A chilling paragraph in Mark 14:

One of the twelve apostles, Judas Iscariot, went to the leading priests to inform them of his willingness to betray Jesus into their hands. They were delighted to hear this and agreed to pay him for it. So immediately Judas began to look for an opportunity to betray him. (Mark 14:10 – 11, Passion Translation)

People miss stuff! Judas missed it. The leading priests missed it. Jesus, the Messiah, was right in front of them. Judas spent years with him. They missed him.

Here’s a trivial example of not seeing what’s right in front of you, I enjoy trying the weekly crossword contest in the Wall Street Journal. It comes out every Friday (actually, online Thursday afternoon) and consists of a crossword puzzle and a problem, called the “meta” which is answerable from a process one has to discover. The process is different every week. Here’s the puzzle from last Friday. I highlighted the middle answer before the screen capture because I thought it would be the key to the solution. The puzzle’s theme was “Go with the flow,” and we were asked to find “a food.”

As I said, I thought “Under the volcano” was the key. I also thought “lava” would be involved since that’s a “flow” from a volcano. But I couldn’t find the four volcanos that were embedded in the grid right in front of me! See them? Look in the long across answers 17A, 26A, 48A, 56A: viETNAmese, carHOODs, LOAdupon, taKEAstand. I had seen Mt Hood, but not Mt Etna, Mauna Loa, and Mauna Kea. Anyway, if you look right under the volcanos, there’s your food: MOLT ENLA VAC AKE or “molten lava cake.” I should have solved this in 10 minutes or less. It took 3 days! I didn’t see it.

I’ve written about missing things before. But the topic bears repeating. Something I need to see can be right in front of me, but my preconceived notions, my prejudices, or just plain not paying attention all prevent me from seeing. There’s also an implication here for teachers. I’ll write about that tomorrow!

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4.4, NIV)

As he passed by, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. (John 9.1, ESV, emphasis mine)