Nobodies from nowhere

John 1

            There’s this scene in the latest Star Wars movie—don’t worry, I’m not spoiling anything—where Luke Skywalker looks at Rey, his unlikely heir apparent in the ways of Jedi, and asks her, completely befuddled, “Who are you?”

            Who on earth are you?

            That’s the kind of attitude I imagine of the priests who come to John the Baptist in the wilderness. Who the heck are you?

            The answer, as it was for Rey in Star Wars, is much the same for John: I am nobody from nowhere. Or, rather, I am not who you expect me to say that I am. I will not claim the authority of Elijah, and I am certainly not the Messiah. No, I am just out in the wild saying, “Prepare the way.” Someone is coming after me.

            In the Gospel of John there is no Christmas story. That’s why we read Luke, as we always read Luke, on Christmas Eve. Instead, the Gospel of John begins with those famous words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John prefers to dwell less on Jesus’ earthly origins and more on his divinity. He was in the beginning; he was and is God. That’s a dramatic start. But from there John introduces us to John the Baptist, who takes us into a different kind of fringe-world to the Gospel of Luke. Whereas Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in an out-of-the-way stable, in Luke’s Christmas story, John the Baptist emerges quite literally in the middle of nowhere.

            This is a profound way to start the Gospel, just as it is to build a story around light and darkness (which is both the Gospel of John and Star Wars, by the way), because we can all relate to being nobodies from nowhere. The fact that God would come to the middle of nowhere, to nobody—that is an astonishing thing.

            Part of the Jewish assumption was that the Messiah would come as the heir of David’s throne. They assumed he would be a military leader in the style of David who would overthrow the authorities—at that time, the Romans—and he would create a lasting peace by virtue of the chosen people getting what was theirs: Their land, which was their power.

            Part of the reason the Jewish temple authorities—the priests and the Levites—were so suspicious of Jesus (and John the Baptist before him) was because he was acting very much not like the king they imagined. The irony is that the one thing they thought he actually did have—the lineage of David—was something he couldn’t actually claim. This may surprise you, because you have probably heard that Jesus is descended from David. This is important, because the Messiah is supposed to be the heir of David. In Jesus’ case he is almost there. The Gospel of Matthew starts with that long genealogy connecting Jesus to David and all the way back to Abraham. This feels dramatic, except there’s one little detail. The genealogy ends with Joseph…

            As Simon Birch once quipped, “It’s the Virgin Mary… what does Joseph have to do with anything?”

Joseph is not Jesus’ father. Jesus is not a descendant of David. Instead, he’s the descendant of the only king that actually matters, and you don’t need to do a very long genealogy to figure that out.

            All of this is to say that Jesus defied expectations because he was at once more royal and more common than anybody expected. John the Baptist was much the same. Who is this guy? The temple leaders need to know. I’ve found, however, that the desire to name things and place people into categories only shows how fearful we are of what we do not understand. It’s common and easy to categorize people we don’t understand, but when we’re talking about God none of the categories work. All of our assumptions are both too small and too grand. We imagine a king born in a giant castle; we get a king born in a stable. On the other hand, we imagine a king who will justify us by smooshing all the baddies; we get a king who saves us through his death.

            “Who are you?” we might ask. Moses did of the burning bush, when God says, “I am that I am.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I am” at least seventeen times, several of these clearly referring to the same kind of mystery that met Moses in the bush. Who are you? I am. That’s as good as you’re going to get.

            This is an invitation into the mystery of God. John the Baptist doesn’t say, “Look, I’m John. I’m Elijah-reincarnate.” He doesn’t say: “Look, there’s Jesus, he’s the Messiah. He’s going to tell you some nice things.” Instead, he says, “I am a voice [just a voice]… here is the Lamb of God…” Here is the littlest little vulnerable creature. Here is the thing you all sacrifice. Here is the thing worthy of your love and devotion. He’s a nobody from nowhere, which is not the news you’re expecting but it’s exactly the news you need to hear.

            This is ultimately where Star Wars and the Gospel of John diverge, because where the heroes in Star Wars are lighting the spark that will light the fire of hope, Jesus is simply the light of the world. He isn’t only the spark; he is the light itself. But John the Baptist? He’s just nobody, and even when we compare him to Elijah we do so forgetting that Elijah was also nobody until God gave him a calling.

            The great thing with this Christian faith is that God uses nobodies from nowhere. You don’t need a royal lineage; you don’t need to be the Seventh Earl of your township. It doesn’t matter where you come from; God will use a nobody like you. Better still, you don’t have to be the spark to light any fire. Instead, you have the light of the world already. All you have to do, like John the Baptist, is show people the light.