Teaching Jesus to Be Jesus

Teaching Jesus to Be Jesus--December 16, 2016

[Mary said:] "[God] has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." (Luke 1:54-55)

Mary taught Jesus to... be Jesus.  And in that, we find our calling to one another, too.

I know, that might at first sound at least odd, or worse heretical.  But for a moment, give a preacher the benefit of the doubt.

While it is indeed entirely accurate that Christians confess that Jesus of Nazareth is quite seriously and literally God-with-us, the Incarnate Deity sung about in the Christmas carols, it is also entirely accurate that Christians confess that Jesus of Nazareth is just as seriously and literally one of us, as human as you or me.  And like all of us carbon-based hairless bipeds, Jesus was born in utter dependency and need, and had to grow up and learn... well, everything.  He had to learn what the world was like, who he was, and what his story would be.  One presumes he even had to be taught the story of Israel, and what Israel's hope for a Messiah was all about, even though he himself was that Messiah (maybe especially because he was and is the Messiah).

Now, the Gospels do not present us with some single moment when, Matrix-like, Jesus instantly downloaded all of that messianic awareness, or the story of his people, or the visions of their prophets.  He had to learn them like we learn anything--which in large part includes the wise and loving voices of family and good teachers.  I cannot help but imagine that his mother was his first and most formative of those voices.  Mothers are like that. I cannot help but imagine that Mary was the one who first told him the stories of Abraham and Sarah, of Moses and Miriam, of the escape from Pharaoh's Egypt, of the notions of jubilee and Sabbath year, of the visions of new creation and swords-beaten-into-plowshares from the likes of Isaiah and Micah, along with all the hopes of a coming "anointed one"--a Messiah--on whom the restoration of all things would rest.

And when the child Jesus asked his mother things like my children ask--things like, "How big is God?" and "How do I know God loves me... or is real?" and "What about when someone else hits me or calls me a mean name--where is God then?"--one has to presume that Mary was the one who first gave answers to the boy Messiah.  For as much as Jesus of Nazareth also had to grow up into his own man, to speak, and for as much as we may also say that Jesus was uniquely in communion with the God of Israel, in a very real sense, the foundations of that calling and identity were laid by Mary. Note here, I am not saying she made him to be a copy of her own thinking, believing, or actions, but rather that like any good mother, Mary enabled her child to become most fully who he was.  Mary quite literally had to teach Jesus how to be Jesus.

So, it stands to reason that if we want to get at least a glimpse of what Jesus himself thought about who he was and what God was up to through him, we should listen to the words on Mary's lips.  Mary seems to think that the coming of the Messiah, her baby, is the agent through whom God turns the tables on the powers of the world.  Her boy Jesus will be the one through whom the arrogant are deflated, the proud dethroned, and the lowly are lifted up.  The movement her son brings about will feed the hungry and humble the overstuffed rich.  He will fulfill the old promises of a new creation, of wolves and lambs lying down in peace, of an end to empires and pompous emperors, and the community of people he will gather to himself will practice an alternative way of life over against all the violence, greed, and hate of the world. 

In a sense, it would be fair to say that you can only get excited about the celebration of Jesus' birth if you are also on board with that agenda.  If' we are not ourselves caught up in the movement of God to lift up the lowly, mend the brokenhearted, and give back the hungry their stolen bread, then we have no reason to observe or celebrate Christmas.  If the celebration that is coming next weekend is just a time for family gatherings, nostalgia about your childhood, the singing of familiar tunes, the exchanging of stuff you don't really need, or the comfort of seasonally-flavored hot beverages while you watch schmaltzy movies on the Hallmark Channel, well, you are entitled to do those things... but they ain't about what Jesus was born for in the first place.  If we get more incensed at some perceived slight about being greeted with "Happy Holidays" at the bank or grocery store instead of "Merry Christmas" than at the reality that a tyrant is currently killing his own people in Syria, or that one out of every eight households you know had a time last year when they didn't know where their next meal might come from, then perhaps we have lost the right to be merry at Christmas. 

Jesus didn't come so we could set up store-bought scenes of his birth in the town square, and he didn't come so that we could over-indulge on buying each other things we don't need in order to prove our "Christmas spirit."  If we are unclear on that, we only need to listen to his mom, who has been telling us now for two millennia what was and is worth getting excited about in the birth of her firstborn.  The joy and the commotion are about the long-awaited promises that at last God would lift up the lowly and restore all things with justice and mercy.

Our calling, then, if we mean it when we say that we Christians are meant to be the face of Christ for the world around us, is to teach and remind one another, Mary-like, how to be Jesus.  Our responsibility, not only to the children we raise in the faith, but to the old and seasoned who have forgotten it in their nostalgia for past times of "greatness," is to help remind each other and hold each other accountable for how to be Jesus for the people you meet today.  Mary began that work... today, let's follow her lead.

Lord Jesus, your mom's words keep reminding us who you are and why we love you.  Thank you for coming.  Thank you for living out the vision she sang in your ear from the manger.  Thank you for whispering that vision to her in the first place by your Spirit.