Calm as a hindu cow.

Would you like to know what my first experience was with Christian art?  sure you would.  Well, I'm sure it's not my first experience, but it's my most enduring one. The one that's hardest to shake.  The black and white line drawings from the pages of the Good News Bible.

Yup, this type.  The Good News Bible was the second Bible I ever owned, after the Bible that I got for my baptism, which was too good to use.  If you want to see that one, go to my post about the King James Bible. But I went to my mother as a boy, and decided that I wanted my own Bible that was not just a New Testament, and one that I could use.  It's in my office now.  All green.  With these same line drawings in it.  It cost $5.50 back in the eighties.  Now part of the reason that these line drawings stuck with me so vividly was from a day in Sunday school, where we had a race to see who could find the ten commandments in the Scriptures first.  I won, not because I knew chapter and verse, or even book for that matter, but because I knew what the picture looked like.  A mountain with people around it, and a lot of squiggles.

These things have a way of sticking with you, and I'm sure that many of you who grew up with the Good News will be familiar with these line drawings.  And they're good line drawings.  They serve their purpose well.  But they tend to do that thing that church art does, which is to suck the actual life out of the people in the Scriptures.  It turns them into 'Bible people.'  And yes, that is different from regular people.

To use a line from the wildly popular and wildly subversive film and book 'fight club,' the folks in the Bible, whether being tortured or killed, whether meting out God's wrath or being accursed, are all as calm as Hindu cows.  That line is all about another set of line drawings, in this case, the ones in the airline safety manual, in which no matter what kind of aerial disaster people are engaged, they're all perfectly serene as they put on their life jackets, put on their oxygen masks before they assist someone else, or jump on that slide to get out of the plane.  Nobody is screaming, nobody is panicking, nobody is shoving anyone else out of the way.  Perfectly calm, perfectly serene.  And that's the treatment that John the Baptist gets in ecclesiastical art.  I could maybe picture you showing Jesus as calm and serene, but probably not John the Baptist.  People thought of him in his time as a wildman, and his statements bear witness to that.  Listen to him for a second:

"You snakes," he said [to those who had come to be 

baptized, "Who told you that you  could escape from 

the punishment God is about to send?  Do these things that will show 

that you have turned from your sins.  And don't

start saying among yourselves that Abraham is your ancestor.

I tell you that God can take these stones and make descendants

for Abraham.  The axe is ready to cut down the trees at the

roots.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut

down and thrown into the fire."

                                 Luke 3:7-9 (Good News)

He was neither calm nor placid.  His hair shirt and mouth full of locusts aside, he had a lot of harsh things to say.  And if you thought the average man didn't care for that, then holy cow, wait until you hear how those in power took it.  You see, back in the time of Jesus, the rich and powerful were expecting to get a free pass as much as the rich and powerful do now.  It's a thing that has never changed.  Anyone with any amount of wealth or authority expects to be let off pretty easy, and that the basic rules and laws of society don't apply to them.  You see it happen constantly, where the rich and powerful feel as though the laws that govern you plebs are beneath them.  Something they could take or leave.  And Herod was no different.  He'd gotten into a situation with Herod, and some nasty double dealing that went on between Herod and his new wife.  Let me tell you all about it.

For Herod had earlier ordered John's arrest, and he had him chained

and put in prison.  He had done this because of Herodias,

 his brother Philip's wife.  

For some time, John the Baptist had told Herod

"It isn't right for you to be married to Herodias."

Herod wanted to kill him, but he was afraid

of the Jewish people, because they considered John to be a prophet.

                                    Matthew 14:3-5 (Good News)

John was there, speaking the truth to power.  This particular incident, in which he pointed out that perhaps Herod would do best not to be married to his brother's wife, got John some Jail time.  And lest we chortle up our sleeves, and think 'oh good, Herod got what he deserved, someone should have told him to knock it off," what do you think John the Baptist would say if he was hanging around at your place?  The only reason his conversation with Herod got him in so much trouble was that it was Herod who had the power to arrest him!  The other people that John was talking to, that he had sometimes unsolicited advice for, those people may not have cared for his advice, but they couldn't do much about it.  Herod could.  And Herod did.  But everyone else, the rest of the gang that John referred to as a brood of vipers, or snakes, they had to hang out and listen to John rail against them.  We all think of John as a pretty great guy, but of course, how much would we feel he was if he was hanging around us, berating us for our luxury, or our sloth, or our comforts, or our cool faith.  He would be livid.  Probably not standing there just waving and saying hi.

In fact, there was only one person that John looked at, and said that he was doing fine.  The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.  Jesus Christ.  The one whose sandals John was not worthy to untie.  That's what it takes to get noticed by John.  Perfection itself.  

In the majority of ecclesiastical art, John is calm.  Serene.  Peaceful and meditative.

"What did you expect to see?" Jesus asked, "A blade of grass bending in the wind?

What did you go out to see?  A man dressed in fancy clothes?  People

like that live in palaces!

Tell me, what did you go out to see? A prophet?  Yes indeed,

but you saw much more than a prophet."

Matthew 11:7-9 (Good News)       

What do you expect to see in John the Baptist?  A blade of grass bending in the wind?  Probably.  A man dressed in fancy clothes?  Likely.  A holy man who will judge others that you don't like harshly, but who will tell you that you're doing great?  Probably.  But if you think any of these things, you don't know John.  He's the forerunner of Christ, Elijah who is to come.  He's full of passion and vigor and fury and power.  He says things dangerous enough for you to want to kill him over.  He's a camel-hair wearing, locust eating wildman.  And he speaks the truth.  

And he was probably never as calm as a hindu cow.  

But listen to his words.  Though he will point out your failings, which he will, with alarming accuracy, he will also point out Christ.  The Lamb of God, who must increase while John must decrease.  My prayer is that you would not get only half of John's message.  Listen to it all.  His condemnation, and his gesture to salvation.  

I sure wish there was a Lutheran term for that.

PJ.