Everyone expected Jesus to make a big entrance, to come in red hot and larger than life. He was, after all, God. 

That’s what they expected… but that’s not what they got.

What do you expect? How do you want God to enter into your life?

There’s a subtlety to Jesus and his story. You could even say there’s a smallness to it.

He grew up in a very unassuming way, with humble parents, learned a trade, made no waves until it was go time. He then chose twelve ordinary people to help him. He traveled on foot from town to town along the unglamorous outskirts of Jerusalem. Most of the Gospel stories are about small encounters with small groups of individuals. He performed miracles often in front of just one or two people, frequently asking them not to tell anybody else about them.

It was all very… small.

If your job was to save the world… wouldn’t you have chosen twelve powerful senators from Rome to help you? Entered each town with a big and loud chariot parade? Waved your hands over huge crowds to heal everyone at the same time? Performed shock and awe miracles for all to see? Wouldn’t you’ve have chosen go… BIG?

I believe there’s something about the smallness of Jesus’ approach that is worth thinking about.

Imagine for a moment that you were standing in a large crowd and Jesus waved his hands and – boom! – you were healed, that you experienced a great miracle.

Ok, now imagine that you were the blind man hunched over by the side of the road who encountered Jesus. Imagine that you were the woman who reached up to grasp at the hem of his clothing and became healed. Imagine that you were the parent of the young child brought back to life. Imagine that Jesus’ hand pulled you up out of the water, saving you from drowning.

I think that another way to say small is intimate. 

I think that another way to say small is personal.

Jesus wants a direct, intimate, and personal encounter with us. He wants to touch our very hearts.

That’s because when we personally encounter Christ, it’s hard to walk away from him. When he finds us broken by the side of the road, suffering and in desperate need of his touch, alone and abandoned, betrayed by a friend, or worried sick over somebody we love… and then he comes to us… that is a personal encounter we won’t easily forget.

We can expect and even pray for the big miracle – the kind that involves him waving his hand over us and instantly making everything better. But perhaps the best miracles are the ones that bring us face to face with him. That allow us to stare into his eyes. That touch us to the core… and which grab a hold of our shoulders and lets us know that we are never, ever alone. 

It’s all very small.

But small is where we are saved.