What gives life? We know a lot about what takes life. We see it on television or on our iphones: murders, earthquakes, diseases, bankruptcy, auto accidents, husbands and wives taking arguments on step too far and many other calamities. But what gives life? It’s not a question you’ll hear asked to American Idol contestants. It’s not a question that plays well at cocktail parties. It’s not a popular question because the answer involves a discussion about God. What gives life? There has got to be more than just self satisfaction. People who have everything still say they are searching for something that brings more meaning and purpose to their lives. Then there is the inevitability of death. No matter how much you have or how little you have everyone has to die. Death forces us to search for life. But what gives life?
The Bible and the confessions of the Christian church point to God as the source of life. “In the beginning God created…” We were created in the image of God the bible says (imago dei) which gives us the purpose of imaging God to all of creation. Our purpose is to live in a right relationship with God in a way that always points to the glory of God. Out of all the creatures in creation we are the only ones who know of our purpose. Chapter two of the book of Genesis speaks about our unique relationship to God.
Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man
became a living being. (2:7)
From the dust, the dirt of the earth God created human beings. God took a clod of dirt, shaped it and breathed life into it. What gives life? The breath of God, the wind of God the Holy Spirit gives life to human beings. To be alive is to be filled with the breath of God. Created from the earth human beings have a close connection with the earth.
The word clown comes from a 16th –century English word meaning “clod” or “clump”. Clowns are clods. According to Genesis 1 and 2 we are all clods. We are clods with the breath of God, created to live close to the earth and close to God. The Christian clown reminds all of us that we are God’s clods.
When we continue in Genesis we hear the story of how sin knocked the wind right out of human beings. Without the breath of God all things die, including human beings. Without the breath of God we are left to our own human frailties.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away
their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth
your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground. (Psalm 104: 29)
Sin affects all of creation. It keeps from living in a close relationship with the earth, with one another and with God. It creates discord, distance and death. It keeps us apart from instead of a part of a right relationship with God and all of creation. It steals our God given breath so that we are stumbling and falling, misdirected towards a less than satisfying way of being.
God does not just shake his head and mourn over his fallen humanity. God has a plan to deal with sin. It is a kind of mouth to mouth resuscitation to humankind who is suffocating under sin. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus God redeems and restores our breath. Through Jesus Christ our lungs, our life can once again be filled with the breath of God. Christ reconnects God with his clods so we can once again live in a right relationship with Him.
The Christian clown serves as a reminder of our humanity, of how frail we are, of how we stumble and of how easily we are led astray from what truly matters in life- our relationship with God. The clown is also a reminder that Christ has repaired humanity’s broken relationship with God and creation. In the foolishness of the clown we see a living picture of the contradictions of the Christian life: wisdom found in foolishness, strength found in weakness, success found in failure and life found in death. The Christ clown is one who lives his life inside-out, letting everyone see in spite of his stumbling and fumbling his faith is in a gracious forgiving God.
In his book “The Cross and the Sawdust Circle” Dr. Dick Hardel writes, “The clown is more than a symbol that hangs on the wall or is on the bumper of an automobile…The clown as a symbol is more like a stained glass window: when the light of the sun shines through the window, people see a story about God’s foolish plan of salvation. Clowns in ministry are tools to help people see a gracious God who loves them so much.”
It bothers some religious folks to use the image of the clown to represent Jesus Christ, but we only need to look at Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Christians to understand the rightful place foolishness has in
“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” 1Corinthians 1: 18, 25
The gospel is foolishness. God’s plan of salvation to draw the world back to himself is foolishness. See, our world can understand boundaries and penalties. Any civil society to avoid chaos must create laws, boundaries and penalties for crossing those boundaries. God’s plans in Christ seem foolish because they arise out of God’s love for us and God’s grace that removes our sinfulness. Grace is a hard thing for most people to accept. How can God love and forgive people who do not deserve love, people who forget, and people who sin and sin again and again? A God of grace makes no sense in the world in which we live. It is foolishness. The gospel is called good news because God’s grace toward you and I is not dependent on our fully understanding God’s motives. Whether we accept or don’t accept God’s gift of grace makes no difference in regards to God’s offering His grace to the world. God loves because God loves. We have no say in the matter. Dr. Hardel says it best, “the beauty of the gospel is that through faith in Christ I get it even if I don’t get it. Now do you get it?”
“The clown, being of the earth, filled with the life-giving breath of the creator God, and living close to the earth, knows the difference between the creator and creation. The clown knows the right relationship with God id not about understanding, but rather about believing. In the Gospel accounts of the foolish action of God in Jesus Christ, Jesus never asks, ‘Does this make sense?’ But rather Jesus asks, ‘Do you believe this? Do you love me?’” (The Cross and the Sawdust circle p. 70)
The Christ clown is a clown forgiven by God’s grace. The Christ clown is a servant clown following the example of Jesus in ministry to serve the needs of others through tears and laughter. The clown who puts on Christ celebrates with joy the presence of the sacred in the midst of all that is secular. The Christ clown sees God hidden among the ordinary things of this world. The Christ clown is the forgiven fool who accepts the failures and frailties of humanity, even death, because he knows resurrection in Christ. Remaining both close to God and close to the earth the Christ clown moves among the people offering word pictures of our earthy lives and pointing always to the glory of God.
From now on therefore we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new. (2 Corinthians 5:16-17)
