I remember many years ago watching a small drama team present the story of the Prodigal Son with a slightly left field take. They set up this well known story as an episode of The Waltons, complete with harmonising the iconic theme tune. The story followed the line as were expecting except it was given a novel twist at the end. With the team harmonising and humming the theme tune we had dad and wayward son running towards each across the stage in slow motion, all set up so we expected for a big embrace.
The son opens up his arms
ready to be welcomed back into the arms of his father, and then as they get
close enough the father drops his arms and slaps his son across the face. The
son is shocked and said, ‘Hey, I’ve read the script. This isn’t supposed to
happen! Where are the new sneakers and the coat and the best beef burger. This wasn’t
what I was expecting.’ To which the father responds, ‘Yes I know, but isn’t this
just what you deserve?’
The power of this plot twist
and its message has remained with me forty years later!
Today at St Oswald’s we explored
Jesus’ baptism and our preacher picked up on the idea of expecting the
unexpected with Jesus.
All four Gospel reference
Jesus’ baptism, each giving a particular aspect. John, for example, doesn’t
have a record of Jesus being baptised but it is there by inference.
We were considering the story
as told by Matthew. (Matthew is this year’s Gospel in the Revised Common
Lectionary)
In this account you can hear
the voice of John saying, ‘I’ve read the script, I know how this is supposed to
work out. I am supposed to be baptized by you, not the other way around.’
It wasn’t what he was
expecting. With Jesus, we learn to expect the unexpected.
At the time of Jesus there
was an ongoing debate about the Messiah and there was no clear view at all as
to what a Messiah would be like, or where he would come from or what the
Messiah might do. The most common expectation was not of a particular figure
but of an age; the Messianic Age when peace would prevail, when Israel would be
vindicated, when the nations came to Mount Zion to learn wisdom and bring
tribute.
But Jesus bar Jospeh – he comes and he mixes with all the wrong sorts of people. He announces the forgiveness of sins, he reaches out to a Samaritan woman and a Syrophoenician woman, he allows the ‘unclean’ to touch him and he himself touches corpses. He heals on the Sabbath and launches a tirade against the religious leaders of the day.
Reflecting on Psalm 24.3-4 …Who
may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in His holy place? He who has
clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear
deceitfully.…
Yes, with their ritual
washing (one aspect of baptising) they may have clean hands, but as for their
hearts…..
And therein lies the challenge
set before us as we move deeper in 2026.
Very sadly we have yet
another great Christian writer and leader confess to marital infidelity, Philip
Yancy. His books became best sellers, especially, ‘What’s So Amazing About Grace.’
His hands, his outward appearance,
all appeared clean, and yet he was holding a dark secret in his heart.
I am not sitting in judgment
here, just stating the fact and heeding a warning!
We can do and say all the
right things. However, writ large across the Scripture is the call and the
warning. Be careful that you are not simply a whitewashed sepulchre! (Matthew
23.27)
In another of Jesus’ parables
he tells of a man who asked his two sons to go and work in the vineyard. One
says no and then rethinks and goes. The other says yes, but then doesn't go. Therefore, Jesus asks, ‘Which
of the two did his father’s will?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them,
“Truly I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of
God before you.” (Matthew 21:28-32)
I am sure there will be lots
of surprises for us in the year ahead. ‘Really? That person, that prisoner,
that drug addict, that abuser - they have come to accept Jesus as their Saviour?!’
‘The conversion of the soul
is the miracle of the moment; the manufacture of a saint is the task of a lifetime’
writes Michel Quoist in his book, ‘The Christian Response.’
James in his Epistle puts it
this way, ‘Obey God's message! Don't fool yourselves by just listening to
it. If you hear the message and don't obey it, you
are like people who stare at themselves in a mirror and forget what they look
like as soon as they leave. But you must never
stop looking at the perfect law that sets you free. God will bless you in
everything you do, if you listen and obey, and don't just hear and forget.
James 1.22-25
And having put ourselves and
our lives into the hand of God we may find ourselves surprised by the
unexpected way God guides and leads us, by the things God calls us to do. At
times like that I like to ask myself a question, how does this help me to know
Jesus better, or to make Jesus better known.
And with Jesus, we learn to expect the unexpected.
https://youtu.be/E4963QPHAIM?si=8H8JC0wxPDI7jwt4
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