What do you expect of Jesus?
There are some very successful preachers out there, much more polished and sharp than me, that promote a view of Jesus as a kind of magical helper. And so someone gets sick in the family and the family gets together and prays and they collect all those tracts and pamphlets out there that say if you visualize healing and your faith is strong then Jesus will heal your family member. But the person isn't healed. The family is offended. What kind of Christ is this?
"Are you the one, or are we to expect another?"
Others might think of Jesus as the power that could stop natural disasters or who could miraculously give food to the hungry or who could prevent terrible dictators from rising to power. But we see in the news all the time about disasters that happen and thousands die or lose their homes. We hear about the millions who go to bed hungry every day. We know there are vicious and sadistic despots in power all over the world. Those who expect an all-powerful ruler over history are offended. What kind of Christ is this?
"Are you the one, or are we to expect another?"
Others think of Jesus as the king of niceness, the Lord of good manners, a deity for the cultivated. And when they come across a church where people are shouting or dancing or where everyone isn't wearing nice clothes, they are deeply offended. What kind of Christ is this?
"Are you the one, or are we to expect another?"
There are still others who think that Jesus is the Lord of some other world, and not of this one, and who expect see him only after death. So when they hear about people who follow him in their business practices or in their political activities, they are shocked. What kind of Christ is this?
"Are you the one, or are we to expect another?"
There are a few who think of Jesus as a kind of guru of happiness. They think of Jesus as a way to deny the pain and suffering of life and just float along on a pink cloud of peace and joy. And then, inevitably, some trial comes along, something that just can't possibly be denied, and they are shocked and offended. What kind of Christ is this?
"Are you the one, or are we to expect another?"
In Jesus' time, people had just as many expectations of the Messiah. Some thought he should have taken a vow of poverty, lived in a hovel in the desert and talked about letting go of material things. Others thought he should have been a fiery rebel organizing a bloody revolution to cast the Romans out of Israel once and for all. Others thought he should have been a noble political genius who might even have taken over the Roman Empire. Others thought he should have been a kind of super-Moses, waving a staff that brought floods and famines and plagues on all those who had ever offended or oppressed Israel.
Jesus, in his own teaching, seems most indebted to the prophet Isaiah's vision, and we hear today some of Isaiah's expectations. Isaiah painted a picture of a road leading home, a clear and straight path through hazardous and desolate wilderness, a wilderness now miraculously blooming into a verdant garden and protected from all predators. Isaiah was almost certainly talking about the return of the exiles from Babylon to Israel. This miraculous return home was metaphorically compared to the blind gaining sight, the deaf gaining their hearing and the dead being raised back into life.
Five hundred years later, Jesus takes up Isaiah's words and applies them to himself, and to John. Now Israel was not in exile, but was again at home in the land. Now Israel was occupied by the Romans. Now Israel was led by powerful Jews who collaborated with the oppressor. In Jesus' take on Isaiah, John the Baptist was the one who prepared the way in the wilderness for the people of God to go home.
Home, however, was a different place now. Home now was the realm of God, and the realm of God was no longer a geographical location, a particular hill, a certain country. The realm of God was a way of seeing, a way of hearing, a way of walking, a way of living.
The realm of God was no longer dependent on the actual conditions or locations in which people were living, but rather on the living they did in the places and conditions in which they found themselves.
It was no longer about whether John the Baptist got out of prison. It was now about how John understood his prison, and what his imprisonment would accomplish. It was no longer about whether Jesus would be defeated by the powerful Jews and their Roman friends, but how Jesus would understand what that defeat might accomplish. It was no longer about what would actually happen. It was now about how--first Jesus, and then we--would see, hear, walk and live through it. This is the realm of God.
So what kind of Christ is this? This Christ would give sight to the blind, so that they could see the truth. This Christ would unstop the ears of the deaf, so that they could hear God's word. This Christ would give mobility to the paralyzed, so that they could go where God was leading them. This Christ would give eternal life to the dead, so that they could take part in what God had been doing before they were born and what God would continue to do long after they died.
Christ didn't come to transform conditions; Christ came to transform people.
Jesus points out to the crowds that in John the Baptist they might have expected the kind of prophet that moved in the high circles, who had influence with the big cheeses. Even old Isaiah had been a priest in the temple and would have had the ear of the king. The Jewish king of Jesus' day, Herod, put out a coin with a reed blown by the wind on one side and Herod's face on the other. But John the Baptist was not a temple priest and clearly didn't impress Herod, who had arrested and imprisoned him, and would eventually execute him. Nevertheless, Jesus says, John is greater than any human being born of woman up until that time.
But Jesus doesn't stop there. He goes on to say that "the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he."
The Christmas miracle is the miracle of the Spirit of God taking residence in a living human being in such a way that a human being becomes the living embodiment of God in the real world. We celebrate Christmas not because 2,000 years ago something happened that would never happen again. In Jesus, God came to live among people. In us, God continues to do so.
We are invited through this Christ to become Christmas miracles. We are invited into the realm of God, which is not a place or a set of conditions. It is what we ourselves become when we open ourselves to God's Spirit, when we remove all the obstacles to God's coming into our bodies, when we gladly and joyfully invite God to use us, when we let go of all our desires and dreams so that the greater desire and dream of God might come true in us. When we are able to do this, everything becomes possible.
So when someone is sick, they are blessed if one of us is around, who can without fear or anger attend to them. And when a natural disaster strikes, the victims are blessed if we are around to respond with care and support. And when some awful despot rises, the oppressed are blessed if some of us are there to speak the truth to power, no matter what it costs us. And if someone, anyone, is caught in the dark valley of despair, they are blessed if we, the least in the kingdom of heaven, are there to give them hope.
And blessed are they who take no offense at us.
Amen.
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