A 2020 Vision for the New Year

Watching one of the episodes of the “The Chosen” TV series where Nicodemus admonished one of his students and quoting the  warning of Isaiah the truth about their much-awaited Messiah: “There are many who see him but do not really perceive him.” I can’t help but comparing it about my thoughts about the new year ahead, I was reminded of the phrase ‘2020 vision’ with its sense of seeing things with perfect clarity. The Pharisees at the time of Jesus would have wanted that kind of vision Isaiah had. The word vision, of course, has a wide meaning and as we peer into this most uncertain of years, we probably all wish that we had 2020 vision of what it will bring. As the saying goes, not everything is as it seems.

In fact, vision is not just seeing. I was told that if you’ve ever strolled around an art gallery with an Art expert you soon become aware that while you may be observing the same art object, they see much deeper, far further and with much greater understanding. We have sight, they have insight; we see, they perceive.

The danger of seeing what is superficial and overlooking what is important is frequently referred to in the Bible. At least six times the New Testament refers to a solemn warning verse of the Old Testament: ‘Go and tell this people: “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving”’ (Isaiah 6:9 ) it is repeated because so many people either saw Jesus or heard preaching about him but didn’t have the vision to perceive who he really was. They missed the point: they saw the man, but not his significance; they had sight, but not insight.

One of the characteristics of our age is superficiality: the dangerous refusal to perceive what is really there. With that in mind, let me at the start of this new year, suggest three important areas where we need true vision.

First, we need to have the vision to recognise that we are not valueless but valued. There are various popular ways of looking at human beings today but a common factor is that in them we come out as being utterly insignificant. So some see us as ‘nothing more’ than the dominant species thrown up by the great lottery of evolution. Others consider that we are ‘nothing more’ than consumers whose significance is simply the role we play in the economy. Still others see us as ‘nothing more’ than ‘the electorate’ who need to be persuaded into supporting some political system. And, of course, if even the best of us have only a small value, then the ‘little people’ – the old, the poor, the sick – have even less. Behind these views are the gloomy philosophies that all existence is ultimately meaningless and that humanity is just a brief bubble of consciousness that will soon vanish into the silence of a vast, uncaring universe. Our faith begs to differ. It looks below the surface and it shows us as God sees us. Every one of us, the Bible declares, is wonderfully made in God’s image and, as such, is of infinite value. Yes, our rebellion against God has damaged and disguised our glorious status but we remain loved by God. Indeed, God values us so much that to bring us back to himself he came in Jesus, to live and die as one of us. We have value.

Second, we need to have the vision that we can be not hopeless but hopeful. The near universal view of our time is that this life is all there is. When our pulse stops, when the ECG monitor shows a flat line and definitely when the crematorium swallows our coffin, then it’s assumed that it’s the end of our story and whatever hopes and dreams, longings and memories that were once ours vanish beyond recovery. Here, too, the Christian picture is defiantly different. The Bible promises us that death is not the end but that we all live on beyond it to stand before God. There, if we have handed our lives over to Christ and through him been reconciled to God, we will be welcomed into a joyous eternity. This promise of an unending future glory for those who have come to Christ transforms our life in the present. This life may claim to be everything, but with vision we now realise that it is nothing more than a brief, vital prelude to the real thing. Far from being the end of the story, for those who know Christ it’s just the beginning. However dark our days and however difficult our lives, to know Christ is to know hope. We have hope.

Finally, we should all have the vision that we should be not purposeless but purposeful. The current dark mood that life is meaningless casts its chill shadow over all that people do. If, as is claimed, life is ultimately purposeless, then why not just go with the flow and hope that wherever the river of life carries you it won’t hurt too much? Yet, as with everything else, to perceive our lives from a Christian perspective changes such a view. There is meaning in the world and that gives us purpose. What we do counts and counts for eternity. To become a believer in Christ is not simply to be given the ultimate ‘get out of jail free’ card for endless ages; it is to be given a new spiritual passport, to be offered citizenship of an eternal kingdom, to be gifted with the Holy Spirit and to acquire a new identity as a child of God. With those tremendous privileges comes the greatest of challenges: we must use what we have been given. We must be holy as God is holy. On the diary of life we have been given blank pages and it should be our intention to fill them with things that we have done for God and his kingdom. To be saved by Christ carries with it the obligation to live for Christ. We have purpose.

At the heart of these three much needed things – value, hope and purpose – lies the unique and awesome figure of Jesus. And again, that ancient warning of Isaiah still stands true about him: there are many who see him but do not really perceive him. May we not just see Jesus as a historical figure or some ‘great moral teacher’ but as the one – the only one – who can give us those things the world cannot give: value, hope and purpose. That will be the very best sort of 2020 vision to start the year 2020.

"Sometimes you don't realize that Jesus is all you need until JESUS is all you have.”

by: Lorvic Osorio