29th August 2014

“You have won second prize in a beauty contest” is the card in Monopoly that few people love to pick up, not so much for the implied insult, though an insult it is, but for the meagre monetary gain. Ten measly bucks! That doesn’t even buy a letterbox on Mayfair. Yet how that card from the chest of human values speaks volumes about the ways of the world.

“You have won second prize in a beauty contest” is the card in Monopoly that Jesus, I think, would have enjoyed the most, had he played the game, simply because of its deliberate defiance for all that the world cherishes. ‘He had no beauty’ says the Book, and ‘nothing in his appearance that we should desire him’. And not because he got dealt an unfortunate set of genes. (It was his choice, just whose human genes he inherited, or more technically, chose for his incarnation.) But because he came to deal with our sins, not with our wrinkles.

It’s one of the very lovely things about him. He had the power to choose where to be born, and to what parents, and with what set of chromosomes and with what set of genes. And he chose a manger, in a small town, and humble folk, and seventh prize in a beauty contest. And how it all speaks volumes about who he is and about the ways of the Lord.

DM 29^th August 2014