December 1998 Issue

It is a scary thing to notice how few people recognized and accepted Jesus for who he was. Some did. According to Matthew (2:1-18), the wise men did (also Herod!). A woman with a hemorrhage (9:20). A Roman centurion (8:5-13). The Syro-Phonecian woman (15:21-28). Perhaps the crowd at the Triumphal Entry (21:1-11), briefly, at least. The centurion at the tomb (27:54). The disciples? We're not sure: "Some doubted" (28:17).

But what is scary is the number people who never did recognize Jesus and his Messiahship—the very people, one would think, who would have. Jesus' hometown neighbors (13:54-58). The cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida (11:21). Above all, the chief religious authorities, the scribes and Pharisees, who ultimately conspired to crucify him (26:1-5). Even in today's lection, John the Baptist. At the beginning, when he had baptized Jesus in the Jordan (3:13), John had been certain enough, but now, alone in his cell, as word gets through to him in bits and pieces about what Jesus is doing, he is not sure. Is Jesus the Messiah or not? Can we at last stop waiting, expecting, longing? Or must our hope, already taut and thin, be stretched even further?

The problem with God's anointed is that they so seldom turn out to be what people have been looking for. They do not say the things people have been waiting to hear or do the things people have been expecting them to do. God-called leaders like Moses are hard to follow. God-chosen prophets like Jeremiah are next to impossible to live with. It often turns out that what God's idea of a God-anointed leader and what humans' idea of a God-anointed leader should be are two vastly different things. God's own Messiah could be so, well, so offensive. That is, he could say and do some very un-messianic things. Such as forgive sins. Heal on the Sabbath. Ride roughshod over time-honored traditions and prejudices. Treat women with respect. Commend hardship and suffering. Although John is the only person we know of who actually blurts out the question, the odds are good that the question was asked many times by many people: Can this Jesus possibly be the promised Messiah?

The question is still asked—needs to be asked. It needs to be asked because, as in John's case, it forces us to address the christological question, quite appropriate for this season of the Christian year. Who was/is this Jesus? How is he our Messiah? In what ways does he meet our expectations? More important, in what ways does he offend? Through the years scholars of various stripes have insisted that the christological question is an exceedingly difficult question to address—difficult because, more often than not, one's answer ends up reflecting one's own subjective needs and ideas. Even unintentionally, we are likely to modernize or domesticate or spiritualize or psychologize or de-radicalize the "real" Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospels. We are likely to be influenced by personal attitudes and outlooks. For example, today's "user-friendly" church may require a "user-friendly" Jesus. Or today's emphasis on ambition and success may lead us to discover a "success-oriented" Jesus—or as one ad puts it, "Jesus the Super-Salesman." On the other hand, especially if we are following some of the spokespersons on the Religious Right, the Jesus of today may turn out to be a stern authoritarian, a zealous upholder of moral rectitude who favors "tough love" for gays and lesbians, criminals, and persons on welfare.

In the biblical story, Jesus invites John to answer his own question—and provides the evidence. In an autobiographical sketch of only one sentence, Jesus summarizes his messianic mission: healing, restoring, preaching. There is not much here in the way of messianic glamour: the Romans still rule, God's people are still captive, King David's throne sits empty. So it is true, all the bells and whistles of popular messianic expectations are missing. In fact, so much is missing that Jesus has to conclude his little sketch with a back-handed warning (it is in the form of a blessing): "Blessed are those who do not take offense when I do not meet their messianic expectations."

On the other hand, the persons who did recognize Jesus, who gratefully received him as God's anointed, needed no warning. They simply accepted what Jesus had to give, no questions asked. They did not demand that Jesus be a Republican or a Democrat or help them feel good about themselves, or that he end abortion or punish environmental polluters, or that he join their denomination, attend their school, or at least drop by their country club. The blind, the lame, the deaf, the dead, lepers and poor people—these did not insist that Jesus fit their christology; they changed their christology to fit Jesus. They surrendered to the Reign of God no matter what form it came in and no matter how Jesus offered it, mainly, of course, because they were in no position to do otherwise. Unlike so many others, these were the persons who did not miss the Messiah when he came, because they took no offense at him or at his strange and confounding ways. They, so to speak, let Jesus be Jesus.

Paul B. Brown