Recognizing Jesus (Ninth Sunday after Pentecost)

Sermon Reflections

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In my freshman year of college, many of us were new to living in Washington. And so it seemed like a cool thing to do to go down to the Ellipse and watch the lighting of the National Christmas Tree. And it was cool! We got to see all the state trees around the big, national Christmas tree. And at the appropriate time, President Reagan came out onto the balcony of the White House and pressed the button to light the tree. I recognized President Reagan because he was the little dot I could see on the balcony of the White House, and so it had to be him!

Of course, after you’ve been in a couple of tourist mobs on the National Mall, the appeal of going down and watching stuff kind of dims. But, in January of 1993, I went down to the Mall to watch – live and in person – the first inauguration of President Clinton. Both President Clinton and President George H.W. Bush were standing there on the Capitol dais. From my vantage point, they were dots like President Reagan had been. But this time, I recognized them because now we had jumbotrons and I could watch them on TV, even as I was there live and in-person!

Actually, in the decades I’ve lived in the DC area, those two times are the closest I’ve ever been to seeing a President live and in person. But of course, I would always recognize any President of my life-time because I’ve seen them on TV and later social media. I’ve seen prints of their pictures in the newspapers and campaign ads. And even though they’ve all been caricatured in political cartoons, the likeness is still good enough to know who they are if I see them.

But how did people recognize Jesus? The Gospel of Mark says that people saw Jesus and his disciples heading away to a deserted place, and “they recognized them.” But how would you do that in the early first century?

There were no photos of Jesus that people could view in print or online. There were no videos people could see on the news. In fact, even if people had previously been nearby when Jesus had performed a miracle, most probably hadn’t been close enough to get a good look at him. Often, Jesus might also have just been a dot in the distance.

Yet Mark says that, in spite of not necessarily knowing what Jesus looked like, people “recognized” him. In the abbreviated way that Mark tells the story, it might sound like people instantly recognized Jesus the moment they saw his face. But probably, what Mark means is that as Jesus arrived in a place and started to interact with people, people were able to “recognize” that this was, in fact, the Jesus about whom they had heard so much.

And even though they didn’t necessarily know what Jesus looked like, they recognized Jesus by:

  • how Jesus cared about them … (“he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd”; this probably contrasted greatly from many of the famous people who came through who DIDN’T care at all about them, or only cared about them because they were sheep to be fleeced…!)
  • what Jesus said to them … (“he taught them”, instead of ignoring them or treating them like they were too dumb to understand or appreciate what God was doing in their lives – this was the attitude of many of the Pharisees and religious authorities of the time …)
  • how Jesus helped them with their real life, everyday needs … (this is a really strange Gospel reading because you’ll notice that we’re missing 18 verses in between the beginning and the end – those 18 verses are the story of the feeding of the 5000, which will be the context and focus of the next several Sundays; but whether it was feeding them, or healing them or simply being their friend, Jesus showed that he didn’t just care about things that “religious people” considered “spiritual”, but that he cared about them as whole people – body and spirit …)

I suspect that those were really the ways people “recognized” Jesus. But that raises another important question: How can people recognize Jesus in our world today?  And how is Jesus recognized in our lives as Christians?

It’s an important question, because there are sadly a lot of people out there who often give the impression that Jesus should be recognized through pure doctrine, and moral codes and aloof behavior. But that was the way the Pharisees were recognized. It was NEVER how Jesus was recognized.

Instead, Jesus wants to be recognized in us and through us by the way we:

  • show compassion for others – this is not just a nice thing to do; it’s projecting the attitude that Jesus had for others – even people he hadn’t met and who might have later on walked away and not cared much about what he said; and sometimes, compassion is shown through generosity of giving and serving even when we’re too tired and even when, like Jesus, we don’t even seem to have time to eat (which is how this whole story started) …
  • help others understand what God is doing in their lives – the most effective way to help people “recognize” that God is at work in the real world is to talk about how you’ve experienced God doing something meaningful in your life; it usually isn’t as effective if you try to convince someone else that they’re too stupid to recognize God around them; and that’s the difference between how Jesus taught and how the scribes and Pharisees of the day often taught…
  • make God’s love a tangible reality in the lives of others – much of the important work that God gives us to do doesn’t always seem “spiritual” to some people; it can be as simple as making sure kids get school supplies or helping people get food when they don’t have any; yet when we do those things, we do what God did in Jesus – we make his love incarnate – that is, visible and tangible and a significant part of people’s lives in this world, not just the next …

People were able to recognize Jesus, even when they didn’t know what he looked like. And our call as Christians is both to be the people who recognize Jesus working in our world, and to be people through whom Jesus can be recognized.  And just like Jesus, we don’t have to change our appearance to do that. Jesus can be recognized in us whenever we treat people with compassion. Jesus can be recognized in us whenever we help others to understand how God is alive and at work in our lives. And Jesus can be recognized in us whenever we, like Jesus, make God’s love a tangible reality in the lives of our neighbors.

Amen.