Let’s pray. But this is the one to whom I will look, he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at My Word. We ask, O Lord, that you look upon us now, in your kindness, speak to us. Give us ears to hear. We want to be those who are humble and contrite in spirit, those who tremble at Your Word. If we are not, if we do not, then make us so to be and to do, that we might know your favor, that you would look upon us and smile, even as we tremble. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Most of us are drawn to greatness, even if we’re not particularly ambitious ourselves for greatness, though many of us are, then we at least like to see it and we marvel at it. I mentioned last Sunday evening the Winter Olympics. I won’t say anything more about curling because I know that just gets your mind going, you can’t think about anything else as soon as I mention curling, but I’m many of you have watched the Winter Olympics. It’s a little different. The Summer Olympics feel like hey, most of us have sort of done something like that. We’ve run or we’ve been in a pool, we’ve shot a basketball, we’ve had a golf club, and we’ve done some of those things. But the Winter Olympics are often strange. You never just went off a cliff and jumped to see how far you could go and land. We were watching some of that last night and Trisha said “how to you get started in that? Is it a gift or is it punishment?” Children, pewwww.
But it’s amazing. They, they showed that where that high ski jump, it’s at the very top. It’s taller than the Statue of Liberty. And you go down and you launch almost a football field and a half in the air. I couldn’t see any parachutes. It seemed very ill-advised. But they land and they get style points and you’ve seen the various other things, cross-country skiing for over an hour seems really exhausting, and of course the things that the ice skaters can do to spin and twirl and every four years it comes along and we try to learn what it means that they’re twizzling, but I guess it’s a really good thing, important thing. Even if we don’t understand, we can, we can follow along in the Olympics and see this is amazing what people can do, how coordinated they are, their endurance, their, their training over years and a lifetime for this moment.
If you’re a sports fan, there is always things that you’re drawn to. Some of you may have followed this is the All-Star weekend for the NBA, last night 3-point contest and dunk contest, and I used to be able to touch the net, and yet these people are just flying through the air and putting the ball between their legs. It’s amazing what they can do. We’ll have March Madness coming up. All sorts of things.
And if sports aren’t your thing, then you have something else. You can go to an art museum and marvel at the Dutch masters or look at the exquisite use of light and shadow or what the artist was trying to convey. Or maybe some of you love to read military history and can fully appreciate the genius and the greatness of a great flanking maneuver.
We aspire to greatness. Even if we’re not particularly ambitious, we enjoy being in the presence of greatness. We have a President who campaigned on the slogan to “Make America Great Again.”
So what is true greatness? Well, let me tell you who Jesus thought was great. And that should matter to us, I hope. Whether you’re a Christian or not, you’re probably here and you kind of like Jesus, so it would be important to recognize who did Jesus think was truly great. I think we all agree we have something to learn from Jesus’ definition of greatness. Here’s what he said in Luke 7:28: “I tell you among those born of women, none is greater than John (meaning John the Baptist). Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater...
