then we will do something about it. We will take them to the doctor. We will buy them glasses. We will rejoice when they finally see what they can’t see!
“And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned.’” – Matthew 4:13-16
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