The sermon at church this morning was interesting. We’re celebrating
Advent, which is about anticipating the coming of Christ. The pastor
during the first part of his sermon was inquiring why John the Baptist
was not at the nativity. My thought was “Because John the Baptist was
still a baby at that time,” and that is probably true, if one accepts
what the Gospel of Luke says. At the same time, I could somewhat
understand my pastor’s question, for John the Baptist was preparing
people for the ministry of Jesus. In my opinion, John was trying to get
people ready for the Messiah by encouraging them to repent. By being
in a spiritual state of mind that was oriented towards God and
righteousness, people would be in a better position to recognize and to
embrace Jesus’ ministry of compassion and healing as the work of God.
Those who did not repent would be focused on other things, or they would
reject Jesus because Jesus conflicted with their power interests.
My pastor was making a big deal about John 1:26-27, which states:
“John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth
one among you, whom ye know not; He it is, who coming after me is
preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose”
(KJV). I did not entirely understand how my pastor was applying this
verse—-and I consider that a good thing, since that makes me think—-but I
believe that his point was that we assume we know everything about
Jesus and that we have a firm handle on who Jesus was. We do not
consider that Jesus can surprise us, or we fail to look at Jesus in
fresh ways. My pastor is neither disputing the importance of Christian
orthodoxy nor suggesting that we should depart from that, I don’t think,
but rather he is promoting a living relationship with Jesus, not simply
assuming that we know all there is to know about Jesus and putting
Jesus on the shelf, either trivializing him or forgetting about him.
What do I make of that? Well, I have my own frozen image of Jesus, I
cannot deny that! There are all sorts of images of Jesus out there:
Jesus the nice person who accepted everyone, Jesus the man who was not
afraid to tell people off, Jesus full of grace, Jesus giving people a
new law (or a new interpretation of the old law) more difficult than the
law of Moses. I tend to gravitate towards a compassionate Jesus,
though there are doubts somewhere in my mind about whether that is the
case. I have just found beating myself up for failing to live up to
certain spiritual standards to be a futile endeavor. I have settled on
compassionate Jesus! I have resolved that no one will tell me
otherwise! They can have any Jesus they wish, but they are not taking
away from me my compassionate Jesus!
But can that frozen image of mine close me off from learning new things, from gaining new insights?