December 2024
The other day I was thinking about Christmas and how hard it is to look past all of the trappings and wonderful cultural traditions in order to once again claim the gift that the gospels proclaim. As I was thinking about the challenge, I remembered an optical illusion that a member of the congregation had given me years ago that is now readily available online. It looks like a Rorschach ink blotch that you stare at the four dots in the center for 30 seconds and then either look away at a blank wall or close your eyes and tip your head back and suddenly you have the face of Jesus floating before you. I have seen the image in so many different forms, passed around over the years… and still it is neat to have our brains see something beyond the obvious.
The artist in me loves the way that we naturally reframe the way that we see the world. This is a central tenet of our faith – that God would have us see and live in the world with eyes open to a different way of being. The Christmas stories begin that reframing, but it continues right through to Easter. All of Jesus’ ministry is about approaching the world in a different way. Interestingly, much of the church and society seem to have settled for a faith that conforms to our vision of how we want the world to appear instead of trying to discern God's ways. And I suppose that makes sense. The ways of the world, power, riches, success, would all be quite uncomfortable with the foundational message of Jesus.
And so, I invite us to stare again at the Christmas story and see God's ways emerge. The story is one that is in direct opposition to the status quo. In the Christmas stories from Matthew and Luke we hear stories that are direct critiques of those who are in power within the Roman Empire. It was not until I was at Divinity School and following that I finally heard the stories not as warm cozy narratives about little-baby-Jesus and began to hear them as God's powerful inbreaking rebuttal against a world that had chosen values completely contrary to God's. It is no accident that Jesus is born in the midst of the oppression of the Roman Empire where the ruler perceived himself to be a god-king himself, above the law, and to be regarded by all as being the savior. All of the titles that we hear offered for Jesus were titles used for Caesar, and we forget that. Savior of the World, Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Prince of Peace, these were all titles used for the self-proclaimed and system anointed god-king, Caesar. This title for emperor would later be echoed in other languages as Tzar, Kaiser, those who would rule over vast territories.
When we hear the Christmas story, we hear God's reframing of what power looks like. We see God trying to teach us to see the world through God's eyes. And it looks radically different than anything that we might imagine. All of those titles are now offered for a little baby born to a teenage, unwed mother, in a backwater town that lives in the oppressive shadow of that powerful empire. We hear a young woman sing a Magnificat that speaks of turning the way that we see the world upside down. And then the whole rest of the story unfolds in similar fashion. Jesus’ ministry is continually to those whom society sees as the wrong people. Those who are powerful and rich are invited to share in the journey, but only if they are willing to let go of what they have always known, to embrace love and generosity instead of power and certainties, and that seems almost impossible. Jesus’ story is constantly one of suffering for challenging the world to see and live differently. It is not popular to advocate for the downtrodden or to criticize those who love power. That conflict will continue all the way to the cross when the ways of power will declare that they’ve won and made an example of this foolishness. And then the heart of our faith will proclaim the resurrection that again asserts that love and peace triumph.
This should be an uncomfortable story for us. We have become the empire- starting with Constantine, Christianity was usurped by the very powers of the world that it sought to critique. Our story should make us uncomfortable, as we watch the ways that our world chooses to assign value. As we vote, as we budget our resources, as we pursue careers or retirements, or policies that impact God's world and God's people… we should constantly feel rather uncomfortable. When we look past the illusion and see Jesus staring back at us, we are supposed to hear that call to see and act like Jesus.
The question that nags at me is whether Christianity survived for all these centuries because it became co-opted by the power of the Empire to serve itself. The call that pulls at my soul is the affirmation that this radically different way of living in the world and in relationship with God sparked something in those earliest believers. They chose to leave their comfortable existence to live in the world differently. I believe that they chose to live in a world where every face reflected the light and love of God, where every glimmer of creation, from ugly bug to majestic mountaintop, invited a new vision of the wonder of God.
As the lights twinkle, as the songs are sung, and the story told, will we try again to open our hearts to seeing and living like Jesus? That is not the stuff of party tricks or illusions, but of choosing to live a life that really is life. Gloria in excelsis deo! Glory to GOD in the highest, and peace among all,