Aha!

The view above is from the Pisgah Peak on Mount Nebo in Jordan. In the Book of Deuteronomy, this is the place God brought Moses to show Moses the Promised Land: Gilead, the land of the Naphtali, all of Judah clear to the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev, the Jordan Valley, all of the Promised Land. And on a clear day a visitor can stand there also and see what God showed Moses.

Standing there was quite interesting and the record keeping about and of Biblical sites is impressive. The view was quite impressive.

But the big Aha! for me was none of that. It was to gaze out over the landscape, the valley below. Moses would have seen the Israelites camped below, spread out for a great distance for they were a great nation. This nation would enter the Promised Land fulfilling God’s promises. The view was much different than what I’d always imagined when I read these passages. Quite frankly Mount Nebo was not quite as tall as I expected. I was expecting Andes height but that’s an Aha! for another day.

This past Sunday marked the beginning of the church season of Epiphany. Epiphany is the Season of Aha! We celebrate and read of the revealing of Jesus as He began His earthly ministry. There are oddly satisfying and oddly mystifying events and what they reveal is not always what we thought. The very straight forward stories have depth and layers of meaning. They, too, are much different than what I’ve always imagined or assumed when I read the passages.

And perhaps that is the biggest Aha! of all. Every story, every nuance, points to God keeping His promises, and most especially His promise of a way to Him: Jesus. The interweaving of Old and New, the foreshadowing and reflecting back, serve to confirm and secure what we know but sometimes don’t quite really believe: God is faithful and His unfailing love is for us and about us.

In this season, the challenge is to hear with unstopped ears and to see with opened eyes the Aha! Where is Jesus being revealed to you and what is He revealing?