When I was growing up, I used to love reading the old stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I also enjoyed watching the old Sherlock Holmes movies in which the great British actor, Basil Rathbone, brought the literary character to life. This master detective had seemingly magical powers that enabled him to solve crimes and mysteries which baffled everyone else. Even his best friend, Dr. Watson, who courageously stood by his side through all dangers, was always amazed by Sherlock’s abilities.
But Detective Holmes was not a wizard. He had no powers beyond those of ordinary humans. He simply had trained himself to be observant, and then to determine the meaning of the things he observed. As he continually reminds Watson, “you see, but do not perceive”. At the end of each story, when Holmes explains exactly how he solved the crime, it all becomes obvious. Even Watson could have solved the crime if he had simply realized the significance of the things he had seen.
One famous example is in the story, “The Adventure of Silver Blaze”, in which Holmes points out to Police Office Gregory “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” When Gregory says, “The dog did nothing in the night-time”, Holmes responds, “That was the curious incident.” This, of course, leads Holmes to solving the case – no spoiler alert here – read the story yourself to find out! The point is that the police had access to the same information, but only Holmes realized the significance of these details. As he told Watson later, “Officer Gregory is an extremely good officer, lacking only imagination”.
As we learned Sunday [and BTW, many thanks to my friend, Cory Trevathan, the minister of the Riverside Church of Christ in Coppel, Texas, for much inspiration from his “Seeing Jesus” class last year at The Pepperdine Bible Lectures], it is not only possible, but actually extremely likely that people can “see but not perceive”. Jesus said, “You have eyes, but you don’t really see. You have ears, but you don’t really listen.” – Mark 8:18. And this was on full display in the story we talked about Sunday in which God spoke from Heaven, but most of the people said, “Oh, that was just thunder.” [See John 12:21-29] I don’t know how Jesus controlled Himself at this moment. I don’t know how He didn’t just throw up his hands in disgust and walk away from such hard-headed and hard-hearted people! If it weren’t so sad, the reactions of the people and their foolish attempt to explain away the glorious and amazing moment they had just experienced would almost be funny. Instead, it is pitiful.
And hopefully, it is also an eye-opening, wake-up moment for us. Our awesome brother, Steve Kolz, wrote this in a comment to the online service, “Hmm, don’t wanna be in the thunder group.” As we say down here, “Yeah, you right, Steve!”
We don’t have to have the powers of Sherlock Holmes to hear the voice of God, but we do need open ears. We don’t have to sift through tiny, hard-to-see details in order to recognize His presence among us, but we do need to open our eyes. We don’t have to understand all the mysteries of The Kingdom or The Trinity in order to be His children, but we do need to have open hearts and open hands and open minds.
And maybe, it wouldn’t hurt to have just a little imagination too!
Ambrose K. Ramsey III
Shepherd
