The Book of Daniel haa a vision of what the coming of the new age of God will be like — beasts, horns, heads, wings, wheels of fire, myriads of attendance, all things outside of our usual experience. Jesus has a different vision for the coming of the new age — go out into back yard and look at a tree flowering, something we are familiar with. If there is one thing that the coming of Jesus means for our world it is that we come to know God on a human scale. The fantastic, the unusual, the bizarre is not how God chosen to reveal divinity in the world. Instead, it was the coming of a child, remarkably like any other child. And Jesus taught us that the place to find God was in human experiences if we have the eyes to see. The exotic imagery in the Bible can distract us from the real task that we have as believers. According to Jesus we should not go running after the latest rage or the wildest rumor. Rather, we should look at the providence of our everyday life and find the face of God in the people who are woven into our encounters.
