Those Camera Angles

Those Camera Angles

I’m hooked on the Olympics. But I recently noticed something about the coverage of these games that I hadn’t before: the multiplicity of camera angles used to tell the story of any particular contest. Tumbling looks vastly different at floor level than it does from the bleachers. And swimming! The camera allows us armchair athletes to hover just above the bottom of the pool as the swimmers slash and glide a few feet above. How boring these games would be if they were shot by a single cameraman, with a single point of view.

As I’ve enjoyed these varying angles, I’ve imagined the angles used (and yet to be used) to tell the gospel story. The events surrounding Jesus’ birth surely looked different to a shepherd than they did to a young pregnant girl from Galilee. The Crucifixion viewed from the foot of the cross was a world removed from the vantage point of the thief dying next to Jesus. And a former tax collector’s version of the ministry of Christ is decidedly less poetic than the one written by the apostle John, but it, too, offers a true picture of the central character.

In the same way, the story of the gospel in your life looks different from mine. How Jesus first came to you will not mirror the way he first showed himself to me. A Palestinian Muslim-turned-Christian sees a different angle of the story than I do. But his experience is just as solid, just as true.

I wonder how much energy is wasted trying to steer others to our own perspective or experience of the gospel story when we might actually be enriched by their own? There are so many ways to receive the same truth, to watch the same story unfold. It is in no way diluted by these diverse perspectives. The focus of the “camera” is the same, but the angles—oh, the angles!—what a rich story they can tell.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

Ephesians 4:4-7, NIV