The Real Jesus

December 12, 2004 (Third Sunday of Advent)

By The Rev. Benjamin J. Newland

- Isaiah 35:1-10
- Psalm 146 or 146:4-9
- James 5:7-10
- Matthew 11:2-11

There is, I think, an essential contradiction at the heart of Christian teaching. It has been there, as far as I can tell, since about five minutes after Jesus died on the cross. It is hidden in the Gospel portion we have today. One half of this contradiction is evident in the passage from Isaiah, and in the first line of the reading from the letter of James. The same half is institutionalized in our church calendar in the season of advent.

The contradiction is this:

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. -James 5:7

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, 'The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, "Look, here it is!" or "There it is!" For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.' -Luke 17:20-21

That first quote epitomizes the early Christian response to Jesus' apparent failure to return right away. Paul in his epistles and the other writers of the Christian scriptures frequently address the return of Jesus, promising that it will be soon, offering advice on what to do in the meantime, and just telling early Christians to wait. This waiting has been iconized in the season of Advent, four Sunday's of waiting and listening to scriptures about apocalypse. An entire division of theology, both scholarly and practical, has been created to address the "Second Coming".

The second quote is from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus himself says, "the kingdom of God is among you." In the Gospel of John the favorite turn of phrase is, "the time is coming, and now is" (John 4:23, 5:25, etc.). In dozens of other places in the gospels Jesus says that the kingdom of God is near. In dozens more he describes the kingdom in everyday, contemporary images.

Now you can see the contradiction. Jesus never asks us to wait. Even when he's talking about his own crucifixion and death, he continues to tell his followers to go out and do things, and to announce the kingdom of God. Yet waiting for God, particularly during this holy season of Advent, is an integral part of our religious practice. Go ahead and throw out the crazies who say they know how, when, and where the world is ending; and throw out those for whom the second coming is an excuse to overlook, or even-God forbid-to encourage, suffering. Still there is a longstanding tradition of waiting, of listening, of contemplating. Yet Jesus tells us to act and to do it now. There is nothing to wait for, if you listen to Jesus. The time is now.

How to reconcile these apparently conflicting streams of Christian teaching? How can we address the contradiction? Let us consider the gospel passage appointed for today, and then the portion of James' letter.

In Matthew's gospel, John the Baptist sits in Herod's prison and wonders about Jesus. According to the gospel accounts, John's big insight as a prophet was that no matter how great a prophet he was, and maybe he was the best possible prophet, there was another to come who would be greater. And not just greater as a prophet, but greater in a way that would make prophets obsolete. So John wants to know if Jesus is this one. What makes Jesus so special, and does it make him special enough to make him the culmination and end of all prophecy?

Jesus stands there on the banks of the Jordan river, surrounded by reeds and just upstream from a couple of Herod's pleasure palaces, and says yes indeed, John the Baptist was the greatest of prophets, but even the very least in the kingdom of God which I have come to announce is greater than he. But why? Why is Jesus' Kingdom of God so much better? What makes Jesus special?

Well, because he was the Son of God, right? That's what we learned in Sunday School. And that's true. Jesus was the Son of God. The thing is, what they didn't tell us in Sunday School is that Jesus wasn't the only Son of God running around the Ancient Near East. Plenty of others claimed the title of Messiah, plenty of others healed the sick, plenty of others had divine parents. In a particularly glaring example, the Emperor Octavian Augustus, under whose rule Jesus was born, claimed the titles, God, Son of God, and God from God. Sound familiar? To our ears, the titles given to Jesus and the deeds ascribed to him seem amazing and unique. In the first century world, Jesus was only one among many. So why did his message go on to change the course of history while most others did not outlive their individual prophets?

Well, it doesn't really say in our readings for today. It doesn't really say anywhere in the Bible. But good news! I know the answer. The reason Jesus became THE Son of God and outlived all those others, is that Jesus put his money where his mouth was. Any prophet can say that the end is coming, and most of them do. Only Jesus managed to say that the end was now. And then to prove it.

We're all familiar with prophets of a certain ilk who carry signs claiming that the world will end on a particular day. We tend to scoff at them, since inevitably their day comes, and then goes, without the world ending. We give more credit-for better or worse-to prophets like the one of The Revelation to John, who make detailed and cosmic predictions yet do not clearly say when these things will occur. What, you say that the world will end, but before it does there will be a war? Hmmm, seems like a pretty safe bet to me.

Jesus had the temerity to say not that the world was going to end at some point in the future, but that it's end had already begun. In a very scholastic sense, this was Jesus' main contribution to world religions. There were plenty of Jews willing to accept that the world would end, God would raise the dead, judge them, and then set everything right. The only Jews willing to believe that God had started doing just that became Christians.

Well. I feel like I've traveled a goodly distance out onto this limb I seem to be perched on. But I came out here to make a point. Jesus not only said that the Kingdom of God was here, he made that idea the very heart of his life and ministry. And if you believe, like I do, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and Caesar Octavius Augustus was not, then it is pretty significant that Jesus said "now," not "wait".

So what do we do with the waiting? It is our principle task in the deep, dark heart of Advent where we find ourselves this morning. "Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord." Thus says James, author of this beautiful little letter. Yet in the next line he gives us a clue. "The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains." Waiting for a crop is not like waiting for the second coming. A crop is planted, tended, nurtured, and cared for. A crop is expected; not just a vague possibility out there at some undetermined point in the future, but a tangible and present reality that will bear fruit in due time.

That is the waiting we are called to in Advent. Not a waiting in vain, not a waiting for something unbelievable that most have given up on by now, not a waiting for something unknown. We are waiting for something very real, something that requires our attention, our nurturing, our care.

It's almost as if someone were pregnant, and we were expecting a baby. AMEN.