Matthew 11:25-27
At that time Jesus exclaimed:
"I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him."
The first thing strikes me in this passage is how Christ taught us, by his example, the attitude toward God to imitate in the prayer of praise lifted up to the Father.
It is easy to imagine the disciples all hanging around watching Jesus as he launched into yet more Father - Son talk addressing God as "Father". Never before in 2000 years of revealed history had our predecessors in faith even considered, much less dared, to call God something so familiar as "Father." Fear of God, as in fright, gave way to a new kind of fear in God, fear as in awe. Jesus taught us to raise up our eyes, and our hands, to God and appeal to Him as we would our human father. Jesus gifted us with a better way to pray and a better way to understand our creator.
Today, we take for granted our ability to look to God. When we pray, we often feel love, compassion, and tenderness coming back down to us from our Father who looks back at us with far more passion than we begin to understand.
Jesus also laid bare how the world view of the keepers of the law and the temple had been turned upside. The wise and learned men of the day, unwilling to look at the new reality, stuck to the old ways that were being ended before their eyes. They had the jaded view of those who thought they knew all there was to know and who believed they were the ones intended to teach and educate the Jews of the day.
In truth, who among us at the table this morning would have the courage to see what new there was to see or to hear what new there was hear? I fear how I would have responded to things that were new then but the fear is only my imagination galloping away from me. The fear is not real. I did not live then, when the revelation was coming to light, I live now when the light is bright and our path has been well defined and established.
The disciples showed us the way to seize a child-like sense of wonder at the incredible beauty and strength of the Holy Spirit revealed to us over generations. Despite the passing of centuries, the revelation is still as fresh now as it was then. Mind you, we are not challenged to be childish, plagued by petty rivalries, insecurities or self-concern. Instead, I think of the excitement of my children on Christmas morning. I think also of the 5-year-old boy I am watched as I wrote this. He ran to the end the dock and spotted a pod of cruising carp swimming past. He jumped up and down and pointed down at the fish hollering, " I see fish! Daddy, come look at the fish!"
Childlike. Open to new things, hoping to experience something but not knowing what.
There is something else, something not as grand but much more important we need to grab on to and hold for dear life. Our sense of wonder should not be reserved for grandeur but also experience in small things like watching waves on the lake pushed by the wind in a way that makes the lake look like a flowing river. The chirping of tree swallows perched in a tree nearby me. The smell of fresh coffee. This morning, and all weekend, there has been the amazing, pungent but fragrant scent of sagebrush soaked by rain. Childlike, yes, but viewed through eyes of one old enough to understand the importance of gratitude.
Meister Eckhart challenged to be willing to begin each day as a beginner. Why? Being willing to start over each day gives us the chance to see things new each day. I have in recent months made a daily effort to do just that. I look at the sunrise like I have never before seen a sunrise. Every sunrise is different from any others before it so our opportunities are endless. It is also true of sunsets or the clouds passing by overhead at any given moment of the day.
I have spent a lifetime struggling to become wise and learned and yet what I know and what I have learned pales when compared to the sight of fog lying down across the hilltops across the lake or the sound of rain. None of us need to be educated to experience the awe of what we choose to see through the eyes of a child. I am learning I have learned enough. What is left is to begin each day viewing the world with a sense of awe and wonder I once thought belonged only to children. I want to walk every day with a sense of wonder as the late poet and Celtic mystic John O'Donohue asked of us. We will never take it all in. God has no boundaries so our potential so vast we can't see the end of it.
At this moment, in this place what do you see if you choose to look through the eyes of a child? What in your life fills with wonder?
Let us give thanks and praise as we were taught. Amen
