The Unsafe Goodness of Jesus--January 7, 2025

The Unsafe Goodness of Jesus--January 7, 2025

"When King Herod heard about this [the Magi seeking a newborn king], he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him..." (Matthew 2:3)

You know that old line of C.S. Lewis' from the classic The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, I'll bet--it's the one describing his Christ-figure, Aslan. After young Lucy learns that Aslan is a lion and asks if it's safe to be around him, the reply comes, "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe.  But he is good. He's the king, I tell you..."

Lewis has packed an awful lot of theology into that little exchange between his fictional little Pevensie girl and a fantastical family of beavers in Narnia.  His point, lest we miss it, is that Jesus of Nazareth is the same: not safe, but good.  Jesus is neither tame, nor harmless, and if we want to treat him merely as, in the words of the old carol, "holy Jesus, meek and mild" we are in for a rude awakening.  Jesus isn't "safe"--in the same sense that walking on water, touching contagious lepers, crossing borders into hostile foreign territory, criticizing religious hypocrites, welcoming notorious sinners, dining with scandalous outcasts, or defying the Powers of the Day are all unsafe actions.  But he is good--in the same sense that all of those actions are, too.

You get a sense of some of that unsafe goodness and holy troublemaking here, even in the infancy of this Jesus, as the story of the Magi and their visitation continues.  Matthew continues here in the scene begun in the verses we looked at yesterday, and he reveals that the arrival of these foreign astrologers seeking a newborn king was met, not with joy and hope in the capital city of Jerusalem, but with fear and anxiety.  Nobody there was expecting a new king. There was already a very-much-alive, very-much-in-power king on the throne named Herod "the Great" (insert eye-roll here).  And even though he was something of a puppet ruler installed and tolerated by Rome as long as he stayed on his leash, he wasn't planning on going anywhere or abdicated to some upstart newcomer in diapers.  Herod, ancient historians tell us, wasn't so much "Great" as notorious for his cruelty, feared for his paranoid insecurity, and infamous for his ego's need to be remembered as a big deal. So of course he is threatened by even the hint of a whisper of a rival to his throne and his legacy.  And when such a "great" king feels threatened, everybody in the capital feels threatened, too. They don't want to see an angry or suspicious Herod, both because they are all entangled in his political machinery and because they don't want to find themselves in his proverbial crosshairs.  The rumor of a new king, even if it comes from the lips of out-of-town would-be wizards like the Magi, sounds like a destabilizing and subversive notion.  To say that a new king was born (revealed in the night sky, and backed by the heavens, no less!) was a dangerous sort of claim.  If it were true, it would pull the rug out from under Herod and his dynasty, and it would even question the supremacy of the Roman Empire that had granted Herod the title "King of the Jews."

But that's the thing with Jesus, who is the true king after all: his presence is indeed dangerous... if you are wedded to preserving the established rottenness of The Way Things Are. All those who brag about their "greatness," even the ones occupying seats of power for the moment, find their claims are undermined by the subversive presence of Jesus, who brings the Reign of God right under their noses. The point of this turn in the story is not to suggest that Herod is wrong to fear Jesus, but that he both fundamentally misunderstands how Jesus' coming unmasks him and at the same time is utterly powerless to stop Jesus from coming.  The true and rightful king isn't coming to kill the current occupant of the Judean throne, but he will indeed outlast Herod.  Neither has Jesus come merely to give Herod a stamp of approval and innocuously ascend back up into heaven; Jesus' message of God's Reign will throw into question Herod and his kind of "greatness" once and for all.  In other words, Herod is right to be afraid: Jesus isn't safe at all, at least not for the likes of bullies, dictators, tyrants, and blowhards like Herod.  But he is good--for precisely the same reason that he is not safe.

In our own lives, too, every time we puff ourselves up, Herod "the Great" style, or intimidate others like he did, or try and elbow God out of the picture, Jesus' arrival in our lives will seem dangerous.  Every time, like Herod, we build our lives on the usual measures of success, money, fame, power, and prestige, the unsafe goodness of Jesus will reveal we've merely set the whole house of cards on a foundation of sand.  Every time we let our insecurities harden into fear that makes us feel threatened by everyone else around us, Jesus comes and knocks those brittle old structures down, so that they can be cleared away for God's Reign to be raised up among us. If our lives are hung up on preserving all those old systems and ways, the coming of Jesus will seem ominous.

So let the warning from Narnia speak to us as well: when Jesus shows up in our midst, he is a dangerous commodity, but perhaps the very danger we most deeply need.  He is never safe.  But he is always good.  When he comes into our midst, in whatever moment or circumstance he finds us, may we not react in fear like Herod, but seek in open wonder like the Magi.

Lord Jesus, unsettle us and lead us in your way. Be your dangerous self with us.