John the Baptist — renowned as a hellfire preacher. "You snakes! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?" (The coming wrath being the wrath of the Messiah). But when the people ask "What must we do to be saved?" his advice seems very mild. He tells the soldiers to be content with their pay and not extort money from innocent people with menaces (i.e. run protection rackets). He doesn't tell the tax-collectors for the occupying power to stop collecting the Romans' taxes, but he does tell them not to add a secret supplement and pocket the difference. (i.e. it's OK to collude with people's oppression but don't abuse the power they've given you). And he urges those who are wealthy enough to have more food than they can eat to share it (well, you'd only have to throw it away); and those who've got two coats please give one to someone who is in danger of freezing to death at night (because in that world your coat was also your sleeping bag). We do that in this country, albeit through the tax and benefit system. At least, we used to. So basically, John the Baptist's repentance need cost us nothing.
On the other hand, when Jesus's disciples asked what they must do to be saved Jesus advises them to sell everything they have and give the proceeds away, abandon their family ("leave the dead to bury their dead") and follow him - if necessary to a humiliating public execution. And yet he's the guy portrayed as meek and gentle, the baby in the manger.
All fall short of the glory of God, according to Jesus. Even Jesus himself does, it seems, conscious though he is of being God's 'beloved Son'. "Why do you call me good?" Being good all the time is not an achievable goal for human beings, and it's dangerous nonsense to pretend it is. All share 'the human capacity to mess things up'. Jesus's message represents a radical levelling. Jesus walks through the purity laws that define the righteous from the sinners : purity, marked out by laws that define the boundary between good and evil. The difference between a good person and a bad person is really not very much in God's scheme of perfection, it seems. Certainly not enough to allow a person whom the world considers 'good' any complacency.
I think that after he was wowed by John the Baptist's preaching and accepted baptism ("Why do you call me good?") Jesus hears God's call to mission and goes out into the desert to reflect on it. I think he sees the danger in John's message : it doesn't go far enough. It leaves too much room for self-righteousness. It doesn't go to the root of the human condition. It imagines that if more people behaved a bit better — especially the world's rulers — the Kingdom would come. And that isn't true. That's not how humans are. They mess it up, terribly, sometimes for the best of reasons. They can't help it.
So humans being humans, we need laws :
God knows that we need justice, without which no human city can stand. There must be rule by rules, or force will tear down every wall. Since blood will be shed no matter what, humans being humans, better that it should be shed to try to protect the weak from the strong, to guard the widow and the orphan and the traveller on the road, to settle quarrels without massacres. Innocence and guilt must be portioned out. Punishments must be assigned. Judgements must be made. Our nature requires it.
But God's nature doesn't. The law is needful for us, not for him. .... The law says that everyone should get what they deserve, but God already knows what we deserve with terrible precision, and he wants us to have more than that. ... He comes to us, right now, where we live in the grip of our necessities, to bring us the rest of his gift, to complete the work the law began.
from 'Unapologetic' by Francis Spufford
Jesus represents the opposite of John the Baptist's call to 'come out from amongst them' and be a righteous sect in a dirty world. The greatest evil is self-righteousness, because it's such a travesty of the truth. If humans are righteous it's more by luck than design, and the chances are that our best attempts at righteousness will mess up eventually. The good things we do will get twisted and end up doing harm. That's just what humans do.
No, the Messiah's message is not John's message of 'come out from among the unrighteous, and stop breaking God's laws' but 'do the opposite — enter the world of 'sinners'. The messed-up world. Don't avoid the messer-uppers — get to know them. You're one of them. Love them (if you can) with God's love which is the only pure and infinite love. Remember, you are one of those humans. Maybe you've been luckier in the opportunities you've had and the choices you've made, that's all. There, but for the grace of God . . .'
As we will remember tomorrow night and Tuesday morning, that is exactly what God does in the Christmas story. Maybe one day the wheat and the chaff will be separated, but here we see God entering our human world to puncture the pride, vindicate the humility, shatter the boundaries between the classes, the religions and the nations. And not one of us can say we don't need the challenge, the forgiveness and the hope that he brings.
tomorrow night : God like a baby
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