Journal Time

with Ray Waddle

It's no exaggeration to say 2004 AD has been the prime-time Year of Our Lord. The Son of Man penetrated pop culture and politics like never before in modern memory.

It was the year Mel Gibson's Jesus movie became one of the biggest box-office successes of all time. Christ fared heroically in the final novel of the blockbuster "Left Behind" fictional series about Armageddon.

The Second Person of the Trinity loomed large in Campaign 2004 too: Both religious right and religious left stirred convictions and votes, putting Jesus on their agendas. The religious values of the red states won the day for the president.

Now we're on the verge of Advent -- the season of arrival of the Word Made Flesh. It comes in the nick of time.

But what does it mean? In the media world of our waking life, the Lord has been arriving all year long -- in movie theaters, bookstores and electoral soundbites.

What's left for Advent? Plenty.

A slow rereading of the Gospels gives a clue. I've lately been sifting through all four, a verse at a time, taking notes, looking at what they really say and what they don't. I finished Matthew first. Sometimes it was frustrating to encounter the zigs and zags of Jesus' many teachings and moods. This is the Gospel of the peacemaking Sermon on the Mount -- but also a Jesus who " brings a sword" with stern judgment.

I proceeded to Mark for another piece of the picture. Here's a Gospel short and mysterious, presenting a miracle-working Son of God who can't rely on his closest disciples to get the basic message right. Luke and John of course deepen the story further -- Luke with his artful storytelling and nativity scenes, John with his distinctive theology and long Jesus speeches.

What Jesus does not mention anywhere are the two biggest talking points of the culture war of our moment -- abortion and homosexuality. He talks pointedly of other matters. He tell us to fear and love God, show mercy and righteousness, love neighbor and enemy both, expect the Reign of God and the Final Judgment. It's a dizzying cascade of themes. But we must hold all these themes together somehow, because the Gospels do. Jesus will not be sentimentalized, reduced or abducted for purposes of party politics.

A famous scene from John 8 lingers in my mind this season. While others yearned to execute the adulterous woman and tried to trap Jesus in moral arguments about it, Jesus squatted down and "wrote with his finger on the ground." What did he write? The names of the accusers? A prayer? An idle doodle? No one knows. Either way, he disdained the jabber around him. Then he got up, challenged her "sinless" accusers to cast the first stone, and soon turned to the woman to say, "Go and sin no more." His words carried two themes: He called sin a sin. And he showed mercy. Sin is the problem, our problem, and divine mercy is the answer, the only one.

Political Christians are always tempted to take only a piece of Jesus, just a slice -- an image here, a microtext there -- and run with it as far as a cable talk show appearance will take it. The strategy is to make the viewers at home forget just how ill-fitted the Gospels are to any political ideology. Jesus does not use the word Democrat or Republican or, for that matter, the word Christian.

Still, politics is what we have for answering human need in the dangerous public world. Politics is where ethics and power meet, joust and torment each other. It's where religious right and religious left play out their social visions but never admit to self-doubts. After hearing religious right and left all year long this election cycle, I have two questions now: Question for the Christian left: Do you believe the Bible? If so, explain what you mean. Find a way to say how the Bible is authoritative and worth living by. Your credibility, and your future political relevance, are at stake.

Question for the Christian right: Do you support traditional values or not? Profitobsessed market forces, not liberals, are the reason for TV raunchiness and internet porn. Stand up to corporate power. Your credibility is at stake.

With an exhausting presidential election done with, political spectacles can take a breather, and so can we. Advent overwhelms all distinctions left, right and moderate -- and every vain use of Jesus' name for self-serving political purposes. Those things fall silent on the road the Wise Men travel, where Advent can finally cast its star-shine shadow over all.