Looking for Jesus Series
November 30, 2008 - January 4, 2009
Perhaps the most Generous Treasure we Share (see 2 Corinthians 4:7-15) is the experience of Jesus through our lives as we touch others. Our third series examines the many portraits of Jesus the Messiah, primarily in the Gospels, as we prepare for the celebration of his coming into our world and into our lives.
Peter Gomes, in his recent book "The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?" asserts that Christian churches find it far easier (and tempting) to "preach Jesus instead of what Jesus preached". What Gomes means by this statement involves the ease with which we fall to the temptation to project ourselves and our preconceptions of who we would like Jesus to be for us onto our conception of Jesus (what a fun word to use in the Advent season!). Gomes contrasts this projection (which is a form of idolatry, at its worst) with the difficulty we have squaring these projections with the sayings and teachings of Jesus collected in the Gospels and letters of the New Testament.
Even the simplest reading of the sayings of Jesus brings into question some of our favorite cultural icons of Jesus - especially the western ideas of this Jewish mystic - the blond-haired, blue-eyed, pale complexioned guru, always sitting in a field of flowers with children upon his lap, or all sad and serious in prayer (usually just a portrait of a disembodied face). Then there are the infant icons in stylized stable tableaux (complete with golden dinner plate behind the head of every charachter but the poor donkeys!). And don't forget the agonized portraits and crucifixes of Christ beaten, bloody, and crucified. Thanks to the Gospels, we have almost no account of his childhood or youth.
But there is more than enough material in the New Testament and in the post-resurrection experience of Jesus (see 1 Corinthians 15:3-8) that visits all of his followers (then and now) to shake our complacency and challenge us to see more of this incomparable one who saves and claims our lives. Think of the first time (if ever) you saw a portrait of Jesus laughing. Laughing? Or the spiritual gyrations you had to go through when confronted with the unpleasant scene of Jesus, armed with a whip, busting up the exchange tables in the Temple courts - or calling the Syro-Phoenecian woman a "dog".
You get some idea of the challenge a relationship with Jesus was like in person when reading John 6 (I'm thinking of verses 25-71, but the whole chapter is a hoot) or Mark 8:27-33 (when Jesus calls the disciple who claims the Jesus is the Messiah "Satan"). He defied preconceived notions of who he was and how people expected him to behave. He chose to serve the world but only on his own terms. And because we who follow him - who have been claimed by him - believe that he communicates God's presence and reality to us, we have no choice but to pay extraordinary attention to the person and ways of God he chooses to reveal to us in himself.
That's what all this talk about the "real" meaning of Christmas is all about. No one who claims to have a monoploy on real is telling you the truth. All of us are in for a surprise when Jesus encounters us as Emmanuel: God who is with us. In the final analysis, we cannot share the treasure of Jesus with the world (that priviledge belongs to Jesus alone). What we can do is to continually open ourselves to relationship with Jesus - and share with others the treasure of how our lives change forever when the Anointed One of God touches our lives.
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November 30, 2008 |
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December 7, 2008 |
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December 14, 2008 |
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December 21, 2008 |
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December 24, 2008 |
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December 28, 2008 |
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January 4, 2009 |
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