#12 - But What About His Life?

by James Baker

You would think that being a part of putting together worship services that illustrate the wonder, the splendor, and the reality of Jesus would necessarily mean that I’m flush with the spirit of Christmas; that I’m able to see through all the tawdry commercialism and plastic well-wishes that rain down from Black Friday on.  Not true.  It takes work - more than it did when I started working for the church - to consider the implications of the advent season.

I have brief glimpses of perspective throughout the month, but am most dialed in around 12:03 am, December 25^th, minutes after the last Christmas Eve service ends.  A moment when the work is done, save for some last-minute Santa labor, and I stop to reflect on the birth of our Savior.  But I wonder if I’ve got it all wrong.  Or at least incomplete.  The phrase, ‘birth of our Savior’, sort of bookends Christ’s life into a manageable mantra, but misses out on so much of who Christ was.  He wasn’t just born, and He didn’t just die. 

Of the 89 chapters that comprise the four Gospels, only 23 detail the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection.  The rest deal with His life and teachings.  But like Ricky Bobby, I’ve gotten comfortable with the “eight pound, six ounce newborn baby Jesus”.  The one that coos in December, and marches to the cross in early spring.  If I can reduce him to a symbol, rather than God manifest, then I can keep Him from invading the parts of my life that I like to keep in the ‘Jesus-free zone.’  It’s pretty easy for me to condemn the materialism that surrounds Christmas, but look past my own brand of glittery, cinnamon-stuffed theology.

Please don’t misread me.  This is not some veiled attempt to disparage our traditions and suggest that if we get choked up during ‘Silent Night’ we are somehow shallow or a heretic.  But for myself, I have to ask, “What happens next week, other than the fact that I dare venture back on to Bay Area Boulevard?  Am I to all-of-a-sudden celebrate the adolescent Jesus?  Is the ‘reason for the season’ still a reason for January?”

Here’s my aim this Christmas:  Consider Christ.  The whole Christ.  The One who existed before all things, born of a virgin and visited by Magi on a cold winter’s night that was so deep.  The one that was hunted by Herod, and fled to Egypt.  The one that was tempted by the devil.  The one that exposed hypocrisy and forgave taxmen and prostitutes.  The one that taught what it means to follow, give up, stand strong, and love with reckless abandon.  The one who sweat blood.  The one who was scourged in my stead.

A blessing and a curse, things have to fit for me.  They’ve got to make sense in the larger narrative, and I can’t make myself merely worship a baby.  The birth of Christ was not an isolated event.  Jesus does not live in perpetual infancy, making an annual appearance before being socked away in the attic for another eleven months.  He is the complete package.  Child.  Man.  Teacher.  Companion.  Lord.  Savior.  Like me, He has depth and He has a story - a story that will continue on December 26^th.  Unlike me, He is worthy of my full consideration.

#11 - The Inexplicable

by James Baker

A friend recently sent me a link to a YouTube video of a group of musicians that were playing for a relatively small gathering.  The group included Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Neko Case, and some guy named Jesse Winchester.  In the video, Jesse sings a solo folk-ish love tune called ‘Sham-a-ling-dong-ding’ with nothing but his acoustic while the other artists look on.  I have watched this video at least a dozen times, even though the music doesn’t particularly capture me.  What captures me is the reaction.  It is fascinating to watch the other musicians, as well as the panning crowd shots.  Some are slightly swaying, but for the most part, everyone is stone-still.  You can see it in their eyes; they are taken to another place.  There is some sort of worship going on, but not of Jesse.  It is through Jesse.  Near the end of the song, Neko Case (another indie artist) has a tear running down her face.  When Jesse finishes, the place erupts…not so much a raucous applause, but more like an exhale.  I find the whole thing to be absolutely beautiful.  Even though the music doesn’t speak to me, the experience does.  I know that feeling.  I just can’t explain it.

For one friend of mine it is geese.  Not the snarky domestic ones you find in city parks, but real ones.  The kind that fly.  This crazy mix of awkward and grace.  These bulbous creatures that look to have all the fluidity of cold oatmeal, yet pound the sky with force and rhythm; honks that are both ridiculous and stirring.  For another friend it is a U2 concert.  Another it is tangling with a redfish.  My wife can be absolutely consumed with fear, but when she takes in the chocolate murk of Galveston surf lapping the shore, her soul finds rest.

For me, it’s different things.  Sometimes it’s watching my kids laugh.  Or sleep.  It can be a well-told story like Shawshank, or even the mindless brilliance of The Office’s Creed Bratton.  Sometimes – and I know this is weird – it can be an abandoned, run-down barn, or burned-out warehouse. Or like the time I was swimming with my boys in Barton Springs in Austin, a natural spring that rarely gets above 70 degrees.  I dove in, opened my eyes, and the deep blue-green that lay beneath that surface haunts me still.  It is how I picture eternity, as impossible as that is.  Sometimes it is merely sadness, which I find holds a beauty all its own.  Whatever it is, it is fleeting – gone before I can fully appreciate it – and almost never reproducible. It is a shadow.

A shadow.  That is what these sublime treasures are.  They are a glimpse into something richer, yet elusive and without construct.  Perhaps a more talented writer could paint the picture, but whatever words I can muster all fall painfully short of describing these times that pierce my soul.  It is these times – more than doctrine or theology – when I know that God is real.  Real, and wholly inexplicable.  Because if I could explain them, they wouldn’t be worth writing about.