Advent 3: Are You the One Who is to Come?

*Preached at Grace North Church December 12, 2004*
In the classic 1947 Christmas movie, "A Miracle on 34th Street," an old man discovers that the Santa in Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is drunk, and after reporting it, is recruited by Doris, the stores special events coordinator, to take his place. The old man is a dead ringer for Santa Claus with his portly frame, long white whiskers and jolly demeanor, and he is afterwards persuaded to continue in his role as the store Santa.

But soon Doris becomes concerned: the old man calls himself Kris Kringle, and seems to believe that he is the actual Santa Claus. Doris is even more concerned when her Daughter, Susan, takes a shine to the old man. Doris has been very careful to be a very modern parent, and not fill her daughter's head with fanciful notions. Kris' delusions concern her greatly, because she wants to protect her daughter from superstition and disappointment. But Susan believes the old man, and shares with him her most secret wish, that her mother and that nice Mr. Gaily would get married and live in a very special house.

Everyone's hopes are dashed, however, when Kris gets into a struggle with the store psychologist, and is committed to a mental institution. But Fred comes to the rescue, and promises Kris he will help him. Fred is a laywer who secures a hearing for Kris, and argues that he should go free because he is indeed the real Santa Claus. Thanks to the US Postal Service, Kris wins the day and is released. Susan is glad that her friend is free, but disappointed that he turned out to be just a nice old man, after all. Or is he?

I was reminded of this film this week while pondering the readings for this week. There is a dance of expectation and belief that Susan does in "A Miracle on 34th Street" that is very much like one that most of us go through at some time in our lives. Certainly the people surrounding Jesus did.

For just as we all have a pretty clear idea of who Santa Claus is, what he looks like, how he should act, and the various magical powers he must possess to do all that he does, when Susan comes face to face with the real thing she is unsure. He ALMOST fits the bill, and though she wants to believe him, she initially turns away in disappointment.

People in Jesus' day had a similar notion of the Messiah. He was supposed to herald the coming Kingdom of God, a charismatic leader who would be followed in great numbers. Eventually he would raise a great army and defeat those nasty Romans, making Jerusalem the capital of a new empire where God would judge the nations and usher in a new age of peace. Our reading this morning from Isaiah reflects these hopes, as he tells the people, "Be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance," then the holy people whom God saves shall "come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads," and "sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Is. 35:1-10).

So that's what they are expecting, and they getJesus. And he ALMOST fits the bill. He's preaching about the Kingdom of God all right, but he's saying it is already here. He's charismatic, all right, and lots of people are following him, but he doesn't seem the slightest bit interested in raising an army.

Everybody is talking about him, but nobody is sure of him, not even his own followers. Finally, his cousin, John the Baptist, who has been imprisoned by Herod, sends two of his students to interview Jesus. They ask him, "Are you the one we are waiting for, or should we look for someone else?"

Jesus does not answer them directly. Instead, he says, "Go and tell John what you have seen and what you have heard: the blind are seeing, the lame are walking, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised to life again. And the poor? The poor are comforted with tidings of Good News."

We aren't told if John was satisfied with this answer. Probably his disciples were not, since the sect they founded is still around today. The Mandians honor John the Baptist as their prophet and founder, and they number around a couple hundred thousand today, residing mostly in Iran and Iraq.

But we would not be here today if there were not some who did believe Jesus. Each and every one of them went through a period of disillusionment with him, however. When Jesus was captured, tried, and killed, they faced the deepest grief and disappointment. Every hope they had had been dashed, and they were left with nothing. The good thing about having all your hopes obliterated is that you are no longer expecting anything, and are open to being surprised.

When Jesus returned to them, they discovered that they had to let go of what they thought they wanted, so that the deepest desires of their heart, of which they were barely aware, could be fulfilled. No, Jesus wasn't going to be the military genius they were expecting, he was not going to win out over Rome. But when they finally gave up on that hope, they discovered who Jesus really was: a spiritual genius come to win over hearts. They did not have the political liberation they so desired, but they did find themselves liberated from their past, from a religious system that told them they were not worthy of God's love and attention. Jesus did not turn out to be what they thought they wanted, but he did turn out to be what they most needed.

Most of us are given unreasonable images of divinity as children. God is an old man in the sky just waiting for us to screw up so that he can punish us. Jesus is a superhero who does great magic tricks, is able to leap to high clouds in a single bound, transfigures his countenance in a way the makers of Oil of Olay only WISHES it could do, flies down to hell, breaks down the gates, and leads all the poor Jewish people there to the good Christian heaven. And the Holy Spirit? It can make us fall to the floor in an epileptic frenzy and sing in languages nobody can understand, which isn't terribly practical, but it is dramatic and entertaining.

Sometime during adolescence, however, most of us grow disillusioned with the images of God we have been given. People die on us, and Jesus Man does not come to the rescue and raise them from the dead. As we advance into middle age, the dreams we had about our lives begin to fade, we have to reassess who we thought we were and where we thought we were going. We are no longer sure in which way we can actually consider Jesus to be a savior, and the gross supernaturalism of the stories about him sap them of credibility. Eventually most of us look around from our place in the pew and wonder to ourselves, "Why am I here?" Kris, we discover, isn't really Santa Claus at all, but a very nice old man with a beard.

Sowhat do we do now? For one thing, rejoice. We humans are famous for not seeing the forest for the trees, and so long as we are clinging to false images of God, the real God is invisible to us. We are not given God as children, but idols, and those idols must be smashed before we can enter into any kind of relationship with the true God. Meister Eckhart spoke to this truth when he said, "I pray that God will rid me of God for the sake of God." This is one of my favorite quotes, and one that expresses a desire for what few of us dare to even think.

But once our notions of who God is, who Jesus is, are devastated, what are we left with? With what the Buddhists call, "beginner's mind." Free of the projections of our fantasies, they can finally be simply who they are. And then, the question for us is, is who they are what we really need?

Only you can answer that question. And you should not take my word for anything, nor the word of any bishops or theologians or church councils or gurus or mystical writers or disembodied authorities. For none of us really know squat about YOUR life. YOU are the expert on your life, and only you get to say what is true for you.

In our reading from the Buddha, he tells us that we should not be satisfied with heresay, or tradition or mythologies, we should not trust scriptures or even logic, and especially not those who set themselves up as "spiritual authorities." We should try his teachings out for ourselves, and see if they work for us.

When the messengers from John come to Jesus they say, "Are you the one we have been waiting for, or should we look for another?" We may well ask the same question. The question is not whether we should believe in Jesus Man, the divine superhero, or whether the miracles recorded in the Bible are true, or whether we should trust the preacher. Contrary to all popular opinion, we should not base our spiritual lives on beliefs and conjecture.

Instead, we should try them out, and see if they work. Do the teachings of Jesus give your life sufficient anchor? Do they afford you both peace and purpose? Do they challenge you to a greater commitment to compassion? Do they move you to work for a better future for humankind? If so, then follow this Jesus guy, not the superhero you thought he was when you were a kid, but the teacher of wisdom whose words burn in your breast when you hear them today.

And you might find that, when all is said and done, Jesus just doesn't do it for you. That's okay, too. You might find a reliable guide in the Buddha, in the Vedas, or in the Goddess. Only you get to say. But I promise you that whomever you find to invest your soul in will disappoint you at some point. And then you shall have to ask these same questions all over again. And that, too, is okay. For no human, no savior, indeed, no god, can bear the weight of our projections. Every idol we set up will one day fall over, and in that day of despair and disappointment we are invariably graced with an opportunity to let go of our illusions and reach out for something real.

In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus tells us, "When you seek, you will find. And when you find, you will be troubled. And then you will marvel, and will rule over the all." We seek, we find, we are disappointed. And only then are we really open to being surprised by the real.

In her despair, Susan watches out of the car window as the countryside passes by. And then suddenly, she spies the house she asked Kris for. She squeals and demands that Fred pull over. She rushes to the house, ecstatic, sure that it is meant for her. When she finds Kris' cane inside, she is sure that he really IS Santa Claus after all.

Likewise, once we have let go of our expectations, we allow room for surprise. Maybe Jesus is our savior after all, but in ways we could not have possibly predicted or foreseen. Maybe. Only you get to say. Let us pray

Jesus, you may not bear the sins of the world, but you certainly have borne the projections of the world. The zealots saw you as a warrior-king, the Temple authorities saw you as a dangerous heretic, the Romans saw you as a criminal, Christians see you as a god, and academics as a misunderstood philosopher. We have seen what we came expecting to see, and you have born these projections without complaint, for better or worse. When our day of disappointment comes, comfort us with what is real, so that we may not misplace our trust. Help us to not be swayed by culture or preachers or mythology, but by the living scriptures of our own lives. For it is in the crucible of daily life that our illusions are burned away, leaving only the truth in its wake. Help us to recognize it when we see it, and please, dear God, let it be enough. Amen.