Where Do We See Jesus?
1 Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;
make known among the nations what he has done.
2 Sing to him, sing praise to him;
tell of all his wonderful acts.
3 Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
4 Look to the Lord and his strength;
seek his face always.
5 Remember the wonders he has done,
his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.
Psalm 105 goes on after this for another 40 verses. It speaks of the ways God has acted in the lives of his people. The actions of the people are around what they have received; mostly the place as his people. The Psalm covers a broad swath of the history of the people of God, but it is not about what the people have done. It is about what God has done. And those things are stated to show us who God is, and that story brings us to who we are. History being used to show the identity of God and the identity of his people.
This is the place we have begun Lent. In the place of identity. Who is Jesus? We have the partial answer from this past Sunday that Jesus is the Son of God, the one who is much-loved by the Father. And we see that our identity is wrapped up in this same text, in our baptism, as it was in his. We are much-loved children of God, people in whom God is well-pleased. Not because of our actions, but because we belong with him out of his grace in Jesus.
We go into this week with the questions of identity still with us. We will hear more of who Jesus is and who we are as we go along the weeks ahead. But we also need to be watching for Jesus in the people we will see around us. Where are we seeing Jesus? In whose eyes have we seen Jesus at work around us? Maybe in someone who offers us assistance. Possibly in the face of one needing our help. In the eyes of the children around us.
Psalm 105 showed the ways God was active in the lives of people in various times and places in their history. We have a history where we can see God at work in the lives of those who have gone before us. We have memories of seeing God at work in our lives and around us in the lives of others. And the certain promise that we will see him in the faces of others around us, in the actions and events of our days. And if we struggle with the idea of seeing God in times of struggles of life, remember the statement of Mr. Rogers, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Those are people working in God’s grace, sometimes not even knowing it. But they bring the face of Jesus near us.