Jesus and the Other Guy
December 8th, 2009
St. David’s United Church
Rev. Dan Chambers
December 6, 2009
Luke 3:1-6
Jesus and the Other Guy
…The word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.
Luke 3:2
Jesus is used to competition. It started right at the beginning of his ministry. The version of the story we know is that John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus. The story we have received from our Christian ancestors is that John recognized Jesus as the Son of God even in the womb, when he kicked with joy in recognition of the Messiah. The story we know is that John didn’t even want to baptize Jesus, but to be baptized by him; “I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal!” (Luke 3:16)
However, for John’s followers, and perhaps John himself, things weren’t so clear. Later in the Gospel of Luke, when John is in prison, he asks, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Luke 7:18-20). John had a great following in his own right. Masses of people ventured to the wilderness to hear him and be baptized by him. They went because of the power of the Spirit flowing through John. They went because they perceived John to be a prophet, one whose fiery words flowed from the mouth of God. They didn’t go to see John because he was the cousin of Jesus or because he was the herald of the Messiah. He was the one to watch.
But John’s powerful words against the ruling elite got him put in jail, and then executed, his head delivered on a silver platter to Herod’s daughter and wife. Even in death, John had his disciples, and they were suspicious of this guy, Jesus. John’s followers were earnest: they fasted and when they ate, they were kosher. But this Jesus fellow didn’t even wash before he ate with the great unwashed – the prostitutes and tax collectors and ne’er-do-wells. What kind of upside down holiness is this? If it had been a numbers game, the records suggest that John would have had the bigger church in Jesus’ lifetime.
Jesus had competition.
It didn’t stop in his lifetime, of course. Three hundred years later Jesus had competition. In the three hundred years after his death, Christianity had formed into a religion separate from Judaism. Christianity continued to spread and take root, even electing bishops to help instill order. For these hundreds of years, however, it remained a ridiculed and outlawed religion, until the emperor Constantine changed Christianity forever when he converted in 325 CE. When the emperor of Rome converts, the entire Roman empire converts. Christianity changed from being the outlawed religion to the official religion of the state.
That meant that all of the pagan celebrations and the Roman mystery cults took second seat to Christianity. That also meant that the religious holidays needed to change. This could be serious. Even then – perhaps even more than now – people didn’t like change and if too much change was imposed, they would simply revolt. So Constantine needed to be savvy about this. He needed to insert Christianity into the minds and hearts of his people, but in a way that they would hardly notice, like slipping a pill into a dessert.
He thought it appropriate to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. Well, the Romans already celebrated the winter solstice and the birth of light in the festival Saturnalia. From December 17 to the 24th, business would stop, shops would close down and people celebrated the coming rebirth of the sun. People would visit each other, enjoy fine meals, and exchange small gifts of candy, cake and fruit.
Before Constantine converted, he followed the Persian religion of Mithraism, based on the Persian god, Mithras, the “Son of Light.” Mithraism recognized December 25th to be the day Mithras was born, and called it the “Day of the Invincible Sun,” a festival that sat like an exclamation mark at the end of Saturnalia.
Constantine saw the clear parallels: Mirthras, the Son of Light; Jesus, the Son of God, true Light of the World…hmmmm. So he baptized December 25 as the day to celebrate the birth…no longer of Mithras…but of Jesus! It would be over a thousand years or so before people began to celebrate this day with much gusto, but this was how December 25 was set aside as the day to recognize the birth of Jesus, Son of Light.
Jesus? Mithras? Jesus is used to competition.
Today I would wager that unless you’re a scholar of antiquity, few people have ever heard of Mithras or remember the annual celebration of Saturnalia. But you know Jesus has huge competition even still. I enjoy walking around the core of downtown Vancouver and seeing the window decorations at the Bay and the sparkle of lights brightening buildings and lining the branches of trees. It’s all so festive and beautiful in an urban way.
But if I were a visitor from Madagascar and had no idea what this winter celebration was about, I’d have no clue it had anything to do with Jesus’ birth. The wreaths and ribbons and glow-in-the-dark plastic figures might have just as much to do with Mithras or Saturnalia for all I would know.
Or, more likely, if I were a visitor from another country and unfamiliar with the celebration of Christmas, I’d think it had everything to do with some guy in a red suit and a bushy white beard. It seems Christmas is intimately connected with this plump figure of merriment who exudes abundance and well-being.
Jesus is used to competition.
If you took a December stroll around Vancouver, you’d know about Santa. You’d see his beaming face and twinkling eyes smiling from posters and advertisements and figurines. You wouldn’t have to be a detective to figure out he gets around by a sleigh pulled by reindeer. You’d know he prefers pipes to cigars or cigarettes, and that he doesn’t seem to have a vast wardrobe, but apparently owns only one strange red suit.
Even if you did happen to pass by Christ Church Cathedral or St. Andrew’s-Wesley and see a nativity scene, it would look out of place and have no apparent connection with the rest of the decorations. Besides, which would look more fun? A jolly plump guy with a bag full of presents or an impoverished baby in a bucket of hay in a barn?
Jesus is used to competition.
But I think people don’t take Santa Claus seriously enough. Sure, some killjoys with a little extra time on their hands have crunched the numbers as a way of making the case that Santa doesn’t actually exist. They’ve told us that the weight of Santa’s sleigh loaded with one Beanie Baby for every child on earth would be 333,333 tons. The number of reindeer required to pull a sleigh that weighs 333,3333 tons would be 214,206, plus Rudolph. And to deliver his gifts all in one night, Santa would have to make 822.6 visits per second, sleighing at 3,000 times the speed of sound. At that speed, Santa and his reindeer would burst into flame instantaneously, like a marshmallow on a stick too close to a campfire – poof!
But there’s a lot more to Santa than presents and a flying sleigh and I think that’s why the legend endures. In my opinion, Santa Claus and Jesus are playing on the same team. Both of them lift us into the spirit of Christmas. One doesn’t cancel the other out.
Because what is Santa anyway? He’s about generosity and joy, kindness and the magic of life. And though he’s taken on many different forms and many different names in different countries, he began as a man, born of a wealthy family in Turkey, around 260 CE. After his parents both died in an epidemic, he gave away all the family wealth and became a priest. In his adult life, he was imprisoned and tortured for being a Christian, but then released after Constantine converted and Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire. Good news for St. Nick.
Eventually, Nicholas became bishop of Myra, a coastal town in Turkey. He was known as a person who offered particular kindness to children and those who were poor. For example, one day he learned that three daughters would be sold in marriage because their family was too poor to afford a dowry. The daughters were distraught with the prospect of being sold like cattle to a man who could treat them more like a beast than a wife. So, at night, Bishop Nicholas snuck over to their house and dropped gold coins in the daughters’ stockings giving them the wealth they needed to marry whomever they wished. He gave them back their life, and through acts like these, became known as the gift-giver.
The Orthodox and Catholic Church recognize today, December 6, as his feast day. He is the patron saint of Amsterdam, and in the Netherlands St. Nicholas was called Sinter Klaus, which for us became Santa Claus. His red suit is a fashion derivative of the red robes of a Christian bishop, and his white hair and beard correspond with the Nicholas who lived 1,700 years ago.
The real Nicholas, however, was not plump. He’s depicted as being tall and rather lean. He wasn’t pictured as an elf flying in from the North Pole until the 19th century, when the illustrated version of Clement Moore’s T’was The Night Before Christmas was published, and a few years later when Thomas Nash did an illustrated series for Harper’s Weekly during the end of the civil war. The final characteristic touches were added during the depression, when in the 1930′s Coca Cola portrayed the saint as a hefty jolly old elf with a twinkle in his eye.
Many people might see Santa and Jesus in competition. But Santa Claus aka Sinter Klaus aka St. Nicholas was devoted to Jesus. For his love of Jesus he endured imprisonment and torture. And though the historical figure and the jolly ol’ elf from the North Pole have very little in common, they’re united in what we call the spirit of Christmas, a spirit of peace on earth and good will to all, a spirit of dedicated generosity and wonder.
The year has come. No one in our household believes in Santa anymore. Katherine, our youngest clocking in at age 10, made this clear several weeks ago when, out of the blue, she reported, “You know there are some kids in my class that still believe in Santa Claus?” Ah, so very diplomatic for one so young.
In response to this rather monumental event in our family life, Janet wrote a letter to Colleen and Katherine. With her permission, I’ll share the end of that letter with you now at the end of the sermon. She wrote,
People say all kinds of things about what “Santa” represents – love, giving, joy, kindness, generosity. All this is true. The story of St. Nicholas is a story inspired by the Christmas story so of course it is about love and joy. It is also true that much of the story of love inside the story of Santa has been lost along the way. Just as well then, that you both know the “inside story…”
This is a season for people like you – people who are the face of God in the world for those who are looking for the other story – the story that says love sometimes does have skin on. It has your skin on…love wears your skin.
That is the story this season we all know. That is the story we’re all called to live: to be love, with skin on.
Bless you all, and amen.
