Advent III - The Watching

It must be almost ten years since my Grandpa Matthias made the Christmas crèche for us.  Made out of rough timber, about two feet wide and a foot tall, the crèche always sits in a place of prominence in our home during Advent.  My grandma painted all of the figurines.  Of course there is the holy family; Jesus an only child lying in a bed of painted straw, mostly naked except for a modestly wrapped cloth diaper around his waist.  I guess Mary was washing the swaddling clothes at the time.  Joseph, Mary, the shepherds and especially the wise men, are wearing incredible amounts of linen.  The magi must have come from a place of warmth because they look really cold shivering beside their cows.

Oh, yes, the camels are parked in the back.  The shepherds take care of them as well as a few of the frolicking sheep, but the cows seem content to be leading the Ancient Stargazers to the place where Jesus lay.  There is an angel, a beautiful cherub in a blue dress, pinioned to front of the wooden stable, affixed by a single nail in its back.  I'm sure she loves to hang their, suspended by the spike singing songs of great joy about how her back is killing her.  Sometimes, though, the angel flutters down on translucent wings to rest ever so gently on the back of the donkey which has its legs folded under it just trying to get any sleep.  So much racket going on with all these heavily dressed people, an infant baby, Magi-bearing cows and snorting camels.

Silent night, my ass.  (donkey speaking here)

It's the beauty of the crèche, though, that we can manipulate the characters to play whatever role we want.  Sometimes one of the shepherds fills in to babysit the infant savior while Joseph and Mary go on their first date as parents.  The camels, permanently reposed, have angel dust (not the hallucinogenic drug) sprinkled on them so they can fly to Never Never Land.  Sometimes the wise men have to leave for a Professional Development class, i.e. go outside to gaze at the stars and see what they're going to have for dinner.  It's all part of the wonder of what we used to do as kids, to place ourselves in dolls, or toys, or imaginations and make believe...

To make us believe.  To make us believe the Advent message we sometimes manipulate the characters of the Christmas story to fit our own ideas of what faith should be like.  We watch, or stand guard over the figures of the Advent story, or our version of it, so that Jesus sleeps peacefully - he would never cry, he's perfect.  His mother is perpetually watching him because she's not tired at all.  After giving birth to the baby (which in our crèche makes the baby look like he is thirty-eight pounds), Mary assumes the holy position, hands pushed tightly together in front of her, head bowed treasuring the beauty of childbirth in a stable. 

Yeah, right.

The wise men are really intelligent men who have watched the stars and yet have somehow have been unable to watch the one, great big moving star that settled over Bethlehem.  They, in all their intelligence, go to ask the king where the newborn king has been brought into the world.  The shepherds, watching their flocks by night, (who knows what they were actually doing at that time of day) have been permanently transposed into joyous young boys capably adept at jumping and springing for joy at being released from their full time job of keeping their sheep safe. 

I wonder if the sheep were alive when they returned?

But my own watching over the Christmas crèche and my own vision of its story is skewed a little bit, I think I like to manipulate the Christmas figures to bend to my will.  Joseph and Mary will never suffer hardship, the baby Jesus no crying he makes, the angel sings praises to God and hangs delightedly above the stable and the animals.  The manger is filled with fresh, fragrant straw and always will be and the wise men are perpetually wise and love to drop their Christmas gifts and run.

I'm almost positive that's not the way it happened, but one figure who gets changed in my own brain most of the time is John the Baptist.  We talk about him every Advent, the one who brings the good news of peace on earth and goodwill to men.  His message, as I manipulate it, is one of tolerance and good wishes at Christmas time, never mind the fact that in his preparation for the Christ, his first words out of his mouth are:

You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce fruit in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our Father."  (Luke 3:7)

In other words, to the crowds who flock to the Baptist, he does not promote tolerance for sin and selfish acts; he does not cozy up to the adoration of the multitudes, he offends them, as the gospel always seems to do.  It does no good to make people feel good about themselves, when in themselves there is nothing good.  They have made themselves righteous by claiming Abraham as their father, that somehow his inherent faithfulness is passed on in the righteous gene, and somehow have been deluded that faith comes through birth and is not deceived through disbelieving actions.  John speaks to a crowd of people who could have been his biggest supporters, could have made him a big deal in the temple just like his father, but he cuts right through it to the very heart of his message:

Repent.  Turn around, quickly!  The kingdom of God is at hand!  If you don't look up from yourselves and your addiction to ego, you'll miss him!  He is not saying this to anger them, although it probably did, but he cares about the efficacy of the Good News and how hard hearts tend to be a difficult barrier for the Gospel to break through.

What should we do, then?  It's interesting the crowd that asks this, because I often place myself in the crowds in biblical stories.  Included in the mob are faithful Israelites, tax collectors and soldiers, the latter to groups often looked upon with disdain, but John doesn't turn them away and he doesn't change the message in order to get them to 'come to Jesus.'  The message is the same; the only difference is the depth of the ears and hearts receiving them, and for tax collectors and soldiers, it's a miracle that they even listen at all because John's message basically is this -

Erase what you've learned about gathering 'stuff' and its importance in your life.  To the crowd he says, Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.  To the tax collectors who call him 'Teacher,' Don't collect anymore than your job requires you.  You don't need any more to make it through life, especially if it means robbing others.  To the soldiers, Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely - be content with your pay.

For some reason, John's preparation of the way for Christ taps into the very materialistic nature of 21st century society also.  If you have more than you need, share.  If you think you need more, you're probably wrong.  If you've been doing something you feel ashamed of doing with regards to money, you should probably be ashamed and change it because Mammon has become your god and there is no serving two masters.

So the people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah.  (Luke 3:15)  They still didn't get it, but they understood that the message he was preaching, even if it meant giving up the very thing they idolized, was new and revolutionary and could, perhaps, put them in line for the coming of the Messiah.

So, watching and waiting expectantly, how do we, as faithful Christians, watch over John's preparation in the wilderness speech and not manipulate to a lukewarm, half-baked, cheap grace covers all message, and prepare our lives for the coming Messiah?  Does it include financial dis-ease to see the healer of all ills?  Does it include exiting our palaces of prosperity to encounter the Christ on his own terms?  Do we cease and desist keeping up with Mr. and Mrs. Jones so that the love of Christ can settle into the mangers of our own hearts this Christmas?

Watch and see.