The disciples were looking around, rubbing their eyes, seeing nothing but Jesus, only Jesus. ~ Mark 9:8, The Message
The Transfiguration of the Lord by D. Nollet (1694).
These words from Mark 9:8 follow the transcendent event of the Transfiguration. Jesus’ life was filled with miracles, and ours will be too if we follow Him, but following Him means fixing our faith not on miracles but on Jesus alone. The title of this chapter is borrowed from one of my favorite Christian worship albums, and I’ve never forgotten the sermon contained in just those two words, Jesus Alone.
My friend Char reports, “We spent far too many years searching for the elusive revival, the manifest presence of God, the newest thing God was doing. Finally we arrived at a cul-de-sac, and suddenly understood that all we longed for had been with us, in us, around us, over us all the time! Christ Himself: all sufficient, complete, full of life. This was an end but also a glorious beginning of no longer trying to get more but of discovering that in Christ we have already been given ‘all things that pertain to life and godliness.’ And a taste of heaven on earth it was, and continues to be.”
I too followed the charismatic trail for some years. I used to attend a church where the primary watchword was More, Lord! Always we wanted more of the Holy Spirit, more signs and wonders, more spiritual gifts, on and on. Now, many years later, my heart’s cry is Less, Lord! If all I do for the rest of my life is learn to appreciate what I already have, that’s plenty for me. In this modern age when everything is constantly accelerating, help me, Lord, to be counter-cultural by slowing down. Instead of always chasing my tail, give me less so that I can keep up.
Not only is less more, but more is less. We live in an age of the add-on gospel: the simple good news is not enough but we must embellish it with health, wealth, success, miracles, politics, conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, the fact is that our lives are filled with ordinariness. Everyone’s life is: The Pope has an ordinary life; movie stars and rock stars have ordinary lives; presidents and great artists and workers of miracles have ordinary lives. The person you are most jealous of has an ordinary life—every bit as ordinary as yours.
To be sure, the famous have extraordinary aspects to their lives. Yet like everyone else they eat, sleep, defecate, look in the mirror and can feel sad, dissatisfied, unfulfilled. There is no escaping ordinary life. So it must be important—mustn’t it? But why?
The reason the ordinary is so important is that it is the only entrance to eternity. If you do not give first place to the ordinary, you will be happy only to the extent that you are engaged in some ‘important’ activity. But what if you fall sick or your goals are otherwise frustrated? Where is the meaning then? On the other hand, when you value the ordinary, you are always in touch with meaning, with reality, with glory.
The nice thing about ordinariness is that there’s so much of it that anyone who learns to love it has hit the jackpot. They’ll never lack for anything ever again. For free they can have something the Bible ranks right alongside godliness: “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim 6:6).
Are you contented? It’s not hard to tell, because if you’re content you always have enough. Enough money, enough time, enough adventure, enough love to go around. If you’re not content, the place to seek contentment is in ordinary life. Why? Just because there’s so much of it that you can have all you want.
When something is done in plain view for all to see, we say, It wasn’t done in a corner. But Christianity was done in a corner: a baby born in a stable, kept under wraps for thirty years, who then had an intense three-year ministry long ago and far away, for whom the only solid evidence is the New Testament. What kind of God is this who is content to stand in a corner—unnoticed, unpraised—while humanity carries on merrily without Him? He is a God who glories in hiddenness, in the obscurity of the ordinary, and this is where we shall find Him. He’s like one of those tiny towns of which we say “blink and you’ll miss it”—just a corner, a crossroads. Yet this crossroads is the center of the universe.
This revised version of a chapter from my book Same Old, Same New: The Consolation of the Ordinary first appeared on the “Christianity 201” website on June 24, 2024.
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