I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.
It was massive. It was complex. It was incredibly detailed. It was unlike anything I had ever seen in my life. I was overwhelmed by its creativity, or should I say by the creativity of the people who made this happen.
Who would have thought we would see something like this in downtown New York? Totally unexpected…
I was in New York with an employee attending a sports marketing conference. At the time I owned a sports marketing agency. We created and sold revenue generating game day promotions to pro sports teams. Our clients were mainly in the NBA and the NHL, but we worked in over a dozen pro and semi-pro leagues across North America.
The conference itself was a bit of a bust, but our time in New York was amazing. A highlight was watching the Rangers play the Leafs at Madison Square Gardens and nearly getting my butt kicked by an angry, drunken New York fan who stood to his feet and yelled at me, “Kill the Canadian! Death to the Canadian!”
We spent a fair bit of time touring New York, taking in shows, seeing the sites, interacting with locals and heading off with other conference attendees to taste the local fair. It was on one of these junkets I came across the picture I would never forget.
We had arrived at the ESPN Sports Bar and Restaurant in Times Square. I don’t know if it still exists, but in the late 1990’s it was a happening place near the epicenter of Manhattan. We entered through the front doors into a cacophony of sights and sounds. Large TVS were everywhere playing every kind of sporting event imaginable – all ESPN of course.
The place was alive with activity, but as I scanned around the enormous open two-story premise I saw the picture along the back wall. It went from the first floor to the second. It was equally as wide. From what I could see it was a magnificent backdrop for the open zig-zag stair case leading to the second floor perimeter which over looked all the activity of the first floor below.
It was a huge picture of Babe Ruth. It was not really clear though. It almost looked like it was out of focus – a bit like a gigantic Leroy Niemen painting.
Thankfully we were seated in an upstairs lofted table which required we take the stairway. This afforded me the opportunity to see the picture up close. It was then that the full weight of this picture’s glory began to dawn upon me.
You see, the entire picture was made up of countless individual baseball cards.
Someone, or more accurately many someones, had painstakingly put together myriad regular-sized baseball cards to create a marvelous picture of Babe Ruth. I can’t begin to imagine the complexity of such an undertaking, and the incredible creativity and attention to detail required to execute such a feat.
I was speechless.
A thought began to slowly dawn on me though: this is a little bit of an example of what Jesus meant when he said we all make up different parts of Him. Each one of us is a piece in a much bigger picture displaying Christ to the world.
Jesus said we are all members of the Body of Christ. We all have a place. We all have a role. Like each one of those baseball cards, we have a place in displaying Christ to the world. Each one of those cards was just a baseball card on their own, but when placed by a master artist into a bigger picture, they each became far greater than they were alone.
The picture is only possible when each player is placed beside others by the creator.
We need to recognize each one of us has a place within the Body of Christ to together display Jesus to this world. Who you are, and what you do is far more significant than you may realize.
You are a piece of a much bigger picture. Together we display Jesus in a marvelously, spectacular and creative fashion, only possible when we submit to the Master Creator who sees the masterpiece He is creating.
Yes, you are a piece of the picture of Christ the world sees. Let’s stick together and not mess up the picture.
1 Corinthians 12:27
“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”
Romans 12:4,5
“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
Hebrews 10: 24, 25
“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”