The Poor Man of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Calvary – Br. James Koester
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Br. James Koester
One of the problems with God, and if I am honest, there are many problems with God, is that God does not always act or behave like God. This is especially true of Jesus. And that’s a problem. It was a problem for many in his original audiences. It was a problem for the others as well, whether they were followers of Thor, or Baal, or Zeus, or any number of contemporary secular gurus. Indeed, it was and is such a problem, that many did, and continue to reject, not only the idea of God, but the person of God, just as Jesus was rejected, for “many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him” (John 6:66). We see inklings of this today, “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” (Luke 6:2).
Because Jesus does not behave the way we think God must or should, some reject him. Others recreate him, and we get Christian nationalism or the prosperity gospel. We cannot bear to have a god who does not follow the rules. Yet that is the point of Jesus. He forces us to come to terms, not with how we think God should or must act, but how God does act.
The God we see in Jesus is the God of the Beatitudes, the God of the sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth. The God we see in Jesus is the God who says, “blessed are the poor, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted” (Matthew 5:1-12). The God we see in Jesus is the one who came “proclaiming good news to the poor, freedom to prisoners, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed” (Luke 4:18). As an earlier version of our Rule said, “God has chosen the poor, the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Think of the blessed poverty of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Calvary.”1 The God we see in Jesus is the poor man of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Calvary, and that is too much for so many. The God we see in Jesus was tired, hungry, and in pain, and that is too much for so many. Yet the God we see in Jesus was tired, hungry, and in pain so that we might rest from our labours, feast at the heavenly banquet, and rise with him on the third day, and that makes no sense for so many.
One of the problems with God, is that God in Jesus comes to us as the poor man of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Calvary. For many, that’s a problem. The thing is, God does not always behave the way we think God must or should act. Instead, God in Jesus comes to us consorting with women, touching the untouchable, and breaking the sabbath. He comes to us as the poor man of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Calvary, tired, hungry, and in pain. If that’s a problem for you, well, I’d say, that’s a real problem.
1 SSJE, Rule of Life, 1910, Poverty, chap. 8:8, p. 54. ↩