Is This It?

10 years ago in the fall of 2001, I was listening to the radio and kept hearing about some offer where you could win a trip to some big New Year’s Eve party somewhere.  And the big kicker was that you could see The Strokes.  I had not heard much about them before that Fall so to me they did not have any special status.  I did hear their music on the radio at times but was rather unimpressed.  So with no special ‘legendary’ status and with an unimpressive sound, the hype seemed way overblown to me.  However, many people seemed to believe the hype and actually thought these guys would be something really special.

Well, as it turned out, The Strokes were killed by the hype machine.  The 2001 album title, “Is This It?” was almost prophetic.  There were all these expectations that these guys were going to be monsters of rock and then they just ended up being one amongst a seemingly endless line of artsy-sounding urban hipster bands.  The sound of people jumping off that bandwagon was deafening.

A little over 2000 years ago before Jesus was born, there was a great deal of hype amongst the learned people about what was to come.  It is no accident that the earthly father of Jesus was Joseph.  The saviour was to be the son of David.  He had to come from David’s lineage, of which Joseph was a part.  Another remarkable fact is that the same number of generations came and went between major events.  Abraham, David, Babylonian exile, Jesus.  In this case there were 14 generations between each event.  That magic number was about to be reached a third time, which would explain why there was so much anticipation in certain circles and so much anxiety and paranoia in others.  These people knew not only which generation but also had an idea of location as well.

Everything came true.  That is, everything but people’s self-concocted expectations.  Many people who knew of this event were expecting someone or something glamourous with a lot of fanfare.  Instead, Jesus, and the life circumstances of His family, were modest, at best.  Jesus was a lot more humble than people were expecting.

Sure, there were some who knew of His coming, came to see, and believed more firmly than before.  And then there were those who never knew of His coming until it was imminent and then they became believers.  But most who knew of His coming had certain unreasonable expectations, found themselves disappointed, and no longer believed.  And, of course, there were those who never believed the hype and continued to not believe it.  Human nature has not changed.

The difference, of course, is that there was not much substance to back up the hype surrounding The Strokes but there was plenty of substance to back up the hype surrounding the coming of Jesus, the son of David.  Also, the media hype surrounding The Strokes paled in comparison to the scholarly hype surrounding Jesus.  There was never a prophecy about The Strokes.  The Strokes may have been sort of a big deal back in their day but Jesus was, and still is, a HUGE deal.

People were left disappointed by the hype surrounding The Strokes because it was unfounded.  It was not real.  People were left disappointed by the hype surrounding the coming of Jesus, even though it was very real, because of their own misunderstanding of what constitutes greatness.  Jesus was never at fault, nor was the all the hype about His coming.  As a result, while people may have largely forgotten about The Strokes by now, Jesus is still very relevant.

Matthew 1: 1-17