3. Recovering What Was Lost

There's a well-known story about a famous violinist who took his $3.5 million Stradivarius onto a platform of a Washington DC subway and started playing music. He was dressed in a T-shirt and a ball cap. Joshua Bell was accustomed to playing for packed concert halls and getting paid $1,000 a minute. During his 43-minute solo concert in the subway a total of 1097 people passed by. But only seven people stopped to listen. He earned $32 in change. J.T. Tillman, a computer specialist, was one of the people who walked by. He said, "I didn't think nothing of it, just a guy trying to make a couple of bucks." Tillman would've given him some cash, but he spent all his money on the lotto. When he was told that he stiffed one of the best musicians in the world, he asked, "Is he ever going to play around here again?" The reporter said, "Yeah, but you're going to have to pay a lot to hear him." Exactly one person recognized Joshua Bell. Her name was Stacy. She positioned herself 10 feet away from Bell, front row, center. She had a huge grin on her face. She said, "It was the most astonishing thing I've ever seen in Washington. Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush-hour, and people were not stopping, and not even looking, and some more flipping quarters at him! Quarters! I was thinking, 'Oh my gosh, what kind of a city do I live in that this could happen?'" In Genesis chapter three we read about this event often referred to as The Fall. A perfect garden paradise called Eden, two humans made in the image of God caring for the beautiful space and living in a everyday relationship with God. Everything is running according to design until a spiritual being, taking on the appearance of a snake, tempts the couple with a crafty half truth, and in a moments notice everything is thrown into disarray! The story of the Bible is about how God works to bring goodness back to from chaos. The good news of Scripture tells us that God invades the fallen world as Jesus of Nazareth. His job is to atone for the sin, but there's also another very important job as well: show people what it means to be human. Jesus is the perfect human and he models for us what it looks like to live as imagers of God here on earth.  What does any of this have to do with one of the greatest violin players in the world going unnoticed in a subway? Every day, Christians ignore the beautiful transformation that King Jesus gives us. The apostle Paul writes: "take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth." ~ Ephesians 422-24 CSB Everyday we go about our busy lives, looking like everyone else...all the while ignoring the beautiful example King Jesus provides us about how to live as God's people. To learn more give a listen to part three of The Big Picture.