Supermarkets.
I really don’t like supermarkets.
Supermarkets mean one thing to me.
I have to go shopping.
With my wife Dawn.
I hate shopping.
I noticed something the other day when I was shopping.
I noticed that all the best items in a supermarket are stacked
at eye-level.
It’s set like that so the best stuff can be easily seen.
After a quick burst of research, (Search engines to be
precise) I read that big corporations hire experts to work those things out.
Eye level is apparently what makes the consumer market
tick.
So eye level is pretty important.
John 1: 14 says, “The word became flesh and moved into the
neighbourhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory,
like father, like son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish. (The
Message)
Here is God making himself eye level to the world.
Not distant and languishing on some insignificant high back
shelf.
No, putting himself right in front of our eyes.
I had to laugh at newspaper and internet reports in the UK
over Easter claiming that a vicar advised people in an Easter message to
celebrate Easter by staying in bed, eating chocolate and having sex.
His congregation, according to the papers, increased by 100
the next week.
Here’s what I want to say to that.
Back shelf Christianity is a cheap option.
And the world loves a bargain.
So we rush to buy it.
The real stuff at eye level is a bit expensive.
And costs more.
And times are hard.
A lie in, chocolate and sex!
Wow!
Sounds great on the face of it.
But none of these things last long!
Especially Chocolate!
I mean, listen, Jesus suffered a horrendous death, in order
to bring eternal spiritual opportunity to the world.
Eye level stuff.
It came at great cost to him.
He paid with his human life.
I am sitting writing this in Sanctuary 21 Salvation Army in
Durham this morning at one of the tables in the café. There is a guy with a criminal past, a dangerous guy, who comes every day for a bowl of soup. He’s just come
over to my table where I am working, and asked can he sit with me. He has been
away on holiday and wants to give me the low-down on it. I initially feel
frustrated that I am being disturbed, as I am in the writing flow-zone. The two
words I am writing about, “eye level” come firing at my heart like an exocet.
This guy needs my total attention. So I drop my pen. I need to make myself eye level, sack the
writing, and make my whole being available. Because this guy desperately needs
a saviour.
And right now I’m his only hope as Jesus displays himself
through me.
How true it is when people say, “The Church is the hope of
the world.”
Bed, chocolate and sex, as great as all three are in their
proper contexts, are not the hope of the world.
Jesus is operating at eye-level.
That’s where we need to be operating.
So today guys let’s get ourselves off the back shelf.
Let’s not hide behind the worldly.
That’s the cheap option.
Let’s make sure we are operating at eye level.
So that the world can see the real Jesus in us.
