Must be Jesus!

FYI, as I may have mentioned on Sunday, the Raffi Christmas album is one of my all time favourites.  I know, I know, it's probably only a function of when I grew up and it probably doesn't hold up at all, but just look at Raffi.

If your cockles aren't warmed by now, you'd better check your pulse, because you might be dead.

But yes, Raffi's Christmas album.  It was full of all the old classics, including 'Must be Santa.'  Here is the video, with hilariously misspelled lyrics for the song.  Make sure to keep watching until the reindeer are mentioned.  But yes, this is how to recognize Santa, by the length and colour of his beard, and by his reineys.  You know, that old chestnut.  But the unfortunate side effect is that although nobody mistakes Santa for anyone else, all sorts of other men are mistaken for Santa.  

Now this could also be said about Jesus.  You know what Jesus looks like, right?  

Who's got a beard that's short and brown?

Jesus' got a beard that's short and brown!

Who wears a prickly thorny crown?

Jesus wears a prickly thorny crown!

Beard that's brown, thorny crown, 

Must be Jesus, must be Jesus,

Must be Jesus, Jesus Christ.

Who's a white guy with baby blues?

Jesus is a white guy with baby blues!

Who gives to the people the Good News?

Jesus gives our people the Good News!

Beard that's brown, prickly crown

Baby blues, gives good news,

Must be Jesus, must be Jesus,

Must be Jesus, Jesus Christ!

Now, before you rail at me for my blasphemy, is it any less blasphemous than having an instantly identifiable picture of Jesus?  Something that you can look at and say 'yep, that's Jesus,' without any idea of what he actually looked like? That's why there are hundreds of images of Jesus in bagels or on cider bottles, even though nobody knows what he looked like.  He's never described in the Bible.  We have no photographs.  And yet we feels as though his look is so distinctive that we could identify him in a rust smear.

Now, here's what you need to know about this. That image of Jesus that you have in your head, you know the one.  Let's pretend for a moment that he did look like that.

 let's pretend that he looked exactly like that (protip, he probably didn't).  Let's imagine that this is what he looked like, so distinctive as to be instantly recognizable, different from everyone else.  Looking like Jesus.  But if he did look like this, then so did everyone else.  If you think that Jesus should have looked different, that he should have been set apart, more beautiful (which unfortunately, seems to equal more white, not cool guys), with a clearer complexion, whiter teeth, a more trimmed beard, whatever, than everyone else, then you've sort of missed the point of the incarnation.

When John speaks of Jesus in the reading we had on Sunday, he does so by saying 'among you stands one you do not know.'  It's a small detail, but it's pretty important, that Jesus fits in well enough to be not immediately recognized as the divine lamb of God, more beautiful than all the rest.  He looked like all the other guys.  For good reason.

He looks like everyone else because he's a real human being.  He's not just playing divine dressup.  He's a person.  He gets slivers in the carpentry shop, he occasionally gets the flu, or eats some bad dates.  He isn't set apart from everyone else, which is the whole point of him being incarnate.  And yet, and yet, at this time of the year, at a time of year in which we are more focused than ever on Jesus, we do a lot of looking at him.  He's in every manger scene, in every creche, he's there, in the stable, looking like a very sweet baby, and we all recognize him instantly.

But here's the thing. We need to realize that by looks, Jesus isn't distinctive. He doesn't look different than everyone else ,and that's sort of the point. He looks like the other people.  So if he's not immediately identfiable, if you can't sing the 'Must be Jesus' song about him, then how will you know him?

Well, we do so by listening to him. We do so by listening to what he says, which has always been at the centre of everything.  When the voice speaks from the cloud as it does at the transfiguration, it says 'this is my son, in whom I am well pleased.  Listen to him!'  It's funny, because at this time of the year, we do a lot of looking at Jesus, but not so much listening to him.  He's all over the place, we see little baby him everywhere, but we don't listen to his words as we ought to.  And that's why John the Baptist exists, and why we hear him in Advent. He came to be the voice crying out in the wilderness, to prepare the way of the Lord, to make his paths straight!  He came as the voice pointing to Christ, to tell us about the good news of Jesus. the Good News that this man was to take our sins upon himself, and die for us, and in doing so take away even the concept of death from us.

And this is a message the world still needs to hear. Even now, the world is preparing for a celebration that they think is about something else. And the more layers you place upon yourself, the more you think that you have to be perfect, the more difficult it is.  This time of year is depressing, where people who have very little go into debt to try to provide a party.  It could be that you've lost someone to death who was very close to you, and maybe this is the first Christmas without them.  Or the second. Or the twenty-third. It never really gets easier.  And if you're living in a world of enforced glee, of mandatory fun, then you can get really down on yourself really quickly, and feel the need to hide your humanity behind a festive holiday mask.

But the time for masks is Halloween.
The time for massive festive parties is New Years.
The time for family is Family Day.
Christmas is for Christ.

It's for Christ because at this time of year, when you are weak and broken down, when the world closes in on you and you realize that you're not has happy as you feel you ought to be, when it becomes clear that you can't afford Christmas cheer, and that you can't work your way out of things, that's when you need Christ more than ever.  Christmas isn't a time for you to do more, it's a time when things were done for you, which was always the magic of Christmas, right from when you were a child.

The voice of one crying out in the wilderness still needs to be heard.  You now have a responsibility to share that freedom to the captives, to share to those who are burdened by the weight of life and celebration, that Christ, the light of the world, has come to them.  They can rejoice even in their sorrow, not because they're going to host the perfect party, or find the perfect present, but because of Christ taking their guilt, and allowing them a new birth.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Making a list and checking it twice.

The readings these days have a matter of urgency attached to them. They've got a matter of urgency when it comes to the possibility of the end of all things.  For you see, we are used to the idea of Jesus coming to earth at this time, as he does as a baby in Bethlehem, but we are prehaps less used to the notion that Jesus will be coming again.  His return is imminent.

That matter should fill us with concern, but it doesn't, not really.  The human brain is adept, remarkably adept, at putting these sorts of things out of our minds while they are not a pressing concern.  Things that are a long way away, they don't really factor in as a concern, not while they're a distance away, anyway.

I liken it to the hares that we see here in Saskatchewan.  The ones that are alternately brown if it's summer, white if it's winter, or red if they're on the highway.  If you approach them, they will dart away, but

they won't dart all the way away.  They'll just hop over to slightly out of range.  They'll hop over to where you can't reach them by grabbing them with your arms, and then they'll just sit there and look at you.  They're well within range of guns, bows, slingshots, but they feel as though they're out of range, and so you as a human being are no longer a concern.

Now, the readings at this time of year are all about the return of Jesus.  The imminent return of Jesus, the great and terrible day of the Lord.  And when John the Baptist is talking to, well, anyone who would listen, he did so by declaring loudly and forcefully that the Lord was coming.  He was coming and would soon be here.

And that's the funny thing.  At this time of the year, we're used to the arrival of someone who comes to judge the nations with righteousness and fire.  We're used to the arrival of somone who will reward the righteous, and send the wicked away empty.

At this time of year, you know that you'd better not shout, you'd better not cry, you'd better not pout, I'm telling you why.  Santa Claus is coming to town.

That's who we're used to hearing about at this time of year.  But it's a shame that the elf on the shelf, the Santa Claus, well, all that stuff only comes to our attention in December.  If Santa was to truly punish the wicked and reward the righteous, then we should probably think more

about him in the sort of January through September timeframe as well.  But we don't.  And here's the thing - if Santa is someone who is checking us out all year, if he's interested in keeping tabs on the entire human race, then by the time December 1st rolls around, it'll be a bit late to turn the entire ship of deeds and misdeeds around.  It's only once things become immediate, it's only once things are unavoidable that we care about doing things to try to catch up.  After it's too late.  After time is up, then we feel as though it's going to be time to catch up.  But too late, folks.

Now, insofar as the arrival of Santa is a threat, how much more so is the arrival of Jesus?  The one that John the Baptist speaks of, the one who

promises to make every hill low, and every valley high?  The one whose winnowing fork is in his hands, to gather the wheat into his barn but burn the chaff with unquenchable fire?  This is a really big deal, and it is something that we as Christians have to deal with.  John's words seem to indicate the the one who is coming, who is greater than John himself, will be coming with the Holy Spirit, and with fire.

This can, and ought to alarm us.  It should alarm us to think about Jesus as the one who is coming to cut down all the trees that do not bear good fruit, and casting them into the fire.  It should alarm us because deep down, we know that we don't bear the sort of fruit that we know we should be.  We aren't living our lives in the way we think even other people should.  And when John reminds us of that, it gives us a healthy fear, it gives us discomfort to think about how Jesus is coming with his winnowing fork in his hand, to gather the wheat into his barn, and to burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Does this make you uncomfortable in the countdown to Christmas?  Does it make you uncomfortable in the countdown to realize that Jesus is coming to divide the wheat from the chaff?  That the axe is at the root of the trees?  These are John's words.  If it does make you uncomfortable, then this is what John the Baptist is there for.  Look at the people streaming to him in Judea, streaming over to him why?  For a baptism of repentance.  They are there for the repentance of sins, which John the Baptist has called to their minds.  That's what he calls to you now, through the pages of the scriptures.  He calls you to repentance as well, calls you to turn away from your sin.  That prepares you for Christ, for the coming of the infant into the world.  The deal is, that Jesus comes to take these sins away.  Without John calling their sins to their minds, they wouldn't be ready to recieve the coming Messiah.

That's the work that has to be done.  That's the hills being brought low and the valleys being raised up.  If you are comfy, if you're happy with your activity thus far, then you need to have John the Baptism lower you down.  You need to be brought low.  If you have been brought low by your sins, if you are terrified by them and their potential punishments, then you need to be raised up by Christ and his salvation promise.

Advent is a time for this.  Advent is a time for us to reflect on this, to think of John's words, to be made low by them, and to be raised up by Christ.  Mainly because this is why the king of kings showed up in the first place. He's come to free the people from their sins, and the more we know of our sins, the better that news is.