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A message from Pastor Marty

Microchipping Jesus

By Pastor Peter Marty

It’s no fun to be caught red-handed. Just ask Illinois governor — hopefully soon ex-governor — Rod Blagojevich. Rumor has it that the FBI wiretaps of “Blago” will make the Nixon oval office tapes look mild and inoffensive in contrast. Or just ask O.J. Simpson, who wouldn’t be sitting in jail if it weren’t for some revealing videotape footage captured in a Las Vegas hotel room. Or just ask Peter Marty who was caught by video surveillance in Chicago for rolling through a red light in one of those right turn lanes that angle around an island at one of those gigantic intersections.

I could direct you to the Illinois Department of Transportation website and share my special password to the site, where you could view the four-second video of my car not coming to a complete stop. The video clip is vivid and in color. My license plate is painfully clear. Whatever lens they have on that pole-mounted camera must be 10 times the power of that with which Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter. I’m guilty. I had no choice but to pay the egregious $100 fine. I have too much shame to share the password.

It’s no fun to be caught red-handed. Just ask the 22-year-old woman who stole the Baby Jesus from the nativity set on a church lawn in Savage, Maryland. It was a savage act, lifting the Christ Child right out of the straw and dumping him into a corner of her garage. I’ve written before about a similar crime being committed at my last congregation in Kansas City. We had to keep running to Toys-R-Us just to replenish our supply of Jesus dolls regularly stolen from the outdoor creche.

In the Savage, Maryland case, as you have probably seen or read in news reports, a GPS device implanted inside the plastic Jesus helped police track down the thief and locate the missing baby. Thinking about this particular crime, I wonder if it wouldn’t have been smarter for congregation officials there to implant a microchip in Jesus that could speak. This would be a tiny integrated circuit device that could speak some appropriate lines to the perpetrator, say, 24 hours after the theft. Imagine the woman getting into her car the morning after her crime and hearing from the corner of her garage:

“Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling; calling for you to take me back to that manger.” or

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? I came to clean up the ugliness of war, hatred, and bigotry — not the messiness of your garage. By the way, why is your garage so messy? Is your life in a similar state?” or

“No longer do I call you a slave, for a slave does not know what his master is doing. I now call you a friend. Do you really think that stealing me was an act of friendship?” or

“If you think I’m the real Jesus, you’re wrong. I’m nothing but a plastic doll. The real Jesus is actually in your heart. He is the one who is reminding you even now that this was not the brightest thing you’ve ever done. You really don’t want to live this kind of life, do you? There is a better way.” Such amusement aside, imagine if we could implant a microchip in the real Jesus, much as scientists are beginning to implant chips in certain individuals,
giving emergency medical workers instant access to a person’s medical record. We could track Jesus. We wouldn’t have to worry about losing him. His invisible status would stop frustrating skeptics. We’d have him pinned down for good.

Well, the news of Christmas is this: No microchipping of the real Jesus will ever be necessary. God turned the tables and came down into the fragile flesh of a newborn one night to verify what had been spoken centuries before through the prophets: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Translated, this meant that God would expend great energy tracking us down, making sure that our hearts were scribbled all over with the imprint of grace. We’ve been benefiting ever since, trying to appreciate what it means to have a Lord who knows and cares so much about our every move.

I hope you’ll join us for Christmas worship.

Pastor Peter Marty,

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