This past
Sunday my Son and Daughter-in-law stopped over for a visit, and time for Nanny
and Pappy to love on their little granddaughter. We were in the kitchen carrying
on and laughing, and while all of us adults were just plain carrying on, I just
happened to look in the other room and caught my granddaughter sitting up with
her eyes wide open. I mean they were as big as an eye can open and her little
body, which is just now learning how to stay stabilized while sitting up, was
bent in the direction in which her ears could hear everything that was
fascinating her. It is a fact that little kids at that age learn most by
hearing and seeing…
Sitting
under my pole lamp studying later that night, I got to thinking on what I had
seen with that wide-eyed granddaughter and still getting a heap of delight from
that look on her face….. I thought of Jesus and how He trained His disciples;
especially the twelve, for the work of apostleship. Hearing the words and seeing
the things He did played an important part in their preparation for ministry
life. Their eyes and ears witnessed the facts of an unrivaled life and were an
essential pair of tools necessary in the preparation for their future
testimonies.Seeing things first hand and hearing things right from the mouth of Jesus, the apostles could add credence to the miraculous and unbelievable stories of Christ because they were able to say, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you” (1Jn 1:3). No one would have believed their report, save those who, at the very least, were satisfied that it emanated from men who had been with Jesus. So it is with the third evangelist who was not an apostle but a companion of the apostles, as he presents his Gospel to the generations as genuine history, and not just some collection of fables, because its contents were witnessed by men who “from the beginning were eye witnesses and ministers of the word.”
In the early period of their following Christ, ‘listening’ and ‘seeing’ seemed to have been the main occupation of the twelve. They were like the granddaughter I was telling you about at the beginning of the article; full of big eyes and wide open ears. The things which the twelve saw and heard were amazing things. Jesus was quick to impress on the guys the magnitude of their privilege. “Blessed,” said He to them on one occasion, “are the eyes which see the things that ye see: for I tell you, that many prophets and kings desired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not; and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not.”(Lu. 10:23-24)
But other generations saw great things as well. Some of them saw the wonders of the Exodus, others witnessed the thunderings at Sinai and still others witnessed the parting of the river. Many saw Elijah and Elisha’s great miracles and successive generations had the privileged to listen to the not-less-wonderful oracles of God spoken by David, Solomon, Isaiah, and the rest of the prophets. But the things witnessed (seen) by the twelve eclipsed the wonders of all bygone ages; for a greater than Moses, Elijah, David, or Isaiah, was here, and the promise to Nathanael was now being fulfilled. Heaven had been opened, and the angels of God - the spirits of wisdom and power and love were ascending and descending on the Son of man.
This holiday season, let's all ask the Lord to open our eyes and ears to Him more than ever - even more so than our eyes and ears will be filled with wonder at the new gadgets aimed at separating us from our money!!
