John the Baptist is a character necessary to the plot of Christmas but not someone we want or like. To us and to the Jews of Jerusalem, John was a spoiler who had come to ruin the party. Things were going fine and nobody asked for John to be there or to open his mouth and upset their happiness with a call to repentance. No, John the Baptist is like the dad who comes home in a foul mood to spoil our mood with all his talk of sin and death, repentance and faith, morality and truth.
We do not want John either. We want a happy Christmas in which we open presents filled with things we want and we watch others open gifts we bought that were exactly what they wanted. Christmas is ruined with all this talk of sin, of preachers who meddle in our business by destroying the carefully crafted myths of the season, and of church that never fits in with our holiday plans. There is no fun in a father figure who makes you clean up your life by owning up to the wrongs you have said and done or urging us to live lives different from the world around us. Leave us alone, John. We have it under control. Or do we?
Look around you. Are things under control? John may not be a welcome voice for a people headed to a fairy tale Christmas but he is the voice we need to hear. He is still warning those who live together outside of marriage that it is wrong – just like he did to Herod. He is still calling those who want to make a nice memory to own up to their sin and make way for the Lord who comes to save them. He is still speaking truth to power and calling the dirty to wash in the water of God’s mercy so they might be clean – even if they would rather be a little dirty.
No one wants John to come and ruin our Christmas but we have no Christmas without him. John opens his mouth to speak not because he is some self-righteous prig but because he is trying to prepare us for the day when there will be no more forgiveness for sin and no more time to repent. That is why we need to listen to him – as unpleasant and as grating as his voice is.
John is like Joseph. They must be in this story of Christmas but we do not want them there. Joseph doubted Mary and was ready to either put her away quietly or publicly announce the sin he accused her of and risk her death – all to preserve the image of his own righteousness. God sent Joseph because Mary needed him – not to supply some DNA for her baby but to protect her from the threats she would face as the mother of our Lord and to provide a father for His very own Son.
The John the Baptists who preach what we do not want to here and the father figures who protect us from all that we think we can handle are the necessary spoilers for Christmas. There would be no Christmas without them. We love the story of a young mother whose Son is the underdog who battles our enemies for us but we do not know what to do with a prophet who warns us to repent and a Joseph who protects Mary to the place where there is no room and who wakes them all out of a sound sleep to sneak away into Egypt rather than spill the blood of the Messiah before its time.
We live amid a broken image of a family in which men do not need women and women do not need men and neither needs children. We live amid a broken world where the job of religion is to tell us we are all good to do instead of warning us to repent. We live with the broken dreams of a life negotiated so that we never have to suffer and never have to sacrifice for anyone or any cause. No wonder people like John the Baptist and Joseph are so unwelcome at Christmas. They ruin our well cultivated myths and lies that mask our destruction and keep us from hearing the voices of those who want us to be saved.
Let me be blunt. The good memories of those who suffer in hell will do nothing to comfort them and will only increase their misery and the best memories of those who delight in heaven will be left behind for that which is even better. But we need to hear the preaching Johns of this world and we need the fathers willing to protect, provide, sacrifice, and suffer for the sake of their families. They say the truth hurts and maybe it does but it does not inflict the pain of a life forever captive to death’s prison or alone in your misery. If we knew what we think we did, we would wish for more like John and more like Joseph who are strong enough to be faithful in a world of temptation and lies.
John is dead and he will be raised again but on the last day and that is too late for us. So we need preachers who will speak the inconvenient truth in love even at Christmas. We need those who will be voices of John in their homes, for the sake of their children and families. We need spoilers who will ruin the myth of Christmas with its most profound reality– God IS come to be your Savior. We need those who will protect the little lives carried in their mother’s wombs even at the cost of their own hopes and dreams and happiness. We need those who will not only speak of God’s will but demonstrate that will with the forgiveness that is full, free, and for those who deserve not a bit of it. We need John and Joseph. We need YOU to be John and YOU to be Joseph in your homes and neighborhoods. In the end these do not ruin Christmas or spoil a memory but make it possible for us to welcome Him who comes in the Name of the Lord.
Christmas is not ruined by honest preaching that calls us to repent or by strong fathers who love their families enough to bring them to that place where this preaching takes place. Christmas is ruined by people who think today is more important than eternity, that you have to get your own way in order to be happy, that you have to hide behind a mask in order to get along, or that you have to act like you are good to go in yourself and do not need anyone’s help. Jesus has not come to give prizes to the perfect family. Every family is dysfunctional. Every family is a mess. Every one of us is weak in the face of temptation. Everything that is not of God in this world is evil. But the Baby born in the manger has come for just that – for people who need help, for sinners who love evil more than good, for families which are a mess, and for those who wear a mask in public to cry at home alone.
Make your way straight to the Lord, without delay or detour. The Christ was born for you and He has been pleased to live and die for your sins. For every call to repentance, there is the promise of forgiveness. For everyone who admits they are vulnerable and need each other, there is comfort. Jesus is under no illusions about who we are or what we need. Christmas is not about memories or presents but about the Savior who came to us as one of us that He might take away our sins and the sins of the whole world. Amen.
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