Nothing Up My Sleeve - Advent, Day 19

December 21, 2006 by djackson.

Advent Readings:  Isaiah  9.18-10.4, 2 Peter 2.10-16, Matthew 3.1-1

Two thousand magicians materialized in Stockholm, Sweden, last August for the World Championship in Magic.  Of these, 156 performed their best tricks, hoping to win a gold medal, a trophy, and contracts for big-money gigs in Vegas, Paris, and Monaco.  One conjurer admitted, however, that there really is nothing new under the silk handkerchief.  “It is all based on the same secret,” said Dirk Losander.  “It is like there are only seven notes (in music), but you can arrange them in different ways.”

John the Baptist warned the religious elite that his prophet’s eye was quicker than their righteous slight-of-hand.  Rule-book morality was a trick with only so many variations, and he was onto them all.  His magical preaching, by contrast, turned Sadducees to snakes and stones to sons of Abraham.  In fact, like all good preaching, his rhetoric dis-illusioned:  it only revealed what was there all along. 

John warned Pharisaic prestidigitators that the light of God pierces all smoke and mirrors.  Messiah comes as a maniacal lumberjack who clear-cuts old-growth forrest.  His slash-and-burn agriculture reduces chaff to charcoal and fertilizes the field with the offal of unproductive plants.  Nothing up anyone’s sleeve, no secret pockets:  the soul laid bare by blazing truth.

Christ is coming to debunk our illusions, even those tricks - especially those tricks - by which we fool ourselves.  Let’s turn loose of our stacked decks and let him release us from unreality. 

Posted in General | No Comments »