Don’t forget to let the Baby Jesus out of His Cage at New Year
“Ooh! I better go take down the manger scene. If baby Jesus got loose, he could really do some damage.” [Ned Flanders].
The Beginnings Of Jesus
Have you ever stopped to consider the amount of damage that Jesus can do? At Christmas we talk about his humble beginnings; coming in a feeding trough rather than a Ferrari Enzo, or – perhaps more traditionally – a chariot.
Even that beginning, however, was dangerous and reckless. Only a small proportion of babies survived childbirth in those days, and those were under the best of conditions. Met with the harsh realities of a back alley birth and an ill-equipped teenage mother however, hygiene was hardly on Jesus’ side.
Jesus then grew up under the scrutiny of a strictly observant Jewish community who were all too aware of his scandalous beginnings. He probably spent much of his childhood looking over His shoulder.
Danger, scandal, fear and struggle were inevitably never far from Jesus’ experience.
The Authority Of Jesus
The son of a carpenter with rough hands and a keen eye for detail were married into the sinless and acutely spiritually aware character that Jesus developed. Jesus is God, make no mistake, but He is also a man with strength, the heart of a warrior and just the right kind of fierce pride.
Jesus stood and spoke with the authority and command of a leader. Although I’d like to think of Him as the arch-socialist; reaching out first to the unwanted, the weak and the destitute – my conservative friends would probably beat me up. And rightly so.
However, it wasn’t some bullish masculinity that empowered Jesus’ leadership abilities. It was the obvious spiritual connection to His Father, spoken through a seamless command of the scriptures. In the first few chapters of Mark when Jesus is performing miracles and casting out Demons we are told time and again that it wasn’t the miraculous that drew people to Him, but the authority that was carried through the words of His mouth.
The Controversy Of Jesus
With Jesus came the division among families (‘I did not come to bring peace but the sword’), growing displacement (‘foxes have homes but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head’) and urgency for life (‘let the dead bury their own’). There was always a forward momentum and active motion to the Ministry of Jesus. Even care for the poor (who ‘you will always have with you’) was subtly sidelined in the wake of recognising exactly who He was.
In one breath he encouraged beating swords into ploughshares, but with the next he fashioned the makeshift whip of cords. Such was the paradoxical zeal that He had: both absolute peace for humanity, and right worship of His Father. These, of course, are only a paradox before you are saved.
The Violence Of Jesus
There is violence to the life of Jesus. Not one that he sows, but one that follows Him around like an ambitious plague. Every way walks he finds ready a gang of insurgents rallying to him as a military leader. Even at his birth, thousands of firstborn sons are culled, in the vain hope that he would be stopped.
His journey to the cross is marred with illness, lack of sleep and beatings. He is abandoned by his family, forsaken by his friends devoured by his enemies. Nailed to the cross for all to see – the true warrior of David, dying a traitor’s death. ‘Why do you strike me’ was the only confused protest that we hear leave his lips.
The Victory Of Jesus
Jesus’s victory over death and resurrection has a wake behind it. A journey of violence, of political upheaval, of terrorist threats and personal slander.
Only a warrior comes into this world in the reckless way that He did, sinlessly. Only a warrior grows up under the shadow of violence and remains sinless – even under the constant onslaught of the Devil. Only a warrior dies an obscenely unjust and brutal death sinlessly.
The baby Jesus could really do some damage if we let Him out. Living in the wake of the authority of Jesus is the right thing to do today.
Let’s let Him out of His cage this year, yeah?