Shoes, Yours or Mine?

   Most of us today, when we read the stories of the people interacting with Jesus in the Gospels, have a tendency to think that, if they did not believe on Him and understand the things that He was talking about, that they were a little dense. After all they could see Him, touch Him, listen to Him, be involved in the miracles He performed, and interact with Him and His disciples.

   We can see how the story unfolds, and better understand the words and actions of Jesus, because we know how the it eventually plays out. We also have available the Spirit of God to help us in our study, and things look a bit different when we see the words on paper and have the opportunity to go back and read them again and again. Those other folk, from that first century era, had the words first hand, but then they were gone, replaced by other words. I remember how the disciples suddenly got a meaning from some words of Jesus as the events unfolded many days down the road. Then they understood.

   So I think about how the people must have wondered at Jesus' words, on eating His flesh and drinking His blood, that come later in Chapter 6 of John. We can kind of understand what He is talking about from our vantage point, 2,000 years later, but they did not have this perspective. A lot of them probably just shook their heads and said "Hey, this guy is nuts, forget this!" In fact, toward the end of this same chapter it says that many people quit following Him. Even the disciples, those closest to Him wondered about what He said.

   But all of this is important. Jesus, in one of the last acts of His earthly life, instituted the Lord's Supper with the words, "whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup". We read that and realize that all of this fits into His sacrifice for us. "OK, now I see it in the Big Picture, and it squares with what I heard and read."

   How often do I, in my limited vision and understanding, miss the obvious, that someone standing farther back, either in distance or time, can see? How much that I do not understand of other's lives, all of a sudden becomes clearer from a different perspective?

   What is that old Native American saying about walking in another's shoes? Maybe I should practice that more often.