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Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness.
1 Corinthians 4:5

During the season of Advent John the Baptist is portrayed as the forerunner of Jesus; he is the one who prepares the way of the Lord.  But John was a religious reformer in his own right.  He urged the crowds who came out to hear him preach to repent and to submit to a baptism which would symbolize their conversion.  He confronted them with a stark choice between the water baptism of repentance and the fiery baptism of judgment on the day of the Lord. 
            The essence of being human lies in the ability to choose: to see the good and embrace it, and to recognize what is evil and reject it.  In the human struggle, the individual is never a spectator only.  He takes part in it more or less voluntarily and tries to throw the weight of his moral freedom into the scales of decision. 
            But there are times when the human will must accept defeat, when we must make our own the Lord’s words in Gethsemane, “Not my will, but thine, be done” (Mark 14:36).  I am referring to the sort of situation which the common law calls an “act of God,” that is, the action of uncontrollable natural forces.  This term is usually applied to disasters such as floods and cyclones, but it could equally well cover such an irresistible force as falling in love, which, in Italian, is called a “thunderbolt.” 
            In the Fourth Gospel the Baptist acknowledges just such an irresisible force: “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30).  When the Lord appears, the human will is forced to recogize its limits.  This does not happen without a struggle.  Two disciples of John are sent by him to ask Jesus, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?”  (Matthew 11:3).  Jesus has not met the Baptist’s expectations, and Jesus’ words, “Blessed is he who shall be not be offended in me” (v. 6), imply that John has indeed taken offence at Jesus. 
            John expected Jesus to be Elijah, the fiery prophet, the executioner of God’s judgment, and he was put off when Jesus assumed quite a different role: “the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (v. 5).  Jesus brought healing and forgiveness, not judgment and condemnation. 
            For us too God’s coming can cause surprise and consternation.  God turns out to be not at all what we expected.  One of the dangers of the church year is that we may come to set fixed expectations on a feast such as Christmas; we want it to be the same every year.  But God acts freely and is full of surprises. 

December 17, 2006

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