Studying John together, I have often found it fascinating how pedestrian the life of Jesus and His disciples was. How many people walked by Jesus and His band of disciples on the roads between Galilee and Samaria without ever having any clue that they had just passed within a few feet of the Creator of the universe?
How many people saw Jesus sleeping under the stars or in the spare room of a hospitable host (cf. Luke 9:58) and simply thought, “Poor guy. I hope he gets a better paying job someday and can afford to stay at an inn.”
Veiled in flesh indeed! We know, as we read these pages, that every seemingly normal and mundane aspect of the life of Jesus was in fact an essential piece of a tapestry of moments that would stitch the mundane and the miraculous together until the full image of the Messiah was revealed.
There was a similar sense this week in our text when we saw the disciples puttering around in a fishing boat like they had done hundreds or thousands of times before, waiting for Jesus. It was the mundane the preceded the miraculous.
As we celebrate the coming of Jesus this year during Advent, it is encouraging to remember that all our mundane tasks are not mere vanity while we wait for the “good stuff” to unfold at the end of time. Truly, every simple task, every repetitive responsibility, every enduring and thankless faithfulness is an essential part of the tapestry that God is still weaving to the glory of His name and the name of His Son.
A passage that is helpful in meditating on this reality is Titus 2:11-14 which reads:
11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
12instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,
13looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,
14who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
Part of the Gospel message, the instruction which comes from the salvation-bringing grace of God, is to keep on keeping on with our daily work in a way that honors God. We are to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. Right now. Our hearts reach out in anticipation, even as the hearts of the disciples did in that boat, to see the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Until He appears, however, we remain contentedly, and even zealously, a people for His own possession who are busily engaged in good deeds.
That might be engaging in the good work of preparing a Christmas feast. It might also be cleaning out a clogged gutter. It’s a principle that covers proclaiming the Gospel to strangers, and not sticking chewing gum to the underside of a restaurant’s table. If it can be done sensibly, righteously, and godly in this present age, then it can be done as a Gospel-affirming act of worship.
Like little Christmas lights strung together that collectively adorn and bring glory to a Christmas tree, let us string together our little acts of mundane worship. Together they will adorn our lives and our proclamation of the Good News until this present age comes to an end and our blessed hope is fulfilled at the future advent of the glory of Jesus.