Is there anyone who at some time hasn't had to suffer through the dozen, lengthy, tongue-twisting, memory-testing verses of one of this season's most annoying carols, "The Twelve Days of Christmas"?
I confess. From one Christmas to another I keep forgetting what there were eleven of, or what those six geese were doing.
But our consumer culture has forgotten that those twelve days don't start today, on December 12 and go through Christmas Eve day. The twelve days of Christmas start on Jesus' birthday, December 25, and continue through to January 6, Epiphany, when the church calendar marks the arrival of the three traveling kings or wise men at the baby Jesus' bedside.
December 12 is NOT the start of Christmas. It is, rather, the halfway mark for the season of Advent. We're still anticipating Christmas, still waiting for the celebration to begin.
But most people don't wait well. We want what we want, when we want it. In the mid-twentieth century, when credit cards were first being marketed to the masses, the companies explained the concept to their potential customers by advertising they would take the waiting out of wanting.
Instant gratification was just a little square of plastic away. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century waiting for anything has become a completely foreign concept. FedEx, e-mails, instant-messaging, cell phones, pagers, PayPal, all bring us information and truckloads of stuff as soon as we demand it. Our kids don't know what it means to wait for anything - for the latest video game or a phone of their own. They can download tunes and burn their own CDs for instant, endless music. Young and old can all get instant credit and instant sex. Waiting - for love, waiting for knowledge, waiting for wisdom, has little validity in our get-it-now-or-forget-it culture.
Truth be told, impatience isn't just a 21st century characteristic. In today's gospel text John the Baptist, never depicted as a soft-spoken, take-it-easy kind of guy, is penned up in Herod Antipas' prison. John had already met Jesus and baptized him; John had already seen and marveled at Jesus' personal presence and power. From Herod's prison John the Baptist had sat waiting for the one he had been sent to proclaim.
John anticipated the Messiah, but what was he anticipating? The powerful figure from history who would return the Davidic monarchy and restore the independence and grandeur of Jerusalem?
Languishing in prison, John heard rumors that Jesus was active, traveling about, preaching, teaching, healing, and gathering his own band of disciples. Though he's unable to leave Herod's prison himself, John the Baptist's own disciples were able to come and go, reporting to him what was going on outside the prison walls.
Just prior to today's text, in Matthew 10:34, Jesus had spoken a startling message, declaring "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." This message - if brought to John the Baptist - would undoubtedly set fire to his imagination, whetting his appetite for the military messiah that Judaism had so long expected. No wonder John sent his disciples back out to Jesus, demanding once and for all if he was "the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"
John was more than ready to be done waiting.
Despite Jesus' straight-forward talk about bringing a sword, not peace, his reply to John's inquisition is far less direct. Jesus commands John's disciples to report back to their master what they have heard and seen. The litany of miracles Jesus recites corresponds with the messianic activities prophesied and described by Isaiah (see today's Old Testament text, Isaiah 35:1-10). But Jesus' evidentiary activities still fall short of the military might and political power the traditional messiah had long been expected to wield for Israel's sake.
The Messiah Jesus describes isn't a national hero or strong-man filled with the soldierly virtues of valor, bravery, aggression, and the willingness to lie and die to protect personal honor. This Messiah is a far more complex, divinely-tuned spiritual leader than John the Baptist had been waiting for - or had ever imagined. The messianic identity Jesus brought to the people wasn't a martial one but a spiritual one, the perfectly integrated divine-human, capable of incarnating and communicating the divine plan for humanity since the dawn of creation.
Dan Montgomery has summarized powerfully Jesus' unique messianic personality in his work Beauty in the Stone: How God Sculpts You Into the Image of Christ ((Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996), 3ff). Rather than talk about a center of the self, in this beautiful book, Montgomery talks about the self's four compass points: all four of which are equally expressed in Jesus' own personality, for Jesus alone possesses a perfectly whole personality.
Montgomery short-hands the holistic nature of the Jesus personality by using the four points of a compass. Jesus' messianic personality perfectly expressed the four compass points of love, assertion, vulnerability, and strength. For each of these directional points, Montgomery adds an image, a picture that portrays each in its own uniqueness.
1. "The Rose of Sharon" is the symbol of Jesus' love and compassion.
2. "The Lion of Judah" describes Jesus' assertiveness (as he stood up for poor and weak and opposed all forms of injustice - money-changers).
3. "The Lamb of God" portrays Jesus' meekness and vulnerability (2 Corinthians 13:4: "For though he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God").
4. Finally, "The Prince of Peace" depicts the unique nature of Jesus' strength ("And the government will be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6)).
In today's text Jesus articulates each one of these personality portraits, or compass points, when he speaks to John the Baptist's questioning disciples. John was growing weary of waiting for the military messiah he and everyone else expected. "Are you the one?"
Jesus' description of messianic evidences reveals the four-fold nature of the true messianic presence.
Rose of Sharon: The love and compassion of the Messiah is revealed by Jesus' response to human need and the care Jesus takes for the fragile human bodies he encounters. He heals the blind, the lame, the deaf, the leprous, even raises the dead out of his great love for all.
Lion of Judah: The assertiveness of the Messiah is revealed by Jesus' disregard for social expectations. He sought out and preached the good news to the poor, to those disavowed and discounted by all others.
Lamb of God: The meekness and vulnerability of the Messiah is revealed by the offense and rejection Jesus receives at the hands of others. Yet he shakes off the offense that his ministry may trigger among religious authorities or even his own family. His relationships and his actions may offend some, but Jesus knows his final weakness - death on the cross - will offend everyone.
Prince of Peace: The strength of the Messiah is revealed by a new power, the power of the kingdom of God Jesus brings in his wake. The Messiah has the ability to reinvent reality for all people, transforming weakness into strength, creating a new world in which the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than the greatest prophet of the pre-messianic age.
Love, Assertion, Weakness, Strength or LAWS. These are what Montgomery calls the LAWS of God's psychology. If these LAWS are in relationship and in alignment in your life, then you are an original in Christ. Break these LAWS and you get sick. Your self gets out of whack. When you get stuck on one or more points of the compass, your being starts to shimmer and veer off into wrong directions.
Too much Love, and you become as ineffectual as limp jello. Too much Assertion, and you become argumentative, cruel, unforgiving, angry. Too much Weakness and you become wallflowerish, fearful, whinny. Too much Strength and you become overbearing, superior.
I want you to do a compass alignment this morning.
What parts of your "Self Compass" need to be brought into alignment this morning? The Holy Spirit wants to make you into a whole person this morning? Will you be an original in Christ? Will you align your life according to the rhythm of grace found in the Rose of Sharon, the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace?
(You could end this sermon here, or invite people to come forward and pray for those parts of their lives that are out of alignment. Or you might ask people to turn around and form groups of 3-4 prayer partners. Each person would then ask for prayer based on what they have too much and too little of: someone may be too Rosy; someone else may be too lambish, or lionish. Someone else may need to be more Princely. End the sermon by people praying for one another in small groups right at their pews.)