Jesus in the Ordinary

Jesus in the Ordinary (second draft, 8/21/22)

Every day we experience Jesus in ways we rarely recognize because they are so ordinary, so common, so "natural." 

Life, in all it's dimensions, is a gift from God and reflects His character and work.  David observed in Psalm 139:13, "You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb," and added (vs. 16), "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."  Though the secondary causes may be more obvious, every day Jesus supplies the necessities of life and the blessings of life - the air we breath, the water we drink and require for many other uses, the food we eat ("our daily bread"), and the sleep our bodies need. He coordinates the chemistry and biology of the trillions* of cells in our bodies so that we can function, can think and move and work and see and speak and do countless other things. 

Jesus' work is reflected in the beauty and the wonder of creation, of the earth that Jesus prepared for us in which to live, and in the processes of creation He sustains. A single flower can fill us with awe, while the amazing diversity of plant and animal life magnifies that wonder a thousand fold.  From the mysteries of the "standard model" of particle physics with its quarks and leptons and bosons and all their interactions, to the nature of the periodic table of elements and how delicately balanced chemical interactions must be to permit any life and to form all the compounds that make our world possible, to the processes that have formed the earth, to the incomprehensible dimensions of the "universe"** with its dark matter and dark energy that are yet to be well understood, all of this and much more Jesus authored and sustains.  He sends the rain on the just and the unjust; He restrains evil according to His divine purposes. 

As already referenced from Psalm 139, Jesus has formed each person born in the womb.  Jesus unites couples in marriage. Jesus blesses families with children.  Jesus determines the day the earthly life of His servants is over.  Psalm 105:7 says that "His judgments are in all the earth."

Jesus' presence is often hidden in the relationships we have and that sustain us, in our marriages and families and friendships and in the countless "impersonal" interactions we depend on, nameless people who take our garbage and grow our food and build our houses and repair our streets and keep us safe and are behind so many other things that define and make possible our lives and daily activities.

We experience Jesus' mercy and grace daily.  While we believe that the source of that mercy and grace is the work of Jesus in His once-for-all sacrifice, we daily accept and take hold of His forgiveness and grace to allow His Spirit to work in and through us, to free us from the bondage to sin.  And who can comprehend the effects of Jesus' intercession for us?

Jesus' reign over all authorities and powers (Ephesians 1:21), as well as His work creating all thrones and dominions, visible and invisible (Colossians 1:16) is so often obscured by the darkness and evil and godlessness of the world we temporarily reside in.  Yet even in "this evil age" we find His kingdom when we seek for it. 

May we learn to see Jesus in the ordinary, that our hearts and minds can be filled with praise. 

*Estimates of the number of cells in a human body range from 35 trillion to as many as 100 trillion.

** Most estimates of the size of the observable universe range from 50 billion to 100 billion light years, a light year being about 5.9 trillion miles