As Advent season begins, Christians of all stripes turn their focus to Jesus. After all, advent means coming, and each of the four Sundays of Advent, representing first hope, then love, joy, and peace, conjur specific postures and emotions Christians are invited to adopt in anticipation of the coming of Christ.
Manger scenes, large and small, are carefully and conspicuously situated. Children reach out to touch these mysterious playsets their parents only bring out once a year, to the tune of “Careful, don’t drop it’s,” and “Only look, don’t touch.” Mainly, they’re taken with the animals. Meanwhile, everyone wonders about the babe in the center of it all.
The babe in the center— Jesus.
Only who is this Jesus? Who was he?
In my youth, I wondered…
Was Jesus the celebrity my fellow 90’s kids went gaga over, asking, “What Would Jesus Do?” (What would Jesus, do, I used to wonder, if he was with us now? Would he want us asking this question? Were we doing what Jesus would want us to do? How could we know?)
Was Jesus the one who, sporting bloody holes in his hands and feet, sat, white-skinned and white-robed, on a throne in the middle of my Bible story book?
…Jesus was someone in whom I was supposed to believe.
It was Jesus’s death my church remembered during those once-a-month communion services when I tried so very hard to feel sad on account of my sins— since they were what put Jesus to death, right?
Jesus, who everyone tried to tell me wasn’t handsome, was awe-inspiring, all buff and strong in his portraits.
My childhood Jesus had chocolate-colored hair and eyes and milk-white skin like mine; he dwelt in a heaven— which looked a lot like a Western city— surrounded by angels. When I think about it, though I grew up in South America, I never once saw Jesus depicted as a South American person (I’m sure there is art depicting Jesus this way; it’s just that in the circles I ran in, I never saw him…).
Jesus, I learned in all my Sunday School classes, died on the cross for my sins. My sins. When I was a child, these amounted to little more than a fib every now and again, or a quibble with my brother. “These sins might not seem that bad, young one,” I was taught, “but to a holy God they are heinous and punishable by death.” And so, throughout my youth, I tried very hard to feel how grave and heavy my sins were (but I never quite succeeded).
This Jesus-of-my-childhoood was little more than a plastic action figure; gripping it, I’d squeeze it until it’s rough edges dug deep into my hands. I believe, I’d whisper, over and over through clenched teeth.
In my 20’s, I wondered…
After college, when I was a newlywed, there was this other young couple attending our church who liked to watch The Passion of the Christ every Easter weekend. “It just makes me weep,” the wife would explain to me, “and it really helps me feel grateful for what Jesus did for me.” I had already come to terms with my own lack of feelings for Jesus— “believing doesn’t have to feel like anything,” I’d tell myself. But I nodded compassionately at her story anyways.
But why didn’t Jesus, specifically his birth, death, and resurrection, conjure any feelings in me when clearly he was so special? He was the epicenter of everything; the pulse of Christianity, right? He was the very image of the invisible God.
Sure, there were moments where I’d feel a stir, but these were in relation to God’s love more than any specific action on Jesus’s part— like when I held my firstborn and thought, God loves me this much?!, and wept.
In my 30’s and 40’s, I still wondered…
In my third decade of life, my faith fell apart. And while I couldn’t shake this sense that God loved me, I wasn’t sure what to do with Jesus. On top of that, as a newborn skeptic, did I even believe all those miracle stories— walking on water, water into wine— anyways?
I must admit that now, as a seminary gal, I carry oh so many questions with me still, like, “Who is Jesus?” and, “Who was he?”
And slowly, slowly, I have begun to feel something emerging, a sort of soul conjured from ash, this beautiful thing that is alive and good, and not really for me, but for the whole wide world.
This thing, the stories go, was once a real, flesh-and-blood boy child named Jesus; but he wasn’t white, and he didn’t grow up middle-class. His family and the people who shared his religion (Judaism) were not-citizens of Rome. They were ruled over and they paid taxes, but the powers-that-be did not guarantee them any protection.
This Jesus was an immigrant. He knew what it was to not belong in the place where he was living.
This Jesus is helping me see why the Jesus-of-my-youth made little sense to me— how could I have gotten him, really? I, a white, citizen, woman-of-privilege? I, who thought the only sins needful of forgiveness were individual, and not societal, ones?
Who would get this Jesus, I wonder? The rich CEO cloaked with privilege and power, or the African American child who starts and shudders every time a police car approaches?
If this Jesus were born into the world today, who’s household might he be born into? Perhaps to… a family of migrants fleeing gang violence? Or to a… single mom with too many mouths to feed already? Or maybe he’d be a child wrested from his Native American tribe and placed in the care of a white family, a pawn in a power struggle.
If I want to know this Jesus, if I want to feel him, I’m starting to see where I need to look. And I know what attitude, oh Wise Men, that I ought to bring with me— one of humility and repentance. “Whatever you do to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you do to me”— Jesus (Matthew 25:40).
This Jesus I’m starting to see was a colonized person, a Jew, who promised an extraordinary way out from under oppression to his fellow colonized people (read Howard Thurman, especially chapter 1 of this volume). He was then arrested and killed by his colonizers, who used the situation to mock his people; when he died, his beloved followers whispered sadly to one another, “We had hoped…” (Luke 24:21).
What is it to hope?
To hope, you must first feel hopeless, right? Have you ever felt as hopeless as black folks felt after MLK’s murder? This is the ache that is prequel to hope.
It is the migrant toiling for 8 years on American soil in order to obtain American citizenship— and a life of safety and promise for her family.
It is the prisoner waiting to get out from under the abusive vitriol of the prison guard.
It’s the queer couple longing for the rights and privileges a legal marriage would entail.
It’s the homeless Trans kid— kicked out by her own family— walking city streets, seeking shelter.
Who do you know who’s got this sort of hope? It might be you, but you also may also be a little near-sighted, standing over here with me on the privileged side of life. Look for the oppressed, the lonely, the forgotten. Draw near to them, friend, the best you can, with humility; learn their story. Jesus wasn’t born in a mansion after all, he was born in a stable. Taste a bit of that achy sort of hope, open your heart, and wait for Jesus— I’m pretty sure you’ll catch at least a glimpse, a whiff, or maybe a whisper, of him.