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THE INVISIBLE MAN ARRIVES

It gives you goose bumps when it happens – and what fun it is to talk about it later and drop a big name. You’re on a golf course, and what do you know . . . Steve Garvey is on the next hole over. Or Tiger Woods. A friend of mine was out on a course in Bangkok, Thailand, back in 1968 – just a 13-year-old kid – when his drive whizzed in the wrong direction and almost hit a man. Ambling over a few minutes later, the American visitor smirked: “Hey, kid, was that a hook or a slice? You almost got me.” And it would have been too bad to bean Mr. Bob Hope in the head, getting ready to visit the troops over in neighboring Vietnam. Maybe you’ve had a celebrity sighting or two in the supermarket, and you tell people later: “I can’t believe I saw HIM!”

Back in the early, blitzkrieg days of World War II, just as the heavy bombing of London was beginning, some survivors in the south suburbs of Peckham were inspecting the damage from a recent Nazi attack. Maybe 20 or 30 “small three-story houses” had been wiped out. People were drying their tears and posting little Union Jack flags amidst the rubble. All at once, a buzz began to go through the crowd. A big, official-looking car pulled up and out stepped an important man named Sir Winston Churchill. Immediately, a thousand people swooped down on him, he wrote later in his memoirs:

“All these folk were in a high state of enthusiasm. They crowded round us, cheering and manifesting every sign of lively affection, wanting to touch and stroke my clothes.” Then he adds: “One would have thought I had brought them some fine substantial benefit which would improve their lot in life.”

A few pages later, he tells about another quick drop-in visit to the city of Birmingham, where three successive full-moon air raids by the Luftwaffe had really wiped out the city, especially some of the churches and monuments. Eight hundred dead, two thousand wounded. But when their beloved Prime Minister showed up to demonstrate solidarity and support, the people again rallied around and cheered for their P.M. He writes, a little bit tongue-in-cheek:

“An incident, to me charming, occurred. It was the dinner-hour, and a very pretty young girl ran up to the car and threw a box of cigars into it. I stopped at once and she said: ‘I won the prize this week for the highest output [at the factory]. I only heard you were coming an hour ago.’ The gift must have cost her two or three pounds.” Then he adds: “I was very glad (in my official capacity) to give her a kiss.”

Well, that’s a sweet story, but I want to take you to an even grander celebrity sighting. Two thousands years ago, there suddenly was a new Person walking among the crowds. He looked ordinary enough; he didn’t arrive in a limo from Number Ten Downing Street. He did have a kind of entourage, but hardly a royal-looking one. However, when bombs went off or people were hurting or sick or sad – or sinful – He was there to help.

And then He began to carefully tell them who He really was. That He was from heaven. That He was the Son of God. That He was actually God Himself. That what they were seeing – the 12 disciples, Mary and Martha, a lonely, often-divorced woman by the well – was literally the King and Ruler of all the universe. They were having lunch with God Almighty in human form. Yes, He had two hands and two feet. Yes, there were rumors that He had been born under questionable circumstances – maybe “on the wrong side of the blanket,” as we put it a few days ago. Nonetheless, “I that speak to you am He.” God on Planet Earth.

Speaking of celebrity sightings, writers John Ankerberg and John Weldon, in their recent book, Ready With an Answer, describe the scene this way:

“Jesus made many statements like the following,” they write, “which, upon reading, most people 2,000 years removed rarely understand the weight of. For example in John 14:7, Jesus says of God the Father, yet referring to Himself, ‘From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.’ Jesus’ whole point is that the disciples have seen God the Father in His own person. Noted commentator William Barclay remarks, ‘It may well be that to the ancient world this was the most staggering thing that Jesus ever said. To the Greeks, God was characteristically The Invisible. The Jews would count it as an article of faith that no man has seen God at any time.’ As the biblical scholar Leon Morris remarks: ‘He is claiming something far, far greater than anyone else had claimed.’”

That’s an interesting point, isn’t it? For most of us, the President of the United States is kind of invisible. You don’t see him at Von’s standing in the checkout line. You don’t bump into him in the red seats at Dodger Stadium. However, we see him on TV all the time; he’s regularly on the front pages of the news magazines. But in the year 31 A.D., everyone just knew that God was “The Invisible.” Nobody had ever seen Him, and nobody ever would. No sightings, no pictures, no video images, nothing. And all of a sudden, this MAN, who could work miracles, but who still stood about six foot one, 195 pounds, ten fingers, ten toes, etc., was saying that He was . . . HIM! “You’ve seen Him,” He said. “You know Him. If you know Me, guys, You know God the Father. I love you; He loves you.” And it just knocked people over.

Why do Christians believe that Jesus is all God? I mean, Winston Churchill could pull out the documents to show that he held the office of Prime Minister; George Bush has a U.S. Constitution and a driver’s license to show that he has a claim to a D.C. address and a nice white house there. But what is there Jesus can say to prove to a skeptic that He is what He says, that He IS the incarnate God?

Maybe you remember a movie line where a kid named Jack, letting the Atlantic breezes blow through his hair on the bow of the great H. M. S. Titanic, hollers into the sky: “I’m the king of the world!” The following Spring, when director James Cameron picked up his Oscar trophy for the blockbuster film, he blushed a bit and then crowed in boyish delight the same line: “King of the world!” And for that one celluloid night, maybe he was. But what evidence do we have that Jesus Christ is indeed a Visitor from beyond the stars?

This same team of Ankerberg and Weldon take us to a classic Bible passage in Matthew 25, where Jesus tells a parable about sheep and goats. Some people are kind to strangers, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked; others aren’t. You remember the line:

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

Well, we know that part by heart. But back in verse 31, listen to what Jesus plainly says ABOUT HIMSELF!

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”

We have a marvelous old book here at the office that pertains especially to students in my own Adventist faith community. It’s entitled Questions on Doctrine, and no matter where you personally might diverge from my own home church in this or that belief, I certainly hope you’re solidly with us on the idea of Jesus being fully God. And this great book goes on to give eleven powerhouse reasons why believers accept the cabinet-building Carpenter from Nazareth as being deity in our midst. And this is one key reason: Jesus said so. Over and over again! He talked about His throne. He spoke fervently of His oneness with the Father. He promised heavenly homes to His friends. He spoke of resurrection and His former existence in heaven.

But you know, friend, the thing that makes this celebrity sighting so unique, so powerfully moving – so significant that it shaped a world church – is this. True, Jesus was here as God. The Invisible became gloriously Visible. He lived here right among us. And even though it stunned those who heard, even though it made Jesus’ statements about divinity harder to believe, what moves me today is how this God-in-the-flesh cared about us. This wasn’t just a fly-by or a photo-op. Jesus came down here to Planet Earth as one who truly cares.

Back to that first Churchill story where the long black car stopped amidst the rubble. This intrepid Prime Minister saw the courage and also the suffering of his people. He saw their great need, and their love of country. And he humbly finishes his own story with these words:

“I was completely undermined, and wept. [General Lord] Ismay, [head of the Military Wing of the War Cabinet Secretariat], who was with me, records that he heard an old woman say, ‘You see, he really cares. He’s crying.’” And Churchill concludes: “They were tears not of sorrow but of wonder and admiration.”

Friend, may we serve OUR King as nobly and well.