Finding What You Didn't Know You Needed

John 1:29-42

Ordinary 2

January 19, 2020

William G. Carter

The next day (John) saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

The cartoon has made the rounds on the internet. A lady opens the door to see two earnest visitors in white shirts and neckties. One of them asks earnestly, “Have you found Jesus?” She doesn’t answer, but behind her, hiding behind a living room curtain, we see a figure with long hair and a white robe, sandals sticking out beneath the curtain.

Have you found Jesus? It’s a good giggle, a bit of good hearted fun at the expense of door-knockers who come to introduce us to their Lord and ours.

Some years ago, when the local Baptist university was larger, it was easy to tell when they were running a class on evangelism. A couple of freshmen might knock on the door and try to initiate a conversation about Jesus. To the consternation of those in my house, I always invited them in.

If they were Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, I’d offer them a Coke or a cup of coffee, which often sent them scampering for the door. If they represented another brand of Christianity, they might agree to the Coke or the coffee, but pretty soon, they would want to get on to the sales pitch.

One of them might say, “If you were to die tonight, are you confident that you would wake up with God?” Well, of course I would. Where else would I wake up?

He would lean forward, press, and say, “Are you sure?”  Sure, I’m sure.

“But are you absolutely, positively sure?” he’d say. And I would look him in the eye, smile, and say, “Is that the only thing you’re concerned about? You don’t even know my name.” With this, the freshman might look over at his teammate for some support. The teammate would say, “Well, we’d like you to invite Jesus into your heart,” to which I’d reply, “That’s not going to work.”

They would look at one another. What’s this? And then I continued the thought, “Jesus is never going to fit into my heart. He’s too big. He’s the Savior of the Universe.”

With that, they looked at one another with a bit of terror. They hadn’t covered responses like this in class. And so, I kept going: “Listen, kids, we are on the same team. You didn’t know that because you don’t know my name, and you don’t know my story, so you certainly don’t know that I’m a Presbyterian minister. If I could ever reduce Jesus somehow and put him into my heart, I’m certain he would pop right back out again, because that has happened a thousand times.”

Now, I just made up that last paragraph, because the visitors would never have stayed long enough to go that far. But just because I made it up doesn’t mean it’s not true, because it is. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the Universe. His power and presence are enormous. And a lot of times, it seems like he is hiding behind the curtains.

Have you ever felt that way?

The Gospel of John says the fundamental human hunger is to know God. No one has ever seen God, but we are hungry for that. We hear about God, we talk about God, we even tell jokes about God; but when there is a pause in all that chatter, there seems to be an absence of the very thing we’re talking about.

A lot of Christian writers have tried to to say this in a way others can hear it. I like Flannery O’Connor. She wrote stories about the people she knew in Georgia, about how they would be so self-assured in matters of faith, until something would happen to expose how shallow they are. All their talk about God is aimed at propping up their own faith. In a moment of crisis, it falls like a house of cards.

In one of her essays, she said, “I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. The Southerner, who isn’t convinced of it, is very much afraid that he may have been formed in the image and likeness of God.”[1] As she says about a character in one of novels, what if Jesus is hiding, not behind a curtain, but behind every tree, “a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark…” (from Wise Blood)

The point is, you think you’ve got him – and you don’t. You profess to find him and he slips away. There are many stories like this sprinkled throughout the New Testament, but nowhere does it become quite so sharp as the Gospel of John.

The baptizer sees him and says, “Here is the Lamb of God.” He says it twice, and causes some attention. And twice more he says, “I myself didn’t know him.” Listen to the paradox of that. He sees him and he doesn’t see him. This is John the Baptist. Luke’s Gospel says they were related somehow, but in John’s Gospel he says, “I didn’t know him… I didn’t know him, until the One who sent me to baptize said, ‘Watch for the Holy Spirit to come down on Someone and linger. That’s the one.”

How remarkable is that! With all his self-assured faith, proclaiming “the Messiah is coming,” John the Baptist had to have his eyes opened, if only for a brief moment. “I didn’t know him,” he says, “and the Holy Spirit showed me.”

This kind of instantaneous insight is often the way faith ignites like a spark. It is not something we have within ourselves. It’s a revelation, a gift from somewhere beyond. Some call it a gift of God’s Holy Spirit. The New Testament word is “apocalupsis,” the pulling-back of a curtain. Suddenly you see what is there all the time. And then it’s gone. That doesn’t mean it’s completely gone, just that for now you can’t see. Then you see it, now you don’t.

Faith has always been like this. Some of the great spiritual leaders have had their own doubts. Biblically speaking, that seems to be the way it is. So much so, that sometimes it’s tempting to believe that all we are going to have are doubts. I think of that line from Ecclesiastes, certainly the crankiest book in the Bible: “God has set eternity in our hearts, but we can’t know the beginning or ending of anything.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

That’s a grim view. When he taught Ecclesiastes, Professor Jim Crenshaw of Duke used to say it’s like an Easter egg hunt that goes badly. In the morning everybody heads out with baskets and enthusiasm. During the day, everybody searches frantically, grows discouraged. Once in a while someone may yell, “I found one!” and the search is renewed. But in the evening, most go home with empty baskets.

And yet – when you think it’s only going to be an empty basket, you never know when it might be your turn to shout, “I found one!” Or in the words of some of the people who populate the Gospel of John:

• “We have found the Messiah.”
• “We have found the one about whom Moses and the prophets wrote, and he’s from Nazareth.”
• “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who comes from God, for no one could do the signs that you do apart from the presence of God . . . but how can this be?”
• “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. He isn’t the Messiah, is he?”

Now you see him, now you don’t. This is a recurring theme in the scriptures of this season, now that Christmas is over and put away. The Light has come into the darkness; did you see it? We were given a glimpse that Jesus truly exists; was the curtain pulled back long enough for you to see?

So we are left with one of two things: the residue or the search. Either we have the residue of what we’ve heard, what others have told us, what we ourselves might have said – or we decide to keep looking for the Christ, to watch with an awakened heart, to perceive where he is or what he might be doing. And I can tell you first-hand that the search is a lot more interesting.

If someone knocks at my door to ask, “If you were to die tonight,” I would want to know how I might live today. How can I live so completely in the presence of God that I have no need of someone trying to frighten me into heaven?

If they were to ask, “Have you found Jesus,” I would rather be prepared to report on the times when he has found me, and what a difference that has made in how I live and whom I love.

If someone were to press me for certainty, for absolute certainty, and say “Are you sure,” I would be ready to say there is something far better than certainty, something not as presumptuous as certainty, and it’s called “faith.”

And if someone were to dictate where exactly Jesus should be, and where he should go, I would have to shake my head and say, “You don’t know him.” Perhaps he does dart behind the trees, on his way to spend time with the broken-down and the broken-hearted, the disconsolate and the disconcerted, the overlooked and those otherwise deemed godforsaken.  He goes to them. This is where God sends him.

Have you found Jesus? He’s coaching the kid who stutters. He’s talking to the teenager who is not welcome at his own home. He’s pulling some blankets over the lady who slept under the bridge last night. He sits beside the man in the hospice unit who hasn’t had any other visitors. He’s ladling out baked beans in a church basement.

Want to find him? Look for him there. Maybe you won’t find him right away. But he will find you. And isn’t that what we want most of all? Not merely to find, but to be found.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

---

[1] Flannery O’Connor, “The Grotesque in Southern Fiction, in Mystery and Manners (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1969) p. 44.

Speaking Up During a Baptism

Matthew 3:13-17

Baptism of the Lord

January 12, 2020

William G. Carter

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Over the years, I have started to collect a list of Things People Say During a Baptism. Not the official words, but the words around the event. It’s surprising the range of things that you hear people say.

The most common expression is, “What a beautiful baby!” We hear that a lot, and it’s no wonder why. All babies are beautiful. I can’t imagine somebody saying otherwise. There’s something about the miracle of birth and the presence of child that defrosts the coldest heart.

Some months back, I had the privilege of walking one of the church’s newest children down the aisle. Usually we ask that task of a church elder, but for some reason, I was the one. About halfway down on the right, one of our most senior saints broke into a radiant smile as we approached, so I moved closer to introduce them. And the three-month old child wrapped her hand around the finger of someone 90-some years older.

It was a moment I will never forget, one generation touching another. And the senior saint said, “She’s beautiful.” We hear that a lot.

There are other comments, of course. Here’s one: “We love the dress.” That comes up sometimes, especially if it is a dress. Once it was a handmade dress of ivory satin. It was stunning. The mother said, “It was my wedding dress.” Her father said, “I don’t get it. Why is my grandson wearing a wedding dress at his baptism?” There’s no telling what you might hear people say at a baptism. 

The big day of 1992 was the day Herb was baptized. I didn’t want to miss it. Nobody did. Herb was well up in years. He had been coming here for years with his wife. In conversation, somebody discovered he had never been baptized. We asked, “Is this something you want to do?” And here’s what Herb said: “It isn’t too late, is it?” Of course not. You ought to hear what is said at a baptism!

I heard something at my own baptism. Well, it was spoken, but I don’t know if I understood it at the time. I was one of the Baby Boomer babies in Rev. Duffy’s office in North Springfield Presbyterian Church, Akron, Ohio. Six or seven of us baptized that day. It was no private affair; never is! Baptism is a sacrament of the people of God. It’s a public moment.

Apparently, the minister was getting acquainted with all the parents and admiring their babies. As my mother is holding me, my father blurts out that he had never been baptized. Rev. Duffy froze in his tracks. What? Dad blushed, and Rev. Duffy said (listen to this), “First things first.” Right then, they brought some water and Dad was baptized the same day as me, March 19, 1961. First things first.

Maybe there’s something about baptism that is so important that commentary happens. People talk about it, comment about it. As with Clarence, whom some of you remember. His whole family came literally from around the world when his three children were baptized. The family originated from Africa, but they gathered that day from all over the globe. It was a big day. We danced during the offering!

Sometime after that, the congregation elected Clarence to serve as an elder of the church. He thought about it, prayed about it, and said, “OK, the time is right.” The date was appointed to ordain all the elders and deacons. And in conversation, I discovered that Clarence himself had not yet been baptized. He was a faithful member of the church. He was elected to be an elder. He and his wife had presented their three children for baptism. But not him. The echo from 1961 was still ringing in my ears: “First things first.”

When nobody else was around, I asked why not. And he said, “I never thought I was good enough.” That's when I could quote God, who spoke on the day of Jesus' baptism, and said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." You are beloved as you are. You are the Beloved of God.

Curiously enough, and according to the story, Jesus hasn't "done" anything yet. Not in the Gospel of Matthew. Oh, he has been born. His life has been raised in the bosom of Israel, learning faith, reciting scripture, taking on the traditions of prayer and the customs of charity - now, some say at age 30, he steps up to the baptizer and says, "It's my turn."

But it doesn’t proceed without a conversation. John the Baptizer didn’t want to do it. He said, “No, not you.” Jesus said, “Yes, me.”

John said, “That’s all wrong. I’ve baptized people to prepare for the Messiah, but here you are.” Jesus said, “Right now. The time is full.”

John said, “But this is backwards; you should be baptizing me.” And then Jesus said something that prompted John to baptize him. He said, “We must do this in order to fulfill all righteousness."

Now, this is the Gospel of Matthew, and that is a loaded term, especially for this book. Matthew never explains it, but he shows what it means.

It happens in chapter one. Joseph the woodcutter is "a righteous man." He knows the rules and he does what was right. If you remember the story, the rules said, "Dismiss Mary, 'cause she's pregnant." The Bible said that.

But the right thing to do was to listen to what God said through a dream: "Don't be afraid to hold onto Mary; her baby is my baby, the baby is the saving baby, the whole world's baby. Don't be afraid to take her and her baby into your heart." That's what he did. He knew the rules - but he did what was right.

Righteousness is more than keeping the rules. Righteousness is doing what’s right. That’s the life Jesus will pursue: a higher righteousness. Not long after the baptismal water dries, he stands tall on a mountain to say, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the merely religious people, you can't receive the blessings from heaven” (5:20). As soon as he said that, all the merely religious people said, “What do you mean by that?”

What does that mean? Oh, he could offer plenty of test cases. Here’s one: “You've heard it said, don't cross your fingers when you take an oath on a stack of Bibles. But I say to you, let your word be something that can be trusted. Mean what you say. Keep your promises. Be obedient to your own convictions.” (5:33-37) It’s not enough to say the word; You must do it.

Or here’s another one. “You have heard it said, draw careful boundaries. Live by putting up fences. This person is your friend. That person is your enemy. You’ve heard it said, keep those lines clear. Don’t cross them. But I say to you, God loves everybody. God creates everybody. So love the people who are not your friends; you don’t have to like them, but you must work for their benefit. Put them on your prayer list.” (5:43-48)

This is the higher righteousness. It is a life of generosity and whole-hearted commitment. It cannot be lived in half measures. We can’t dip in and dip out; it’s all the way in. For the sake of doing the right thing, the God-like thing, of moving beyond our natural inclinations as a human animal to do what is possible when God truly claims us and fills us with the Holy Spirit.

John Burgess teaches at our Presbyterian seminary in Pittsburgh. He’s written a book called After Baptism – and that’s the point of the whole book: what do we do to after we come out of the water. How do we live to show that we belong to God?

It’s no surprise that he has chapters on the Ten Commandments. Love God first of all, keep the Sabbath, honor father and mother, don’t steal or covet. God gives the commandments as a gift to direct our lives. After God claims us in the water, God says, “Here is how I want you to live. Here is how I want you to love.” If we don't listen to that Voice and live accordingly, writes John Burgess, baptism is merely a “sentimental ritual.”[1] There is an ethical life to be lived.

Now, this is shocking for some folks. It may have never occurred to them how God calls them to live once they have been claimed in the love of Christ. “Baptized? Sure, I was baptized, but that was a long, long time ago.” What does that baptism mean? It means that we are not only part of the Christian community, we are called to live the Christian life, a life of continuing growth, understanding, and devotion.

Sometimes when we see what God requires of our lives, it shocks us, disturbs us, even frightens us. I think of the parable that writer Brian McLaren tells. It unsettled me when I first heard it, so maybe it will unsettle you too. Goes like this:

“Please de-baptize me,” she said.
The priest’s face crumpled.
“My parents tell me you did it,” she said. “But I was not consulted. So now, undo it.”
The priest’s eyes asked why.
“If it were just about belonging to this religion and being forgiven, then I would stay.

If it were just about believing this list of doctrines and upholding this list of rituals,

I’d be OK.

But your sermon Sunday made it clear it’s about more. More than I bargained for.

So, please, de-baptize me.”
The priest looked down, said nothing.

She continued: “You said baptism sends me into the world to love enemies. I don’t.

Nor do I plan to.

You said it means being willing to stand against the flow. I like the flow.
You described it like rethinking everything, like joining a movement.

But I’m not rethinking or moving anywhere. So un-baptize me. Please.”
The priest began to weep. Soon great sobs rose from his deepest heart.
He took off his glasses, blew his nose, took three tissues to dry his eyes.
“These are tears of joy,” he said.

“I think you are the first person who ever truly listened or understood.”
“So,” she said, “Will you? Please?”[2]

McLaren doesn’t answer her question. He just dangles it out there, waiting for a response. In so doing, all of us are prompted to ask, “How are we going to live?” If we belong to God, it matters how we spend out time, how we take care of one another and our world, and where we give our first allegiance.

For Jesus, the old “repentance baptism” of John is fulfilled and finished. To live forward is to live according to the love and justice of God. And that is his invitation for all of us, too. When we are baptized, what God says, “You belong to me. Nothing can ever come between me and you. I love you completely.” And when the baptism is over, we are called to love all that God loves.

This, I think, is what it means for us to “fulfill all righteousness.” To love all that God loves. To live as generously as Christ lives. To be courageous as the Holy Spirit gives us strength. To do the right thing. For it matters what we do after the water has dried.   

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

---

[1] John P. Burgess, After Baptism: Shaping the Christian Life (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005) p. 3.

[2] https://brianmclaren.net/a-poem-that-struck-a-nerve/

Guided By Dreams

Matthew 2:13-16, 19-23

Christmas 2

January 5, 2020

William G. Carter

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” …

When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”

Today it would be easy for a sermon to go off the rails. It wouldn’t take much. I suppose a preacher could simply point out how the Bible reports an assassination attempt. A nervous ruler tried to eliminate someone he believed would be a threat. Say that, the congregation might get the shivers, and some may buckle their seatbelts for a bumpy ride.

But I’m not going to talk about King Herod. This is still the season of Christmas, and it’s not his time.

But it wouldn’t take much for a sermon to cause a ruckus. All it might take is for a preacher to mention the scholarly consensus about the three wise men. Where did they come from – and where did they return to? Details are scarce, opinions are mixed, but many believe the wise man traveled from a large area called Persia. It encompasses the present-day countries of Iraq and Iran. Just mention that, on a day like today, and good Christian folks may reach for their smelling salts.

But I’m not going to talk about the Magi. They have already gone home by another way.

No, this is church so I’m going to talk about Jesus. This is his church, his time, and his story. And if I talk about him, that might seem curious, because according to the Bible story, today he doesn’t do anything. He is a passive participant, taken by his parents to Egypt. He is hidden from his enemies among his enemies.

When the threat is over, his parents bring him out of Egypt. Yet there is the possibility of a continuing threat, so his parents take him somewhere else. They land up north in the Galilee district, far from the palaces of power, in a small town nobody will be able to find. That is where Jesus will be raised. He will be taught to pray in the synagogue, instructed in the promises of God’s scripture, and apprenticed in Joseph’s woodshop.

In two different ways, Matthew says this was the will of God. The first is that he quotes the Bible prophets, as he has already done three times in this story. Jesus is relocated in God’s witness relocation program so that “the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’” Never mind that we can’t find the verse that he’s quoting. The phrase “he will be called a Nazorean” does not appear in the Jewish Bible. But it is Matthew’s way of saying that raising the child Jesus in a small northern town was what God intended.

The other way Matthew says this is by reporting on Joseph’s dreams. God has been directing the story by sending a series of dreams.

• Joseph discovers Mary is pregnant, and knows the baby isn’t his. He decides to fulfill the commandments by breaking off the engagement quietly, but God sends him a dream: “take Mary and the child as your own.” And he does it.

• The wise men arrive in Persia to ask, “Where is the king?” The current king says, “Find him for me, and report back.” They find him, but then they have a dream: “Don’t tell Herod nothing.” So they go home.

• Meanwhile, Joseph is pondering how to spend the gold, burn the frankincense, and what to do with the myrrh, when God sends another dream: “Get out of town! Run away to Egypt.” So he wakes Mary at midnight and off they go, far away from Herod’s soldiers.

• Sometime later, maybe a year or a couple of years, God suddenly sends another dream, “The coast is clear. Come home.” So they pack up and head north – until God sends another dream to say, “Head further north, not to Sepphoris, the big city, but to little Nazareth.” Once again, Joseph obeys what he hears God say.

Now, if you are keeping track, God sends four different dreams, not counting the wise men’s dream. That’s how God sneaks past Joseph’s conscious defenses – by speaking when Joseph is asleep, when he can’t defend himself, when he can’t shrug it off. Like another Joseph in the Book of Genesis, Joseph the woodcutter hears God speak and he does what he hears. In every case, he “goes the extra mile,” he pursues “the higher righteousness” that his son Jesus will teach some thirty years later.

On the face of it, it’s a miracle story, a story of how God rescues his own Son when the child is still defenseless. I’ve thought about that sometimes. Frankly, I wish God could have sent the same dream to the parents of all the other children in Bethlehem. The murderous brutality of King Herod should have been sabotaged by a few more dreams and a few more angels. That any other lives would have been lost is an enormous tragedy.

But then I reflect some more, and I realize that it’s because of Jesus, the grown-up Jesus, that I could ever name Herod’s actions for what they are. It’s because of Jesus that I could call “an enormous tragedy” the murderous events that happened far too often under a brutal empire.

In that time, life was cheap. Brutality was common. By birthing Jesus into the world, God was announcing an alternative. There’s another way to treat one another. It’s not a new way. God’s Law had taught for centuries to love neighbors, to welcome immigrants, to guard the vulnerable, to act with fairness, to work for justice. There’s nothing new about any of that. Yet the recurring human problem is the lack of moral courage to treat people the way God tells us to treat them.

So now the newness of the Gospel is that God’s very instruction – God’s Torah, God’s Word – becomes enfleshed in Jesus. And God is going to keep him alive until he is old enough to say:

·         “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (5:5)

·         “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (5:6) 

·         “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. (5:7)

·         “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. (5:8)

·         “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (5:9)

This is the Jesus whom God protects long enough for him to teach:

·         “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also…” (5:38-39)

·         “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (5:43-45)

·         “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” (6:19-20)

·         “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” (7:12)

Jesus comes to teach and embody the higher righteousness of the kingdom of heaven. And if all of this seems impractical and impossible, Jesus smiles at us and says, “All of you are the salt of the earth, but if you lose your flavor, you are good for nothing but spreading on the road.” (5:13)

From the beginning of the Gospel, God’s plan is to send Jesus into the world to teach, to heal, to love, to judge, and ultimately to give his life for the benefit of the kingdom of heaven. In our world, the ways of God have always been resisted. Yet today we hear the testimony of God’s persistence. It is heaven’s plan that Jesus should speak the Gospel, that all of us should hear it, and that a resistant world would be won back one soul at a time.

And even if the evil in the world should finally track down Jesus and threaten him with a cross, the Gospel tells us that he comes back from the dead, that he stays with us (whether consoling or nudging), and that he will live eternally until all enemies are loved, all wounds are healed, and all injustices judged and corrected.

So at the beginning of a new year, the invitation for us is to trust this is God’s dream for all of us. The world is not lost, not on your life – and not on God’s life! The light has come in Jesus the Messiah. No one will ever be able to snuff it out. God is God, and God sends the light.

 (c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

Where Christ Was Born

Matthew 2:11-18

Christmas 1

December 29, 2019

William G. Carter

On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

It is the fifth day of Christmas. You are forgiven if you forgot your five golden rings. There has been a lot going on. Last Tuesday night, the midnight air was full of candlelight and joyful noise, the angels danced for Christ is born. Since then, some of the visitors have come and gone, the Wise Men among them.

For those of us some distance away, the question remains, “Where was Christ born?” You may think that’s a silly question, already answered. Where was he born? “In Bethlehem of Judea.” OK, fine – but where?

The children who were with us last week could not agree on a location. Some said Jesus was born in a cave They took their cue from Justin Martyr, who declared that to be so in the second century, about a hundred fifty years late. Others said Jesus was born in a barn, for he was placed in a feed trough for the cattle. Everybody knows you keep the cattle in the barn, right? Unless you are a first-century Palestinian; then you bring the cattle inside your home to keep them warm. That’s where the mangers were.

Where was he born? The wise men believed the new King of the Jews would be born in a palace. So they went to Jerusalem, the capital city. Wow, was the current king ever surprised! He had to ask the Bible scholars on the royal staff, “Where is the Messiah to be born?” They said, “Bethlehem of Judea,” just as the prophet Micah foretold. He didn’t know, because most kings don’t spend a lot of time reading the Old Testament prophets. And the wise men were six miles off.

Today, all the tourists visit Bethlehem if they can get through the checkpoint. They go to the Church of the Nativity, located (where else?) in Manger Square.  Founded by Emperor Constantine’s mother in 325 AD, that big old church took 240 years to complete. It’s a venerable old place, having survived earthquakes, the Crusades, and countless tourists.

If you go, you stand in a long line that moves slowly. A cranky priest snarls, “Be quiet, this is holy ground.” You wind down a stone staircase and there it is: a fourteen-point silver star surrounded by marble. According to Constantine’s mother in 325 AD, that’s the spot. It doesn’t look very humble. Not at all. Was Christ born there?

If you ask the scholars, they look down at their sandals and shuffle a little bit. The scholars remind us the Bible’s Christmas stories were written down 50, 60, ever 80 years after Jesus’ birth. They say, “We know he came out of Nazareth, a town ninety miles to the north.” But there’s no historical record of Caesar’s census, nor much evidence that the Holy Family spent much time in Bethlehem. So who knows? All we have are the Bible stories.[1]

Yet there is one thing we can say with absolutely certainty. Jesus was born into a world where a lot of children are still in danger.

We didn’t tell you that on Christmas Eve. No, that was the night to sing, “Away in a Manger, no crib for a bed; the little lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.” That was when we lit candles and sang, “Silent Night, holy night.” That was then; today, after the tourists have all gone, we hear about the aftermath of Christ’s birth.

The short version is that King Herod was a nut job. He was turned in upon himself. He couldn’t bear the thought of another king born in his land, on his watch. He was suspicious, fearful, paranoid, angry – and therefore murderous. The people of his land may have been waiting for a Messiah, but Herod never wanted that Messiah to come because he was in charge. He was on the throne. He was at the pinnacle of power, intended to keep it, and expected to pass that power onto his family. That’s the way power works.

We talk a lot these days about “empowerment,” about helping others to gain strength and achieve their goals. It’s a worthy aim, but do we understand the nature of power? Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. As somebody notes, “Power means that you do not want to be confront something that questions you. You cannot stand the threat, and therefore you become more and more encased in your own pride.”[2]

This is one of the moral lessons from the new Star Wars movie, “The Rise of Skywalker.” To everybody’s surprise – to nobody’s surprise - the nasty old emperor has been lurking in the shadows for years, ready to pursue his vain dream of galaxy domination. He will do anything to win. Just like King Herod.

Herod is intoxicated with power. He orders the destruction of the innocents, all because of the announcement of one Innocent Child. The sad truth is that nobody in his kingdom would have been surprised by this. They were well accustomed to his cruelty. They knew all about deprivation, poverty, and senseless destruction.

There is no need to go into further detail, especially if the taste of candy canes lingers in our mouths. The other day, a three-year-old boy and his mother were attacked in Brooklyn by a crazed fanatic. They are Jewish and were walking to a Hanukkah celebration. For no other reason, or maybe that was the reason, the assailant came out of nowhere and started hitting them. It was the latest of an increasing spree of anti-Semitic attacks in Brooklyn, where more Jews live than in Israel.[3]   

And I’ll tell you something: this is where Christ was born. It’s the same world. It’s the same place where people are threatened by people who are threatened. Some will summon their power to strike others down. Some will summon their power to hold their ground. Meanwhile the sad truth is that the world hasn’t changed much since the time of Jesus. People who are hurt will hurt other people.

Jesus is born right in the middle of all this. Matthew’s Gospel tells the truth. From the very beginning of Jesus’ life, there was a cross. He is born with complete innocence and that’s what exposes those who are guilty. In a display of moral weakness, King Herod tries to get rid of the future Messiah. He does it in the most desolate way possible, threatening all the children of Bethlehem in order get rid of the One.

God outsmarts King Herod, thanks to dreams and angels. This time, young Jesus is saved by his parents. Yet the cross still awaits him even after Herod is out of the picture. An anxious empire may exchange one leader for another, but anxiety continues if it is untreated. That is the foreshadowing of the wise men’s myrrh, a most curious gift for a child. Myrrh is a burial spice. If you ever get invited to a baby shower, don’t take any myrrh.

The wise men brought myrrh. In the case of Jesus, this “bitter perfume” is a reminder of the evil that taints our world. Cruelty is still in the air. The myrrh foreshadows how Jesus will face the cross of an anxious empire.

Yet the death of Jesus will count for something. It will flip everything. As with his life, the death of Jesus opens up an alternative to everything King Herod stands for. Instead of fear, Jesus steps out in courage. Instead of self-protection, Jesus offers himself in self-giving. Instead of creating wreckage and grief, Jesus gives life and offers healing. Instead of anxiety which is usually expressed through destruction, Jesus dies to cancel human sin and its lingering effect, and this is the will of God.

And in the greatest mystery of all, the myrrh given to the infant Christ is never used. When Jesus dies, it is the eve of the Sabbath, so he is buried quickly. When the women can finally get to his tomb to anoint him with the myrrh, Jesus has already been raised from the dead. There is a greater power at work in him, than the power of death. It is the power of life, expressed in love, lived with simplicity and honesty, for the benefit of all.

Where was Jesus born? This is the world where Christ was born. This is the world he died to save. This is the world God has raised him up to keep saving. The work goes on and he remains with us, just as he said.

All of life comes from God, and it is a ceaseless invitation to live with God, just as Jesus taught. All that Jesus did – teaching, healing, serving, restoring – all of it is a model for how we can live. We don’t ever have to be afraid. We can trust God above everything else, because Jesus has come, and he has come back, and he stays with us, just as he said.

If King Herod pokes up his head along the way, the Gospel has already exposed him for what he is: a tormented soul, less than fully human, wounded and anxious. His way is not the way to the fullness of life. We can go home by another way.

And if we get the chance, we can look Herod square in the eye and declare what the poet said long ago: “Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.” (Zora Neale Hurston)

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

---

[1] See, for instance, Raymond E. Brown, “Historically, Was Jesus Born in Bethlehem?” The Birth of the Messiah (New York: Image, 1977), 515-18

[2] James I. McCord, “Dark Night of the Soul: A Christmas Meditation on Matthew 2:16-18,” Princeton Theological Seminary, 15 December 1982. Accessed online at http://commons.ptsem.edu/id/03758

[3] “Four Jewish women targets in latest anti-Semitic attacks in Brooklyn,” New York Daily News, 27 December 2019.