What's the Deal with Christmas?

 The scriptures referred to are Luke 2:1-20, John 1:1-18.

Sermon writing is hard, especially when you must preach on the same events every year, like Jesus' birth, death and resurrection. What can I say that is neither obvious and needs no repeating nor simply a repetition of what others have already said over the last 2000 years and probably said better than I could?

My sermons tend to consist of 3 parts: What?, So What?, and Now What? In other words, what is our topic, why is it significant and what should we do about it? Which is why Christmas is particularly difficult to preach about. Jesus Christ, God's son, was born. It's there in the gospel texts. There's the “What?” and it doesn't need that much elaboration. You can do a bit more with the “So What?” part, delving into the significance of God becoming a human being and how he chose to do so, by being born into a poor family. But the Sunday after Christmas, you have pretty much exhausted that. The real problem is the “Now What?” part. Jesus is born. What is your response? Say “Happy birthday?” Pass out cigars? Tell others about it? But in this day and culture, pretty much everyone knows that Christmas celebrates Jesus' birth. So if that news was going to elicit a response from people, it already has.

Some of the response is sentimentality. People take the elements of the nativity story and make pictures, TV shows, Christmas cards, figurines, etc. that are cute or even appear reverent but which miss the point of the significance of Jesus' birth, aside from non-specific platitudes about love or peace. I am not against these things but let's face: there is a whole industry out there that churns these things out, not for the sake of the gospel but to make a buck catering to people's sentiments.

And, of course, that industry realizes it doesn't even need to deal with the hot potato of God Incarnate but can do equally well or better churning out elves and reindeer and candy canes and Batman tree ornaments and ugly sweaters and nostalgic Christmas specials and romantic movies set during the holiday season in which women fall in love with someone who in some cases turns out to be Santa Claus. And all this stuff obscures the true nature of Christmas. There is a hilarious speech in Doctor Who in which an historical tour guide from the future tells people about a Christmas that he has reconstructed from the fragments of our culture that survived to his time. He says, “I shall be taking you to Old London town in the country of UK, ruled over by Good King Wenceslas. Now human beings worship the great god Santa, a creature with fearsome claws and his wife Mary. And every Christmas Eve, the people of the UK go to war with the country of Turkey. They then eat the Turkey people for Christmas dinner, like savages.” And the Doctor listens to this garbled version of secular Christmas with increasing alarm. But, let's be honest, that's how it might seem to a stranger who only knows of the Christmas-adjacent trivia under which we have buried the real Christmas.

Some respond by deconstructing the story. They look at each part of the narrative and do lots of research—and speculation—to figure out the year and the time of year of Jesus' birth, the exact place where he was born, the historicity of Herod's slaughter of the innocents, the nature of the celestial event that the magi observed and more. And, again, I don't mind these. I love learning more about the period and the culture into which Jesus was born. But, like the sentimental elements of the narrative, they can get people sidetracked from the point of the story, the good news of what God did in Christ. Folks get so absorbed in the details of each brush stroke that they don't see the whole picture.

Some respond by making their yearly or semi-yearly pilgrimage to church. They sing familiar hymns and listen to familiar stories and feel they have done their duty to God. They might bring their children or grandchildren, thinking that, like homeopathy, exposure to a tiny bit of something, in this case religion, will do the job that regular doses were designed to do. And part of that is thinking that faith is a nice extra to life, not something vital to a robust spiritual life. If I treated my physical therapy sessions that way, I would still be unable to walk. If we want to walk with Jesus, we need to keep coming to where 2 or 3 are gathered in his name and he is in their midst. We are to be the body of Christ, not independent agents with a side gig.

I was surprised to learn that for the first 350 years the church didn't have a holiday commemorating Christ's birth. The passion, death and resurrection of Jesus was the center of the faith. Because if they hadn't happened, there would be no church. A person being born is not earth-shattering news. A person returning from the dead is. Only in retrospect did the church feel it was important to celebrate Jesus' birth as well. And it wasn't to replace a pagan holiday that December 25^th was chosen. It was based on the ancient idea that a person's death took place on the day of their conception. If Jesus died in the spring, at Passover, he must have been conceived around then 3 decades earlier and therefor born in the winter. Since March 25^th was considered a probable date for his death and thus conception, December 25^th was chosen as the likely day of his birth. It had nothing to do with taking over the pagan holiday of Saturnalia or Sol Invictus or the winter solstice.

As we said, Jesus' resurrection from the dead is the real news, the good news. It showed that Jesus was not just a prophet or a Messiah wannabe but the Lord of life. It was so unexpected that the disciples had to rethink not only who Jesus was but the nature of God as well. And only then, looking back, did they realize that for the Lord to die for us he had to be born as one of us. And that shows how much God loves us.

Let's say you were really into an endangered species that lived primarily in a area that would be flooded soon due to global warming. And let's say you knew of a better safer habitat where they could live if you could just get them there. But they are shy of human beings and run from you and hide. How can you get them to safety? What if there was a way you could become one of them and gain their trust and lead them to their new domain? Would you do it? Would you do it even if you knew you would have to die to get them there? If so, it would mean you really loved them.

Christmas is not about angels or animals or a manger or a star but about God loving us enough to give up his prerogatives and privileges as divinity to take on our humanity. And in doing so, he knew that life would be hard and end in a brutal death. He knew all that going in. And he did it anyway. That's love. That's incredible love. And our response should be to share not just that story but that love with everyone we meet. And to keep coming back together to celebrate that love with others who are of the same mind and spirit, and to give and receive encouragement and knowledge and support and wisdom and spiritual refreshment and, yes, to sing songs about the God we see in Jesus, the baby, the man, the sacrifice, the risen Savior.

A Little Out of Ordinary

The scriptures referred to are Luke 2:1-20.

People sometimes scoff at the infancy narratives in the gospels. There are only 2 but they are different, which some take as contradictory. They can be reconciled without great effort. Matthew concentrates on what happened before Jesus' birth and what happened as many as 2 years after. Luke focuses on what happens at the actual time of the birth and a week later. And as any cop will tell, when 2 or more people have absolute agreement on all the details, it means they cooked the story up. In real life, different people notice different details and tell the story a bit differently. Ask a married couple about their wedding and honeymoon. Both were there but one will always add something the other doesn't remember or even dispute some details their spouse mentions. The fact that the church didn't revise the 4 gospels to be exactly alike shows they took them all to be authentic if separate accounts.

Some say the infancy narratives are too mythological to be real. Seriously? The goddess Athena sprang fully formed from Zeus' head. Hercules strangled 2 snakes in his cradle. In modern mythology Superman was super strong and invulnerable from the beginning.

To be sure, there are apocryphal gospels that give us some truly amazing stories of Jesus as Superbaby. In the Gospel of James, touching baby Jesus' head heals the withered hand of the midwife who was punished for doubting Mary's virginity. In the Syriac Infancy Gospel Jesus' diaper heals people. In the Infancy Gospel of Thomas the author really lets his imagination go to town. Jesus makes birds out of clay, breathes life into them and they fly. He is also a true enfant terrible, striking dead a kid who accidentally bumped into him and then striking the boy's parents blind when they complain to Mary and Joseph. But that's okay. He resurrects the kid.

I've said it before: the apocryphal gospels read like bad fan fiction. No wonder the church rejected them.

In the canonical gospels Jesus does nothing other than be born. He is not born from Mary's head but normally. He doesn't strangle anything but presumably just yawns, cries and suckles. He isn't invulnerable; he gets circumcised on the eighth day. And the people around him rejoice, as anyone does when hearing of a baby being born. It's just that some of those rejoicing are angels.

Mary gives birth in less than ideal circumstances but that happens to a lot of people. In her day there were no hospitals or ambulances. You gave birth at home, as many in the world still do. As did Mary, actually. Due to a bad translation, people think Luke said there was no room at the “inn.” The word is better rendered “guest room.” As Kenneth Bailey points out in his book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, if Joseph was from Bethlehem and had property there he had to register for the tax census, he probably had relatives there as well. They wouldn't let him and his wife give birth in a stable. With the guest room already occupied, Mary would have delivered in the main family room. It would have been a few steps up from where families kept their animals at night. The manger or feeding trough would be on the edge of the floor of the main room, where the animals on the lower level could get it without getting into the family's living area. Less than ideal, as I said, but not, I'll wager, without precedent then or even today.

What is really remarkable about Jesus' birth is how low-key it is. God's son is not born in a palace or mansion. There are no attendants there to wait on the mother as you would expect at the birth of a king. There is no celebratory feast. The guests are not dignitaries and diplomats, just family and some shepherd boys. The shepherds are the only ones who saw angels, by the way. And artists have added halos to the holy family; they are not there in scripture.

If you dropped in to visit, you would see a very ordinary young family: a sleeping baby, a besotted new father and a very tired and sore new mother. Thus does God enter his own creation. Through birth, something commonplace and at the same time miraculous.

We want Hollywood special effects, though. We want things to glow in a supernatural way when something miraculous happens. But that's not what we get. When Jesus heals someone he just touches them. Or spits in the dirt and covers the person's eyes with mud. Even when raising Lazarus, Jesus just speaks. There are no fireworks.

And he refuses to do flashier stuff when people ask it of him. Even when he was under arrest and could have saved himself by wowing Herod Antipas, he wouldn't do it.

If you went to the crucifixion, you would simply see 3 men dying slowly, a sadly familiar occurrence then. The clouds covered the sun and there was an earthquake. Not that unusual for a country with a fault line running through it.

The angels do return at his resurrection. But they basically do what they did the first time he took on life: tell some witnesses what is going on. After all, the Greek and Hebrew words for angel both mean “messenger.” They are there to underline the significance of the event, not do magic tricks.

But sure enough, people are more interested in Jesus' miracles than his words. Because you can just observe miracles. You can accept them or reject them. But they don't demand of you what Jesus' words do.

Angels singing in the sky? Beautiful. It makes a lovely Hallmark special.

But...

“Turn the other cheek.” Hmm.

“Give to all who ask of you.” Ooo; I'm not sure about that.

“Forgive others.” Nice thought, but what about...?

“Love your enemy.” That's going a bit far.

“Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” Do I have to?

As Ben Franklin said, “How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, His precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.”

You know, Jesus didn't get any gifts on his birthday. The wise men came as much as 2 years later. So you know what would be a great gift for him? For us to actually listen to his words and put them into practice. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things for God by just doing what he says we should. And if you do, you will see your life transformed as well as the lives of those you touch.

Give Jesus the gift of your life and he will give you his life: abundant, eternal, ever new.

The World Upended

The scriptures referred to are Luke 1:39-55.

One of the most beautiful Christmas songs of recent years is “Mary, Did You Know?” sung by the acapella group Pentatonix. In haunting close harmony the group sings, 

“Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water?

Mary, did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?

Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?

This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you?”

There are more verses. I highly recommend you look it up on You Tube and listen to it.

But the internet being what it is, someone has supplied another verse, that goes like this:

“Mary freaking knew that her baby boy would one day rule the nations.

Mary freaking knew that her baby boy was Lord of all creation.

Yes she knew! Read Luke 1, you fool, she sang about it then;

It helps if when you're reading you listen to the women!”

Personally I love the original song but the sassy additional verse has a lot of truth to it, as we see in today's gospel and canticle.

Luke's gospel is the only one that records that people moved by the Spirit burst into song. Does that happen in real life? Not in a Hollywood musical way but I once heard a sermon turn into a song. The pastor at an African American church was preaching in the call and response manner, with the congregation filling his dramatic pauses with “Amen!” “Preach it!” and “Hallelujah!” As the preacher became more rhythmic and poetic, the people picked up on that and tailored their responses to fit his rhythms. Then the choir started to sing their responses, and the organist began to play and the whole thing began to transmute into a spontaneous song. The preacher realized it was getting away from him and tried to halt it but the people kept singing and he finally said, “Let's just praise the Lord!” and they did so for several minutes till it faded away. And I was blown away. I thought, “Wow! That never happened in any church I belonged to.”

Little kids sing spontaneously till we make them feel embarrassed about it. In the same way we make fun of something we have all done at some point, which is sing along with the radio while driving alone. And yet don't we love it when a choir infiltrates a public space and does a flash mob rendering of the Ode to Joy or the Hallelujah Chorus? Which of us, at moments when we are alone and overwhelmed by strong emotions, has not found joy or solace in a favorite song?

What strong emotions would Mary have had that caused her to suddenly improvise the song we call the Magnificat?

First, we need to ask why Mary was visiting her relative. Elizabeth and her husband, the priest Zechariah, lived in Judea. The distance to there from Nazareth was roughly the same as from Key Largo to Key West but with mountains and valleys thrown in. It would take her at least 3 days walking. That's quite an undertaking for a young girl. Seeing as she was poor and pregnant, it doesn't make sense that she did it as a lark.

But her condition is an important clue. Luke tells us she was betrothed but not married to Joseph when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her she was to bear God's son. (Luke 1:26-27) From Matthew we know that Joseph did not take the news of Mary's pregnancy well. He was considering breaking the engagement, which was so binding it required a divorce. (Matthew 1:18-19) We don't know how long he was contemplating divorce but Luke tells us “Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.” Why did she go with haste? It wasn't like Elizabeth was about to go into labor. Her baby wasn't due for another 3 months. It must have been on Mary's end that haste was called for.

It wasn't that long ago that women pregnant out of wedlock were sent out of town to have their babies in secret. In an honor/shame society like the ancient Near East, Mary's pregnancy would be scandalous. Worse, she could be accused of adultery and stoned to death. Which is why Joseph wanted to divorce her quietly. So it makes sense she would be sent away on the excuse that she was helping her relative with her late-in-life birth.

Women then were raised for one purpose: to be a wife and mother. With Joseph making noises about divorcing her, Mary was looking at a life of disgrace and extreme poverty. Who would marry her? Who would help her raise her son? If she had to do it alone how would she support them both? All of these questions would have been eating at Mary during the long trudge to Judea. Her anxiety would have been off the charts. And what would she tell the priest and his wife? An angel told her she was bearing the Messiah? She would have sounded at best mad and at worst a terrible and blasphemous liar.

So when Elizabeth called her the “mother of my Lord” and mentioned how her own miraculous child leaped for joy in her womb, Mary must have been flooded with relief and gratitude. And later she would learn that an angel had appeared to mute Zechariah. These people believed her! She wasn't crazy and she wasn't alone. God was at work here.

And so the words just poured out of her! She cannot praise God enough. He has taken notice of this poor girl. The Greek word translated “lowliness” could also be rendered “humiliation.” And Mary's unwed pregnancy would be considered a humiliation in that culture. But God will turn that around and the girl sent out in dishonor will be honored by untold future generations.

God has a tendency to turn the values of this world upside down. And that is the theme of the song of Mary: God is turning the world we know topsy-turvy. The proud and the arrogant will be scattered. The powerful will be brought down from their thrones. The rich will be turned away empty of the spiritual blessings given to the humble.

We might even consider this song prophesy. Pontius Pilate, who had her son Jesus crucified, was recalled from his position as procurator of Judea in 36 AD and died in obscurity and disgrace. Caiaphas, the high priest who made the political calculation that it was better for Jesus to die than to possibly trigger the wrath of Rome, was also deposed that very same year. Tiberias, the emperor when Jesus was executed, is reported to have been killed by his successor Caligula in 37 AD. Herod Antipas, who had John the Baptist beheaded and did nothing to save Jesus when Pilate sent him to be interviewed by Herod, was exiled in 39 AD and possibly killed by Caligula as well. These powerful men were all brought down less than a decade after Jesus was crucified.

On the other hand, Mary sings that those who fear God, who have a healthy respect for him, will receive mercy. The lowly will be lifted up and the hungry filled with good things. These themes echo the song of Hannah when God enabled her to become the mother of the prophet Samuel. (I Samuel 2:1-10) God is reversing the order of a world that typically rewards those who have plenty and penalizes those who have little, that believes that might makes right and that the weak must serve the strong. We like to think our civilization is a meritocracy but Mary and Hannah show us what it would look like if people really got what they deserved. It doesn't look like the one we see on the news, does it?

You know who really noticed the disparity between the kingdom of God Mary sings of and their society? The Nazis. They realized that Christianity was not compatible with their ideals. So in addition to discarding the Old Testament, because it was all about the Jews, they rewrote the New Testament. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus blesses the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers. He tells his followers to turn the other cheek, to love their enemies, to not indulge in anger or hate. (Matthew 5-7) All that had to be taken out. The Nazi Jesus was not meek. He was an Aryan warrior who hated Jews. For him there was no peacemaking, no showing mercy, and definitely no loving enemies. Weirdly, you can say that while they were dishonest about what Jesus said, the Nazis were not hypocritical about their own values. And so they tried to remake Jesus in their own image. People still think if you don't want to change yourself, try changing God.

Many so-called Christians in the free world don't alter the words of Jesus; they just ignore them or explain them away. Jesus didn't really mean what he said about the rich being like a camel squeezing through the eye of a sewing needle, or that how we treat the poor, the sick, the imprisoned or the immigrant is how we treat Jesus, or about the woes he pronounced on those well off. (Luke 6:24-26) He didn't really mean that a rich man would be punished for neglecting a poor sick man at his gate. (Luke 16:19-31) He really didn't mean that those who come first in this world will come last in the next. (Luke 13:30) He really didn't mean that we should invite the poor and those who are disabled and those who can't repay us to our dinner parties in the assurance we will be repaid at the resurrection. (Luke 14:13-14) If he did, then our nation isn't really Christian.

If you think the world's priorities on who gets what they need and who gets justice is basically correct, then you will have problems with Jesus. But if you think we are only stewards of God's gifts and thus are expected to share them equitably, then you understand why Jesus commands us to live differently than the world does.

In the parable of the sheep and the goats Jesus said that the kingdom of God was prepared for the righteous, ie, those who treated the disadvantaged as they would Jesus. (Matthew 25:31-46) And the Greek word for “righteous,” as well as the Hebrew word, means “just” or “equitable.” They are related to the words in each language for “justice.” We tend to think of “righteous” as meaning merely “holy” but it means more than that. It means someone who treats others fairly.

And treating people equitably isn't the same as treating them equally. If, as a nurse, I put a bandage on the finger of not just the person who cut his finger but also on the finger of everyone who comes to me for any ailment, like a broken leg or a sucking chest wound, technically I have given everyone equal treatment: ie, a bandaid on their finger. But I have not treated them equitably; that is, fairly, according to their actual need. Justice requires judgment, deciding the matter on the basis of the actual factors involved, not arbitrarily or with a one-size-fits-all solution.

That's why we make accommodation for the disabled. Not everyone can climb stairs or can hear or can see. That doesn't mean they should be denied the rights that able people have no problem exercising. To ignore people's different needs would not be fair.

And, yes, accommodating the disabled and the disadvantaged can be inconvenient. It can be expensive to help and care for them. Which is why they were the first group that Hitler had murdered. They started with physically and mentally disabled children, starving them or giving them lethal drugs. The Nazis considered them “unworthy of life” and “useless eaters.” This is the ruthless pragmatism of psychopaths.

Nobody is useless in God's eyes. We are all created in his image and he doesn't care if accommodating those who are disadvantaged is inconvenient. As it says in Leviticus, “You must not curse a deaf person or put a stumbling block in front of a blind person. You must fear your God. I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:14) We must supply what the needy lack. (Deuteronomy 15:11) We are to be just and fair to all, no exceptions.

At the time of her song, Mary is a poor pregnant unwed mother-to-be. Even after the angel came to Joseph and told him to marry her, you just know the tongues of villagers in Nazareth wagged about how she was pregnant before they got married. And then Jesus' family fled Herod the Great's murderous purge of the boys in Bethlehem and went into Egypt, making them refugees. And when they returned to Nazareth years later, Jesus was a stranger with, probably, a strange Egyptian accent. He was the new boy in town with rumors about the circumstances of his conception and paternity. When Joseph died, as is evident by how he drops out of all the gospels after Jesus' childhood, Jesus was responsible to making a living to support his widowed mother and 4 brothers and we know not how many sisters. (Mark 6:3) Which is why from the cross Jesus arranges for his mother to be taken care of by his beloved disciple. (John 19:25-27) Jesus and his family knew poverty and how hard life can be. Which means God does too, firsthand.

God has always championed the underdog. (Deuteronomy 10:17-18) Through his son Jesus he knows what it's like to be one. And he promises that in his kingdom that will change. The first will be last and the last will be first. The meek will inherit the new earth. Those who suffered in this life will be consoled and rewarded and made whole. We can either be onboard with helping the destitute and the disabled and the disadvantaged as an expression of God's love, or we can go on blithely ignoring the plight of others. But remember in Jesus' parable of the last judgment it's the neglectful that get condemned. It's those who help Jesus by helping the least of his siblings who are called righteous—just and fair—and who go on into eternal life.

If we truly believe in Jesus and in his word, we will ask for the grace to change and to be like him: one so guided by the love of God that he thinks not of how helping others will negatively affect him but how not helping others will negatively affect them. Jesus on occasion would forgo a nap or a meal to help others. He even gave up his life to save us all. We have made a fetish out of convenience and comfort and are loathe to give them up. But Jesus is calling us to love and treat fairly all people, as he does, regardless of the cost. And he cost him more than we ever can pay.

We cannot bring the kingdom of God about by ourselves. Only Jesus can. But we can lay the groundwork. We can prepare things for him. We can plant the seeds and help establish little outposts of his kingdom that create networks of love and caring. And we can show the world that it is possible to have a community in which might does not make right, where those who deviate from the norm or from the ideal are not discarded, where people are not valued for their usefulness, like machines, but whose value resides in the fact that God loves them and created them in his image and that Jesus died for them. So let us with Mary magnify the Lord and let our spirits rejoice in God our Savior.

Specifics

The scriptures referred to are Luke 3:7-18.

Don't you hate it when a friend or acquaintance posts something cryptic on social media? It might go like this: “I am so mad.” Period. Or “That was a bad idea.” Or “I am so over this.” Or just “Ugh.” And nothing else besides those words. Maybe there's an emoji as well. But you have no context. It's called “vaguebooking.” It's almost always expressing some negative emotion but without giving any specifics. They could have had a break up, a broken water pipe, or a broken nail. It could be news of a serious illness, their own or someone close to them. But if they aren't going to say what it is, why are they telling us? You have no idea if the person posting wants you to try to draw them out or just wants you to offer support and not press for details. The one alternative it can't be is that they are literally too stunned by whatever it is to communicate something of its nature—because they pulled out their phone, opened Facebook or Instagram, typed the words, chose a background and posted it. So how are you to react? One is almost tempted to response with a generic “Thoughts and prayers.” Two can play that game.

I would imagine that language came about because of the need to be specific. Most animals have vocalizations that give alarm or signal displeasure or pain or that let the opposite sex know they are ready to mate. However, when grunts or gestures were inadequate, some clever ancestors of ours came up with shaped sounds that meant specific things or actions or thoughts. Humans can say “Enemy on your six” or “Lift that end and move it to your right” or “I have a sharp pain that radiates to my left jaw” or even “Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.” We never would have built homes or created science or literature or even civilization if we could only make guttural noises and point. You need to be able to articulate your thoughts and feelings if you are going to communicate something that goes beyond the rudimentary.

Last week we spoke of how John the Baptist preached about the need for people to repent. You can learn that from Matthew and Mark. But no other gospel but Luke gives us specifics on what that repentance would look like. Perhaps that's because Luke was a physician. Doctors need specifics. Different illnesses need specific treatments. Since the problem is people's sins, repentance takes specific forms depending on what the sin is.

Luke gives us 3 examples of specific expressions of repentance. “And the crowds asked him, 'What then should we do?' In reply he said to them, 'Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.'” (vv. 10-11) The average person then wore an undergarment and an outer garment or tunic. Some might also have a heavy cloak that would double as a blanket at night. But a poor person might only have the outer tunic. Or worse, they might only have an inner garment or a loincloth. That's probably what Peter was wearing while fishing when the risen Jesus called to him. We are told that before jumping into the sea he put on his outer garment “for he was naked.” (John 21:7) But in Greek that could also mean he was poorly clothed, ie, in his undergarment. If that was all someone had, they could get very cold at night. Which is why the Torah says that if a poor person pawns his garment, it must be returned to him at sundown, so he can sleep in it. (Deuteronomy 21:12-13) John tells people that true repentance of sin, which includes the sins of both exploiting and neglecting the poor, means going beyond what the law of Moses requires. It means in this instance giving your extra tunic to a person who has none.

And it means sharing your food with a person who has no food. Did you know that we could end world hunger by spending around $30 billion a year? That sounds like a lot until you learn that's the amount spent online, not merely by Americans, but by drunk Americans! One click shopping combined with a disinhibitor like booze leads to the average American spending nearly $450 a year. Browsing while drunk leads to late night and weekend purchases of lingerie and luxury items but not, alas, donating to charitable causes. If, instead of buying junk we don't need, we spent the same amount on food others need, we could end world hunger. It would help if the 2,755 billionaires in the world kicked in a fraction of the $13.1 trillion they have. Heck, Elon Musk could cover it the first year with just 10% of his wealth.

What does this have to do with repentance? If you actually repent, that is, truly change your mind about how you behave towards God, you will also change how you behave toward everyone who is made in God's image.

Next we read “Even tax collectors came to be baptized and they asked him, 'Teacher, what should we do?' He said to them, 'Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.'” (vv. 12-13) Tax collectors in Judea were usually Jews working for the Roman empire. Because they were helping fund the people occupying the Jewish homeland, they were seen as traitors. And it didn't help that they were greedy, collecting extra for themselves. According to the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible tax collectors were allowed to search anyone's home or person (except a Roman lady's body) for taxable property. If what they found hadn't been declared they could seize it. In Egypt they were known to beat up people, even old ladies, to get the location of relatives hiding taxable property. It was not unknown for villagers, after a bad harvest, upon hearing that the tax collector was coming, to leave town and start up a new village somewhere else! And the tax collectors were often open to accepting a bribe to reduce one's tax rate. It was illegal but when has that stopped people who love money above all else?

John tells them to stick to what they are required to collect. He, like Jesus, is not against taxes (Luke 20:22-25). But he is against greed. Again we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. No one wants to be shaken down by thieves under the guise of them acting officially. John tells them to take only what's fair.

Finally, we read, “Soldiers asked him, 'And we, what should we do?' He said to them, 'Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.'” (v. 14) Commentaries point out that these were most likely Syrian auxiliary troops working for Rome. They were known for extorting money from locals by intimidation, either physically or by threatening to make false accusations. They would also “requisition” items from locals for their own use. Sometimes they mutinied against the government, demanding higher wages, as they did in 14 AD. It's a worrying situation when those who are supposed to keep the peace are violent or corrupt. Ordinary people should be comforted by their presence, not frightened by it.

John tells them to be just and to be content with what they make. Like the tax collectors, their sins were not being in those professions but misusing their power to harm others and enrich themselves. To show that they have really changed their mind and come around to God's way of looking at things, they need to change their ways.

Notice that John is not asking them to make radical changes. He is not asking them to do what he did: go live in the desert and eat bugs. He is asking them to be just, generous, and compassionate. Those who are not doing enough for others should do more; those who are doing bad things to others should stop. No one likes to be neglected or bullied or robbed. Nobody wants to go hungry or shiver in the cold. No one likes to be harassed or coerced. Basically he is asking them to treat others the way they would like to be treated. (Luke 6:31) Which is radical only in the sense that we don't really follow this universally recognized golden rule.

Advent is a minor penitential season, where we prepare for the coming of our Lord. So we need to ask ourselves: what are appropriate and specific ways to repent today?

John would say that we should also be more helpful to those in need and more just in our dealings with others. He would say that our businesses should not take advantage of others or put making money over the welfare of others. Just because we can do such things doesn't mean we should.

But in the second part of our gospel John deals with the question of the Messiah. John is clear that he is not the Messiah. He is just setting the stage for him. From John's perspective at this point, the Messiah is not yet revealed. So John would be very surprised at how today, knowing about Jesus, people are still looking for other messiahs and saviors, including some who call themselves Christians.

The first of the Ten Commandments is to not have any other god before Yahweh. And the second is not to make or worship idols. Yet we see many who are putting as their top priority in life things other than the God revealed in Jesus Christ.

Some put their trust in those with power derived from government or military might or wealth above their trust in God. Or they put personal pleasure, such as sex or drugs or entertainment first. Some put their allegiance to race or a political party or an ideology before their faithfulness to God. If God were to tell them to give those up for him, would they? What about you? Are there things that, if you are being honest with yourself, you could not let go of and leave behind even if Jesus were to tell you to?

Abraham desperately wanted a son. To see if that was the only reason he obeyed God, he was asked to sacrifice Isaac. When he saw that Abraham put God first, the Lord stopped him and provided a substitute. On the other hand, God did not spare his own Son when he decided to save us. That shows how much he loves us. And yet it seems we cannot return the favor and put him first. We will follow the God who is love when it is convenient for us. We will love our neighbor to the extent that it is advantageous to us. And just as John's audience thought they had God's favor simply because they could claim Abraham as an ancestor, we think we are OK in God's eyes because we claim that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. But too often we treat him as our mascot. Mascots are just symbols for your team. They make the fans happy. And they make no demands on you.

But if Jesus is our Lord and Savior, then we must obey his commandments: to love God, to love our neighbor, to love even our enemy, and to love one another with the same self-sacrificial love with which Christ loves us. Which means those commandments of his come before any others. And that means we cannot put those other things—government, might, wealth, sex, drugs, entertainment, race, politics, ideologies or any other power or any mere human—before God or before our duty to love other people.

If we have truly changed our mind to God's point of view, we must change how we behave in specific ways. We must say “No” to anything or anyone who demands we must not show compassion to others because of who they are. We must say “No” to any policy that demands or allows us to act less than just to others, especially if we have more power than they do. We must say “No” to bullying and violence and neglect of the needy.

Of course, being specific can get you into trouble. John got specific about how Herod Antipas marrying his sister-in-law was against God's law. And he got arrested and thrown in prison and eventually beheaded. People don't like it when you apply God's principles to specific circumstances, especially involving them. And Herod, or more accurately his wife, was able to show that displeasure in an extreme way.

However, we must always be careful we are not twisting God's word to make it fit something specific simply because we approve or disapprove of it. Nor should we try to make something the Bible never mentions into God's top priority. The Bible says nothing about capitalism, democracy, abortion, veganism, or any modern country or any modern political party or any translation of the Bible. I'm not saying anything good or bad about these things. I'm just pointing out that neither does the Bible.

The Bible is laser-focused on what is essential: the God revealed in Jesus Christ—who he is, what he has done for us and how we should respond. It touches on lots of other things, some of which, while not essential, are important, and some of which are neither. But always, like John, it comes back to the Messiah. In Jesus we see what God is like: the one who heals, the one who nourishes us, the one who calls us, the one who protects us, the one willing to die for us, the one who overcomes death, the one who sets us free from sin. And in Jesus, the God made man, we also see what we can be through the power of his Spirit in us. In the books of the New Testament that come after the gospels, we see how the first Christians followed in Jesus' footsteps and dealt with situations he didn't using the principles he set down.

But that was 2000 years ago. The question we must wrestle with is this: how can we be like Jesus in today's world? And in your answers, please be specific.

Advance Man

The scriptures referred to are Luke 3:1-6.

One thing that bugs me about beginning an e-book is it often jumps right to the first chapter. I like reading the preface and introduction and table of contents first. They give you an idea of the reason the book was written and what it intends to do. Yes, you can usually discern this from simply reading the book but I like a bit of background and context going in. It is much easier to judge a book properly if you know what gave rise to it. I also read reviews before buying books and an intelligent reviewer can also tell you what the book is actually about. It's the same way with a movie. If you are interested in a nuclear confrontation during the cold war you wouldn't want to watch Dr. Strangelove with the same expectations that you had for Fail Safe. Though they came out in the same year, and dealt with the very same subject—a rogue US bomber headed to Russia with the intent of dropping a nuclear bomb—they are wildly different in their approach and tone. Fortunately a good trailer should tip you off to that in advance.

In the same way, most shows with a live audience—talk shows, sitcoms, etc—have a comedian who comes on stage before the taping to tell jokes, interact with the audience, and get everyone in the mood to have a good time. Watching at home you don't know this. You might think the enthusiastic crowd that applauds and whistles and laughs uproariously at the monologue or the dialog is just a really good audience. But someone has prepared them for what is to come.

In the same way, no celebrity or politician shows up to speak at a venue spontaneously. Before an important person makes an appearance, an employee visits the location first and handles publicity and security and sets up what the speaker is expected to do. He's called an advance man. And you could call John the Baptist Advent's advance man.

And we find that even John's coming was foretold in Isaiah. His job is to prepare the audience for Jesus. The audience is looking for a Messiah. But what kind?

For a lot of people, a warrior-king would suffice. “Just push the Romans out of our land and set up a kingdom like David's,” they would say. That would be enough for them. And while a holy warrior may have been preferred, in the end they probably would have accepted any freedom fighter who accomplished what they wanted. People will forgive their leaders for a lot of stuff if they show themselves to be effective.

But God wasn't interested in a political revolution. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah did not ultimately yield a more just and loving people. God is going both bigger and deeper this time. He wants a spiritual revolution. And that's what John is to prepare them for.

And that's why John was “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” That was revolutionary.

Baptism didn't originate with John. But it was primarily used on Gentile converts. They had to get circumcised of course but they also had to go through a ritual purification that involved being immersed in water. And what's revolutionary is that Jews responded to John's call to be baptized as if they were Gentiles starting out as God's people. They must have felt that things were so bad that they needed a new beginning with God.

Water is often used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. In Isaiah God says, “For I will pour water on the parched ground and cause streams to flow. I will pour my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your children.” (Isaiah 44:3) This was never intended as merely an external action. In Ezekiel God says, “I will sprinkle you with pure water and you will be clean from your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols. I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you; I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes and carefully observe my regulations.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27) The cleansing by water outside was to be accompanied by a cleansing by the Spirit inside. The Greek word baptizo means “to dip, to sink, to immerse or submerge.” It can also mean “to overwhelm.” It comes from a word that means “to make fully wet.” The important part of baptism is not so much being dipped in water but being fully immersed in and saturated by God's Spirit.

So this wasn't a magical rite that worked regardless of a person's spiritual state. It was a “baptism of repentance.” We associate repentance with someone making a big show of remorse, like Jimmy Swaggart did on TV after being caught with a prostitute. But that dramatic bout of crying on TV didn't mean anything. He did it again and this time he said to his church, “The Lord told me it's flat none of your business.” He didn't change.

The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, literally means a “change of mind.” Which leads to other changes. If you were originally going to do something and change your mind about it, you don't do it. Or you do something else. To repent is to rethink what you are doing or thinking of doing. Real repentance, a real change of mind, changes your behavior. My father-in-law had a heart attack at 65 but wouldn't change his lifestyle. Then he had another heart attack, a massive one that resulted in him getting a quintuple bypass. And that's when he changed his diet and changed his mind about doing the exercises his doctor ordered. He lived another 24 years, making it to age 91.

Repentance doesn't have to be accompanied by tears. Zacchaeus simply told Jesus and the crowd he was going to give half his money to the poor and give those he cheated 4 times what he took. (Luke 19:1-10) People who decide to change their life and get help with their drinking or drug use often do so after a sobering period of reappraisal. They may or may not cry. What's vital is they decide to change the direction of their life.

That's what John was preaching. He was saying, “The reason you are a spiritual mess is that you keep doing the same harmful things over and over. You need to change your mind and change your behavior.”

By being baptized, by publicly showing they were doing just that, they received forgiveness of sins. The Greek word for forgiveness, aphesis, literally means “a sending away, a dismissal.” John wasn't forgiving their sins; God was. If someone receives a presidential pardon, the president doesn't come and put a piece of paper in their hand. It comes from the Office of the Pardon Attorney. But the pardon attorney is not the one with the power to pardon people. That power resides in the president. The pardon attorney is just conveying it. John was the messenger. He was doing what priests and pastors do: simply conveying the good news of God's forgiveness to repentant people.

What's interesting is that the Supreme Court has ruled that a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.” Forgiveness doesn't mean you did nothing wrong; it means you did but you accept responsibility and receive the mercy offered. And, believe it or not, people have refused presidential pardons because they don't want to admit guilt. People refuse God's forgiveness for the same reason. They refuse to be released from their sins because they don't think they did anything wrong. That's why C.S. Lewis called pride, or what we call arrogance, the complete anti-God state of mind. A person who can never admit they were wrong can never be forgiven because they won't accept God's mercy and grace. That's what's makes a sin unforgivable: an inability to admit your sin and accept God's forgiveness. As Lewis said, the gates of hell are locked from the inside.

While we are analyzing the original wording, let's take a look at sin. The Greek word is hamartia. It means “missing the mark,” and was used by archers who didn't hit their target. So sin is a moral failure. Perhaps the image of the arrow not making it to the target was in Paul's mind when he said, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) Only the arrogant think they have not come up short of what God asks of us: to be as loving and just as he is. And our falling short isn't because we are not all-powerful like God. We fail to live up to his standards even when it is fully within our power to meet them. In a situation where we can simply tell the truth, we choose to lie. In a situation where we can choose not pass on harmful gossip, we do anyway. In a situation where we can avoid letting someone get hurt, we choose not to do anything to stop it. We sin by committing acts we should not and by not doing things we should. Only rarely do we find ourselves in a true moral dilemma where one ethical value seems at odds with another and it looks like our only choice is to pick the lesser of 2 evils.

Of course forgiving a sin does not undo the damage sin does, anymore than forgiving someone who stabbed you makes the wound magically disappear. Forgiveness is just the start. But again that's John's role: to get things started. To get people thinking about their sins and the nature of repentance and forgiveness. To prepare them for someone who can do more than simply dismiss sins.

Evil destroys things. It destroys the things which God created and pronounced good. It destroys our relationship with God, our relationships with others, even our relationship with ourselves. Evil destroys things either by ending their existence, or by corrupting them to the point that they cease to be what they were intended to be. Nor does sin have to kill someone to end his or her life. It can cut off their potential to be more than they were. It can twist them into a cruel parody of what they were. For some, hell is not a far off fate but something they are living in now. We don't just need forgiving; we need healing and restoration to whom God created us to be.

John preaches and baptizes. That's all. But he is the advance man for one greater than he: one who heals and reverses the damage evil wreaks on people. He has the power of life. And he will pit it against evil and the power of destruction, disease, decay and death. He will let the sins and evil of this world do their worst to him. And just when it looks like evil has won, he will reverse the power of death itself and triumph over it.

John is letting people know where the true danger lies. It is not in Rome. John is letting people know that the real danger lies in what we do against God and others and ourselves. John is letting them know that what must change is not who rules an earthly government but who rules in our hearts. And who is that? That's the essential question. And to find the answer we need to go to Jesus.