Saturday, December 13

Scripture: During the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness (Luke 3:2). 

Observation: Luke the Gospel-writer knows God is actually the king but moves like a knight- the chess piece knight. The knight is the only chess piece that doesn’t move in a straight line. The king, queen, bishop, rook, and pawn must move in straight lines - forward, backward, sideways, diagonal - but it has to be in a straight, predictable line, and they cannot jump over other pieces. The knight’s move is special. The knight can move two squares straight, then one square sideways, and the knight can leapfrog over other pieces. That means the knight can fool amateur chess players (like me) because it appears the knight is moving over here, in a straight, predictable line, when the knight had no intention of moving over here. The knight is moving over there.  

In the Christmas story, God isn’t moving in the over here of the powerful, the rich, the celebrities, the pretty people, the have-it-all together people. Annas and Caiaphas belong to this class of people. Father and son-in-law, Annas was the high priest over the Temple in Jerusalem, and Caiaphas was his successor. If God was going to make a strategic move and intervene in the course of human history, then Annas and Caiaphas were likely candidates to be God’s instruments. Like other characters in the Christmas story – Herod the Great, Emperor Augustus, Emperor Tiberius – the powerful of the earth are where we expect God to be and the vessels through whom we’d assume God to work, given their access to wealth, technology, social networks, and influence over massive followings.  

But just when you think God is moving that way, God moves one square over. God isn’t moving over here. God is moving over there, in the lowly, the poor, the heartbroken, the grieving. That would be John the Baptist, a preacher from peasants, popular among the poor, prophet of change. God leapfrogs over the powerful of the earth and takes the square where the lowly are.  

Application: If I want to be useful to God – and today, at least, I genuinely do – then I shouldn’t go high. I should go low. I should lower myself and take my place among the lowly of the earth. That means I need to stay humble, meaning I need to think of myself less and others more; I need to stop comparing myself to people whose lives, as I imagine them, are easier and better off than mine; and I need to start emptying myself of my status and resources and put them at God’s disposal. Like John, and like Mary, Joseph, Zechariah, Elizabeth, and the shepherds, I need to be lowly. 

Prayer: 

Dear God, today I will be simple, for simplicity

Is the square of the chess board where you have chosen to move.   

Lower me.

    Humble me, so I might practice self less and others more.

    Teach me to cherish life as it is.

    Empty me of treasures you could use to make Kingdom come.

Lower me all the down and make me

   As a needle in the haystack of the Christ child’s crib.