My grandma had an autostereogram hanging on the wall of her basement when I was growing up. If you’re not familiar or didn’t know the name (like I didn’t), an autostereogram is one of those optical illusion images that you hold close to your face and slowly move away until a new image appears.

I’d try over and over to see the hidden image but could never get it. Others could look at it and quickly see something, but not me. I wanted to see it so badly that I’d start guessing or forcing my eyes to see something that wasn’t actually there. I’d bring the image closer to my face, thinking I could find hidden lines somewhere that would help. Eventually, I considered it just colorful TV static.

Something similar is what makes the end of Matthew 13 so surprising. After spending most of the chapter teaching in parables, Jesus returns home to Nazareth, where he doesn’t exactly receive a warm welcome.

People’s response after seeing the things he was doing and saying was to scoff, “He’s just the carpenter’s son …” (v. 55). Historians estimate that his hometown had fewer than 500 people at the time. He’d lived there most of his life, so many of the people would’ve known him well. Instead of embracing him, they rejected him and reduced his identity to “just” the carpenter’s son. Their familiarity with Jesus caused them to miss his full identity. In the same way that I reduced my grandma’s autostereogram to “just” colorful TV static, Jesus’ own neighbors reduced him to only a small part of who he was.

I don’t know what happened to that old autostereogram, but it wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I saw another one. Seeing it brought back memories of the one hung in my grandma’s house. I tried to see the hidden image again, and this time, I finally saw it. The image seemed to jump off the page. I remember thinking it wasn’t at all what I expected it to look like as a child. All of a sudden, it made sense why I’d missed it all those years.

Sometimes what is right in front of us is the very thing we fail to see clearly. We can convince ourselves that we already know everything or that our proximity alone will make it easy to see, but that’s not always the case. Sure, being “close” to Jesus matters a lot, but if we make that the end instead of the means of following, then we can miss who he is and what he’s doing.

When we stop learning, looking at Jesus with new eyes, and being surprised by him, that can be a sign that we’ve replaced following him with just proximity to him. During this Lenten season, let’s draw near to Jesus, ready to listen, willing to receive, patient enough to wait, and open to seeing him more clearly.

Reflection:

  • What happens when we reduce Jesus to “just” a good teacher or moral example? Have you ever noticed yourself doing that?
  • What does it look like to be near Jesus but not follow him? How can you come to him with curiosity and newness, ready to learn?
  • How can you notice your assumptions about Jesus and set them aside to allow him to show you who he is?