The Vulnerability of Jesus

We pretty up the manger and we pretty up the cross.
We make them quaint and cute as fairy-tales.
We empty them of meaning and stark reality.
Our meddling oft’ ensures the message fails.

These are the beginning lines of a poem that has refused to cooperate, refused to embrace beauty of language, metaphor and meter. Easter and Christmas are like that for me – too big to grasp, the paradox too vast for comprehension.

But the manger is a feeding trough for donkeys, sheep and goats.
The cross is a blood-stained hunk of wood.

. . . And the One most intimate with God cried from that cross, “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me.” We have known – all of us – separation from God. What we have not known except in glimpses, is the intimacy so close that the Bible uses the language of marriage to describe it.

Even before the manger we see a depth of vulnerability breathtaking in its scope.

Vulnerability # 1: The creator – in the womb of a teen girl who was castigated, at risk of stoning. Nine months of vulnerability confined in space and time.

Vulnerability # 2: Joseph, knowing he is not the father, shocked, bewildered, wounded, then visited by an angel.

Vulnerability # 3: Birth in a stable. No midwife. Separated from family. Mary’s hard working husband feeling the humiliation of being unable to provide better for his wife – wondering what he will say to the in-laws. Since Mary turned up pregnant, they have not been overly fond of Joseph anyway. How will he tell them their grandson has been born in a stable?

Vulnerability # 4: Interruptions in the night. Shepherds, probably more at home in the stable than Mary and Joseph, perhaps smelling like they were at home there – insisting on seeing the baby. Not a setting to make Joseph eager for company or to have his name spread farther.

Vulnerability # 5: Returning to the home they just left with a newborn son just months after the wedding held little appeal. But setting up shop in this little village that had welcomed them with a barn had its drawbacks as well. Starting a business from nothing once again, knowing surely that the rumours would reach here as well – promised continued heartache.

Vulnerability # 6: The Creator of the Universe in diapers, learning to walk, to talk, to feed himself – accepting all the limitations of an infant.

Vulnerability # 7: Strange visitors bearing strange gifts for Jesus, now a toddler underfoot in the carpenter shop. High profile visitors that get tongues wagging once again, stirring up all the old rumours.

Vulnerability # 8 Joseph’s dream. An urgent night-time escape into Egypt – no five-star motels along the route. Herod’s power-mad blood-lust plotting extermination, blackening an already tarnished name.

Vulnerability # 9: Toddler, boyhood and youth in a carpenter shop. The creator, who by his word spoke worlds into existence, with blood dripping onto the fresh curl of shavings on the floor when he drove a splinter into his finger, earning blisters and dirty finger-nails while taking two days to fashion a stool for a peasant’s cottage. The tedium of adze, rasp and chisel.

Vulnerability #10: Return from Egypt. Memories are long. Mary’s pregnancy has not been forgotten. The stigma, in a culture where the mother was usually stoned. A virgin birth was no easier to grasp at that time then it is now, even though it had been promised.

Vulnerability # 11: The Bible does not tell us when Joseph died, but there seem to be almost no references to him after the trip to Jerusalem when Jesus was 12. The responsibilities of eldest son to a widowed mother, probably before reaching full manhood. The carpenter shop is no longer a place to interact with an earthly father – it is a place where a youth must try to earn a living for a family – a daunting task.

Vulnerability # 12: Understanding his call – his identity – his responsibility – but still the eldest son of a widowed mother.

Vulnerability # 13 Ministry to the masses. Scorned by the religious leaders who should have first recognized him.

Vulnerability #14 A healing ministry where he somehow bears “our infirmities." Healing seems to cost him in personal, physical ways, and doubtless emotional ways as well.

Vulnerability #15 Misunderstood even by his own family. Thought insane by his brothers.

Vulnerability #16 The crowds try to take him by force and make him King. He has taught daily about the Kingdom of God, but they just don’t get it.

Vulnerability # 17 His disciples also fail to grasp the core of his message, and argue over who will be greatest in his kingdom.

Vulnerability # 18 His closest friends sleep when he has pleaded with them to watch and pray.

Vulnerability # 19 Sold for 30 pieces of silver. Betrayed by a Kiss. Denied by one of his closest followers.

Vulnerability # 20 Possessing power and authority to speak worlds into existence, he chooses to submit to the abuse, the mocking, the flogging and finally the cross.

Vulnerability # 21 Crucifixes and pictures always provide at least an undergarment, but crucifixions did not. The Creator of the Universe hanging naked before the crowds – bearing as much humiliation as human minds could conceive.

Vulnerability # 22 Rebuilding a shattered fellowship of believers after the resurrection. His closest followers were as astonished as anyone to find him alive again.

Vulnerability # 23 A commission to reach a lost world, entrusted to 12 men, many of them rough fishermen with little schooling and a track record of failure.

Vulnerability # 24 Guarding the integrity of the Word through generations and across language barriers.

Vulnerability #25 Entrusting people like you and me to continue to lift his name; continue to spread his message in this day and in our sphere of influence.

Christmas remains an incredible history-shattering event. The shadow of the cross falls across it, and the triumph of the cross as well. And still, God chooses to make himself vulnerable to the caprices of those like us who claim his name. May this season see us grasp that reality a little more firmly. May we bring true honor to his name.

What is a Canadian Writer Who is Christian? - Harris

Even back in Bishop John Strachan's day, many Upper Canadians rejected the mission of the Methodist circuit riders who rode up from 'the rebel republic' to preach a mixture of revolution and Christ. The message of intimacy with Christ the Methodists brought could not be heard in Canada until the 'loyalist' Egerton Ryerson became Methodist leader in Upper Canada.

Ryerson was a man with unquestioned allegiance to the Crown and to the government of Upper Canada. Both he and Strachan are qreat figures in Canadian history. Both took their ministries far into the wildlands, building churches and schools in the remotest parts of the colony. But neither man got evangelism completely right.

For decades, Ryerson and Strachan feuded over the rights of public versus faith based schools and argued about money from 'Crown and Clergy reserves.' They lived in the same community, but never bothered to meet privately to settle their differences. Instead, they argued with each other through the newspapers. But Strachan and Ryerson had more in common then either admitted.

Near the end of his own life, Ryerson, lamented his political feud with Strachan because this feud was used by the radical Scot, Alexander Mackenzie, a man who hated the church, to incite rebellion in 1837. In Ryerson's words, "How much asperity of feeling and how much bitter controversy might be prevented if those who were most concerned would converse privately with each other before they entered into the area of public disputation." (p. 29. Harris, Stars Appearing: The Galts Vision of Canada)

Unfortunately, Strachan and Ryerson spent years fighting over theology and policy issues that had little to do with the gospel. In doing so, Ryerson's message of grace was nearly forgotten. And Strachan, a man who came from a working class family and exhbited great compassion for the sick and the poor, became associated with the elitist, socially regressive Family Compact.

I admit it: I have mixed feelings about being labelled a 'Christian' writer in Canada because many people I know don't associate the Church with grace, compassion or respect for the poor. They associate the Church with a political agenda and ruthless money-making.

This irritates me: I don't like people assuming they know what my views are on politics, arts, culture, and social issues in advance of asking me. And, as an author and journalist, I especially don't like mainstream media, publishers and editors, assuming that I'm not 'balanced' in my reporting and analysis of issues. Being 'balanced' is my bread and butter because most of my work is printed in mainstream publications.

Of course stereotypes about Christians, like all stereotypes, are largely untrue. And since I've been a member of The Word Guild, I've had a chance to meet, via email, incredibly talented, professional authors and journalists from many Christian denominations, social classes, and lifestyles. They live in every region of this huge and beautiful country.

The members of TWG contribute to Canadian culture in impressive ways. And Christian publications, such as Faith Today, Christian Week, The Anglican Planet, and Maranatha News often have more courage in their approach to news and features than many mainstream magazines and newspapers that bow to the opinions of 'advertisers.' If you're like me, you've probably had editors tell you many times, "I don't think our readers want to hear that." (This is code for 'the advertisers will withdraw their money if we print that.'}

So, why are "Christians" ghettoized in the media? Especially in Canada? Do we have any role to play in the stereotypes about us? I think we do. And I think we can do much to fix our own image among Canadians.

Much of what I see being touted as a Christian world view by the popular press and some Christian ministries, especially on economic and political issues, simply can't be found in the gospels. But Christians who suggest that some messages published and aired by 'Christian ministries' have nothing to do with Jesus, often have their 'relationship with Jesus' or 'submission to authority' questioned. I know. It's been happening to me since I was a teenager.

My discomfort with 'agendas' began when I was little girl. In those days, I received Sunday School papers written in Indiana that touted the 'godliness' of the American Revolution. It was quite an inappropriate and confusing message to give to a child who recited The Lord's Prayer and sang 'O Canada' and 'God Save the Queen' every morning before school.

Every Sunday our living room television blared out programmes in which, mostly foreign tele-evangelists talked more about politics than Jesus and lobbied their listeners to join political organizations.

Many of the adults in my life simply stated Canada should copy American political and social arrangements -- that Canadians had 'missed' God's message. That our country didn't have the 'blessing' of God.

By the time I was a teenager, I had a hard time meshing my own experience of asking Jesus into my heart with what I heard from the pulpit. Church didn't seem to have much to do with Jesus at all. It was more about being a club that kept the damned at a distance.

When I was 18, I left the church. It took me years to separate the 'political' messages from the gospel. Even though I continued to read the Bible almost daily, take my kids to Sunday school, pray, and defend other Christians when they were under attack, I resisted calling myself a Christian until I was in my mid thirties.

It was only when I grew up enough to be able to put my eyes on Jesus, that I could accept the 'label' Christian. Even then, it took years to be able to stand up to 'the authority figures' who questioned my faith simply because I did not think the way a Christian, especially a Christian woman, 'should.'

I don't think I'm alone. Canadians left the churches in droves in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's. Yet according to Sociologist Reginald Bibby of the University of Lethbridge, in Lethbridge, Alberta most Canadians still identify with the Christian faith, even if that link is only through their grandparents, and are open to re-connecting (or in some case connecting for the first time) with their churches. I can relate to that. And I grieve for others still living in the kind of 'exile' I was once in.

Maybe it is time to begin removing the obstacles and 'stereotypes' that limit the church in Canada. That may mean reconsidering exactly what messages we are sending to society at large.

What do you think?
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