…God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong… (1 Cor 1:27)
My musical “career” ain’t much, but I can say that it’s been marked by moments where I felt that I actually succeeded in making some good music! ;c) When I go to a performance of any kind, I’m very appreciative of excellence. Even in a worship setting, I am frequently emotionally “undone” sometimes by excellence in the human creative endeavor. God has made me to resonate in a certain way when I encounter creative excellence. I think that God can be and should be praised for creative excellence. It reflects His creation and the way that He created Man.
This week, however, I’ve had the distinct opportunity to see God’s hand in some performances that, had they been practiced 1,000 times, might never have reached “very good“, let alone “excellent” status in their “human creative endeavor.”
Tuesday morning, at a nursing home in Guebwiller, France, a group of pre-school, kindergarten, and special-ed kids from the Christian school where we volunteer (and our children go), The Daniel School, put on a small Christmas show for the residents of the nursing home.
Another father and I trucked over the scenery and sound equipment. We did the set-up and ran the sound gear…an amalgamation of equipment from 2 different churches, The Daniel School and some of my own stuff. Two mothers did non-stop costume changes. The music teacher was accompanying for songs where the “soloists” sometimes seemed to be making a Magi pilgrimage to find the melody. There were 3 or 4 teachers, continually guiding, cajoling, handing out microphones, making sure people were in their right places, prompting for lines, answering questions from all of us who were doing the “technical support” and watching over the children before and afterward.
What I witnessed and took part in was a tremendous effort and coordination so that one group of “weak” people on the earth could proclaim to another group of “weak” people on the earth that Jesus decided that divine status was not something to be clutched onto. Rather He would choose to be weak too! He choose to identify forever with human weakness in the most real way possible…become a helpless fetus, fully dependent upon a young, not-quite-married girl, born into a relatively poor family at a time when birth complications were generally fatal, and then walk the earth as a man. He chose to be vulnerable in every way when it looked that that could only get Him killed…
The message transmitted was, and is of supreme importance:Jesus is Lord.
In many ways, it’s a well-known message. Especially to the modern Church. For me, however, the way in which the message was transmitted spoke even louder, though it is perhaps less well-known to us. For our day and age, as for that of Jesus, it proclaims a message as well…arguably nearly equally important. Caesar isn’t.
Would that we could hear the two messages in harmony…