Saturday, December 10 – Luke 3:1-6
If your family is like ours, one sign of the approaching Christmas season is cheerful tidiness. Our house is carefully decorated and coordinated, the ornaments gracing the tree just so, the lights methodically placed outside in the yard and on the house, the presents lovingly wrapped in coordinating colors under the tree, even our seasonal poems speak of “stockings hung by the chimney with care.” Every decoration set out in neat and tidy fashion, each in its place.
Sometimes as I am putting our nativity set out, I imagine that first Christmas being equally coordinated and orchestrated. I picture Mary and Joseph, side-by-side, beaming beside the cradle holding their firstborn. The camels, sheep and small animals calmly waiting nearby as the shepherds and visiting wise men, in color-coordinated garb of course, adoringly look upon the newly-born Savior. A rustic stable, framed by matching palm trees frames this peaceful picture, complete with a golden-tressed angel hovering above proclaiming heavenly glory.
If I’m not careful, my thinking about the Kingdom of God can take on this orderly and efficient arrangement as well. Go to church? Check. Volunteer in the community? Check. Be kind to one another? Check. Pay attention and sit up straight in worship? Check.
However, the Kingdom of God, this well-known Gospel story reminds us, is far from a carefully and neatly constructed ideal. One day, into our Gospel scene burst crazy-haired and wild-eyed Cousin John, like Kramer flouncing maniacally into Jerry’s living room. THE MESSIAH IS COMING AND YOUR NEAT LITTLE WORLDS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME, he yelled from every corner. Frederick Buechner comments John the Baptist didn’t fool around. The Kingdom was coming all right, John said, but if you thought it was going to be a tea party, you’d better think again.
—Michael Cappo
