I’ve always loved cars and motorcycles. If memory serves me correctly, in 1977, Ford Motor Company introduced something they called, “The Ford Pinto Cruising Wagon.” It was a station wagon with moon windows in the back and a rainbow paint scheme. My brother had one. It had several strikes against it. It was a Ford Pinto, possibly one of the most pathetic cars ever produced by Detroit – strike one. It was a station wagon – station wagons are not exactly cool sports cars – strike two. It was gutless – strike three. On the outside, it was flashy. But it was still a Ford Pinto, under the hood. It’s as though the design team didn’t know the basic truth that it’s not what’s on the outside of the car that matters; it’s what’s under the hood.
Contrast that to a little Yamaha RD-350. I had one of them when I was sixteen years old. Anybody who was anybody had a Honda 500 Four. But I had the little Yamaha 350. It was very ordinary looking. No sissy bar. No highway pegs. It sounded like a wind-up toy when you revved it – ring-a-ding-ding. Like a chain saw with a string of sleigh-bells attached. It smoked like a coal furnace — except it was the blue smoke of the two-cycle engine. In spite of how it looked and sounded, it had a rockin’ two-stroke engine. When I sat on the bike, all 145 pounds of me, it would beat those lazy Honda 500 Fours, leaving them to breathe that blue smoke. To me, the RD-350 was a great example of how you can misjudge something if you don’t look closely – look under the hood.
In our passage today, Jesus gives three of his disciples a look under the hood. And what they learn is that he is not a Ford Pinto. Oh – and Jesus is not an RD-350. Jesus is the Son of the Most High God.
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You may remember Rod when he played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Baltimore Ravens, and the Oakland Raiders. He played with such excellence that the Steelers named him to their 75th Anniversary Team.