Have ya ever been at a reunion where folks that don’t see each other every day get to chit-chattin’ about the past?
Dad told me about takin’ his dad — my Papa — to a gathering in South Carolina. A bunch of Marines, back together, talkin’ the South Pacific in WWII. He said if you added up the stories from those three days, there had been more whiskey drank, more cards played, and more enemy blood shed than could’ve fit on the whole planet in the 1940s.
Dad’s take on the event … they may have been embellishin’ a bit.
The point still stands. Get two or more folks in a room and they’re gonna see the same stretch of life … differently. Put the same man in a different light — goofy glasses one night, church Christmas the next — and you’ll swear you’re lookin’ at different people.
That’s not a problem we invented. Two thousand years ago there was no 24/7 surveillance. There was a Guy at the center of four books. Gospels. Four “Ways” of tellin’ one life. (See what I did there.)
Read ’em straight through and you can miss it. Go back and set the same morning next to itself and the cameras don’t match on purpose. The feeding of the five thousand: one writer gives you the frantic “we’ve got nothing.” Another gives you a boy, some barley loaves, and a calm that already knew. Or the readings here — the empty tomb.
Mark: women at dawn, stone already moved, “He is not here,” and they run and say nothing because they were afraid.
John: Mary in the garden. “Whom are you looking for?” She thinks He’s the gardener. Then she sees.
Same sunrise. Different eyes.
And back to Papa’s weekend … those stories got taller because the war had already been won. The Gospel writers were pennin’ theirs when a lot of folks still thought the story had ended on a Friday. They wrote it anyway.
Just a thought from a grandson proud of his grandfather’s service … and in awe of his Savior’s sacrifice.
Bible Verses
Questions
Do you have a favorite gospel ??? If so, why ???
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