Keeping the Season

The Greek word chronos means "time" in a quantitative sense, chronological time, time that you can divide into minutes and years, time as duration. It is the sense that we mean when we say, "What time is it?" or "How much time do I have?" or "Time like an ever-flowing stream," in one of the hymns that we sing. But in Greek there is also the word kairos, which means "time" in a qualitative sense—not the kind that a clock measures but time that cannot be measured at all, time that is characterized by what happens in it. Kairos time is the kind that you mean when you say that "the time is ripe" to do something, "It's time to tell the truth," a truth-telling kind of time. Or " I had a good time"—the time had something about it that made me glad. The ancient poet who wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes was using time in a kairos sense when he wrote of a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to keep silence and a time to speak.

-Frederick Buechner, originally published in The Hungering Dark and later in Listening to Your Life.

"Holy Virgin Mary" by Walter A. Aue, on Flickr

We all need to be told that God loves us, and the mystery of the Annunciation reveals an aspect of that love. But it also suggests that our response to this love is critical....

Mary's "How can this be?" is [simple and profound.] She does not lose her voice but finds it. Like any of the prophets, she asserts herself before God, saying, "Here am I." There is no arrogance, however, but only holy fear and wonder. Mary proceeds - as we must do in life - making her commitment without knowing much about what it will entail or were it will lead. I treasure the story because it forces me to ask: When the mystery of God's love breaks through into my consciousness, do I run from it? Do I ask of it what it cannot answer? Shrugging, do I retreat into facile cliches, the popular but false wisdom of what "we all know"? Or am I virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say something new, a "yes" that will change me forever?

-Kathleen Norris, from "Annunciation" in Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

"Annunciation Mosaic" by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P., on Flickr

It came to me, recently, that faith is "a certain widening of the imagination." When Mary asked the Angel, "How shall these things be?" she as asking God to widen her imagination.

All my life I have been requesting the same thing - a baptized imagination that has a widen enough faith to see the numinous in the ordinary. Without discarding reason, or analysis, I seek from my Muse, the Holy Spirit, images that will open up reality and pull me into its center.

This is the benison of the sacramental view of life.

-"A Widening of the Imagination" by Luci Shaw, in Wintersong

"Waiting" by Alli, on Flickr

Waiting is essential to the spiritual life. But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for. We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus. We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit, and after the ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory. We are always waiting, but it is a waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God's footsteps.

-Henri Nouwen, from "Active Waiting" in Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith

"Perseids 2014" by Carlos Bueno, on Flickr

As much as well-meaning Christians have tried to convince me that I cannot love creation with anything close to the love with which I love God, I remain unconvinced. If I am allowed to love the water of baptism, the bread and wine of Communion, the oil of healing, and the wood of the cross, why am I not also allowed to love the heavenly moon?

If Christians look to creation for wisdom about the spiritual life, seeing resurrection in springtime, divine promise in a rainbow, or the flight of the Spirit in a dove, why don't we look to the moon for wisdom about our relationship with God? Sometimes the light is coming, and sometimes it is going. Sometimes the moon is full, and sometimes it is nowhere to be found. There is nothing capricious about this variety since it happens on a regular basis. Is it dark outside tonight? Fear not; it will not be dark forever. Is it bright out tonight? Enjoy it; it will not be bright forever.


-Barbara Brown Taylor in Learning to Walk in the Dark (p. 166, 171-172)

"Sidewalk Chalk Art," by Andy Purviance, on Flickr

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.
...
Clearly, human transformative activity depends upon a transformed imagination. Numbness does not hurt like torture, but in a quite parallel way, numbness robs us of our capability for humanity.
...
The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that make it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger. Thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.

-excerpts from The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann

"St. John the Baptist" by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P., on Flickr

Zechariah stops dead in the middle of his grand Benedictus [the song crying out, "Blessed be the God of Israel!"]...and instead starts singing to baby John. Picture him, the great priest and prophet, turning from his audience to his son, switching from oratory to lullaby, public to private. Picture him stroking his son's face and choking up as he sings these words to him....

That Luke recorded this song in detail can only mean that it was intended to be used, said, and sung to other babies. Not everybody can be Jesus. But anybody can be John. Anybody can point to Jesus, tell the world that the dawn is on its way, get a glimpse of God on the road, and yell, "Everybody! Look over there!"

--from All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas by Quinn G. Caldwell

"Kri Kri, on the shores of Lake Chad" by European Commission DG ECHO, on Flickr

Mark 6:30–34, 53–56
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

--
Last night, we had the pleasure of welcoming Bayo and Mary Beth to worship, where they shared with us the current news and notes from their missionary work in Nigeria. They shared good news of successfully arranging transport of shipping container, which was filled with children's books for their school library and with medical supplies to help furnish their clinic. They introduced to us, via powerpoint, some of the children under care at their mission, and to some of the school children who are flourishing in their studies. Mary Beth beamed with pride over pictures of the teachers that she has been training. Bayo beamed with price over pictures of his six hundred chickens that are a self-sustaining means of food and income. We met many of the core staff of the Meshiah Foundation, which is the name for the whole operation that Bayo and Mary Beth have planted in Jos, Nigeria.

But they were perhaps most pleased and excited to show us pictures of their now-completed medical clinic, a project that was in its last stages of construction two years ago when they were here last. A fully-functional clinic, with a doctor and nurses, lab technicians, exam rooms, a couple of overnight beds, and even some space for labor and delivery, stretched out across three different wings.

It was while showing us picture of the clinic that Bayo, who was running the powerpoint, stood up and stole the microphone from Mary Beth. He wanted to remind us of how this clinic came to be.

The clinic came about because there was first a need. Mary Beth and Bayo didn't head to Nigeria at the start of their mission journey saying to themselves, "So the plan, of course, is to build a medical clinic, and once we do that, we'll see if anybody will use it." No, they lived and loved and taught and proclaimed God's word in Jos, Nigeria, and as they did so, they started seeing the deep ways that HIV was affecting families. There were sick people in need of healing. Spurred on by their compassion for the needs of these HIV families, and other sick and suffering individuals, they teamed up with member churches - and First Lutheran, in particular - to start building a medical clinic.

The need came first. The need showed up on their doorstep. The needs of the community interrupted and interjected and stomped all over whatever other plans the Oyebades might have been making for their ministry, and it was by following the need that God revealed his ongoing plan for their work, a plan that now involves looking for donations of medical equipment to fill another shipping container sometime in 2016.

I think that sometimes, the work that God most calls us - and blesses us - to do, is to take care of the needs that show up on our doorstep, even or especially when those needs are nothing that we've planned or prepared for.

At the start of our gospel today, the disciples return from their mission to the villages. Two weeks ago, we heard Jesus send them out to heal, proclaim, and cast out demons. Today, they return, thrilled by all that God empowered them to do. Hurray!

And Jesus, himself knowing the energy it takes to love and serve others, encourages them to rest, and whisks them away to a quiet place.

Except that he doesn't whisk them quite quickly enough, it seems. While they are slipping off via boat, the crowds figure out where they're going, and rush their on foot, arriving before them.

Surely, in the name of keeping good boundaries, in the name of avoiding burnout or compassion fatigue, Jesus could have sent the crowds away, postponed them until he and the disciples had rested and eaten and were refreshed for ministry.

But that isn't what Jesus does. As he gets out of the boat and sees these crowds, he has compassion on them. He doesn't ignore their needs. He teaches them, and, in the verses that the lectionary cuts from today's gospel, he feeds them, and then he and the disciples get back in the boat, cross to the other side, and heal the crowds that meet them on the opposite bank.

I want us to consider, for a few moments, where we might find ourself in this gospel.

First, I think about all of those crowds. I wonder what it would be like if we felt as free as they did to admit our needs and to seek help for those needs. I wonder what it would be like for us if we trusted the power of Jesus enough to run directly to him with our burdens. I wonder what it would be like for us if we were so excited about the good news of Jesus that we literally ran to meet him with joy and eagerness.

And then I think about the disciples, tired from their work, who took Jesus at his word when offered them rest. I wonder what it would be like for us to let Christ be our rest. I wonder what it would be like for us to let Christ pull us off to a deserted place, away from our overflowing schedules and persistent news cycle.

And then I look at Jesus, and I also see the flip side of rest and rejuvination. Jesus tries to take a break, but the needs of the crowds follow him around. And he doesn’t use rest as an excuse not to help them. I wonder if we are as gracious with the needs that interrupt us. I wonder if we sometimes hold the cares of the world at arms’ length in the name of self-care or avoiding burnout.

Pastor Nadia Bolz Weber confesses,

I am really good at lying. And if I can go an extra step and make it look like I’m actually being good - if I can pawn off narcissism as a virtue, then I win. Like when I am just sick of [caring] about other people and want to be selfish so I call my two days of watching Netflix and getting mani-pedis ‘self-care.’ Or when I say I’m on ‘a cleanse’ so no one knows I’m really on a diet. The list goes on, and the last thing I want is for any light to be cast on the darkness that I’ve spent so much energy curating, protecting, enjoying. But it’s not a cleanse. It’s a diet. It’s not about my health, it’s about my vanity. (Pastrix, p. 71)

Oof. She speaks a hard truth.

Jesus challenges the disciples, and us, to be compassionate toward the needs that show up at the worst times, in the most inconvenient ways, those times when we most wish we could turn away, and take care of our own lives, when we feel like we have nothing left to give.

It's one thing to care for the needs of the world when we do it on our own terms. We plan service projects. We go on mission trips. We set scheduled hours for the food pantry and the free clinic and the community meal. LSI holds set office hours in the building. Joan is in the office at Community Action on a set schedule.

But what happens when the needs seek us out? Especially when we are feeling tired, or when we feel like we have already given our due? The discretionary fund request that shows up at my office door while I am working on a sermon. The food pantry client who shows up two minutes too late. The mission support and church budget needs that appear after we have already given our pledge for the week or month.

In our gospel, Jesus shows us a model of ministry that cares for the world on its terms, and not ours. A colleague of mine once remarked, "The distractions are the ministry," and there is some truth to that statement. Because doesn't it seem that the unscheduled needs and the spontaneous sharing of gifts and talents turn out to be the deepest moments of ministry and witness?

It is the needs that we don't plan for that challenge us to act on faith. It is the burdens that we don't have room for that challenge us to be more generous. It is the "distractions" to our regularly scheduled programming that humble us and remind us that our power to love and serve is not our own, but that of God working through us.

So what new ventures of compassion and care might God be calling us to do, if only we say “yes” to the distractions, to the interloping needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ?

For Bayo and Mary Beth, the needs of HIV-afflicted families showed up on their doorstep. From that need grew an incredible ministry of healing and generosity. Do we not trust that God can work just as powerfully through us, if only we allow the needs of the world to lead us?

Friends, week in and week out, we come to this place for rest. We hear the word of God, we linger over a holy meal, we recharge for the week ahead. It is here that we know Jesus as our rest and our respite. Today, we offer healing prayer during communion, and you are invited to be honest with your own needs and burdens, that you might hear a word of peace and healing.

But then know that even as you are refreshed, you are also sent back out at the end of worship, to live in love as Christ loved us. You are being sent out not just to seek out ways to serve and proclaim Christ, but also to open your hearts to the many and various needs that show up where we aren’t looking for them.

This week, may you find patience for the conversations that interrupt your schedule.

May you offer food or money to the hungry eyes that catch you at the most inconvenient moment.

May you lift up a heartfelt prayer precisely when you feel overwhelmed by the news of the day.

And may Christ, who is your rest, be also Christ your strength, to love and to serve with tenderness, as he as loved and served you.

"Christus Vineit" by Phil Roussin, on Flickr

Isaiah 6:1–8
Romans 8:12–17
John 3:1–17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

--
Friday night, I was jolted awake by the sound of a loud, unidentified crash from somewhere in the house. I shot out of bed and down the dark staircase to figure out what the cats had knocked over. I looked in living room: nothing. Study: nothing. Downstairs bathroom: nothing. Kitchen: nothing. Dining room: nothing. Back up the stairs I went. Upstairs bathroom? Ah, there it was. A basket full of nail polish bottles and assorted extra toiletries, that usually lived on a shelf above the sink, dumped over and scattered across the floor. I scooped everything back into the basket - nothing was broken, thank goodness! - and staggered back to bed. My heart was still pounding. I looked at the clock: 4:27 a.m.

I laid back down, pulled the covers up to my chin....and, nothing. No heavy eyes, no drowsy face, no sleepy limbs. I was wide awake. And inexplicably anxious.

You've all been there, right? Awake in the middle of the night, feeling every anxiety, every worry, thinking about everything that you wish you could forget and everything that you can't afford to forget, all at once. It is in the middle of the night that we feel most certain that our prayers have been lost, and when we also feel most certain that we have no other option but to keep praying.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I often find myself thinking about my dad, replaying over and over again his last days and moments in the hospital, as if there were anything I could do now to have changed the outcome.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I try to reason with the universe in order that I might make any sense of tragedies that shake our community. Tragedies like freak accidents that claim the lives of loved ones, or the dark and fear and inner demons that could drive a terribly young person to take his own life.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I worry about everything that is beyond my power to fix or to understand.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I have no patience for mystery. Insomnia makes me a chaser of reason, rationality, and control.

The same might be said of poor Nicodemus. He is a chaser of reason, of understanding, and I wonder if Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night because he too was already lying in bed awake, struggling with all of the mysteries of the universe, struggling with his own doubts, struggling with impossible questions that need answers.

Nicodemus gets out of bed, and comes to Jesus. They have this conversation that goes in circles, all about the work of the Spirit to rebirth and recreate hearts, and about the work of God in Christ to save the world and not to condemn it.

But dear Nicodemus, bless his heart, can’t wrap his head around all of it. He can’t for the life of him figure out the mechanics of rebirth, or what on earth Jesus means when he talks about being born of the Spirit, and even this business of a God who loves and a God who dies and a God who brings eternal life is a puzzler for him. Nicodemus tries to figure out the inner workings of God and gets stuck in mystery instead. He leaves with more questions than he started with.

Which is pretty much what happens to us every time we try to find answers for this mysterious thing called the Trinity. A word, of course, that Jesus doesn’t use, and a word that never shows up in the Bible, but a word that describes the very Biblical phenomenon of a God who exists and acts as Father and Son and Spirit.

Questions abound. How is God simultaneously three and one? How can God exist in three persons, but we still say that we are monotheists, worshiping only one God? How is God different than merely a shape-shifter? What is the heavenly “division of labor” and which person of God - Father, Son, Spirit - is responsible for which divine tasks?

Let's be honest, there is no "figuring out" the Trinity. Many have tried, many have failed. Heresies abound! In fact, over dinner earlier this week, Pastor Chad jokingly asked me if I was a risk to preach heresy this weekend, to which I responded that preaching heresy is a risk I take every single week, not just on Holy Trinity Sunday!

But very seriously, you'll never hear me claim to understand the Trinity. Because I don’t. Even Martin Luther himself, preaching on Holy Trinity Sunday in 1522, conceded that the best thing you can say about the mystery of the Trinity is that you don't understand it: "We cling to the Scriptures, those passages which testify of the Trinity of God, and we say: I know very well that in God there are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; but how they can be one I do not know, neither should I know it."

I might not understand the Trinity, but I understand dark sleepless nights. And I understand grief. And I understand that our souls constantly need to keep making the choice for hope and against despair. And I think the Trinity might have something to say about this.

Because having a God who exists as three means that we have a God who has experienced everything that there is to experience. God as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer has the divine ability to hold together all creativity, need, hope, suffering, and salvation. There is no dark night, no creative moment, no mystery or question or joy or confusion, on earth or in heaven, that God-in-three-persons has not already experienced, loved, and redeemed.

But more than that, at the heart of our faith is the cross. And at that pivotal moment when Christ died to destroy death, the whole Trinity was at work. While God in Christ faced death head-on, God the Creator took on the work of grief, God the Spirit made space to do the work of hope and resurrection. Because the Godhead is three-in-one, God didn't die alone on the cross, God didn't grieve alone in heaven, and God didn't lose hope.

And when you put all three of these truths together, you find the whole work of salvation; a mystery as expansive as Isaiah's smoky, terrifying vision of God filling the temple, and yet it is a comfort as dear to us as a father's tender touch.

Paul writes, "When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him."

Yes, even as we cry "Holy, holy, holy" to a God bigger than we can fathom, we also cry "Abba! Father!" to the one who loves us and claims us, and carries us through our sufferings to the glorious promise of our salvation.

And so in our sleepless nights, in our dark nights of the soul, no matter what mysteries we face, no matter what anxieties plague us, no matter what feeble prayers we raise, no matter how out of control or fearful we feel, the Trinity reminds us that God is bigger than all of it. And God has been through all of it. And God will redeem all of it.

The God who fills the temple is the God who fills the earth, who is Creator and Redeemer and Life-Giving Spirit, who is so huge that there is no place on earth or in heaven, in our heads or in our heart, where God is not present.

Madeleine L'Engle says, “I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.”

Brothers and sisters, I do not know what your darkness is right now, whether you feel a few casual doubts or whether you wrestle with the very meaning of your life itself. But I do know when we, with Nicodemus, stumble along blindly under cover of night, we do not stumble to our doom; rather, we stumble blindly into the waiting arms of Christ. I know that in the waking hours of the night, when we reach out into the darkness, we do not reach out in vain; rather, we brush fingertips against the hem of God’s kingly robe, which stretches like a blanket over all creation. I know that when we face deepest darkness and long for sheltering wings, we do not go unembraced; rather, God pours upon us water and Spirit, flooding us with assurance of our baptisms, drenching us in the promise of God’s presence, cradling us in the reassuring and persistent flow of all love and rebirth and hope.

The Trinity is an eternal mystery. But it is proof for us that God is able - and willing - to reconcile all things to himself, no matter how painful or contradictory those things may be. The Trinity is assurance for us that we are yet children of light, even when we sit in darkness. For God loves the world. Christ saves the world. The Spirit breathes rebirth into the world. Even in the middle of the night, there is hope.

Let us pray.

God of the Heavens,
keeper of the stars,
Lord of the darkest, most remote places
of the universe,
the one who hovered and breathed life,
and the Creator of every living thing:
Be our salvation, our comfort,
our hope, for you are holy and righteous,
your words are true
and your light dispels all darkness.

Glory to the Almighty God,
Sun of Righteousness
and Breath of Life.
Amen.

(prayer by Thomas Turner; posted on everdayLiturgy)

"Des pieds et des mains" by Benoit Courti, on Flickr

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

-Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)

"Love one another" by Paul Scott, on Flickr

John 13:1–17, 31b–35
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean."

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord — and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
---

Wendell Berry writes,

I know that I have life
only insofar as I have love.

I have no love
except it come from Thee.

Help me, please, to carry
this candle against the wind.

The winds are blowing in Jerusalem.

Judas already has it in his heart to betray Jesus to the authorities, who see Jesus as not just a political rebel, but as threat to the general order, to the established patterns of temple life, and to the Roman regime.

Peter is already having his doubts and fears. His misgivings and misunderstandings peek through when he misinterprets Jesus’ foot washing gesture. He boldly protests Jesus’ prediction of his denial, perhaps he doth protest too much, because he knows that he is likely to crumble under pressure, to flake out when the going gets too tough.

Pilate is in town, and Caiaphas, and crowds of people who are easily swayed by mob mentality. The streets are charged with religious fervor, with the celebratory affects of festival, with the latent political clash of God’s liberated people living under Roman occupation.

The winds are blowing in Jerusalem.

And Jesus carries a candle against the wind, along the path into the city, past the palm branches, up the steps into a small, dark, borrowed room where he sits, elbow to elbow with those whom he loves. He carries the candle of love against the tempest that is brewing:

“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end,” we read.

For everything else that Maundy Thursday is about - holy suppers, washing feet, confessing together and hearing sweet and sacred words of forgiveness - this Thursday in Holy Week is always primarily about love.

The life of Christ hangs in the balance for saying radical things like, “All the commandments boil down into two: Love God and Love your neighbor” and worse yet, he has said stuff like “love your enemies, bless those who curse you.”

And now here he sits at table with his mixed bag of disciples - tax collectors and zealots and fishermen and contemplatives and betrayers and deniers. And at this table, he eats, drinks, serves, and then gives them a new command: that they love one another as he has loved them. A new command that love be his legacy and theirs. A new command to do the work of love, and by love to reveal God the Father and Christ the Son to the world.

The command is new because it is bigger than loving your neighbor as yourself. It is a new command to love your neighbors as Christ would love them. The new covenant in Jesus’ blood is a two-way promise of love. Christ, on his way to die for love of us. We, living beyond Christ’s death to bring his love to the world.

Loving as we have been loved. This is the candle we carry in the wind.

And the winds are blowing outside.

A few weeks ago, a bill passed in Utah to allow execution by firing squad. This morning, an attack on a university in Kenya was carried out by religious extremists. ISIS marches deeper and deeper into the heart of Syria. States in our nation are passing “religious freedom” laws that do not actually advance the cause of holy freedom, but hinder it.

A common thread among major religions of the world is the call toward love and service. And whenever religion interprets the idea of “freedom” or “liberation” as a way to love our ideas and reject our neighbors, then religion has failed.

Especially Christianity.

The new covenant in Christ’s blood, the meal that we share together, is a promise of our own liberation from sins, deaths, devils, and all powers of darkness. It is our promise that God forgives us, loves us, shows us grace upon grace.

We walk away from the meal holding onto two truths: 1 - that we have been shown liberating love in the sharing of Christ’s body, and 2 - that we are called and nourished to show liberating love to all whom we encounter.

Mind you, Jesus doesn’t ask us to like our neighbors, or to agree with them, or to excuse bad behavior, even. But Jesus does tell us to love one another.

There Judas is, sitting at dinner with Jesus and the rest of the disciples, and Jesus already knows that Judas is about to take off running from that upper room to give the secret signal to the police and the army that it’s time.

I can’t believe - can you? - that Jesus particularly liked Judas in that moment. And I’m pretty sure that Jesus didn’t agree with him. But Jesus loved him. Jesus loved him and served him.

And what of Peter? He is going to deny ever knowing Jesus, and he is going to pretend that he never walked on the water and forget that he was named the rock upon which God would build the church.

Around that last meal, I am going to guess that Jesus wasn’t liking Peter all that much, either. But he loved him. Loved him and served him.

Jesus took that towel and fell to his knees and scrubbed the toes of those whom he loved. How beautiful are those feet, the ones that walked the dusty road of teaching and healing and signs and wonders with Jesus. How beautiful are those feet, carrying the message of good news into the towns and countrysides. How beautiful are those feet, even as they will run off in the garden as fear and chaos scatter the disciples. How beautiful are the feet of the tax collectors and zealots, fishermen and contemplatives, even betrayers and deniers. These are the feet that Jesus loved.

“Do you understand what I have done for you?” Jesus asks.

“I have washed you clean and set you free. I have opened your eyes to see that you have been created by love, for the sake of love. I have shown you that love always manifests itself in service.”

“A new commandment I give you: that you love one another as I have loved you. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you show love to one another.”

Liberation. Love. Service.

This is the way of Christ. This is our new commandment. This is our candle, burning brightly, that the winds of fear and change will never extinguish.

I know that I have life
only insofar as I have love.

I have no love
except it come from Thee.

Help me, please, to carry
this candle against the wind.
(from Leavings, 2010)

"Aesculapius / Äskulap" by Harald Schmid, on Flickr

Numbers 21:4–9
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Ephesians 2:1–10
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

John 3:14–21
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
---

Every hero has a weakness. For Indiana Jones, archeologist and adventurer, his downfall is snakes. He can deal with bugs and with death threats, motorcycle chases and skeletons, gunfights and treachery. But not with snakes.

Unfortunately for him, we start with snakes today, out there in the wilderness with Moses and the Israelites. We are at year thirty-seven of their forty-year wanderings. Most of the old generation has died off. With the taste of milk and honey already starting to entice these wanderers, their dissatisfaction with the current situation grows and grows. "There is no food," they say, " and the food that God has provided is terrible." It's the joke that opens Woody Allen's Annie Hall: “Two women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of ‘em says: ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know, and such…small portions.’” There is no food…and the food is miserable.

Grumbling becomes anger, and anger becomes rejection of the very God who had drawn them out of their slavery in the first place, and they beg to go back to Egypt because they think slavery is no big deal compared to hunger and weariness. And God, frustrated to high heaven with this ridiculousness, sends the same sort of plague on his own people as he had sent upon the Egyptians. Snakes. Snakes everywhere. Snakes that bite. Snakes that bite with venom. Snakes that kill. Terrifying. I think I'm with Indy on this one...

Hearing the cries of the people, Moses intercedes, and God relents, and tells Moses that he is to fashion a serpent out of bronze, and put it up on a cross-pole, and everyone is to look up at it, and in the lifting of their eyes will come their salvation.

For author and theologian Phyllis Tickle, this story of Moses and the bronze serpent is a formative story in her own faith development. She spends a number of pages in her memoir, The Shaping of a Life, retelling the story and reflecting on it. She points out that God's promise to Moses is that the people will be saved from death when they are bitten…but not that they won’t get bitten in the first place.

She reflects, "Those men and women and children who believed [Moses] and believed in Yahweh's message through him looked up at the pole with its burnished snake and not down at the desert vipers who were besieging them. They elected by a combined act of will and faith to look, not down where the agony was and where the snakes might still be pulled from their bodies and their children's bodies, but up where they might live. And, the story says, some eighteen months later those who had made that choice were those who entered by way of Jericho and its tumbling walls into the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey...."

If you're keeping track of the oddly circular logic in the story, the Israelites are being saved from death by the very image of the thing that is killing them. And at the same time, the Israelites are still navigating a world of snakes, but have in the cross before them a way to make it through the snakes alive.

In our sister story today in John 3, the image of the bronze snake on the cross pole is reimagined as the image of Christ being lifted up on the cross.

In John 3, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, a pharisee, a teacher of the law, who comes to him by night, wondering what he needs to do to be saved. Jesus has been teaching many people, many crowds, healing people, doing signs and wonders, that people might see him and believe.

We’ve been spending a lot of time in Mark’s gospel recently, where Jesus keeps shushing people and telling them not to make a big fuss about the miraculous stuff he’s doing, because he wants people to see him first and foremost through the lens of the cross.

But in John’s gospel, it’s all about the signs. Signs and wonders are the way that people come to know who Jesus is and who he came from. In fact, the book is organized around seven signs of Jesus, beginning with his turning water to wine at Cana. John's gospel is all about “seeing-is-believing.”

When Jesus talks about people of light and people of darkness, and how they will be judged for their deeds, he is really lamenting that there are people in his midst who have seen him, have witnessed the signs and wonders, and who still choose not to believe him.

Jesus says to Nicodemus that those who refuse the light, those who see but do not believe, have brought judgement upon themselves, and their judgment is simply this: that they continue to do evil deeds in the dark, which is, as it turns out, exactly what they are too afraid to stop doing.

But to those who believed, to those who followed Jesus around in person, and saw, and saw some more, and chose to step into the light, these words in John's gospel are the assurance that their belief in Jesus isn't worthless, that there is something more that is promised them beyond the joy of following a pretty nifty savior around the world. For God so loved the world that he sent Jesus to bring eternal life. Yes, that's the heart of the matter. For all the signs and wonders and teachings, the bonus is that Jesus has all power to give life.

This is how John's gospel begins. "In the beginning was the Word," that is, Jesus. And "in him was life, and the life was the light of all people…The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it."

And how does Jesus bring this light to us? By being lifted up, just like a bronze serpent. Lifted up onto the cross. Lifted up from death to life on Easter morning. Lifted up from earth to heaven at his ascension.

Yes, at the end of a book of signs and wonders, John’s gospel will be about seeing Christ lifted up on the cross and believing, and it will also be about seeing Christ resurrected and believing, and then, for us, not seeing Christ in the flesh and yet coming to believe.

We live in a world that is full of light and shadows. There are blazing sunrises, but there are also starless midnights. There are good deeds done in the light and there are evil deeds done in the darkness. In ourselves, we know that we have bright sides and shadow sides. The conflict between good and evil, darkness and light, things of God and things not of God is a very real conflict.

We know that there are snakes that bite us as we wander the wilderness of this world, things that nip away at us and destroy our spirits, things that cause us fear and pain, things that sting us and poison us and take all life from us if we let them.

Phyllis Tickle says, “I…know for a hard, enduring fact that life is full of snakes; that they bite fiercely; that they will kill you if you look down and wrestle with them; and that, peculiarly enough, the very act of being wrestled with often is what gives them their potency. I had also learned that, just as the story teaches, looking up doesn't stop the pain immediately, but it does prevent death from it...."

Just as the Israelites were saved from snakes by lifting up a snake, the same is true for us: the remedy for our human brokenness, for the brokenness and sin that bite and devour us and our world, is the lifting up of human brokenness in Jesus on the cross.

The God who delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians, who parted the Red Sea, who gave manna and quail in the wilderness and water from the rock, who worked through Moses and a bronze serpent to offer healing is the same God who delivers and saves us by the cross of Christ. God in Christ gives us the gift of being able to lift up our heads to see God's promises instead of being stuck watching the snakes swirl at our ankles. We affirm a God of salvation who is not apart from the pains of this world, but who offers us salvation even in the midst of it.

And so our faith always puts a choice before us: The choice to step into the light of salvation, or the choice to stay in the dark and do evil deeds that are their own condemnation. In the words of 1 Peter, "To you then who believe, [Christ] is precious; but for those who do not believe...they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Paul, in Ephesians, reminds us that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. These works are a sign of our salvation; faith restores in us the ability to choose deeds of light over deeds of darkness.

Brothers and sisters, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to give us life when the world gives us snakebites. God did not send Jesus to the world to condemn us, but so that we might believe - that we might have proof! - that there is abundant, eternal life given to us as a gift of faith.

Lift up your eyes and see: there is light, even in shadows. There is salvation to be found. For Christ has been lifted up as a sign of life in the wilderness. And Christ says to each of us, “Walk on with me in this light, for we are about to cross over to the land of milk and honey. Do not be afraid. Lift up your eyes from the ground and live!”

Kelly Renee Gissendaner with the theologian Jürgen Moltmann in 2011, when she completed a prison theology program. Credit Ann Borden/Emory University; photo from New York Times

Genesis 17:1–7, 15–16
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. 2And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous." 3Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, 4"As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 5No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 6I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 15God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her."

Romans 4:13–25
13For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 16For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 17as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations") — in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be." 19He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. 20No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22Therefore his faith "was reckoned to him as righteousness." 23Now the words, "it was reckoned to him," were written not for his sake alone, 24but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Mark 8:31–38
31Then [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." 34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

---
There are times that you sit down with the lectionary and can think of a million different directions to preach. And then there are times when you don't have any clear idea, and so you pray - beg, even - for the Holy Spirit to show up. The problem is that sometimes, when you beg, the Holy Spirit indeed shows up...and you sort of wish she hadn't.

Today is one of those days. I'm sure that if I hadn't begged for the Spirit's inspiration, I would have preached some bland but nice sermon about God's covenant promise with Abraham and about the covenant promise that God makes with us through the cross of Christ. But instead, I prayed for the Holy Spirit.

And in a five-minute span, two things happened.

First, I read anew today’s reading from Paul's letter to the Romans, where he contrasts the judgement of the law with the promise of faith: "The law brings wrath,” he writes, and “for this reason [our inheritance] depends on faith, in order that [God’s] promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants.”

Second, I did a quick check of the news, and tripped face-first over the story of Kelly Renee Gissendaner, someone for whom the wrath of the law and the promise of faith stand in dire opposition.

See, Ms. Gissendaner is a death row inmate in Georgia. She was sent to prison in 1998 for orchestrating the murder of her husband at the hands of her boyfriend. Earlier this week, her final petition for clemency was denied by the Georgia board of parole, and she is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection this Monday (tomorrow).

In 2010, Ms. Gissendaner joined some of her fellow inmates in a year-long theology course, run by Atlanta-area divinity schools and universities. She became a dedicated student of theology, passionately devouring works by the likes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rowan Williams, and Jurgen Moltmann. As it turned out, Ms. Gissendaner's theology professor was friends with Professor Moltmann. If you aren't quite up on your contemporary theologians, Jurgenn Moltmann is a biggie. He's eighty-something years old and his works are pretty much required reading at all seminaries and divinity schools. With nothing to lose, Ms. Gissendaner asked her teacher whether it might be okay for her to write to him, thanking him for his writings, which had so moved and inspired her. The two became unlikely pen pals, sharing their faith and their insights with one another. Professor Moltmann even offered a commencement address for Ms. Gissendaner and the ten other inmates who were graduating the year-long theology course.

Ms. Gissendaner continued her theology studies even after the program ended, and has kept up her friendship with Professor Moltmann. She has leaned on her ever-deepening faith to sustain her through these last years in prison, and now into these last few days of her life. She has served as spiritual advisor and counselor to other women in prison with her. She has admitted to the brutal and broken circumstances of her crime. She has prayed and confessed and become a sign of the mercy of God. She has turned to God with her moments of trust and moments of doubt and moments of anger. And now, she looks to God as the giver of resurrection and life as she stares her own mortality squarely in the face.

Jesus says, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?"

Yes, Jesus says, the value of life is infinite, incomprehensible. So what does it profit any one of us to gain the whole world, and in the meantime, lose our lives? What is the cost of losing a life, either outside the law or at the hands of the law? What does it profit any one of us to be arbitrator of life and death? In the grand scheme of things, knowing that none of us will escape the cost of death, what is the true value of our lives, and where does that value come from?

Jesus, being no stranger to human life, human suffering, and human death, is also no stranger to being handed a life sentence. I have to believe that these words about the way of the cross are, at least in part, born out of the terror and grief of staring down his own untimely death at the hands of an empire, a law, and a people who will fail him.

We, as humans, routinely, spectacularly fail one another. Abraham and Sarah had failed one another in their childless old age. Peter had failed Jesus in a moment of weakness (and would continue to do so). Kelly Renee Gissendaner, by her actions, failed herself and her boyfriend and her husband and the social contract. And parole boards and prosecutors and judges and juries have now failed her. Someday, we, too, will be failed by our systems and structures, and ultimately, by our mortal bodies themselves.

The threat of death makes us honest, I think. Makes us see more clearly what really matters. Makes us more desperate to imagine a future with hope. Makes us more concerned with finding a word of promise to leave for those who will come after us.

This word of promise doesn't come from laws or institutions or human logic. Friends, our justice system will not save us. Neither will any attempts at vigilante justice. Neither capitalism nor Congress, banks nor universities, hospitals nor public servants will be able to guarantee us health, happiness, and life.

But Abraham and Sarah's story, the fervent and effective witness of Peter and Paul and all the apostles, and the very resurrection of Christ serve as reminders to us that the promise of God is an unbreakable promise for a future, and a future with hope, no matter how unlikely it seems. A future that is bigger than we are, a future that does not depend upon fallible human hands and hearts. A future of reconciliation and mercy and beautiful justice that God is ushering in despite all of our best attempts to mess it up.

My heart grieves, it breaks, for Kelly Renee Gissendaner. And for all criminals on death row. It breaks for their friends and peers and for their jailers. It breaks for lawyers and for parole boards and judges and juries. My heart breaks for the victims of violent crimes and their families and friends and supporters. I mean...my heart breaks for a lot of things. Basically, it breaks for all the ways that the laws of this world, written and unwritten, miss the mark in securing a hopeful future for all of our weary world.

The antidote to our grieving, breaking hearts? It is to lose ourselves in faith; to be absorbed by the divine light who gave us life; to put down the cross of anxiety or fear and to take up the cross of Christ; to be willing to lose everything that we might, at the mouth of the empty tomb, gain back everything we hoped for and more. Christ's resurrection is our unshakable assurance of God's promises fulfilled, of the perfect completion of the covenant that God makes with each of us.

When we set our minds on these divine things, rather than on human things, we will see that, though none of us is righteous by our own means, we yet receive righteousness reckoned to us by faith. And whenever and however our mortal lives are taken from us, it is by our faith in the gospel that we - and even Kelly - will yet receive life everlasting.

In the words of the aforementioned Jurgen Moltmann, from his work, Theology of Hope:

Faith…becomes itself a contradiction to the world of death. That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present.

The promise of God for us and for all creation is permanently marked on each and every one of us, in that oil-drawn cross on our foreheads, given to us in baptism. The oil may have long faded away, but the cross marks us forever. It remains our assurance of hope, but is also stands as a testament to our calling.

May we bear God's hope into the world in many and various ways, but specifically as we, the baptized, take seriously our vocation: To live among God's faithful people; to hear the word of God and share in the Lord's supper; to proclaim the good news of God in Christ in word and deed; to serve all people, following the example of Jesus; and perhaps most importantly in our current world, to work for justice and peace in all the world; not peace as the world gives, but peace according to the compassion of Christ.

I pray today for you and for me, that God would raise up in our hearts a fire for justice and an tenderness toward all creation. I pray that we might not fear, but be bold in our proclamation that God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's promise of hope is deeper than human ambition. I pray for Kelly and those who love her. I pray for her murdered husband and all who love him. I pray that we, as a society, continue to question and struggle and seek ways to protect and preserve life. I pray that each of us, driven by our faith, will anticipate God's risen and restored future, and work to bring about glimmers of that light-filled kingdom, however imperfectly.

We pray, come, Holy Spirit, come. Live in us. Move in us. Breathe in us. Challenge us. And send us out as signs of hope, symbols of peace, living witnesses to Christ, our savior, our redeemer, and the life of the world.

Amen.

"manger" by Sketcy-G, on Flickr

"It is in the dark that God is passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God has abandoned, but the exact opposite: God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can't see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us... "

― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Three beautiful thoughts from Dietrich Bonhoeffer about the ways that God loves us and comes to us in Advent and Christmas:

Just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives...

God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly… God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken...

Jesus stands at the door knocking (Rev. 3:20). In total reality, he comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. That is the great seriousness and great blessedness of the Advent message. Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us.

-from God Is In the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

"To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness - you shall love him."

-Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces

In the Incarnation, Christ became a living metaphor - the Word. Jesus took the risk of reducing himself to what we could see and touch and listen to, a living message that bridged the huge communication gap between deity and humankind.

-Lucy Shaw, Wintersong

It's a little early in Advent for a "Jesus is born" lullaby, but I heard this for the first time yesterday and was completely captivated by it. It is sweet, charming, peaceful, and just enough surprising to keep you listening intently. It is a rocking song of the salvation for which we wait: Christ will come soon, as a little bitty baby, to save us, to lighten our dark world with a bright star.


Motets: Lullay
Text by Carol Barratt
Music by Karl Jenkins

Lullay, lullay.
Lullay, my loved one, so peaceful, so small,
sleep while the world awakes.
Under the bright star just over your stall,
safe as the morning breaks.
Lullay, lullay.
Jesu, so peaceful, asleep in the hay,
rest till you hear us call.
One day you'll carry our sorrows away,
soon you will save us all.
Jesu, Jesu.
Lullay, my loved one, so peaceful, so small,
rest till the storms pass by.
Lullay, lullay.

"It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them." (George Eliot)

"We have art in order not to die from the truth" by Matheus Lopes, on Flickr

"Heavenly comfort is not comforting at all. Heavenly comfort, rather, is truth, which blows away human fantasies that we can live forever, control everything, or fake our lives before God."

-Sara Miles, City of God: Faith in the Streets