On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified. When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, “This is really the prophet.” Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But some asked, “Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he? Has not the scripture said that the Messiah is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” So there was a division in the crowd because of him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

My youngest brother Colin is a great sport.  He comes over every Monday evening to hang out.  We usually go out to dinner or make dinner, watch a bit o tv and have some sort of adventure.  I have talked about this to people before.  Colin and I have looked for ugly Christmas sweaters, we have visited friends, we have driven to Portland to hang out, we have randomly gone to get pie for International Pi Day, etc.  We like to come up with new things. 

But this time we went all out.  I was invited to a Pampered Chef party and it happened to fall on a Monday night.  So I told Colin that we were up for a new adventure and he hesitantly agreed to hop on board. 

We arrived at the party to find he was the only one in the 20 year old category and the only male.  We introduced ourselves and then took our seats near the back corner while he smiled at me in a, “what did you get me into?” kind of way.  Then we were asked to highlight our own Pampered Chef favorite that we use.  Colin again took a deep breath, smiled and answered the question in his gracious way.  He tried all the appetizers, laughed with everyone, made small talk, and even looked through the catalogue…of course advising his sister on what she could buy for him. 

All in all, we actually had a really great time and then debriefed over the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday afterward since we both had not eaten dinner yet…just artichoke tapenade and tirimisu cupcakes.

Why do I tell you this story? Because Colin took a moment, shifted his perspective, went on the adventure (even though he could guess it was not for him and rather funny) and we had a great time…with plenty of funny material for a Monday well spent together.  The scripture is about who has what perspective about Jesus.  People can’t quite figure out what is going on.  Who is this guy?  What kind of adventure is he on?  It’s like looking at some of these…

or even something like this…

or when you look at this for a while you will see it everywhere…

The people around him are saying…is this the Messiah? Just a guy doing weird speeches?  What is up? Look who is around him!  It’s all about perspective…is he a threat or is he the word of God? Is he prophet or is he more?  The answers seem to be yes…all about how we take perspective here.  And how we shift what we know to what God may be telling us. In the end, if we shift perspective in order to listen we may just be refreshed from our thirsty selves.  Perhaps that is how we have the time of our lives instead of ignoring the experience.

Where does your perspective need to shift today in order to see the adventure and thirst quenching experience instead of the bounding perspective that may be going on?

Peace,

Court