As our world gets smaller and smaller we become more and more aware of other cultures and religions, and we increasingly wonder about our own religion. If once we thought of them in rather exclusive terms, can we do so in a world which seems to have relative exclusive truth claims? If once we thought of Christianity as the final word in religion, can we do so in face of a vital and resurgent Islam in the world?

In his recent, brilliant discussion of Islam, Dr. Charles Ryerson of Princeton reminded us that Moslems claim Abraham as their spiritual progenitor as do Jews and Christians. They share a common belief in one God, albeit by the name of Allah, and affirm many of the same moral values and ethical commands.

But then Dr. Ryerson went on to the central question. What do Moslems, who comprise about one sixth of the world's population, think about Jesus? Then in an answer familiar to some, but surprising to most, he asserted that Jesus is very much accepted by Islam. Not only is he respected as one of the great prophets, he is revered as a rasul, which means as a model man or paradigm. Not only that, Islam affirms the Virgin Birth of Jesus, which is more than many Christians will do.

But there you have it -- one of the world's leading, fastest growing, resurgent religions -- Islam -- affirming Jesus as something greater than a prophet, as someone more than a mouthpiece and messenger for God. He is, as it were, a model man, an exemplary man, a paradigm for future generations.

That is close to what the angel Gabriel told Mary in the annunciation. He is not to be just a prophet of God. Instead, said Gabriel, "He will be great, and will be called the son of the Most High ... and of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:32-33).

"How will I know this?" Mary asks. "The power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God," said Gabriel (Luke 1:35).

Yes, he is to be something more than a prophet. He is to be called the Son of God, not even just the model or the paradigm or rasul, but the very Son -- the only begotten Son of the Father, begotten, not made, as the creed puts it. John the Baptist, great prophet that he was, knew that the title "Son" did not belong to him. I am not the Christ, he told his followers when they asked in hopeful anticipation; I am the voice crying in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord." The One who comes after me is greater than me, greater than the prophets. I am not even worthy to untie his sandal, so great is he in comparison to me and all the prophets. And why, John, is he greater than you and all the prophets? Because he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire, and with his winnowing fork he will bring judgment between good and evil, between wheat and chaff. He is greater than the prophets.

I

Consider first the baptism of fire. Jesus is greater than a prophet because he brings the baptism of fire. Fire has a variety of images in the Bible. It can mean consumption of an item in flames and thereby its reduction to gases and ashes. It can mean purgation, the burning away of impurities, as in gold refined by fire. And it can mean suffering, the fiery trials and persecutions and ordeals which many experience.

Let us consider the greatness of the Jesus who purifies by fire, who cleanses the soul of its dross by his incisive critique of our pride and pretensions. Let us envision the divine Son, who knowing firsthand what the Heavenly Father's will is, challenges all our flickering loyalties and fading allegiances to his bigger cause. But let us also behold a Christ who burns through many of the popular images constructed out of our needs and imaginations.

In his excellent book, The Challenge of Jesus, John Shea gives clever insight into the popular images of Christ. In answer to Jesus' famous question, "Who do you say that I am?" we have had the Jesus of Protestant piety, a blond, blue-eyed, haloed, radiant gentle-teacher; we have lost the Christ of Catholic piety, long-faced with sorrow and crowned with thorns. In the movie, Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus, says Shea, "draws the painful breaths of an existentialist anti-hero." In Godspell he is almost the opposite; a flower-child, a man without guile. In Ernest Renan's classic book, The Life of Jesus, he is a nineteenth century idealized romantic who falls on bad days. Marriage and the bourgeois life in place of revolution constitute Jesus' last temptation according to Nikos Kazantzakis' novel and movie. Of course, Marxists of liberation theology like to see Jesus as the leader of the proletarian revolt toward a classless society.

The images of Christ continue. As the pre-existent Son of God, he is the heavenly visitor, the God who comes to dinner but who exits just before the going gets tough. Radicals and revolutionaries picture him as a zealot who has come not to bring peace, but a sword. But to others he is the prototypical pacifist who advises us always to turn the other cheek. In his book, The Passover Plot, Hugh Schonfield has Jesus staging his own crucifixion, intending to escape, but killed by the unexpected spear-thrust of the Roman soldier. Harvard's Harvey Cox has Jesus as a clown, as a kind of court jester amid the world's pretensions of power and position. Richard Bach, in his best-selling book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, would have us believe, says Shea, that Jesus "grunted his way to divinity, the little seagull that could."

And most every cause and movement wants to quote Jesus as an authority for whatever it is they are advocating. "Jesus brings instant authority and a sense of moral imperative," says Shea. If Jesus is for it, who can be against it? And most of these people and groups do not mean to ridicule Jesus, says Shea. Instead, "each and every Jesus (they wrote) is an attempt to portray the authentic man according to a certain mission of life" (p. 23). For them Jesus becomes Jung's "ideal of the self: the 'inkblot in which each person sees what he considers true manhood (personhood)' " (p. 23).

While these multiple images are prone to manipulation and propaganda, they are, nonetheless, signs of vitality. As Shea puts it, "Jesus lives out of a transcendence which first reduces humankind to wondering silence and then to a riot of metaphors ... The many Jesuses are personal and collective searches for a cause to be committed to, a passion to be consumed by, a life which has worth and purpose" (p. 25).

And yet, Jesus is more than a prophet, because through the pages of the New Testament he brings a purifying fire which purges our self-serving, self-constructed Jesus to see the real Jesus of power and authority who would shape us into his image of who we should be, rather than our shaping him into our image of who we want him to be for our convenience. When we don't really know his name, "anybody can call him anything," says Shea. But Gabriel and John and Mary saw him as anything but a curiosity piece and legitimizing authority for our pet causes, however noble. He was the very Son of God. Let all other inadequate images be purged in the refining fire.

II

If John affirmed Jesus would baptize with purgative fire, he also asserted Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit. From the beginning of the Bible to the end, the Spirit or the Holy Spirit suggests the manifestation of God's presence and power. In Genesis, at the beginning of time, we are told that "darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the water." In the middle of the Bible, prophets and apostles are inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, and at the end of the Bible, at the very end of all history, John the Revelator says, "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' And let him who hears say, 'Come.' And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price" (Revelation 22:17).

There it is from beginning to end, the Biblical idea of the Spirit of God as power and presence and refreshment. And it was precisely this Spirit of power and presence and refreshment which was at work in Jesus. And it was this same Spirit which he transmitted to his disciples, promising they would do even greater works in his name by the power of his Spirit. And it was this same Spirit which inaugurated the Church on Pentecost in Jerusalem in 30 A.D., and this same Spirit which has inspired music, art, and literature, built cathedrals, orphanages, and hospitals, and nursing homes, colleges and universities; this same Spirit which has caused the Church to grow to more than a billion strong, this same creative, surging, empowering Spirit which floods minds and hearts everywhere when they are open to its presence.

Prophets are needed in every age -- prophets to cut through the propaganda and rhetoric; prophets to expose the deceit and hypocrisy; prophets to deflate pompous egos and to humble arrogant hearts and minds. We need prophets to tell it like it is when everyone in little sound bites tries to convince us it is as they promise it will be. When we have been lied to, deceived, defrauded, betrayed, and suckered into one scheme after another, prophets are a breath of fresh air, a clean windshield on the future. Thank God for prophets. And thank God for John the Baptist.

But in Jesus we have someone greater than a prophet, because he not only cleanses us of corruption but revitalizes us for a new future and empowers us for a new way of life. As theologian Daniel Williams puts it, "In Jesus Christ, God has given what is needed to heal the disorders of the human spirit, and to inaugurate a new possibility for every life" (The Spirit and the Forms of Love, p. 155).

Paul put it well when he said, "The first man, Adam, became a living being, the last Adam (meaning Christ) became a life- giving Spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:45). And that is what millions upon millions of people experience -- the life-giving Spirit of the resurrected Christ. He empowers them with his presence to become new persons, a new creation, a new humanity. Because he is the Son, and not just a prophet, he empowers us with the creative Spirit and energy of the Father himself. Because he is greater than a prophet, we are baptized by and with his Spirit, the very Spirit of God.

III

Lastly, Jesus is more than a prophet because he separates the wheat from the chaff, which is to say, he brings judgment to the world. Prophets brought plenty of that, of course. They thundered forth for centuries about God's justice and judgment. They faithfully warned of impending doom if repentance was not enacted. And John the Baptist, lonely, but powerful, on the bank of the Jordan River, thundered it. "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand."

The difference with Jesus was that he affirmed the kingdom was not only coming, it is here, present, and powerful in our very presence, and as a consequence we can be assured the wheat will be separated from the chaff -- an assurance the prophets could not always give. And when you think of it, we should be grateful for the reality of judgment. Judgment is God's way of saying, "I care about the world." Judgment means that things do matter, that there are order and coherence in place of disorder and chaos. Judgment is the confidence that eventually evil and good will be named and separated, that the righteous life does have meaning in the face of evil, that the caring person is in the end not subject to the mockery and ridicule of the uncaring.

Judgment is the affirmation of a moral universe where the distinction between right and wrong does prevail, where sense prevails over nonsense, and where meaning triumphs over absurdity. Judgment is a constant critique of the ever-prevalent mood of "anything goes" and "if it feels good, do it." Judgment reassures us that God is more than a benign grandfather grinning like a Cheshire cat with Alzheimer's at all the world's tawdriness, vanity, and hypocrisy. Judgment is the bitter end knot in the anchor rope of the universe, where finally everything is stopped and called into accountability, to give answer for all the deeds in life, good and bad, and to stand naked and undisguised without makeup before the presence of Almighty God.

Yes, he is more than a prophet because he assures us when we are choking on the chaff of life that there is indeed wheat, and that it is the bread of life. Yes, he is more than a prophet, because when we have drunk heavily the potent portions of the world's salty flotsams, he assures us there is the fresh water, the living water, from which drinking we shall never thirst again. But most of all, he is greater than a prophet because he convicts us of our sin not so much by pushing our guilt in our face as by offering his free grace to our aching and hungry hearts. And what he asks of us in this season and every season is a change of mind and heart, a turning away from all the trivial faiths and limited causes to which we give ultimate allegiances. By his grace, he would lure us away from all the alluring fads and entrancing idols. He would release us from our obsession with celebrities and our fascination with evil. Is he a prophet, Dr. Ryerson? Oh yes, in the eyes of one of the great monotheistic faiths, Islam, he is greater than a prophet. He is a rasul, a model man, a paradigm. But in the eyes of the faithful devoted to him, in the works of the New Testament, he is even more than that. He is the very Son of God, by whom and through whom we have new life and life everlasting. And his kingdom shall never come to an end.

Prayer

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and our Father, who calls the stars by name and notices when a sparrow falls, we praise and adore you for your mind which encompasses and sustains the universe, and for your heart which loves each one of us as though there were only one to love. Lovingly and ingeniously you have shaped us in your image. Patiently and tenderly you have led us by the hand over our many years of growth and development. We give you thanks.

In the rush of this season and the pressure of presents yet to buy and wrap and send, we gather here to catch our breath, to inhale deeply your refreshing Spirit into the depths of our souls. In a time when the pace is frenetic and expectations ever greater and greater, we would come into the presence of the Christ child and his waiting cross to gain a perspective on the things that matter most. For a few moments then, release us from the tyranny of schedules and the pressure of bottom lines to gain new strength and inspiration in your presence.

In this season of peace on earth and good will to men, let peace descend within our families and relationships. Replace our fears with courage. Quiet our anxieties with renewed hope. Defeat our defensiveness with a new willingness to love, even to be vulnerable. Grant that the demons of both terror and tyranny might be exorcised from our spirits so that we might be at one with you and one another and know the peace that passes all understanding.

Look with favor and compassion upon our strife-torn world. Bring new openness to the fractious parties in the former Yugoslavia, that a just peace might be negotiated. Let the ancient hostilities of the Near East subside into peaceful co- existence. Grant a just peace in Russia, in Northern Ireland, in Somalia, in the many troubled spots of our sometimes hostile world. Grant, O Lord, that we might make mighty advances toward a better life for all.

And grant your blessing of power and peaceful strength to your Church here and throughout the world, that more and more people shall come to know you through your beloved Son in whose name we pray. Amen.