We go into the wilderness of life to be tested that we might become the Christ we are anointed to be; we do not go alone, we are filled and led by the Spirit of God.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The First Sunday in Lent, year C
   text: Luke 4:1-13

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Jesus wasn’t alone in the wilderness.

Think about that. This looks bleak, Jesus spending forty days in the wilderness of Judea without food. He was tested, tempted. He had no companions with him. But he did not face testing alone.

He left his baptism at the river Jordan full of the Holy Spirit, Luke says. He was in the wilderness by choice, to fast, to be tested, to learn what kind of Christ he would be. But the Holy Spirit filled him to overflowing, and, Luke says, “led” him through those forty days.

Jesus faced his wilderness, his learning, his testing, in communion within the Triune God. That made all the difference.

What’s challenging is knowing what this has to do with us.

How does this story connect with us? We’re not Jesus.

We can’t compare to the Son of God. Consider his wilderness experience: well, he was fully God and fully human. Of course he handled this, we say, he is God’s Son. Whenever he had crises, we forget Jesus was fully human and sometimes assume his truth as the Son of God got him through, made it easier for him.

Well, what if it did? What if it was easier because of being God incarnate? Isn’t that also our truth? Repeatedly we are taught in the New Testament that in our baptism into Christ, we are joined into the life of God, made children of God ourselves. We are anointed, are Christ ourselves. We are, as Luke reminds us in Acts, filled with the Holy Spirit, ourselves, who leads us by the hand.

How can we be alone in our wilderness, then, when we have this same advantage Christ had to handle the tests we face in being Christ in the world?

But then we wonder: can we claim we live in a wilderness?

Most of us haven’t done a forty day fast in rugged terrain without any human support. The forty days of Lent mean to give us the spiritual sense that we are engaging in such a testing, but we keep eating and being with people.

Even if we say all life is a wilderness, we know we have it better than most. We’re privileged, wealthy people who have compassion for those who suffer. So we discount our own struggles because we always remember so many suffer far worse.

And they do. But that doesn’t mean life isn’t challenging for us. We can work for the healing of the world, care for those on the brink of death and loss and pain, and still recognize that we, too, walk in the wilderness.

We face all sorts of challenges from within and without. Doubts about our goodness, fears about our future, threats to those we love. No one in this room hasn’t faced deadly illness or death, either themselves or with a loved one. No one here hasn’t faced a desert time where God seemed absent, where we were feeling spiritually empty, if not physically hungry.

Life is often wilderness time. We don’t need to compete for whose is worst.

We also are tempted, tested, by the demonic. 

Luther taught us that our testing comes from the devil, the world, and our sinful self, and all of these challenge us.

It can be embarrassing in some circles to speak of the devil. Maybe some have moved beyond belief in such things. But it doesn’t take much to see forces working in the world beyond simple human choice, forces in society, culture, even in mobs, that carry great power. They may not challenge us directly, as our ancestors felt. But seeing the evil perpetrated in the world, we can join those ancestors in acknowledging unseen forces working against God’s loving will for the world.

As for the world, we know that testing well. When children are teens we warn about peer pressure, but it’s rare that we aren’t pressured by culture, society, or led astray away from following God’s path. Our culture is designed to promote materialism, destructive self-centeredness, and individual autonomy as the prime good. We can’t claim that never tests us, challenges our faith, leads us to choices we later see are not of Christ.

And the sinful self? If that were the only testing in our wilderness we faced, it would be more than enough. Our own internal demons, ruts we’re stuck in, thoughts of inadequacy and failure that plague us, desires and wants that lure us, the fear of not being loved that haunts us: we may not easily speak of external devils, but the ones that wait to plague us from inside are all too familiar.

We often think we’re alone in all this. Like Jesus, we’re not.

Sometimes it’s easier to see our demons than the Spirit within us. We know our failings, our internal and external struggles. We know when we’ve messed up, when we’ve not been what we want to be, let alone what God wants us to be. These things we see easily. Sometimes we feel we’re in this by ourselves.

But we have a promise from the Triune God that we are not alone. In our baptism we were anointed with the promise of the Spirit, and that Holy Spirit is filling us even now. It’s only a matter of looking for God’s movement in our lives.

We see the Spirit in our lives when we follow Jesus’ model of constant communion. The Spirit led Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus walked with the Holy Spirit as companion and guide. That’s our gift. We can live our lives with open hearts and minds to God’s Spirit, a life of walking prayer. It takes reminding, being attentive. We’ll forget sometimes. But take this promise seriously. God is with you.

We need to talk about this together, too. Tell each other when we sense the Spirit’s presence, when we see the Spirit’s guidance. If we’re really not alone, it’s critical we name that when we see it. When we see glimpses, even if as in a mirror’s reflection, we point it out with joy so others can see.
And we do glimpse things like the fruits of the Spirit, when we see love, or joy, or patience, or self-control, all these gifts. We glimpse those moments of inner peace when we know God is with us, however fleeting. Or those times when we felt confidence from God to face life unafraid. These glimpses come to us. We would make such a difference if we told each other this.

Life’s wilderness is actually a gift to us, as it was to Jesus. It’s where and how we become what we’re meant to be.

Jesus intentionally went from his baptism into this testing. He needed to face whatever demons challenged him, learn what kind of Christ he was to be. How would he use his power? How would he lead people? How would he trust in God? In each test, he made decisions with great implications for his teaching and ministry, decisions that led directly to the cross. With the grace of the Holy Spirit, he made it through this testing, was filled to become what he was meant to become.

Like Jesus, we are tested as to what kind of Christ we are, and given the Spirit’s grace to become that. We need to know the Spirit’s presence even more, since we sometimes need to be convinced we are also Christ.

As the Spirit gives us grace to endure, to stand up for who we are called to be, gives us wisdom in our decisions and our plans, comforts us in our hunger and fear, we grow. We become. We are made holy, like Christ. We’ve seen glimpses of this, and we will again, because this is really happening to us.

That doesn’t mean our path won’t be hard. It will. But we won’t be alone.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The purpose of our faith practices is not to improve our reputation or to prove to others our holiness. The purpose of our faith practices, rather, is to deepen our relationship with God, to practice humility, and to go about our daily lives with intention and focus.

Vicar Anna Helgen
   Ash Wednesday, year C
   text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you and peace, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Around this time two years ago, I was just beginning my spring semester at Luther Seminary, and I was signed up for a bunch of classes, including Lutheran Confessions. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this class, not because I wasn’t interested in learning about the Lutheran Confessions, but because I was dreading one of the assignments: memorizing Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. The Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, the Sacrament of the Altar, all the explanations to those things, plus all 28 articles of the Augsburg Confession.

I am not good at memorizing things. I can do it, sure, but it takes me a long time. So I knew this would be a challenging assignment for me. I spent hours pacing through our condo in St. Paul, reading off of notecards, and then repeating back to myself. “I believe that God has created me together with all that exists. God has given me and still preserves my body and soul: eyes, ears, and all limbs and senses; reason and all mental faculties.” And so on and so forth.

Well, in the midst of all these studies, my dear grandmother became sick. She quickly entered hospice care and my family rushed to be with her in her final days. For the next week we kept our own sort of vigil with Grammy. It was lovely to spend that time with her, and amidst the grief and tears, there were holy moments of laughter and joy.

And then one morning, very early, she died. My mom and I had spent the night with her, and I woke up early in the morning to the sound of silence, quite a contrast to the erratic rattling breathing we’d heard as we fell asleep. I woke up my mom, and together we went in to check on Grammy. And she was gone. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

So we did the only thing we knew how to do: we prayed the Lord’s Prayer together. And at the end I felt such peace, because in my head I was hearing all those explanations that I’d memorized, especially the explanation to the seventh petition: ”And deliver us from evil.”

What does this mean, you might ask? “We ask in this prayer, as in a summary, that our Father in heaven may deliver us from all kinds of evil–affecting body or soul, property or reputation–and at last, when our final hour comes, may grant us a blessed end and take us by grace from this valley of tears to himself in heaven.” Embedded in this petition is a promise that through Christ we shall overcome all things, even death.

Together we clung to that promise, my mother and I, to that blessed end. Which is also a beginning. God’s beginning for us. Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

As we hear these words today and make our way into the season of Lent, we too are reminded of our own mortality. That without God, our lives are dust and ashes. They are empty vessels. Today, we remember that it’s not about us. That with God, the Spirit gives us life abundant. Fullness. And hope.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us some clues about how we might live fully, with God at the center of all that we do. “Give alms, pray, and fast,” Jesus says. But he doesn’t invite us to these practices, he assumes that we already do them. “Whenever you give alms…whenever you pray…whenever you fast.”

I like this. Because it reminds us that there is value in the faith practices that we already do. His point, of course, is that we don’t show off. The purpose of these faith practices is not to improve our reputation or to prove to others our holiness. That is how we store up treasures on earth, “where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal.” There is shallowness there. And emptiness.

The purpose of our faith practices, rather, is to deepen our relationship with God. To practice humility. To surrender. To go about our daily lives with intention and focus. This is how we store up treasures in heaven–treasures with God that cannot be taken away from us. Practicing our faith with intention helps us to live confidently in Christ’s promises for us. We have courage to go into the world and live as God’s people, knowing that we are forgiven, loved, and blessed. Here there is depth. Meaning. And promise. For today and all the days ahead.

In this season of Lent, as many of us may begin a spiritual discipline, I appreciate that Jesus gives us permission to carry on in our normal business, but with this new intention. At the time when I was memorizing Luther’s Small Catechism, I certainly didn’t see it as a faith practice. It was homework! But after days and days of memorizing, it became a practice for me. A habit where I’d spend an hour or so each day working on the Small Catechism.

Soon, the explanations to these important confessions of faith became a part of me. They weren’t just words on a notecard; they became truths that I lived out in the world. This practice changed the way I experienced life. And when confronted directly with my mortality and the mortality of someone I love, I had hope. I heard Christ’s promise of the resurrection. And I believed it. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Those seminary professors knew something when they assigned this exercise. While the words may fade from memory (and many of them have), God’s promise of hope made known to us in Jesus Christ certainly will not. And that is the purpose of our Lenten disciplines: that we may be moved from our self-centeredness to God-centeredness.

In Lent, we remember that our faith practices are gifts of God, gifts that bring us back into relationship with God–who forms us from dust, who by his death and resurrection gives us eternal life, and who makes us holy and equips us for the work of the kingdom. We give extra focus during Lent so that these practices might become a part of who we are, so that during the rest of the year we can simply live out this intention and embody God’s love in the world.

In the coming weeks, may you continue in your faith practices with intention. May you have the courage to live out your faith boldly for the sake of the world. And, when you need some extra encouragement, may you be immersed in God’s abundant grace: a grace so amazing it turns endings into beginnings and brings life out of ashes. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Amen.

In Jesus’ transfiguration we get a glimpse of his divine glory, enough to give us hope as we follow him to the cross, as he walks with us in the suffering of the world, hope as to what we, and the world, are being transformed into.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Transfiguration of Our Lord, year C
   texts: Luke 9:28-36; 2 Corinthians 3:12 – 4:2

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Why did Jesus need Peter, James, and John on the mountain?

They kept silent about it afterward; they were so sleepy they almost missed it; he didn’t ask any of his other disciples to come. What value did they bring?

It’s clear this experience was a gift to Jesus. After this, he turned toward Jerusalem, toward his suffering and death. But here he was strengthened by Israel’s greatest leaders, the prophet Elijah, the lawgiver Moses. Luke says they spoke of his “exodus,” his departure, that is, about the cross he was facing, what was to come. Jesus needed this encouragement, this conversation with people who understood what was to happen, something we rarely say about the disciples.

And that cross was a very different scene. On that other mountain, really a hill, everyone saw what happened, not just three. On a highway outside a major city at the most important Jewish festival, thousands likely saw the humiliation, torture, and execution of Jesus, the Son of God. Unlike today, that hill was very public.

Maybe Peter, James, and John needed to be on this first mountain because what they saw was going to be important later. This glimpse of Jesus’ divine glory became an important reminder to the Church that what happened on the cross had a deeper truth than those thousands could have understood.

What they couldn’t see, what Peter, James, and John had glimpsed, was that it was God on that cross.

The second mountain was public because this is what God needed the world to know.

The way of the cross is the way of God. This is how God heals the world’s suffering. Not by shining in glory, as on today’s mountain. Not by overpowering oppressors or destroying the wicked, as we sometimes hope. Jesus’ “departure” he talked about today was how God would change the world.

This is the center of our faith: the Triune God who made all things answers the pain and suffering of our world by becoming one of us, living among us, and entering the depth of that pain and suffering. The cross shows us all that God’s love will enfold the whole universe, but that love only lives on a path where we win by losing, we live by dying.

God needed the world to see the cross to understand this truth. And then to follow this path.

But Christ’s path is abundantly hard to walk. We’ve long known this.

There’s a reason the Church so easily falls for the power games of the world, so quickly seeks the security of dominance and control, even though we know that’s a false security. Our faith is centered on a God who gives up power willingly, but we go the other way so often because the path the Triune God walks is a hard, frightening path.

We fear losing, letting go. We fear not knowing all the answers. We fear true love, which, as Paul told us again last week, is deeply self-giving. So much so the world can’t abide considering it, substituting all sorts of nonsense for love. We know having our Lord walk beside us in our suffering, sharing the pain of the world, is a gift. But we’d rather that gift included our never having to suffer for the sake of someone else. We’d rather an easy path where all things feel good, and we never doubt, and no one ever hurts.

Unfortunately, that isn’t Christ’s path. So if we are, as we believe, also Christ, anointed ones of God, well. The hard path is the only one for us.

Maybe this is why those three witnessed today: to give an encouraging glimpse of who it is we follow, so we will follow.

Today’s glimpse reminds us of the profound mystery: it was the God of the universe hanging there.

Seeing a glimpse behind the curtain of Jesus’ humanity gives us hope. If God can face death and bring new life, then even if this path is hard, even if it means dying in little ways every day, we, filled with the Spirit of God, will find life. If this is truly how God deals with suffering and pain, and transforms it to healing and wholeness, we, filled with the Spirit of God, can trust this path even when it’s overwhelming.

At the center of our Eucharist we say this: When we eat of this bread, and drink from this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. We proclaim the Lord’s death. Every week we remember we have to account for this in our theology and life: the one, true God entered death, now lives, and is coming.

It really was the God of all who faced that. That’s who walks beside us, leads ahead of us, and sustains and fills us on the path, whenever we are afraid, or stumble, or want to turn aside.

Now, we don’t often see these glimpses clearly.

Sometimes the best we have is this third- or fourth-hand account: Peter, James, and John pass it to others, who tell the evangelists, who share it with us. We don’t always see God when we look at the cross. But Paul says that’s fine. We might see dimly, like a reflection (this is twice in two weeks we’ve heard him say we see as in a mirror), but we see something. And it’s enough to go on.

We know in that dimness who is with us. And we see in that reflection a sign of who we are becoming. Paul says we are being transformed into the same image, into that glimpse. Into the likeness of Christ.

Not surprisingly, we only see this in ourselves in glimpses, too.

If our destiny is that in walking Christ’s path of self-giving love, we become the Christ we follow, we don’t often see that clearly.

We know our flaws, we fret about our weaknesses. But every so often we have a moment where it makes sense, where we act, and realize the Spirit is there, where we know we are Christ. We get a glimpse of ourselves, like in a mirror, transformed. And that, too, is enough to keep us going.

Sometimes we can even look back with a few years’ perspective on our lives, and marvel at how different the Spirit has made us. The glimpses in the moment become, after many years, realities of the children of God we are transforming into.

So now we turn to Lent, to practice walking this hard path.

We get a glimpse today of who is walking with us, and filling us. And of who we are becoming.
And that will get us through. These glimpses of Christ in our lives, of the moments we are Christ, help us set aside our fear and our reluctance and step forward on Christ’s path.

Today in our liturgy we remind ourselves of this. We bid farewell to Alleluia in Lent so we can focus. We need Lent to teach us once again what it is to walk Christ’s path, to follow the way of divine love with our lives.

But we carry through Lent the glimpse of Alleluia with us in our hearts until the Easter feast, even as we carry through life’s wilderness the glimpse of the image of God who is with us, the image of who we are becoming, until we fully see all.

And “so we do not lose heart.” By God’s mercy we live our ministry. We see this, if only in glimpses. And we do not lose heart.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

When we use our gifts for the sake of the other, and act out of love, we embody the love that Paul describes in his letter to the Corinthians. With this love, anything is possible.

Vicar Anna Helgen
   The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, year C
   texts: Jeremiah 1:1-4; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you and peace, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“…For you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.”

How often do we feel like Jeremiah? Inadequate, unprepared, and not ready for what God calls us to do. “But I’m only a boy!” says Jeremiah. If God said these words to me as a child, I’d come up with an excuse, too.
I’m only a kid!
I don’t know what to do!
I haven’t been trained for this!
I don’t have time!
Can’t you ask someone else?

The truth is that God calls all of us–the young and the old, the weak and the strong, the willing and the reluctant–to carry out God’s mission in the world. To go where God sends us and speak what God commands us. If you’re feeling a little unsure, like Jeremiah, find comfort in the fact that God knows us from the very beginning. Even before we are formed in the womb, God makes us holy, and equips us with gifts so that we might share God’s love with all the world. We might still have questions or hesitations, but we can trust that God works with us in our reluctance and uncertainty, helping us to discover who exactly God calls us to be in this time and place.

Through a family acquaintance, I learned the story of the Schuster family–a family that learned together how to answer God’s call and show God’s love to the world. The Schusters live near Bremerhaven in the northwest part of Germany. This mom, dad, and their 16-year-old son decided to volunteer to take in an unaccompanied refugee, a minor. It was an involved process–lots of red tape, background checks, education classes, and–most importantly–an agreement to accept the minor until he or she turns 18. They knew during this process that they’d have no say in the age or gender of this person. No say in anything about the person at all.

Finally, they were approved and soon after, the Schusters and this young refugee had a chance to meet one another and see if it would be a good fit. If either party was hesitant, then the process would not move forward. Thankfully though, that wasn’t an issue. The Schusters connected immediately with Sohrab, a 13-year-old boy originally from Afghanistan. After his father was killed, however, his family had escaped to Iran to flee the Taliban. Sohrab wasn’t allowed to go to school while living in Iran. So his mother put him into a refugee program so he would have the opportunity to continue in his schooling. He’d been living in Germany, awaiting placement, before he met the Schusters.

When the Schusters met Sohrab he could only speak Farsi and a few words in German and English. He didn’t have many of his own belongings, so the Schusters bought him new clothes and a smartphone, so he could feel at home and be able to contact his family in Iran. Together, the Schusters and their guest-son (that’s what they call Sohrab) use Google Translate, a smartphone app, so that they can communicate more effectively. Can you imagine the challenges of living with someone when you don’t know their language?

When Sohrab first arrived, he slept and ate. A lot. With all his traveling and time spent in refugee camps, he didn’t get much rest. Now that he’s arrived in his new home he’s catching up on sleep and eating like any other growing teenage boy. He has started to interact more with the family, too. He goes to a school with other refugees and is taking intensive classes in German, so his language skills are improving making it easier for him to communicate with others. He’s also playing soccer which he loves.

The biggest worry of these unaccompanied minors is that they’ll be sent back to the refugee center. But the Schusters have done their best to make Sohrab feel welcome. Some of their relatives in the United States bought Sohrab his own laptop, so he’d have something to use in school and could more easily keep in touch with his family. Sohrab loved the gift and couldn’t believe it that it belonged to him! His guest-mom also thought it helped him feel secure in his new home since his extended guest-family in the United States thought of him as a new family member and welcomed him with a gift.

The Schuster family likely didn’t know what taking in an unaccompanied refugee would mean for them. They had their doubts and likely wondered if they could handle this. Other friends and family probably had their doubts, too. But even in spite of these concerns, the Schusters practiced love. They used their gifts for the sake of the other.

When we use our gifts for the sake of the other, and act out of love, like the Schusters, we embody the love that Paul describes in his letter to the Corinthians. This isn’t sentimental love, or romantic love, but love made known through our actions. The Corinthians were a squabbling bunch. They argued over what spiritual gifts were best and lost sight of how to use them. Paul tells them, and us, that if love is not at the center of all that we do, then we are nothing. Then our actions are worthless. Unproductive. Futile.

To embody this love in the world, we might have to take a risk, like Jesus. Jesus describes to the crowds in his hometown what this gospel-love looks like in the world. And he upsets them! Because this love propels us out of our hometowns–the places where we are most comfortable–and towards the other, into the unknown. It breaks down the barriers that place us against each other so that we can get to know one another and learn together how to live in community with all.

This kind of radical love is the purest expression of the gospel and is most fully revealed to us on the cross. It’s surprising and acts in ways we might not expect. It allows for disagreement, but does not create division. When this love flourishes and is practiced by a community, the gospel is made known to all. This is how love anchors us as a community of faith. There are no insiders and no outsiders. But all are united and included in the body of Christ.

When you doubt your place in the world or wonder if you have the gifts to share God’s love with others, remember what this gospel-love is like. With this love at the center, anything is possible.

In the words of Eugene Peterson:

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Thanks be to God for this love made known to us through Jesus Christ.
And thanks be to God for you as you share this love with all the world.

Amen.

We are anointed, we are Christ; let’s stop avoiding the obvious and trust that the Spirit is filling us to bring Good News in all we say and do to those on the margins, those for whom God is most concerned.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Third Sunday after Epiphany, year C
   texts:  Luke 4:14-21; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

That’s a great way to begin a sermon. Unfortunately, Luke only gives us the start, what Jesus “began to say.” In the next verse, which we’ll hear next week, we’re already on the crowd’s response.

Jesus makes a powerful claim, but Luke already made it. Today he introduces Jesus after his temptation as “filled with the power of the Spirit.” So we readers already know the Spirit is upon him. We expect he will do all these wonderful things.

Still, it’s a great sermon we never get to hear. Except we do. If we read Luke carefully, Jesus’ chosen text is woven into everything he did and taught. This really was fulfilled in their hearing, in this person who brought God to us. And if we read the sequel, Acts, we’ll find much interesting about us.

But let’s start with the Scripture he read. We’ve neglected these words too long.

Somehow this monumental declaration of the point of his ministry didn’t catch on with the Church as much as his words at the ascension.

The Church called those words in Matthew 28 “the Great Commission” and ran with them for centuries. “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded.” These have shaped Christian mission and theology since the beginning.

But what Jesus says today has been largely ignored by the Church’s power structures for most of the Church’s life. Yet this declaration is much more embedded in Christ’s teaching and theology than Matthew 28. It’s central to his understanding of his role as God’s anointed, and to his view of his followers’ role.

At the dawn of his ministry, Jesus says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus claims these words from Isaiah 61 are fulfilled in him and he does live them. He is good news to the poor, he gave the blind their sight, he freed many from oppressive lives, he declared the Good News of God’s favor and love for the world.

So far so good. Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah, and is filled with the Spirit. We believe this. But we’ve not been eager to follow Jesus’ path ourselves.

Making disciples is fine. But how did we decide these words didn’t apply to us?

Here’s what we miss: Luke believes as it goes with Jesus, so it does with us.

Read Luke and Acts side by side. In Luke, this is the first great scene we have in Jesus’ ministry, and he begins his ministry filled with the Holy Spirit and sent out to proclaim the Good News. In Acts, the first great event is when the Church begins its ministry by being filled with the Holy Spirit and sent out to proclaim the Good News.

For Luke, the Church is the Christ. The Spirit is upon us, and we are anointed to do these things. We’re very comfortable seeing Jesus in this role. But we have not done very well to live as Church into the same role.

We don’t get any help in our avoidance from Paul, either.

Paul agrees with Luke: in the one Spirit we were baptized into one body, he says.

And we are all given gifts for the sake of the whole body, for the sake of the world. It’s a powerful description of the varied gifts each of us has, and how important they all are to the calling we have to serve each other and the world.

But again, we seem to miss the big picture: we are all baptized in the one Spirit, Paul says, into one body. The body of Christ. We are, once again, Christ. The anointed. The ones who are now called to bear Christ’s ministry into the world.

We all have different roles in that ministry, that body. But we can’t avoid that in our baptism we are not what we were, we are now all anointed, together, to be Christ in the world.

Why is it easy to imagine Jesus full of the Spirit and doing these things, but not us?

Why do we seem to regard Pentecost as a past event, unrelated to us?

Is it fear? Are we afraid of reaching out in the world to change real problems, to work on God’s greatest concerns? God cares about the poor, the oppressed, the captives, the sick, and calls us to do something for them, to declare in our bodies, voices, hands, that God has come to set them free. Are we afraid that we might fail?

Or is reluctance? Maybe we just don’t want to do these things. We’re happy to give them to Jesus, to pray for the healing of the world. But believing that we have been anointed, together, made Christ, together, that we might bring good news to the poor and oppressed, the captives and the blind, is that just something we don’t want to do?

We don’t have much wiggle room to avoid this if we call ourselves Christian, though.

The words of Isaiah Jesus repeats are clear: the Spirit is given us for a specific purpose. To do these things. Jesus said, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Spirit has anointed me to do these things.”

The Spirit’s gifts are given for a purpose. That we follow Jesus’ great mission here in Luke 4 and change the world. There’s no point in talking about gifts of the Spirit without also talking about and remembering they are given so they can be used to heal the world God loves so much.

This is who we are, Spirit-filled, this is our job. To bring good news to the poor. To proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. To let the oppressed go free. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Because we are anointed, we are Christ.

“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing.”

What would it take for each of us to say that today? What do we need to know to say it? What do we need to remove that is blocking us?

We should ask such questions, but let’s not waste too much time on them. Better to simply say what Jesus said and see what God does. To say out loud to each other: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, upon me, for the purpose of bringing Good News to the poor, and oppressed, and blind, and captive.” And then to say, out loud: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing.”

Then we’ll see what the Spirit is up to. Because she’s already been giving birth to this in us. Pentecost is an ongoing reality in our lives. Claiming it, declaring it, opens our eyes to see it is true. That it is fulfilled in us, today. The more we look, the more we’ll see this fulfillment.

And the world will never be the same. Neither will we.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen