TWENTY-TWENTY VISION

                On New Year’s Day I saw in the Frank and Ernest cartoon that one of the characters was looking at a calendar with Jan. 1, 2020 on it and saying, “Darn! I knew it was a long shot, but I was hoping I’d wake up today and have perfect eyesight.” There is no connection of course between 20-20 eyesight and the year 2020, at least in a literal sense. But in another sense, there may be a vital connection. It might help us maneuver through whatever the new year brings if we can see clearly. Especially if we have the kind of 20-20 vision that enables us to see reality clearly and, as Paul prays in Philippians 1:9, “that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best.”

                How can we gain the kind of 20-20 vision that enables us to determine what is best? The year 2020 will bring all kinds of tests, temptations, ups and downs, joys and sorrows, opportunities and challenges. How do we determine what is best?

It may depend on the kind of glasses we are wearing. What we choose will be determined by how we look at life. We all look at life through certain lenses. Some have lenses that are covered with dollar signs and they see everything in terms of how much money they can make. Others look at life through racist, or sexist, or political or nationalistic lenses. The ideologies and worldviews by which we live are manifold and many of them lead to a distorted understanding of reality.

                As Christians, we can choose to look through a different lens – the lens of Jesus, or what we might call “Christ-colored” glasses. How did Jesus look at life? At people? Matthew tells us (14:14) that when he saw the thousands of people who had followed him to a deserted place “he had compassion upon them.” To view life through the lens of Jesus means to see everything through his character, that is, through his grace, compassion, love, kindness, goodness, and integrity. It means to go through life choosing to live as a servant intent on doing the will of God, the Father.

                When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper he said to his disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me.” As we focus on Jesus, our view of life is shaped by him and we begin to see through the lens of Jesus. He gives us the kind of 20-20 vision that we need to “determine what is best” as we maneuver through the year of 2020. Let us focus, therefore, on him who took the bread, blessed and broke it and said, “This is my body, given for you.” And also the cup, saying, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”