How do I answer that for a four year old trying to make sense of the world, of God?

I swallow hard.

"Well, Trey – God makes everybody; but sometimes people make bad choices and do bad things."

"No, Granny! The BAD GUYS! God can’t make BAD GUYS! Who makes THEM?!"

Trey has an expectation of God: God is good. God’s creation is good. His sense of God doesn’t include "bad."

That’s true for many, I suspect.

I’ve heard people comment that, "I can’t believe in a God that would allow something like the Holocaust to occur."

Or, "Where was God on September 11?"

And, more recently, "Where was God at Virginia Tech?"

Whenever something horrific happens, either up-close-and-personal, or in the world at large, we are challenged to look at our concept of God and God’s action in the world.

Where is God? What is God like?

The Pharisees, too, struggle with this issue.

"If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly," they demand of Jesus. They have expectations for the Messiah – and Jesus isn’t living up to those expectations.

For them – and possibly for us, as well – "God", "Messiah", "power", "king", "savior" - all have the political implications associated with governments, with military and economic might – and exercised with justice and righteousness – at least as we conceive of "justice" and "righteousness."

As Philip Yancey (Reaching for the Invisible God, p. 29) points out, "Creatures of flesh and blood, we lose patience with anything that does not manifest itself on our terms."

So tell us plainly, Jesus: are you the Messiah of God?!

We want to know.

And we want to know in terms that we can understand – in human terms!

We all have a tendency to create a "litmus test" for God, a way of proving that God is God… a way that often conveniently coincides with our own purposes.

We have an agenda, and we expect God to follow.

I do this; God does that.

And, when something goes wrong, God fixes it, because, after all, God is on the side of justice and righteousness.

So tell us, Jesus: are you the Messiah of God?

Because I have a few matters for you to take care of… on a larger scale, there’s global warming, AIDS in Africa, genocide in Darfur, war in the Middle East, poverty, hunger, homelessness, injustice… More immediately, find a job for my son-in-law; help my mom stop drinking, heal my sister’s breast cancer, fix my broken marriage, take away my depression…

We expect the God of justice and righteousness, the God who sent Jesus the Messiah who preached and taught about those very things, to be a bit more active in bringing them about.

We may even feel like the Hebrew people in Isaiah who would rail at God – why do we fast, but you do not see?! Why do we humble ourselves, but you do not notice?!

We’re doing our part, God – why aren’t you doing yours?!

With the Pharisees, we ask: Are you the Messiah, the Son of God? Tell us plainly!

And so I think it behooves us to ask ourselves today: What are our expectations of Jesus? What do we look for in the Messiah? What might stand in our way, to keep us from recognizing him?

I am reminded of the Gospel story about the paralytic whose friends lowered him through the roof to see Jesus.

"Your sins are forgiven," Jesus told him.

What? Hey, wait a minute! That’s not why I came! What about my legs?

"Oh, yes – that, too. Take up your mat and walk."

We want an specific answer to our particular question, our immediate concern, rather than to open ourselves up to possibility…

We want to be told, "Take up your mat and walk."

And so we struggle.

It’s not uncommon for many people – in fact, many liberal Christians – to struggle with the idea of Jesus the Messiah.

The "historical Jesus," Jesus as Teacher, Preacher, Healer, Prophet, we can easily understand – none of that troubles our enlightenment minds.

The resurrected Jesus, Jesus as Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, challenges our cognitive mindset.

Resurrected bodies don’t make sense.

All this talk about justice and mercy doesn’t make sense – the world is still as it always has been, only with different players…

We want God to make sense! To be understandable! To show God’s self as we expect God to be! To act! To fix what’s wrong in the world! We want God to be – well, GOD! Different from us, outside and apart from us, exercising the power and might which shows that God cares for us, for the troubles of the world!

It may be Easter; we may be celebrating the Resurrection; but, where is Jesus when you need him?

If you are the Messiah – tell us plainly!

And then – SAVE us!

That’s the litmus test: do something to save us! Do something to save the world, rid us of injustice, heal all the ails to which flesh is heir…

That’s our expectation!

After all, God doesn’t make bad guys!

And instead, Jesus hands it back to us:

Love your neighbor, he tells us.

Feed the hungry.

Clothe the naked…

We ask for a "fix"; we get told what to do to fix it!

The Hindu mystic Nisargadatta suggests that in matters of God, "the mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it."

So what if, today, we throw our hearts across that abyss?

What if, today, we change our expectations for God, for Jesus, for Messiah-ship?

What if we change our usual "Listen up, God!" to "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening?"

Instead of "Don’t make any more ‘bad guys’?" or, "Please don’t let the bad guys hurt anyone I know or love," we ask, "What do you want me to do?"

What if our expectation becomes "relationship" instead of "fix-it"?

What if, instead of challenging Jesus to show himself, we invite him into our lives, ask him to dwell in us?

What if…?

What if…?

I think, if we invite Jesus into our lives, if we ask him to live in us, everything else will fall away: we will no longer feel the need to demand, "Are you the Messiah?! Tell us plainly!" We will know.

We will find an amazing transformation occurring as we live together, that presence of Jesus in our hearts, in our lives.

We will be different, seeing differently, responding to others – or to our life situations – differently, moving through the world differently.

Even our voice will be different, for we will find Jesus’ messiah-ship speaking through us!

And perhaps we will discover that we are helping NOT to make those "bad guys" my grandson was worrying about!

This Eastertide may find that we, too, can be a resurrection appearance of Jesus – for in our bodies he will live!

Alelullia! Alelluia!

Amen.