In this month’s parish magazine, Father Stephen’s letter draws attention to the paradox at the heart of our understanding of what it means to recognise Jesus Christ as Lord and King. On the one hand Christ claims authority over the whole earth, and yet at the same time this overwhelming power refuses to impose itself. In the stable at Bethlehem he enters the world in all meekness and humility, and then, in his life and mission, he relates to the world of which he is King as an outsider speaking to outsiders.
John the Baptist was the first, but by no means the last to stumble over this very paradox. He had gone out into the desert proclaiming the imminent appearance of the Messiah, and his mission had been a great success. He had urged repentance and baptised thousands in readiness for the coming kingdom. And when Jesus himself came to be baptised, he had seen the Spirit of God descending upon Him. He had heard the voice from heaven saying: This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased (Matt 3.17). John had played his part. He had spoken the prologue. The stage was set, and he had stepped back, ready and waiting for the drama of God’s salvation to unfold. But then it had all gone off script. He himself had been imprisoned, not that would have surprised or deterred him, and although Jesus was going about the villages healing and preaching, the dramatic future that John had been proclaiming as imminent didn’t seem to be arriving. His question must have seemed legitimate enough – was I right to point to you, or should we be looking for someone else? (Matt 11.3).
In his reply Jesus confronts John with the truth, paradoxical as it is. Drawing on such prophecies as we read for our first lesson this morning, he uses language about himself which could only mean: Yes, John, look at what I am doing, and you will see that I am the one who is to come, the one you were waiting for. The claim is huge, the realisation of the Messianic prophecies, the great event to which all the Hebrew scriptures point forward with the utmost sense of promise, of longing, of excitement. Yet the evidence to which he points, remarkable as it is, is not the headline stuff John was looking for – a few rather private miracles of healing, a few words of grace and hope and compassion. Which leaves John’s question hanging in the air: Is that it, then? To which the answer might be both Yes and No – No, that isn’t it, there is more to come. Jesus has not yet been crucified or raised. But equally – Yes, that is all there is, in the sense that what follows, including death and resurrection, is no more than the logical extension and conclusion of the compassionate work that he has begun, carrying out his Father’s will, regardless of the cost or the consequences.
John’s disciples didn’t ask whether that was it. But perhaps they could not help looking a little puzzled and perhaps disappointed by the rather enigmatic answer they had received. So Jesus adds, for John’s comfort and ours, an important rider: Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me (v6).
What does that mean? To most of us the word ‘makarios’ conjures up images of the bearded firebrand of an Archbishop who led the Cypriot independence movement and became the republic’s first President. But it is in fact the Greek word which translates as ‘blessed’. It is used almost exclusively in the formal sayings known as beatitudes, where its meaning is not so much that of a mental state – the way we feel – as a condition of life – the way we are, regardless of the cards that may have been dealt to us in all the vicissitudes of life. In the great set of beatitudes familiar to us from the Sermon on the Mount, each of them introduced with the word ‘makarios’(blessed), most of the promises lie in the future – Blessed are those who mourn, for example, for they will be comforted. Just two are in the present tense, the first and the last, and neither of them is characteristic of an easy happiness.
Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matt 5.3), and:
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake (Matt 5.10),
and in both cases the reward is the same – for theirs is – not will be, but is – the kingdom of heaven. Being poor in spirit is not about being poor in any material sense, but rather about being humble before God, depending fundamentally on him to get us through the challenges we face, using all the faculties he has given us of course, but relying ultimately on him, rather than arrogantly trusting in our own resources of wealth or strength or cleverness. Being persecuted for righteousness’ sake goes with the territory. If we do what we believe to be right for his sake, without allowing ourselves to be deterred by the likely consequences, we may well find ourselves being disadvantaged for righteousness’ sake, or even persecuted, but the prize is very great. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5.3 and 10). Not in somefuture state of bliss, but here and now. Those who quietly act in that way do so because they have recognised Christ as Lord and King. They may face uncomfortable consequences in this world, but they are in effect living in his kingdom now, under his authority, in accordance with his laws, and that is what makes them ‘makarios’, blessed with a happiness that reaches down into the very core of their being, beyond the reach of persecution.
Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me. We have explored what it might mean to be blessed, but what about taking no offense. What’s that all about? John wasn’t going to ‘take offense’ at Jesus in any ordinary sense. An alternative translation might be: Blessed is anyone who is not ‘tripped up’ or ‘put off’ by the way Jesus goes about his work, and fulfils his destiny. This was where John was at risk of losing the plot, and Jesus discreetly steers him away from any mistaken vision he might have had of a dramatic finale, with the Marines riding to the rescue as it were. Instead he invites John to find the answer to his question by reflecting quietly in his prison cell on the many discreet little acts of mercy and compassion that were then and still are the hallmark of Jesus’ kingdom.
Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth, sang the angels, as they proclaimed the birth of the Saviour of the World, but the shepherds were to find him in the arms of a poor young mother grateful for the shelter Joseph had found for her in the stable behind the inn full of more important people. That’s where we shall find him too, not in the big picture glimpsed by the prophets. That will come in God’s own good time, and we must wait for it with patience as we were reminded in our second reading. The signs of the kingdom are here already in the many acts of kindness and generosity, acts of healing and grace, both large and small, that are happening all around us. Thy kingdom come, O Lord, on earth as it is in heaven.