We say it in so many tones of voice, with so many different emphases: surprise, shock, real curiosity, even anger and dismay. Sometimes we expect an answer. Sometimes we expect and hope the person who has surprised us will just go away and not cause trouble. At Christmas, many of our celebrations both inside and outside church, seem to be elaborate ways of saying it to Jesus. What on earth are you doing here? What on earth are you doing here?
Come on, Baby Jesus, don't rock the boat, don't stir up the waters. Just stay in your manger like a good little baby, won't you? We don't want him to step out of the pious, tinselly Nativity scene, and start making waves in the real world of our lives, when we've just got them so nicely organised without him.
Trouble is, he won't stay in the manger. He will get out of it and grow up and start walking about in the world, attracting people who've got no time for religion, and upsetting the pious and the respectable. Telling us that God isn't like we thought he was, remote and vengeful and violent and judging, but just like himself. Much odder and more unpredictable. Not very interested in rules and morality, but in whole-hearted, generous, no-holds-barred love. Making people whole, just when they'd got comfortable with the excuses they could make for being broken. Being willing even to die for the sake of people who hate him, and wanting his friends to be just like him and do the same.
Hold on there, Jesus; we're not sure we're ready for this. You've taken us by surprise again. What on earth are you doing here?
Why, I'm the light, he says. I'm the light that enlightens everyone, and now I'm coming into the world. Who I am makes sense of you and the world, even when you thought there was no sense to be made.
I'm here, not to condemn the world, but to save it. I can't understand why so many of the people who take my name spend their time damning nearly everything they see around them, the simple pleasures and glorious achievements of human life. That's not what I came for. I love that stuff, I can really show people how to have a good time, like at Cana in Galilee. I can take them beyond what they can be without me, to something unimaginably richer and better.
Oh yes, I'm here for judgement too. The judgement is not me or God handing down some arbitrary verdict on people, it's the judgement of them showing themselves in their own true colours. When you stand next to me, people will see what and who you really are. What you decide to think and do about me, decides what you will be. Can you handle that?
I've come so that you might have life, life in its fullness. I'm not interested in half measures. I want to give you everything you can take. I want to make you everything you've got it in you to be.
I've come so that everyone who lets me be part of their life, can become a child of God. Aren't you tired of being lost and confused about your life, or feeling like a meaningless speck, as if you were an orphan in the universe? You can be my sister, my brother, you can know that the universe isn't hostile but is a friendly place to you, a place where you matter, because the origin and maker of the universe is pleased to be called your Father.
Have you got to the place where instead of being surprised by Jesus (What on earth are you doing here?) you can welcome him, and say - and mean it - Thank God you've come.
[The words I have put into Jesus' mouth in this piece are all drawn from John's Gospel. Read it, and check out for yourself how John puts it.]
We wish all our readers a very Happy Christmas and a New Year full of God's blessing.
Published in the MarstonTimes, December 2003