Here’s the scene: We’re at a Baltimore brewery enjoying an intimate concert. It’s a band from my high school days, and a high school friend has come along to relive the past, as has my wife and my brother. The room isn’t packed; we’re talking maybe two-hundred people. The place is dimly lit with high ceilings and few windows. What lights there are have been trained on the stage, though there’s enough of a glow for the bartenders to do their important work.
Here’s a key detail: My high school buddy has arrived with a favorite song in mind. He’s determined to hear it played live, and as the night rolls on, he grows worried.
“What are you doing?” I ask, looking over to see him increasing the font size of a few words on his phone.
“Gotta hear it, man,” he says. He holds his phone up over his head. Written in as large a font as the little screen can manage is the title of his favorite tune.
I’m doubtful anything will come of this stunt. But as it turns out, the place is so small, so dark, so intimate, that the lead singer quickly points my friend out in the crowd.
“I can’t read it, man,” he says between songs, his fingers still dancing across the guitar. “Come closer.”
Here’s the scene now: Every head in that place whips around to catch a glimpse of the four of us. Everyone starts cheering my friend on, and the crowd quite literally parts. My friend is ushered up to the front — people pulling on his arms, patting him on the back — until he’s right there at the stage.
The lead singer leans forward, squints, then smiles. He throws my friend a pair of finger guns and a knowing wink, and my wife, my brother and I all cheer. My friend is whisked back to our side by congratulatory strangers.
And you know what? That song comes on soon thereafter. People go nuts. And I don’t think it’s because that particular song was the crowd’s favorite. There was legitimate joy bouncing off those brewery walls at the prospect of my friend’s success. People shook his hand, congratulated him as though he’d won some prestigious award.
The fulfillment of my friend’s singular hope had become a boon for everyone present. We all shared in that moment of glory, fleeting though it was.
Sometimes I think it can be hard to understand Jesus’ ministry in our own everyday lives. To see how it would translate. The imagery of a bearded man in white standing atop a hill shouting spiritual wisdom to crowds gathered at his feet might not always land with us. I wonder: Would I have gone to see him? Would I have gotten the message? Would I have left energized and with a desire to follow his lead? What was Jesus’ secret sauce?
And then I have an experience like that concert, where a cleanly shaven man points out my friend in the crowd, gives him a knowing smile and fulfils a simple desire. But in so doing and because of the very nature of the moment, that little act catches fire. Everyone gets involved, and strangers suddenly become companions. In those dim lights, we glimpse something — something more, something that might yet be. Our imaginations are stirred, and with them our hearts and our hopes.
I wonder if that’s not a small part of what Jesus was up to, of why people came to see him, why they left curious about living a new sort of life. And I wonder, too, if that secret sauce isn’t available to all of us, in some way. When do we have the chance to catch someone’s eye, to smile and nod and give some small offering of joy, joy that catches fire.
I wonder if that’s not Christ at work within us. I wonder if that’s not Christ uniquely at work within all of us gathered, wherever we may be.
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