Noticing

At 7pm on Thursday evening we, Lisa, Meg, Zac and me, left for Heathrow airport to pick up Grandma. Grandma was on a plane for the USA which was due to land at 8.55pm at Terminal 2. We like to be there early. It wouldn’t be right to miss that moment when your loved one comes out of the tunnel, especially when you haven’t seen them for over a year. So we get there early. And we were there early. I also believe it’s not a proper trip to the airport unless you are there early enough to have a coffee! So, we went to get a coffee. And watched the arrivals board. “Baggage in hall” is our cue. We rush to the barriers. (Actually we saunter to the barriers. Please don’t tell Grandma). And then we wait, watching everyone who walks out of the tunnel. And there are lots of people. People of all shapes and sizes, of all cultures and nationalities, all with a variety of bags and cases. We all watch carefully because, secretly, we each want to be the one who says; “There she is!” So we waited. And waited. I posited that she’d forgotten to get off the plane! How could so many people come out of the tunnel but not Grandma? Then Lisa’s phone rang. “Hi…Claire?” (That’s Lisa’s sister who lives in Virginia.) “Wait…mom? Is that you? Yes, we’re here. Where are you?” It turns out Grandma was already in Terminal 2 waiting for us! She’d somehow managed to walk out of the tunnel, just like everyone else, while we were watching and all wanting to be the first to spot her, yet we hadn’t seen her! We’d missed her. We hadn’t noticed when she came out of the tunnel. How could that be? She thought we weren’t there to meet her. We had been waiting for ages! Sometimes we simply fail to notice! One night Jesus walked towards his disciples on the water. Jesus had been ministering to a crowd and had sent them on ahead to cross the lake in a boat. He saw them struggling against the wind and waves, so he walked towards them, on the water. Mark’s gospel records that he was about to pass them by (mark 6 v 47). Perhaps in those moments Jesus was giving them an opportunity to notice his presence. Walking to people in the storm is the kind of thing Jesus does. But his disciples didn’t notice. They saw someone walking on the water, but assumed it was a ghost and it terrified them. Perhaps they didn’t notice it was Jesus because they weren’t quite ready for the things Jesus did. And maybe that’s true for us too. Maybe it’s still true that Jesus comes to people in the storms. And maybe its also true that we still don’t notice his coming. We were about twenty feet away from Grandma in Heathrow Terminal 2, but we didn’t notice her presence. God is closer than the air we breathe. And yet, we can still miss his presence. Once we found Grandma, we had a lot of catching up to do. May be God is waiting for us to notice his presence. Maybe we have a lot of catching up to do.