Glory of Christ

Musician and author Carolyn Arends shares a story in an issue of Christianity Today magazine:

On a recent trip, I had a conversation with a man who learned I was from Vancouver. He had lived there years earlier, and after asking if a particular music shop was still in the city, he told me a story.

His wife was a piano major at the University of British Columbia. When they went piano shopping as newlyweds, the saleswoman led them straight to the entry-level models. The man told me, “She had us pegged exactly right. We didn’t have two nickels to rub together. We were going to have to borrow the money to get the cheapest instrument there.”

Everything changed, however, when the name of the prospective buyer’s mentor—a world-renowned master teaching at the university—came up in conversation. The saleswoman was panic-stricken. “Not these pianos!” she exclaimed, herding the couple away from the economy section and into a private showroom of gleaming Steinways. “I’m so sorry,” she kept repeating, horrified at the thought of the teacher finding out she’d shown one of his students an inferior instrument. Try as they might, they couldn’t persuade her to take them back to the pianos they could afford. Once the master’s name came up, only the best would do.

I said “Hallowed be thy name” this morning mumbling my way through the Lord’s Prayer. I’ve prayed that phrase countless times. But today, I find myself thinking about the reverence a flustered piano saleswoman had for a teacher’s name, and the prayer begins to change shape.

What does it mean to “hallow” God’s name? I’ve heard about the extreme care taken in branches of Judaism: Pages containing the name of YHWH are never thoughtlessly discarded but rather buried or ritually burned. When I’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer, I’ve tried to cultivate that kind of personal reverence for his name—even while living in a world prone to profane it.

I’m glad I was taught to avoid blasphemy. But I’m beginning to suspect that my understanding of what it means to hallow God’s name has barely scratched the surface. But if we pray as he taught us, our reverence and care for his name will grow. That’s when we’ll begin to exchange our cheap instruments of self-interest for the costly Cross of Christ—the only instrument worthy of our Master’s name.

For about five dollars you can buy a four-inch plastic bobblehead Jesus that bounces on a metal spring and adheres firmly to the dashboard of your car. One advertisement for this product says you can “stick him where you need forgiveness” and he will “guide you through the valley of gridlock.”

The dashboard Jesus has become a cultural phenomenon. In the song “Plastic Jesus” Billy Idol sings, “With my plastic Jesus, goodbye and I'll go far, with my plastic Jesus sitting on the dashboard of my car.” Paul Newman sang it in the movie Cool Hand Luke. The words begin, “Well, I don’t care if it rains or freezes, long as I have my plastic Jesus sitting on the dashboard of my car.”

To lots of people, Jesus, church, and Christianity are cultural trappings but not life-changing realities. Author Josh McDowell warns that many people today see Jesus “like a plastic statue on a car dashboard—smiling, robed, a halo suspended above his head.” But that superstitious or sentimental view of Jesus is a myth. Jesus of Nazareth was no plastic saint. He’s a real-world kind of Savior.

It’s not important whether you have Jesus on your car’s dashboard, but it’s vital to know he’s living in your heart. He isn’t plastic, he’s powerful. He’s not small, he’s infinite. He’s not a good-luck token. He’s the risen Lord of time and eternity.

In his book titled The 100, astrophysicist Michael Hart asks a provocative question: Who are the 100 most influential people in history? Of all the human beings who have ever lived, who has had the deepest impact on our lives today?

Hart's list includes Sigmund Freud, the originator of psychoanalysis. You may not like Freud's theories, but he opened up an entire new field of human endeavor called psychology, and people still use the words that he coined—ego and Oedipus complex and death wish.

Hart also includes Louis Pasteur. According to Hart, Pasteur ushered us into the realm of modern medicine. He convinced the scientific community that these tiny, unseen things called germs caused a lot of diseases. Pasteur also figured out how to inoculate human beings so we don't get these terrible diseases. The fact that you're here alive and well is in some measure owed to this French biologist and chemist from 150 years ago.

But what really made the book interesting and popular was that Michael Hart had the chutzpah to rank the top one hundred world changers. He established the NCAA playoffs of human greatness. What do you think he did with Jesus Christ? Sure enough, Jesus did make it onto Hart's list. He said that Jesus was the inspiration for the most influential religion in history. Hart even wrote, "Jesus had an extraordinarily impressive personality." That's a nice compliment. Based on Jesus' impressive influence throughout history, Hart ranked Jesus as the 3rd most influential person in history, right after Muhammad and the scientist Isaac Newton (incidentally, Newton was also a Christian).

Hart was attempting to answer a question that every single person has to answer: What will you make of Jesus? How will you rank Jesus? Is he in the top 100? Is he in the top ten? Is he number one on your list? Or does Jesus belong to his own list—the list called Lord and Master and Savior of my life? The way you answer that question will affect everything about your life. It's the critical question of your life.

His Italian mother named him after the gospel writer Mark in the hopes that he too would tell the gospel truth. But 13th Century Europeans found it impossible to believe Mark's tales of faraway lands. He claimed that, when he was only seventeen, he took an epic journey lasting a quarter of a century, taking him across the steppes of Russia, the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, the wastelands of Persia, and over the top of the world through the Himalayas. He was the first European to enter China. Through an amazing set of circumstances, he became a favorite of the most powerful ruler on planet earth, the Kublai Khan. Mark saw cities that made European capitals look like roadside villages. The Khan's palace dwarfed the largest castles and cathedrals in Europe. It was so massive that its banquet room alone could seat 6,000 diners at one time, each eating on a plate of pure gold.

Mark saw the world's first paper money and marveled at the explosive power of gunpowder. It would be the 18th Century before Europe would manufacture as much steel as China was producing in the year 1267. He became the first Italian to taste that Chinese culinary invention, pasta. As an officer of the Khan's court, he travelled to places no European would see for another 500 years.

After serving Kublai Khan for 17 years, Mark began his journey home to Venice, loaded down with gold, silk, and spices. When he arrived home, people dismissed his stories of a mythical place called China. His family priest rebuked him for spinning lies. At his deathbed, his family, friends, and priest begged him to recant his tales of China. But setting his jaw and gasping for breath, Mark spoke his final words, "I have not even told you half of what I saw."

Though 13th Century Europeans rejected his stories as the tales of a liar or lunatic, history has proven the truthfulness behind the book he wrote about his adventures—The Travels of Marco Polo. 1300 years before Marco Polo wrote about China, another man, the Apostle John, went on an amazing journey to heaven itself. At times we jaded postmoderns shake our heads in disbelief at the Apostle John's vision and other biblical witnesses to the glory of heaven. But the biblical writers who describe heaven would declare to us, "I have not even told you half of what I saw. Heaven is more joyful, more glorious, and more beautiful than you could ever imagine." May their God-inspired testimonies and descriptions move us to long for God's gift to us in Christ—the glory of heaven.