A Tale of Two J.C.s

The scriptures referred to are John 1:1-14.

CT: Tonight we celebrate the miracle of Christmas, of God becoming a human being to save us.

EB: Bah, humbug!

CT: Excuse me, I didn't see you back there. Who are you?

EB: Ebenezer.

CT: Ebenezer? You're not that guy, uh, in that Dickens story...

EB: No, of course not. I'm his grand nephew.

CT: And so you also hate Christmas?

EB: No, I love it! My business makes a lot of money during Christmas season. It's great for the economy. Christmas is good business!

CT: What business is that?

EB: Scroogedrivers! A screwdriver that make things tight as my purse strings! Great stocking stuffer.

CT: Hmm. So if it's good for business, what is your objection to Christmas?

EB: All that stuff about God becoming a human. It just doesn't make sense.

CT: It's counterintuitive, I'll grant you.

EB: It's dumb. Even if, let's say, God does become a human, why an infant? In a family that's poor? Why would God do that?

CT: What would be the alternative?

EB: Be a king. Make laws. Make people obey your commandments.

CT: Odd you should say that. At Jesus' time that's what a lot of people expected God's Messiah to be: a king. Who would overthrow the Romans, set up a religious kingdom on earth and rule. Typical king stuff.

EB: That make sense! He'd have a lot more impact that way.

CT: Well in some ways. There was another guy back then with the initials J.C. who went that route. He was born into a politically powerful family. He made some sweeping changes. Not sure they were improvements.

EB: J.C...?

CT: Julius Caesar. He was born almost 100 years before Jesus. He was a great general who broke the laws of Rome by entering its territory with his armies, provoked a civil war, ended that war and was named dictator. He became the first Roman Emperor in everything but name.

EB: But he changed the world.

CT: Well, he changed the map. He changed the calendar. He changed Rome from a Republic to an Empire, with a lot more territory, but he also put the power over all of that into the hands of one man. Historians don't think he made things better for mankind in general. He made things better for one man: himself.

EB: But there are great leaders who have changed the world for the better.

CT: Sure. Cyrus the Great of Persia, who is mentioned in the Bible. He had a policy of religious toleration. You could practice your religion—after he conquered your country. The Mauryan Emperor Ashoka who ruled most of what is now India had laws prohibiting slavery, religious discrimination and cruelty towards both people and animals. 

EB: That's what I'm talking about!

CT: Funny thing then that those laws didn't apply to him when he blinded his son, or killed his youngest wife. But, as you said, they could make people obey laws. Because they were absolute monarchs who had the power of life and death over everyone else. You really think it is better to say “love your neighbor or I will have you killed?”

EB: No. And I know the old saying: absolute power corrupts absolutely. But why would God become a poor man?

CT: Well, I don't mean to speak for God...

EB: (looks CT up and down) You sure dress like someone who does.

CT: Let me rephrase that. I don't know all of God's reasons but think about this: political leaders can make external changes but who are the people who effect internal change in this world? What kind of people change the way folks think and then act?

EB: Thinkers...uh, philosophers?

CT: Yeah. And religious teachers and leaders. People who can't just say, “You need to do things this way because I have the power to make you,” but who say, “Here are the reasons why you should do things a certain way. Because it's the right way. Because it is in harmony with how God made us.”

EB: But why can't a king do that?

CT: Well, maybe a certain kind of king. Christ is the Greek version of the Hebrew word Messiah, so Jesus is a king. But he's not a typical earthly king. Kings and leaders like Julius Caesar tend to be born into wealth and power. But the vast majority of people in the world are not rich or powerful. If God's going to communicate to most people, who are they going to listen to for advice on how to live a moral life while dealing with the problems the ordinary person has: someone who's never done without the basics of life, who's never had to work hard just to eat, or someone who is a working person, someone who understands how hard it is to do the right thing when it costs you dearly, just like them?

EB: But who's going to listen to an average person?

CT: That's the challenge, isn't it? The powerful love to tell people what to do and we have to listen even if they don't make sense because they are powerful. But the guy who can't force us to listen has to make better arguments to bring people around to his views. They have to make sense. How many sayings of Julius Caesar can you quote?

EB: Uh...veni, vidi, vici?

CT: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Not exactly words the average person can live by. How many of Jesus' sayings can you come up with off the top of your head?

EB: “Love your neighbor?”

CT: Yeah.

EB: Treat others as you'd like to be treated.

CT: The Golden Rule. The basis of most social ethics.

EB: Oh, and that football verse.

CT: Football verse?

EB: You know, they put it on banners in the bleachers. It's got numbers in it.

CT: Oh, John 3:16!

EB: Yeah.

CT: “For God so loved the world that he gave his unique son so that whoever trusts in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

EB: Yeah. But so what? I can quote a lot of Jesus. What does that show?

CT: For one thing, that Jesus takes up more room in your brain than Caesar does. Earthly kings and emperors come and go. Their reforms can be repealed or forgotten. We don't even use the Julian calendar anymore. But Jesus Christ has had a greater effect on more lives throughout history than Julius Caesar.

EB: But don't we remember Caesar because he was a good ruler?

CT: We remember him because he changed history, and not necessarily for the better. Julius Caesar was a bully who has been compared, by some historians, to a Mafia thug. He was politically ambitious and rose through bribery and having his supporters beat his opponents and finally by simply seizing power. He was vain. He wanted a triumphal parade in Rome, which meant he had to kill at least 5000 enemies to qualify. So he started an unauthorized war in Gaul, wiping out 800 villages, killing a million people and taking another million, the entire population of one region of Gaul, as slaves. The brutality of his campaign even horrified the Romans. Terrified, they made him dictator for life.

EB: Reminds me of what Shakespeare said in Marc Antony's eulogy for Caesar, “The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

CT: True. But the good Jesus did and his words of wisdom and comfort and challenge live on, inspiring people. Speaking of words, you could call Jesus the living Word of God, the concrete expression of God's love in human form. And even today if someone tries to live their life by asking themselves “What would Jesus do?” we find it commendable.

EB: Yeah, I guess if someone said they always asked themselves “What would Julius Caesar do?” we'd be worried.

CT: That would be disturbing. Jesus spent his time healing people, feeding the hungry, telling them the gospel.

EB: I hear that word a lot. What is the gospel?

CT: The word simply means “good news.” Folks back then thought God must love the rich and powerful because they had all the blessings of this life. The good news is that God loves everyone, not just the rich but the poor, the powerless, the sick, the foreigner, and the disadvantaged. God even loves those considered great sinners and forgives those who repent, that is, turn their lives around and return to God.

EB: That's easy to say. But what's the evidence God loves us?

CT: He sent his son, not to be another rich and powerful king, ruling with fear and violence, having his every desire fulfilled, but to live as one of us, the people with little or no power. Jesus had a job and family and friends who didn't always understand him and one friend who betrayed him. He knows what it's like to get tired and hungry and thirsty. He knows what it's like to feel pain and to fell all alone and to feel humiliation and even to experience death. The good news is God loves us enough to do all that to save us.

EB: Even rich people feel those things. So that's what Christmas is about. I thought it was about presents.

CT: It is. It's about God's presence among us. (EB groans.) Sorry, couldn't resist. But at Christmas we remember that God is not just out there. He is right here, beside us, in Jesus, helping us get through life. And, if we open our hearts to him, God is in us, in the form of his Spirit. (EB reacts.) That's where Jesus rules and he rules with love.

EB: We Scrooges don't like spirits.

CT: Yeah, they gave your grand uncle a wild time one night. And similarly God's Spirit helps us look back and remember what Jesus said and did for us in the past. He helps us apply those principles to our present situation and become more Christlike day by day. And he helps us look forward to the time when Jesus will return to set up the kingdom of the God who is love and restore the earth to the paradise that God intended when he created everything.

EB: But where do presen...uh, gifts come in?

CT: Through his Spirit God gives us gifts in the form of our individual talents and skills to plant the seeds of his kingdom by what we do daily wherever we find ourselves.

EB: Like running my company?

CT: Provided you are honest, generous, do a good job and what you do doesn't harm people but helps them, sure.

EB: Scroogedrivers are constructive. Maybe we could give a few thousand to Habitat for Humanity.

CT: That's a start. And you could treat your employees as you would like to be treated.

EB: Yeah. My grand uncle began doing that with Bob Cratchet. He gave him a living wage and help with medical expenses. In fact, he also started a fund for sick children. We could contribute to that.

CT: A fund for sick children. I've never heard of it. What's it called?

EB: The Tiny Tim Lives! Fund.

CT: That's definitely in the spirit of Christmas.

EB: And it's a spirit even a Scrooge can live with.

CT: Have a blessed Christmas, Ebenezer.

EB: And God bless us everyone!