Advent Anger

Advent Anger--December 17, 2019

"When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, 'Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?' Jesus answered them, 'Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me'." [Matthew 11:2-6]

Some people say that the "right" thing to feel in the season of Advent are emotions like "hope," "peace," "joy," and "love."  Sometimes we even say that's what each of the candles on the Advent wreath are for.  But John the Baptizer offers a minority report (doesn't he always?).  John's witness suggests that the right responses to this waiting season are doubt, anger, disillusionment, and outrage.

And he's not wrong about that.

Or at least, maybe Advent needs to be about those difficult emotions before it can be about the pastel pink and purple notions of peace and joy.

Let me suggest that we sit with this scene for a bit today, before we rush on to talking about hope and peace and joy.  John the Baptizer is in jail, and it's not fair.  He's gotten himself into trouble with Herod, the arrogant narcissist who sits on a puppet's throne, having been placed in his position by the foreign power of Rome.  And honestly, John's not there for anything "religious" that he said.  John ended up making enemies in high places because he got political.  John didn't say anything that wasn't true, but he called out Herod as a fraud and a crook, and he wouldn't keep his mouth shut about Herod's uncontrolled habit of dumping his old wives for newer, more attractive models when it suited him.  

John even saw through the way Herod pretended to be religious--he wasn't even completely ethnically Jewish (he was Idumean, actually), and yet he knew that if he undertook renovation projects to the Temple, he would puff up his reputation and get the support of the Respectable Religious crowd, as well as give him more large marble monuments on which he could have his name engraved.  But John had seen through Herod's bluster and propaganda and called him out for being a fraud and a crook--and it landed John in a dungeon waiting a date with an executioner's ax.  

Now, John was a brave and principled man, and he was willing to suffer for the cause of righteousness and for the sake of truth-telling.  But he also had pinned his hopes on the notion that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact the promised Messiah--and John figured that surely, the Messiah would strike down the pompous pretender on the throne, Herod, right?  Surely, the Messiah would not be able to stand such an arrogant and obviously hollow crook remaining in power.  And certainly, the Messiah would free John from being wrongfully imprisoned simply for having spoken truth to power... right?

And so, understandably, John finds himself in prison feeling outraged and angry, doubting and disillusioned.  He is angry that a rotten crook like Herod seems to be getting away with his crookedness.  He is outraged that the others around him either don't seem to be able to see how terrible and self-absorbed Herod is, or worse--that they can see it, and they just don't care!  And because it looks like Herod's pettiness and corruption are going to go unchallenged while he wastes away in prison, John is beginning to doubt whether Jesus really was the one he has been waiting for.  All of his mental pictures of a Messiah busting down the door, guns blazing, to break him out of jail are evaporating like morning dew, and John is on the edge of despair.

Honestly, can you blame him?

The trouble with Jesus, of course, is that he reserves the right not to conform to our expectations.  He is the one we have been waiting for--that much is true and certain--but he is not bound to be what we expected.  And that's part of what makes this season of waiting so difficult.  It's hard to be full of hope and peace and love and joy when you look around at the rottenness of the world around you and you can't shake the question, "Doesn't anybody else see this?  Isn't anybody else upset that this is how things are?  Isn't God upset at it all--and if so, why hasn't God fixed it all yet?"  Our wish is for God to come and zap the world into instant righteousness--of course, that's righteousness as WE want to define it, where God hates all the people I already hate, and where God's pet peeves are conveniently my own.  We want a God who busts down doors, locked and loaded, who stands his ground with righteous fury, and who cuts down the crooked Herods of the world instantly, rather than letting them think they are winning the day.  As Robert Farrar Capon has put it, we want a God who looks more like Superman, punching his way to victory, rather than a God who goes to a cross and dies at the hands of crooked pretenders like Herod and brutal heathens like Pilate or Caesar.

But what we are given is Jesus... and Jesus does not seems at all interested in catering to our bloodlust.  And if we have pinned our hopes on God fitting with our expectations, well, we like John are going to find that waiting for Jesus looks a lot more like doubt and anger than hope and peace.

And this is where I think we need to hold onto John rather than just dismissing him.  See, I'm convinced that John is right about the crookedness of Herod and the rottenness of a society that just accepted his claims to be "King of the Jews."  I think John is right to be angry, in the same way that outrage is sometimes a sign you are just paying attention.  If we aren't upset at the rottenness and crookedness of the world, we are complicit in it.  So in that sense, anger is appropriate for Advent, if it is the kind of anger over what is wrong in the world that also then leads to action to put things right.

But just being angry isn't enough.  And assuming that God has to work with our preferred methods is rather arrogant, too.  Jesus' response to John reminds him--and us--that God is indeed dealing with the brokenness of the world around us.  But God's way of dealing with it is to heal it and to bring it back to life, yes, even to raise what is dead in us, rather than to just zap and shoot and smash things.  

In a sense we all need to get to the place where John is at some point in our life of faith--we need to move from complacency to urgent outrage over the rottenness in the world.  But so long as we stay there, we will find ourselves imprisoned in that anger.  Jesus enters there into that dungeon and brings life to us so that we are not stuck there forever, but we can't short-circuit the process and skip the honest anger that John has.  We need to be upset over the things that upset God.  We need to, as the old prayer goes, let our hearts be broken by the things that break the heart of God.  And from there, we will be ready to let Jesus come on his own terms--not the conquering army general, but the baby in the manger.  The Jesus we are waiting for these days is indeed the One through whom God puts all things right that are broken and crooked, but Jesus insists that his way of doing it goes through the saving and giving of life rather than through Herod's same old violent tactics.  Ultimately, if Jesus gives in to John's revenge fantasy and would zap Herod with holy laser-beams out of his eyes, then Herod wins and the world really is just a game of King of the Hill.  If Jesus fights Herod's self-serving violence with self-serving violence of his own, then nothing has really changed or been redeemed.  So Jesus' way of putting things right will be, well, just what Jesus says to John through his messengers: the blind will be given sight, the lame will walk, the lepers will be cleansed, the dead will be raised, and the poor will be given good news.  

So here is my prayer for you in these Advent days.  I pray for you--and for myself as well--not the easy peace of just ignoring the rottenness of the world around, but the fiery love that can be awakened to anger about what is crooked, and the honest hope that looks to Jesus' way of putting things right rather than the same old tired ways of Herod the pompous puppet.

And when we have first been stirred up, we can then be given the deep peace of the God who deals with the brokenness of the world from a manger and a cross, rather than from a protected throne or behind a trigger.

May we be troubled over the crookedness of things like John is... and then may we be brought to life by Jesus who comes into our captivity and transforms us in his love.

Lord Jesus, where we are complacent, stir us up.  And where we need to let you redirect us, turn us around.