And so we wait

We moderns have no sense of history. We think Jesus came and, presto, his followers took over the world. No time flat.

There was no presto.

There were only one or two or a few at a time. People who believed him. People who followed him. People who told others about him and acted toward others as he had instructed.

Sure, 3,000 were added on the Day of Pentecost, but what is 3k in the midst of 100 million alive at the time? Something like 0.00003%. Something like 1 in 33,333. Merely like a grain of salt in a lake.

Which is what Jesus likened his followers to – like salt scattered for seasoning among the masses of society. Or like leaven in bread, though that will only make sense to the bakers among my readers. No dominating by sheer force. Only influencing by innate qualities born of the Spirit. An itty, bitty influence going a long way. Overwhelming through just being different. Something like that.

Slowly the good news spread through the empire of the time. Happened to be the Roman Empire. But righteous dudes did eventually rule the day, didn’t they? Once they took over, that is? Hundreds of years later? That solved everything, right? Righteousness forever and all that?

Isn’t that the way it works? Shake things up. Get a hold of the reins of power and straighten things out, get things back to the way they should be.

We like to think so. We like to think that is the way it will all come about.

We like to think there was a time when things were as they should be. That there was some golden age of greatness. That somehow, if we could just get back to that time, if we could just storm the halls of power, things would be great again. Or so we dream.

We like to think that “righteous living” and “justice doing” come by might and power. Surely, it is good when righteousness and justice prevail, isn’t it? But such hope in the hands of human rulers is like liquid gold – you can’t hold onto it. No sooner do you gain power – for God’s sake, of course – and the gold turns to dust. The king walks naked and children laugh. It’s all as ludicrous as mixing all those metaphors.

Still, we keep trying. If only we can take over, we can make things right. We can restore the greatness.

Oh, you think I’m talking about us Christians in the USA today, do you? Actually, I am thinking about what the Jews were thinking 2,000 years ago, the ones who wanted to restore Israel to its former greatness.

They were all looking for Him. Had been for hundreds of years. The Promised One who would come and free them from ungodly oppression, from foreign invasion, and the rule of darkness. He’d come as an outsider, not one of the ruling elite of the day like the Romans or King Herod’s crowd. He’d be one of their own. A non-elite, yet a son of David.

Someone with royalty in his genes – but then, a lot of people running around Israel at the time had royalty in their genes. Such a broad diffusion of genes happens in a people over a thousand years, what with everyone finding mates outside of first cousins.

A new David. That’s what they were hoping for, a return to when the kingdom was great under the Shepherd King. Wasn’t that the golden age?

Just a minute. Let me check my biblical references… Well, the record is complicated.

Still, they had their hope in a strongman, just like when they chose Saul as king. That went well, too, didn’t it?

Eh, maybe not so much.

Regardless, they were looking for a new strongman to rise up. He would come with great force and might and put all the God-haters in their place. He would clean out the palace and restore Israel to her golden age.

These dreamers did get some of that right. The “someone would come” part. “A son of David” part. And the outsider part, not one of the contemporary ruling elite. That, too.

But the force and power? Nope. Dead wrong. He wouldn’t come with 10,000 avenging angels. Nor human swords. Nor earthly mandates.

No, he’d come quietly and die ignominiously. That means without honor, shamefully, despicably. You get the point.

A suffering servant, Isaiah writes. Wasn’t this suffering servant business in reference to us as Israel? Surely Isaiah wasn’t talking about the Promised One being the suffering servant. We’re talking two separate visions here, aren’t we? The Promised One is a strongman who comes to rescue us who are suffering. Why do we need someone who is a mess to rescue us?

Sorry, but no, the Rescuer you have been promised is that very suffering servant. Mangled to the point no one can bear to look at him.

But that comes later in the story.

The Promised One will come as weak as they come – just a harmless baby. A refugee child at that, hunted and hounded out of his homeland. Even his own will despise him. And eventually they will kill him.

No army in his command. Just an army arresting him. A real loser.

Yet again, I get ahead of myself.

Who on earth is going to believe a story like that?

Just one here. And a couple there. And a few more just beyond. The most unlikely of people.

Quiet, pious folks like elderly Zechariah and Elizabeth. The good news came first to Zechariah. But he was as reluctant a believer in the good news of God’s visitation as ever there had been.

There was the oddball, John, who preferred eating crispy, creepy insects to hanging out with proper society.

Mary, a betrothed young woman, barely more than a child herself, and in a family way without a family, back when such a situation meant divorce at best, stoning at worst.

Joseph, the strong, silent type. He certainly didn’t say much. And he must have been strong because he was a common laborer. Just a carpenter, they said.

A few lowly sheep herders thrown in for good measure. Who’s going to believe them?

Ah, Simeon! Now there was a respectable man, lived in Jerusalem. But he was old. Said a few mixed-messaging words over this blessed, cursed child – and that is the last we hear of him.

Speaking of old, there was Anna, a widow who hung out at the temple, just fasting and praying, stuff like that.

And then there’s the oddest story of all. The Magi. Mysterious guys, astronomers of sorts, bearing gifts. Outsiders, definitely. Foreigners to the max. At least they added cool camels to modern nativity scenes. But they also spilled the beans to King Herod and got a lot of babies killed.

Oh, and then there’s that awful scene. If this conquering hero is going to come as a helpless, innocent baby, it shouldn’t be at the expense of a lot of other helpless, innocent babies, should it?

Who writes this stuff?

None of this is the way to bring back greatness. None of this is the way to make things right.

Or is it?

We think the magic of Christmas is in snowflakes and angel hair and glowing, bedecked evergreens. But the real magic, the mysterious power of Christmas, is in the upside down – or is it downside up – way in which God reveals Himself to a people who are struggling and hurting and dying. It is in the way God speaks in a still, small voice, the cry of an infant, lying in an animal feedbox.

And so we wait. What? Wait till he grows up and slays the Romans and avenges the deaths of all those innocents and his cousin John on the House of Herod?

No, the story continues to disappoint. Jesus, the Promised One, does some miracles, collects some followers, then gets arrested and killed in a most unsuitable way (is there a suitable way to be killed?) – and his followers are scattered.

He does come back to life – resurrected, they call it – and then he disappears. In a cloud, of all things. Trace that. Says he’ll be back. Just go get the Spirit in you and keep being salt and leaven.

That’s it? All those promises of old? Where is the promised kingdom? Even Pilate wanted to know. But the answer he gets is as vague as it is useless. At least it’s not useful to Pilate who’d rather set Jesus free than suffer reproach for two thousand years. Wouldn’t you?

The prophets of old had gone silent for hundreds of years and then, this. Scandal. Disgrace. Disappointment. And more scandal. For a generation wanting flash, bang, power – there is little to pique our interest.

And so we wait. We just wait.

They call it advent. Latin for “coming.” Like kids hoping that package under the tree will not just be socks, yearning with almost uncontainable hope as they worry the edges of the wrapping. Wondering what is to come.

It fills most of December – and most of our lives, really – this waiting, hoping, praying for what Simeon called “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” We keep looking for it here and there, almost forcing the dream into reality. Seizing on this politician and that media star, hoping they will end our waiting. But they don’t. End our waiting, that is. They only fill our stomachs with false promises. And so, we keep looking for the right package, the one with our name on it.

That’s all Simeon saw. A package of promise.

I doubt Simeon lived to see more than an infant at temple consecration, presented as he was with a pair of pigeons. I doubt he lived to see Mary’s heart pierced when her son – this son – was treated as “a sign that will be spoken against,” just as Simeon had warned.

Simeon was old. He would not live to see any of what he said was to come. But his eyes saw what almost no one else of his generation saw.

That this child of age-old promise was worth waiting for.

Not sure I’ve got these stories right? Check them out in chapters 1 and 2 of Matthew and Luke.

More reflections in this season of Advent are coming. Just let me know by clicking here that you want to receive them and they’ll be appearing in your inbox. A Christmas present to you. I promise.

Public domain photo by Wilfredor.