Incarnated Disruption

John1:1-4, 10-18; Psalm 14712-20; Ephesians 1:9-14

Lots of people make New Year’s resolutions. Most lists of resolutions are more like wish lists than bucket lists. That is, they are hopes and dreams rather than things that will actually get accomplished. Most of us would be more honest if we were to say, for example, I hope to lose weight, or I hope to exercise more. A vast majority of those who make those wishes never accomplish them, for a variety of reasons.

In the vein of wishing, we often wish a lot for the new year. We wish for quiet, for strength, for peace, for goodwill. After all, that was a significant part of the message that the celestial chorus sang to the shepherds. Unfortunately, wishing won’t make it so.

An editorial cartoon this past week showed the traditional aged 2014 and the newborn 2015. 2014 says to 2015, “You’ll need a hazmat suit, riot gear, a gas mask, a bulletproof vest, Valium, antacid, aspirin....” As much as we hate to spoil all the promise of Christmas, the cartoon speaks the reality of living.

The gospel writer Matthew saw this reality, at least in the community he was associated with. Only his gospel records Jesus being openly provocative about his mission in the world. In the midst of a chapter-long disciple commissioning speech in Matthew 10, Jesus says to the disciples, “Don’t think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I haven’t come to bring peace but a sword” (vs. 34). That sword will force believers to choose between the comforts of the status quo, represented by family, and the challenge of untethered life in Christ. Will believers choose between a smooth life or a disrupted life?

In his own way, the gospel writer John, who eschewed angels, shepherds, mangers, and magi, sees the incarnation – the birth – of Jesus Christ in much the same way as Matthew. Everything that Jesus did wields a disruptive sword. The gospel of John, chapter by chapter, documents the disruption incarnated in Christ. This incarnated disruption is complete and it is contemporary.

“The word became flesh” (John 1:14). All creation is disrupted by the presence of Jesus. There had always been a safe divide between the divine and the human. The only intersection had been the annual entry into the holy of holies by the high priest with the blood sacrifice for the sins of the people committed in ignorance (Hebrews 9:3-7). God was always at a distance from the people behind a veil. Jesus disrupted the order of creation, bringing God into the midst of humanity.

After the wedding at Cana, Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover. There he “found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency” (v. 2:14). Jesus chased them all out of the temple, scattered the coins and overturned the tables. He disrupted the salvation economy by chastising those who, in the guise of convenience, took excessive advantage of those already burdened with travel, with occupation troops and laws, with fear of government and fear of God. Jesus wanted people to worship God, not the sacrifices which held God at arms’s length. Jesus disrupted the economy of the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus (ch. 3) came to Jesus in the dead of night seeking truth only to have his faith disrupted because he could not understand the difference between natural birth and spiritual birth – being born anew, from above. Faith had been grounded in what could be seen. God’s kingdom could only be seen by faith eyes, not human eyes.

Jesus left Judea (ch. 4) and wandered through Galilee and the surrounding countryside, some of it Gentile or Samaritan. He encountered a woman ostracized for a variety of reasons. He spoke with her, healed her downtrodden spirit, and disrupted the matter-of-fact norms of gender and race. She was a child of God on equal footing with every other child of God, regardless of origin, geography, or other form of social segregation and censure.

John spends chapter 5 recounting Jesus at the Bethsaida pool healing the man who had been chronically ill for thirty-eight years. This healing incensed the religious leaders because it was done on the Sabbath. The man had been ill for so long, why couldn’t the healing have waited for a weekday. Jesus disrupted the prevailing sense of justice, for justice delayed was justice denied. And to further disrupt justice, Jesus declared that it was his father, God, who was working through him. “As the Father raises the dead and gives life, so too does the Son give life to whomever he chooses” (v. 5:21). Justice is defined by God not human beings. “I assure you that whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life” (v. 24).

Back in the country again, Jesus disrupted the traditional forms of planning and preparation when he told his disciples to sit the 5,000 person crowd down and feed them with the five barley loaves and two fish supplied by a youth (v. 6:9). When the disciples later asked what they had to do to accomplish what God required, Jesus responded, “Believe in him whom God sent” (v. 29). Belief cannot be planned or prepared for. Belief either is or isn’t.

On his next festival trip to Jerusalem (ch. 7), Jesus spent time teaching in the temple, astonishing the religious leaders who wondered how he had mastered the Law. Jesus did not claim the teaching as his own, but said it came from the one who sent him – God. “Those who speak in their own seek glory for themselves. Those who seek the glory of him who sent me are people of truth” (v. 18). Jesus disrupted the understood ways of education.

When the religious leaders sought to discredit Jesus by presenting an adulterous woman to him for judgment (v. 8:3), he disrupted the received morality of the time by directing that only those without sin could pass judgment on her. As that sank in, the crowd slithered away, guilty publicly and privately.

In chapter 9, Jesus encountered a man blind from birth. Jesus healed the man. Neighbors, strangers, and religious leaders all disputed the healing. Challenged by the religious leaders, the man declared, “I don’t know whether he [Jesus] is a sinner. Here’s what I do know: I was blind and now I see” (9:25). By healing the man Jesus disrupted an entire understanding of health care. Disease and disability did not come from sin, and healing did come from God: “If this man wasn’t from God, he couldn’t do this” (v. 33).

Jesus met the man following his expulsion from the faith community and the man declared his belief. Jesus said that he came “to exercise judgment so that those who don’t see can see and those who see will become blind” (v.39). Jesus then preached to the scoffing religious leaders about his being the sheepgate (v. 10:7) and the good shepherd (v. 11) who puts his own health on the line for the health of all of God’s children. Jesus disrupted their understanding of leadership.

Jesus then disrupted death by raising Lazarus from death. “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die” (v. 11:25). Death will not have the last word, for the word made flesh will destroy death, disrupting not only notions of death, but also of life itself.

John records a lengthy, five chapter, departure discourse of Jesus, much of it in the form of a prayer. In some ways it is a lot like the lengthy speech that Moses gave before his death. But unlike Moses’ final words, which were history, commission and encouragement, Jesus words and images disrupted the whole notion of identity. He was not some itinerant teacher. He was in the Father and the Father was in him (v. 14:11). Identity is community. “Whoever loves me will keep my word” (v. 23). “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I told you” (v. 26). “I am the true vine; you are the branches....Without me you can’t do anything” (v. 15:5). Jesus disrupted the longstanding idea of community, connection, responsibility, authority, and identity as children of God.

Finally, through his trial, crucifixion, and resurrection, Jesus disrupted all the expectations which generations had gathered about the role, the function, the activity of the Messiah. Even after seeing the empty tomb, the disciples “didn’t yet understand the scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead” (v. 20:9). Only when confronted with disbelief could Thomas give utterance to belief: “My Lord and my God!” (v. 28). Then Jesus welcomed Peter back into ministry and commissioned him to service. To the last Jesus disrupted expectations.

Christmas is the birth of disruption. And I don’t mean rearranging the house for the tree and gifts and guests. Jesus’ birth ushers in cosmic disruption, changing the perceived course of eternity, changing the interaction of divine and human, changing every life.

The season of Christmas ends with Epiphany on Tuesday. The last of the seasonal decorations will be gone. But Jesus’ disruption will continue. Thank God for that. Life in Christ is not business as usual. How will Christ disrupt you life this year? Will it be your understanding of creation, economy, gender/race/ethnicity, justice, planning, education, morality, healing, leadership, death, life, identity, expectations, eternal life? Will you be able to cope with Jesus’ disruptions and say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”?

May Christ gloriously disrupt your life for his sake this year. Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.