Why Is Tom Cruise So Excited?

Scripture: John 1.6-8, 19-28; Isaiah 61.1-4, 8-11


Why is Tom Cruise so excited? Why is he jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch? Well, it has something to do with being in love with Katie Holmes, “Joey” from Dawson’s Creek fame. Tom and Katie are getting married and having a baby, although not in that order. Tom is excited.

But I’m not referring to that excitement. I’m thinking of Cruise’s appearance on the Today Show with Matt Lauer some months ago when the two guys got into a heated exchange over modern psychiatry and Brooke Shield’s post-partum depression. I’m not sure what all that was about, but Cruise took offense with Lauer gently challenging some of his charges against psychiatry and prescription drugs. Cruise ended up saying things like, “Matt, you’re so glib. You don’t know. I’ve studied these things. I know.”

You see, Cruise doesn’t believe is psychiatry or prescribing Ritalin to kids. Cruise is a Scientologist. Scientology is a religion birthed from the writings of L. Ron Hubbard. You may recall, L. Ron Hubbard wrote the book Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, in the late 1940’s. Dianetics was the original self-help book. But it became more than that as it developed a following among the wealthy and famous. Detractors, including Hubbard’s own son, say that Hubbard only turned it into the religion of Scientology to avoid paying taxes as a nonprofit. The way the religion works is, you pay a lot of money to have a moral and spiritual inventory taken of you on a regular basis. So, you can see the appeal. If I’ve forked over a lot of money, it must be real.

Dianetics captures the American spiritual scene quite well. Many people express themselves this way, “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.” You know what that means. They don’t want to be too closely identified with religious authority, orthodoxy, or institution. They want to pick and choose their beliefs, ala carte, if you will, from a broad spectrum of religions, gurus, books, and poems they might read on the Internet. Phillip Jenkins, a professor of history at Penn State notes that this is not a new thing – American History is lit with the fire of self-proclaimed therapies, movements, prophets, and true ways, from Unitarianism and Mormonism to Christian Science to the Heaven’s Gate cult. As Charles Ferguson wearily remarked in the 1920’s, “It should be obvious to any man who is not one himself that the land is overrun with messiahs.”

If you understand this about American history, then you can understand the times and culture in which John the Baptist emerges in first century Palestine. He is classic desert prophet and preacher - unkempt appearance, fiery visage, uncompromising message. He would give Tom Cruise a run for his dianetics money.

So you can understand the priests and Pharisees who come out to the Jordan where the Baptist is baptizing. Understand, these religious leaders are not all bad, as we sometimes make them out to be. There were would-be messiahs in their day too. What with Roman oppression and all the Old Testament prophecies people were longing for a Savior, there were many pretenders willing to oblige. So the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem hear of this John the Baptist and they send a few guys out to investigate. They think they’ve seen his kind before. They too are weary of all the messiahs around. They are Matt Lauer to this Tom Cruise. They are not openly hostile, but they consider the trip a Risky Business at best, Mission Impossible at worst.

It turns out, JB had them at hello. See, there is something different about the Baptist. That something is actual sanity, humility even. The Baptist says something shockingly different than most of the pretenders around, he says, “I’m not the Messiah.”

Come again?

“I’m not him.”

“Well, who are you then, Elijah?”

“No.”

“Who are you? We need to fill in the blanks on the report we’re filing.”

Put your report down and listen. I’m not the One. But there is One even right now, in your midst, closer than you think, (though as yet undetected by you), who is going to change everything.

A prophet before John, Isaiah, referred to this same One as “anointed.” The Messiah is the “Anointed One.” He is the One who is filled with the Spirit of God. The Anointed One is the visitation of God in human form. John the Baptist asked his audience then and perhaps now, “Are you ready to recognize his appearance?”

See, there are so many things clamoring for our attention. There are so many things we look to for our peace, our happiness, our meaning. Our Messiah can be the latest self-help book. It can be a new car, a vacation, or a pepperoni pizza. As long as we think we can be reasonably satisfied and happy with whatever means are at our disposal, we will not recognize or make room for the True Messiah. Just because there are a lot of pretenders around doesn’t make the Real Messiah less true or less needed.

In C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, one of the children asks Mr. and Mrs. Beaver about Aslan The Lion:

“Is Aslan quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver. “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or just plain silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver, “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

The real Messiah is more dangerous than any imposter or crackpot, but for entirely different reasons. Jesus is dangerous because He’s true and He’s good and once we turn our lives over to him we are never the same. And I believe, anyone who does that will never regret it.

Now that’s something to get excited about it.