A Minor Point…Maybe

Acts 18:12-28

According to our reading from Acts today, Apollos had become a powerful evangelist for the Christian faith as he demonstrated “by the scriptures that the Messiah is Jesus” (Acts 18:28b). What strikes me here is that according to Acts, Apollos did not try to prove that Jesus is the Messiah, but rather “that the Messiah is Jesus.” Perhaps this is only a minor point, a choice of syntax or a style of grammar. Or maybe it means something more significant.

As Christians know, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God” (John 1:1). The Nicene Creed, finalized about 381 AD, professes faith in “one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made…” The question, for Christians anyway, is never Who is Jesus? Jesus existed with God from before anything else, indeed was a part of the creative process behind all being, and not a product of the creation. Based on these facts, to say “Jesus is the Messiah” limits Jesus within a cultural framework, a small fragment of the universe that he as the word of God helped to create. The question is Who is the Messiah? and the answer is “The Messiah is Jesus.” This way we have not limited Jesus within a cultural perspective, but instead we have greatly enlarged our understanding of the Messiah, pushing the image beyond a particular religion and a particular nation out to the furthest reaches of the universe, all the way to the very throne of God.

So it isn’t a question of whether or not Jesus is the Messiah, the fact is that the role of Messiah takes its true shape within the reality of Jesus.

Prayer: Gracious God, lead us in our lives of faith through your Son Jesus Christ to whom we give glory and honor. Amen. 

Taking Sides

John 7:37-52

According to John Jesus was speaking to the people in Jerusalem on the last day of the festival. As they heard him, members of the crowd began to wonder aloud. John puts it this way: "When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, 'This is really the prophet.' Others said, 'This is the Messiah.' But some asked, 'Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he?...' So there was a division in the crowd because of him" (John 7:40-41, 43).

This is not the only time in scripture that Jesus is associated with divisiveness. In Matthew, for example, Jesus says he has come to set family members one against another (Matthew 10:34-36). Normally we think of Jesus as the Prince of Peace, the one who reconciles and reunites. But when we read passages such as those in John and Matthew, accounts where the result of Jesus' ministry is said to be disharmony and disagreement, we may be a bit confused.

To me it seems that John and Matthew are reminding us of the serious nature of the faith. They are not speaking of the sort of sectarian violence that has so devastated parts of the world, or of denominational prejudices that hamper the work of the church. What they are saying is that to truly accept and follow Jesus is neither easy nor necessarily intuitive. To be a disciple takes total commitment and will often lead us to places we would rather not go. If we believe that Christianity is all "sweetness and light" we are wrong. It is hard work, sacrifice, challenge. But if we will remain faithful, and if we will love the Lord with everything we are, in the end we will see the joy of fellowship and community, not in easy human terms, but in lasting, indeed eternal terms. What Jesus has to say may leave us scratching our heads and arguing with our neighbors, but it is worth the effort because it is so vitally important.

Prayer: God, help us to take Jesus seriously, to follow his example, and to take the risks he calls us to take so that we may serve you and those around us in obedience to your word. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Who Would Wash a Sow?

2 Peter 2:17-22

Matthew 11:2-15

Our reading from 2 Peter today includes an odd proverb. “The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud” (2 Peter 2:22), we read. My immediate thought was who the heck would bother to wash a sow? Surely that’s not standard operating procedure, any more than putting lipstick on a pit bull. But I guess it get a certain point across. There’s no reason to wash a sow precisely because it is just going to wallow in the mud again anyway. The writer of 2 Peter was warning readers against returning to the bad behavior of their earlier lives. Yet, what would you expect to see a sow do?

And what about the Messiah? John the Baptist seems to have needed some clarification from Jesus. Are you the one who is to come, or are we supposed to keep looking for someone else to show up? Jesus answered him saying, “Go tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matthew 11:4-6). In other words, there is no sow washing going on here. What we have is the will of God being carried out. And while Jesus may not have met all of John’s expectations of the Messiah, he certainly was doing the things the Messiah should do.

Maybe I’m forcing the issue a bit (or a lot!), but it seems to me that we spend too much time in our lives scrubbing hogs, and not enough time watching for Jesus and the signs of God’s coming reign. Besides that, we are called to tend to the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, those needing good news, not to wander after tasks that accomplish little if anything. So I’ll go out on a limb here and say that worrying about the relative expense or size of Christmas presents is sow scrubbing. So is getting caught up in human definitions of success and accomplishment. To paraphrase Jesus, we should leave the sows to wash the sows, and instead should be about the work of God.

Prayer: Lord God, help us to do what is important and necessary according to your will and not to chase after the wild schemes and silly distractions that so often plague us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Is the Cart Before the Horse?

Mark 1:1-8

John the Baptist must have been some kind of guy, to live where he did, and to behave like he did, and to say what he did, and yet to attract crowds from all over the region. As Mark tells us, “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins” (Mark 1:4-5).

In many ways the season of Advent belongs to John, the one who prepares the way of the coming Messiah. John did his best to point beyond himself. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me…” he said (v. 7). Still, we have to wonder if the people who flocked to the Jordan to be baptized by this charismatic figure really had any clue as to what (or who) was coming next. But we can’t wonder for too long because this is all the prologue that Mark gives us. The very next verses begin the actual story of Jesus and his ministry, and we’ll have to decide whether to remain with John on the banks of the Jordan, or to follow Jesus on his strange journey toward death and resurrection. Mark invites us to make a decision, but gives us so little time to get our bearings.

This is a tough time of year to deal with such questions. Getting our bearings is probably way down the “to do” list, well below all the other pre-Christmas chores and holiday obligations. We barely have time to do the shopping, do we really have time to reflect on what John is telling us, to be ready to respond to the Messiah when the time comes? This may be a tough time of year to deal with such questions, but unless we’ve put the cart before the horse it’s what Advent is supposed to be about. We’ve got to find time to reflect, with John, on who it is that we are waiting for and what he will mean to us when he arrives, or Advent losses its meaning altogether, and we find ourselves caught up in yet another secular festival, our souls aching for good but news with none to be found.

Prayer: God of time and space, help us to use this season to set our sights on what you are doing in Jesus Christ, so that when the time comes we may respond with faithful obedience. In Jesus’ name. Amen.