What have you done with my Jesus?

I have one question for John the Baptist:  What have you done with my Jesus?

Of course, he isn’t just MY Jesus.  But I have spent a lifetime getting to know this Jesus, learning the stories, singing Jesus Loves Me, talking with him, depending on him to get me through the tough times. 

I have held a lit candle high at Christmas Eve and rejoiced at the empty tomb.  I have a pretty personal relationship with this Jesus.

this Jesus of love who feeds the poor and heals the broken–   I have donated money to feed the poor and prayed thousands of prayers.

this Jesus who calls out the religious leaders who are so full of themselves and the power hungry wealthy people who make their money and maintain their position on the backs of the small guys in this world. I have waved my fist and written emails and signed petitions and posted stuff on Facebook.

this Jesus who eats with women and all the people of the wrong race or wrong color or wrong religion   I stand right there with Jesus, loving most of the people, most of the time - although I don’t know a whole lot of them, and I keep my distance when they are scary or smell funny.

What have you done with my Jesus?  The one who is supposed to comfort me and my people? To hold me in his arms and rock me to sleep? Can’t you hear the sweet melody? 

Comfort, comfort ye my people……Isaiah told the story and Handel made it a part of his Messiah:   although possibly all that beautiful music may have covered up the part about the people having paid double for their sin. 

Perhaps you missed the part where the landscape as we know it will be completely changed: the mountains laid low and the valleys filled up.

Society will be overturned: those who sit in the high

places are brought down and those who are powerless

are lifted up.  Power will belong only to God!

Perhaps you missed the part where God’s coming in Jesus is the beginning of God’s new world: A whole new operating system; a new set of rules with all the old ways wiped out.  The Good News of Jesus is that EVERYTHING is going to change!

But what does all of this have to do with my loving Jesus who is about

to be born in the glow of candles and to the tune of Silent Night?

Instead Mr. Baptist we get you:  a crazy guy out there in the wilderness, eating locusts! Why are you shouting at all of us?  Don’t you know that we are the good guys? 

You know, every time some Bible character gets ranting like this I get really uncomfortable.

I feel like I don’t really know this Jesus,

I have no idea what following this Jesus means,

I am not even sure I want to get on board with this kind of radical agenda where all those people who stand in the intersections begging, who exist on the edge of my vision  get invited to the banquet.

On top of which, you want us to Repent?

John the Baptist is demanding that we get ourselves out into the wilderness and then repent! The wilderness is the place where death and life meet each other and danger is at every turn.  And repentance is hard.

 Are YOU ready to repent?   Repenting means turning our lives around, dropping every thing, every habit, every desire, every demand  that pulls us away from God and starting again in a new direction.

I want to say “Settle down John.  Don’t get so worked up!” 

“Let’s wait patiently for the baby;

       we can give a little bit of ourselves or our money over to good deeds  

       while we wait for Jesus to come to whisk us away to a better time and       a better place and better circumstances?

Come on, come on.  It’s not so bad.  Let’s light a few candles and pray for peace.” 

Granted in this world some folks who call themselves Christian like Joel Osteen claim Jesus blesses the rich more than the poor which is proved by the fact that they are rich and the others are poor.

And supporters of candidate Roy Moore claim that Joseph married

Mary and fathered Jesus when Mary was just a teenager and so it is

just fine that Moore prefers young girls.

 And Franklin Graham claims Satan is behind any action that

seeks equal treatment for LBGTQ individuals.

I am not sure which Jesus they are following.

You cry out from your pews, “Enough already!  We come here to leave the ugliness of this world behind.” 

“What does a baby lying in a cow’s feeding trough –                

what does an incarnated God have to do with the ugliness of this

 world? “

And what does any of that have to do with me?

Ultimately that is the question, isn’t it? 

What does any of this have to do with me?

Which Jesus are you following?