Read the Lectionary Texts

When I was a young Sunday School student, we used to have an annual Christmas party. After all the obligatory religious stuff was over the party finally culminated in the moment we’d all been waiting for – the arrival of Santa Claus! And into the hall Santa would bound, bells ringing, ho-ho-ho’ing, looking a little bit like Jack H., the boys sixth grade Sunday School teacher. But when we asked Mrs. H. if it was Jack, she assured us that Jack had had to – ah – run out – ah – to – ah – get some gas for the car. So we knew it wasn’t Jack. And Santa would have a big sack over his shoulder, and we knew what was in that sack – cheaply made religious trinkets that were worth about 2 cents each, but probably cost a lot more at the local “Christian” store. Well, my good friend Dennis A. – who didn’t go to church, but came to the Christmas party every year – would join me in a mighty groan when we unwrapped our Sunday School Christmas gifts and discovered how inferior they were. Why, instead of overpriced religious gifts, Santa could have brought us Matchbox Cars or something we actually liked for a lot less money! But, then, we were only children, and what did we know?

But one year, Santa Claus defied all expectations and hit a home run. When we opened our Sunday School Christmas Party gift, there was a four or five inch white plastic cross inside, and a tag that read “Glows in the dark!” And it did glow in the dark – a bright greenish blue! Dennis and I were ecstatic! We could use these glowing crosses to signal each other from our upstairs bedroom windows! We could bring them with us under the covers at night and, after lights out, read Mad Magazine which our parents’ had banned for being a bad influence on our lives. And if they caught us, we could tell them we were only praying to the Cross.

But even more importantly, in those toss-and-turn moments of lying awake at night, worried about this or that, suffering from the great fears or concerns that come along in the lives of children, the glowing cross on my nightstand became a comforting reminder that Jesus cared, and was right there with me, as promised. “Lo, I am with you always…” was the inscription on the base of the cross. Along with another little tag that read, “Contains radium” – which is why the cross glowed and is probably why I am the way I am today.

We Christians often find comfort in symbols that remind us of the presence of Jesus – a finely carved olivewood Christmas crèche put out for display every year, with Jesus as the Christ-child in the manger, almost inviting us to come and hold him – a silver crucifix from which the image of the dying Christ projects God’s amazing love for us, and for the world – a beautiful ivory statue of the risen Christ standing with arms raised in the Garden, revealing himself to be alive.

We take comfort in such images of Jesus. Even in secular ways – like the beautiful mural of the risen Christ painted on the side of the Hesburgh Library on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. With his arms lifted to skies, those in the football stadium see the image of Jesus signaling a score by the Fighting Irish, giving the image the name, “Touchdown Jesus”.

Now what interests me about the many places and many ways we project images of Jesus is that the place is almost always a safe place – a bedroom, a church, a hospital, a personal space – and the image is always gentle – a baby Jesus who loves us, a dying Jesus who loves us, a risen Christ who loves us, and promises to be with us always. And yet Jesus’ life in the Bible is not like that at all! Jesus is seldom portrayed in safe, innocuous settings. And Jesus’ relationships with people in the Bible are almost never portrayed as gentle, and easy, and comforting.

And that gets me to thinking about what would happen if we went out and put statues or images of Christ in the kinds of places and among the kinds of people Jesus actually dealt with every day. What would happen if the message of those images was like the message Jesus actually spoke? What an uproar we could create!

Why, can you see a statue of Jesus smack dab in front of the New York Stock Exchange building on Wall Street? And, instead of a figure with open arms saying, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened…”, this Jesus is pointing his finger toward this worldwide symbol of wealth, and the inscription reads, “It is harder for rich people to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle!”

Why, that would turn an eye!

Or, how about a statue smack dab in the middle of the stage of the next presidential debate? A figurine of Jesus looking at a scroll of the ten commandments. And the one that’s highlighted is the one that says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.” That would cause a stir as each of the campaigns accused the other of putting it there!

Maybe you can imagine a giant sculpture of the famous praying hands placed at the main gate of a high school football field. And the inscription on it says, “When you pray do not be like the hypocrites who love to stand up in public to be seen by others, but go into your room, and shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Oh my! Here in east Tennessee you might be killed for something like that!

Or perhaps in the room where the various parties to all the violence in the Middle East meet to negotiate a prisoner release a plaque that reads, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, but hate your enemy,’ but I say to you ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…'”

What would happen if, in the courtroom where divorced people go to fight each other by putting their children in the middle of their mutual disdain, there was a statue of Jesus sitting there at the table saying, “Woe to you – moms and dads -if you cause one of these little ones to sin by teaching them to dishonor the other parent. It would be better for you to tie a millstone around your neck and go jump into the sea.”

But as fun as it is to imagine putting the real Jesus and his real words into the midst of real life, I doubt any of these ideas would work very well. For, in his day, when Jesus spoke these very words in very similar settings, the people who heard him became very upset. Eventually, they killed Jesus because he confronted them so directly. And then – when he was safely dead – they memorialized him as a baby tucked away in a manger, as a Savior nailed to a cross, and as a risen Lord ascended to heaven. All images of a Jesus safely removed from life, wouldn’t you say? Why, they made Jesus into a paper tiger, easy to love and accept. They made him into the kind of Jesus comedian Tom Lehrer once described in the song – “I don’t care if it rains or freezes, just so long’s I got my plastic Jesus, ridin’ on the dashboard of my car…” People then, and people today, would much rather have that kind of Jesus, whose role it is to just quietly sit on the dashboard taking care of us amidst the traffic jams of life, instead of a Jesus who sits on the dashboard of our car shouting, “Hey! Slow down a little bit! Stay in your own lane! Stop honking your horn at other people! It’s rude!”

Which brings us to our text from the book of Hebrews. The author of Hebrews well understands that we Christians want little or nothing to do with the Jesus who not only is quick to comfort the afflicted, but also to afflict the comfortable. The one who is not afraid to look us in the eye and tell us we’re wrong. The one who calls into question our motives and our values. The one who calls us to higher expectations than what we feel are reasonable or even possible.

Oh, there is a part of Jesus we love for its comfort. But there is another part of Jesus we are frightened of for it’s painful honesty. And just as we struggle with this confrontational Jesus, the people of the early church did too. So the author of Hebrews addresses the problem.

You’ll remember how the author began the book of Hebrews by saying that God has spoken to the world in many different ways, but Jesus is the ultimate expression of what God has to say. Jesus is the living word of God. And here in Chapter 4, verse 12, the author describes Jesus’ role in this regard. As God’s living Word, Jesus is to be active in our lives, sharper than a two-edged sword. Jesus is to perform a kind of delicate surgery on us that divides soul from spirit, and joints from marrow – exposing our deepest thoughts, our deepest intentions, the very core of our lives. And when Jesus is done with us, we are laid bare before God, and our lives become accountable to him. And when that happens, we discover the possibility to change.

These are powerful words. They tell us that you can’t just have a relationship with Jesus in which he cares for you, but your sin continues. You cannot take his name, and not live his life.

So when you become a follower of Jesus, you’ve got to become willing to hear not only the good news about yourself, but the bad news, too!

Some time ago, I heard the story of a fellow named Michael. I’m not sure of the causes, but Michael grew up with a deep bias against black people. And, without any ability to control it, Michael found that whenever he encountered African-American people in the course of his daily travels through a major southern city where he lives, he became filled with inner rage. They made him feel uncomfortable. He saw them as intruding into his world. He treated them abruptly, and sometimes very rudely.

Then, one day, through his church, Michael was asked to help as a volunteer at an AIDS clinic. He didn’t want to do it, but he did because he felt he ought to. Besides, several of his close friends were the ones who arranged it. So he went. He found caring for the people in this clinic to be very difficult because of the terrible degradation of that horrible disease.

And then, one night, Michael was asked to sit by the bed of one of the patients who was approaching death. It was a black man. There was an agony to the man’s dying, and as Michael watched death draw closer and closer, he unconsciously began to massage the patient’s feet. As he did, a deep, peaceful calm came over the man.

Michael says, “I was massaging his feet when suddenly it hit me that this black man, was a child of God. I knew it sounded weird. Normally, I would never say anything like that about anybody…and I was overwhelmed, and felt like I was touching the body of a holy person. I was overcome by the holiness of his body, of the body itself, of his being, and the holiness of my connection to him. I truly believed that he was a child of God. And suddenly, I knew how wrong I’d been. And I began to cry…”

To be a follower of Jesus is to be willing to let Jesus show us where we’re wrong and need to change.

And when that happens, the author of Hebrews makes us a promise. If we are willing to let the Gospel of Jesus expose our sin and spiritual frailty, we will discover that we have a new resource. A priest, is how he describes it! A priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses! A priest who understands what it’s like to be human! A priest who personally prays day and night to God on our behalf, asking God to give us mercy, and grace to change!

And the priest’s name is Jesus!

So when you let Jesus expose your life, you empower Jesus to help change your life!

As this new week begins, I want to challenge you to let your relationship with the Lord become more confrontational than ever before. Ask him to expose those parts of your life that are not in the will of God. Study the Bible to learn about God’s high expectations, and to measure yourself against them. And be sensitive to those experiences in life when Jesus just seems to open your eyes – and you know that you need to change.

What the world needs in these challenging days are not people whose faith consists of a loving God willing to let us remain in our sin. But rather people who seek a God who can lead them from sin and into new life – as parents, as spouses, as children, as neighbors, as citizens, as Christian people.

You see, every cross needs a little radium in it – to stir things up – and illuminate the way to life!