All the signs of this story have told us for two millennia the kind of rule God intends to establish on this earth: a rule that is won heart by heart, in the most powerless places, until life is full and abundant for all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord
   texts:  Luke 2:1-20; 1 Corinthians 1:20-30 (not appointed for the day)

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

We should have known. We could have known.

It was always Bethlehem, not Jerusalem.

There was a lot of confusion about it then. Ever since, the Church has often remained confused.
In Jerusalem, in the seat of power, the great Herod fretted over news that another king was born. No divine announcement was made to him, though. In Rome, not even the Emperor knew anything was happening.

But on a hillside outside a tiny little town in the Judean wilderness, bright messengers of the One True God announced to outsiders that a child was born who was the Anointed One, who would rule the world in peace, peace for all, not just a few.

It was never going to be Jerusalem where God would rule.

We just seem to forget that we know this.

Maybe because the Jerusalems, the Romes, the Washingtons, seem to run our world.

They always have. People with power oppress and dominate others to get what they want. The world has worked this way for so long, it’s not surprising this way of the true God gets missed or ignored, even by those of us who claim to follow this Child, this Son of the Most High God.

People like the trains to run on time. We like to be comfortable, not messy. We like order, not chaos. We want to feel safe, and that means people in every generation are willing to let whoever’s running the world run their lives. As long as we think we’re OK, don’t ask too many questions.

Systems get built over decades and centuries that keep the majority of the world’s people in poverty and suffering while a small number prosper. Policies disguised as progress destroy the environment in just over a century, and again, the ones whom it costs most are those already suffering. Colonialism is replaced by capitalism, and those in power remain the same, they just rule in subtler ways than Herod or the British Empire. Demagogues rise in every generation who incite the poor and struggling by giving them someone to hate, someone to blame for their problems, while acting in ways that only exacerbate those problems.

If this Child is the way God is coming to rule this world, it’s hard to see how.

But if we’d been paying attention, we could have known.

From the beginning, it was Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, where God would rule.

It’s interesting, Micah’s prophecy of Bethlehem tells the truth: Bethlehem is one of the little clans of Judah, but from that smallness will come God’s ruler. Matthew seems influenced by the world’s ways and edits that, says Bethlehem is “by no means” the least. Bethlehem actually was small and insignificant, though. That’s the point.

The world’s seats of power, where people run the show, are ignored when God comes to rule.

God comes to a small town, overlooked by the world, and is born among us. The people who come and see are the small people, the ordinary.

This is where the King still truly lives. That’s where we will be, too, if we want to follow.

From the beginning, it was in poverty, not in wealth, in weakness, not in power, that God would rule.

This family from Nazareth is unremarkable. Like the majority of the world’s peoples, they lived day to day, as best they could, in deeply insecure lives, always on the edge of hunger.

The wealthy have built a world that protects their wealth. It’s taken centuries, but the system is running powerfully these days. The wealthy think they’re in charge, and since we’re also among them, sometimes we think the same. We might consider letting go of a little for others. But somehow we never quite do the overthrow it would take to make all people be able to live.

But God chooses the poor, the weak, as the place of coming. God wants nothing to do with people of wealth, who think they control, who won’t let go of what they have while others starve.

The true King is born to a family who has no influence or control, no wealth or power. That’s where we will be, too, if we want to follow.

From the beginning, it was in a refugee family relying on the kindness of strangers, not in secure people, that God would come to save.

This little family is pushed around by foreign powers just before the birth of the child, and treks to Bethlehem. Just after the birth, their own ruler wants the child dead, so they become refugees, fleeing to another country. They are homeless, like so many.

While those in charge rail against such people as a threat, from Herod to today, this is the way God chooses to come to us. To identify with the outsider, the alien, the refugee, and become one.

The true King willingly leaves the refuge of heavenly power, lives as a refugee from earthly power, dies at the hands of earthly power, to show the truth about power, that it’s a lie, and destructive, and death. This is the King’s path, and ours, if we want to follow.

The Triune God reigns in this world upside-down, always.

Looking for where God will reign means looking to the weak, the vulnerable, the lost, the poor. That’s who God became to be our King. That’s where God continues to be, at Bethlehem, not the seats of power.

God’s whole plan of rule is to win over our hearts by coming among us as the least, and showing us that identifying with the least and the last is the way of life for the universe, and for us. When we give our hearts to such a God, such a King, we follow the same path of vulnerability and weakness for the sake of the world. The path that the Herods of today mock as one for losers.

But when we follow such a King, such a God, with all our hearts, the reign of God actually comes to be in this world.

We have known this from the beginning, if we have sometimes forgotten.

One of our brothers in faith told us long ago that people demand signs and wisdom, “but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.”

God has chosen, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save the world.

A Lutheran theologian in this country recently wrote:

“In this sacred space, on [the] holy ground [of this world], God’s kingdom is realized on earth as in heaven when our hope for a contrary way sends us stumbling, falling towards goodness; we make our haphazard and unsure way through the darkness of human reality towards something hoped for, naively and bravely, in a world which desperately needs more courageous, outrageous love and kindness. . . . Our lives, though they feel small, have the power to change and heal our world, in all our imperfect stumblings through the expansive darkness.” [1]

Our lives, though they feel small, have the power to change and heal our world, in all our imperfect stumblings through the expansive darkness.

Because however small our lives may feel, it’s always to Bethlehem we stumble with the shepherds to see the true King, who became small to save us all.

God only works with the imperfect, the poor, the frail, the haphazard, the unsure, and from there brings life. We could have known this all along; it was always there in this story.

God only reigns in this world as one who wins our hearts by coming to us in all the unexpected and powerless places of the world. One at a time, as people give their hearts to this upside-down King, this ruler of stables and refugees, the world is changed, and we find hope. We could have known this all along, too; our King rules from a cross.

It’s always at Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, where we find the Lord, the King. In small, not great. And slowly, surely, God’s healing life spreads from there to all people.

Because to you, to all, is born this day a Savior who is the Christ, the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find God a little child, lying in a manger.

Go, look for Bethlehem. You’ll see.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] Rachel A. Crippen, unpublished paper, Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota; December 2015.

Each of us bears God into the world, like Mary, in ways only we can do, and we witness this to each other so together all can see the Magnificat promise coming to birth among us and in the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Fourth Sunday of Advent, year C
   texts:  Luke 1:39-45, plus Luke 1:46-55 (the Magnificat, appointed as the psalm for today)

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

I have no idea what it feels like to have a child leap inside me.

I have laid my hands on Mary’s stomach and felt it. But unlike her, I had to wait nine months to hold my child for the first time.

Some of us – men and women – just aren’t able to be pregnant. We can’t know what it’s like. Some of us choose not to be pregnant. Some have to wait far more than nine months to hold their child, and some who want to never get the opportunity.

So there is much some of us don’t know. We don’t know what it’s like to have another person growing and moving inside us. We don’t know what the signs feel like that things are changing, becoming. And I, for one, sometimes feel I’ve missed something important.

That’s a good thing to remember this Advent. Not sensing the signs, unable to feel the changes, unaware of growth and becoming, this mostly seems to be where we live today in a world waiting for God’s healing.

This beautiful song of Mary is full of promise. But is it happening?

Now, if the lowly are lifted up and the mighty cast down, the rich sent away empty while the hungry are fed, that means we’re likely going to lose some position, we know. Overturning everything about how this world works means we who are close to the top of the world’s order are going to lose ground.

But I believe, deep down we’re actually fine with that. We might think we’d fear it, but who among us wouldn’t be glad of a lesser lifestyle for the sake of peace and harmony in the world, and no poverty or hunger anymore? We’d get used to a simpler way pretty easily, and be able to see the joy of God’s grace filling everyone.

The problem is we don’t see signs this beautiful song is more than Mary’s dream. The proud are still full of conceit, the rich are getting richer, and the lowly are falling further behind. The hungry, well, let’s just say they’re not sitting back satisfied after being filled with good things.

What are we to make of this? Are we just repeating centuries of wishful thinking by singing with Mary?

Our answer might be in one simple truth about these women today: they’re pregnant. As we’ve said, pregnancy for many of us is waiting without direct experience of what’s going on. Only the pregnant ones can sense what’s happening.

So do you remember that Jesus and Paul both used the image of pregnancy and birth to describe God’s activity in the world?

Two men, who, like me, were never pregnant, saw pregnancy as a perfect model for how God is healing the world. They speak of longing for the birth of God’s kingdom, and the pain of the birth pangs as it arrives. Thinking about the Magnificat as pregnancy reveals something important about God: the Triune God’s going to take time to heal this world.

Pregnancy is necessary in animals because it takes time, in every species, for an infant to grow to the point where it can live on its own. God apparently feels the same thing about the kingdom. It can’t simply be dropped into the world. It needs to grow and develop and become what it needs to be.

Look at where we are right now in this story of the Incarnation. God begins this salvation by living in a womb for nine months. That’s patience. The Son of God takes years to grow to adulthood before beginning ministry. That’s patience. God continues this ministry by calling and inspiring and transforming people one at a time to bear Christ in the world. That’s patience.

The Magnificat will be fulfilled by God’s plan, as more and more bear God into the world. It just needs time.

So: if we’re a part of this pregnant grace of God, what can each of us bear and know that others can’t?

What movement of God can any of us feel that we can invite others to feel in us?

The remarkable thing about how God is bringing life and healing is not only that it takes time. It takes a lot of people, each gifted differently. These two women, Mary and Elizabeth, give birth to two astonishing sons, John and Jesus, who transform the world. That’s impressive. But not unique. Because we are all called to bear God’s life into the world.

So, what are you able to carry of God to full birth that other’s can’t? Do you bear God’s mercy? God’s patience? Can you carry God’s wisdom? God’s joy? Are you one who can help others see it’s OK to let go of things, to be a part of this Magnificat overturning?

God continues to be born in this world in us, and each of us will see signs others don’t, and bear God in ways others can’t.

Mary and Joseph, Zechariah and Elizabeth, remind us to do this.

These four are unremarkable people, ordinary people. But when they were asked to be a part of God’s birth into the world, they agreed.

If we’re waiting for someone else to do this, the world will have an even longer wait for God’s reign of peace. So each of us can follow these four and listen for where we are needed, for what we can do that others can’t, and then say yes.

What’s also lovely is that they support each other.

Mary goes to see Elizabeth, and these two women who’ve never done this before rejoice with each other. Help each other.

This we can do. We can help each other in our God-bearing in the world.

Because it’s not just helping others. It’s also how we get to see, feel, know from another person. Both these women are helper and helped. Elizabeth’s Spirit-given insight helps Mary know that her child is in fact what she was told. And Mary gives Elizabeth hope that her God is coming into the world.

This birthing of God’s grace and love into the world isn’t going to be easy to see. Sometimes we might not even know what we’re called to do. Sometimes we’re not going to feel strong enough to do what we’re pretty sure we’re called to do.

So we support each other, rejoice with each other, help each other. And we see things we could never have seen on our own.

In a way, the whole healing reign of God is a pregnancy.

That puts us all, and the whole universe, inside the womb of God. When Paul says in Athens that God is the One “in whom we live and move and have our being,” that’s a deeply feminine image of God. We live and move and have our being in God because we are in God’s womb, along with the whole creation, waiting for the birth of what God is doing.

But at the same time, each of us is bearing God in our own ways, pregnant with God’s life for the world, witnessing to what we’re experiencing, listening for signs of what we’re waiting for.

So let’s wait together, and tell what we see. Let’s let others feel God leap within us. Because then we’ll all know that we’re waiting for the real thing, for life, for God. And that God’s reign is being born even now among us.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Luke invites us to name the good news we see in the world for one another. In so doing, we shape God’s coming to us. We come to meet God as God meets us.

Vicar Anna Helgen
   Third Sunday of Advent, year C
   texts: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18

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.

Have you ever been geocaching? I haven’t yet, but I have plans to start because it sounds super fun. Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity where you plug in a set of coordinates into your GPS device (like a smartphone), and then you go to those coordinates to find a geocache, or what most people call, a cache. Each cache contains a logbook where you can write down your name and sometimes they contain other trinkets and toys that previous geocachers have left behind. It’s like going on a treasure hunt, but for all ages, and you can do it just about anywhere. Chances are there is a geocache hiding somewhere in this neighborhood, maybe even several!

My friend tells a lovely story of her first experience with geocaching. She was sitting on a bench near Lake Harriet, overlooking the rose garden when all of a sudden two dads and their sons approached and said, “We think there might be a geocache where you’re sitting. Can we look under this bench?” She moved, of course, and then witnessed the joy and celebration of these young boys finding the cache, recording their names inside, and then returning it to its place under the bench for the next geocacher to find. What a delightful moment of rejoicing to witness.

On this third Sunday in Advent, Paul invites us to “rejoice in the Lord always.” Lately I’ve found that it is hard to rejoice though because we’re confronted daily by the harsh realities of this world. There is so much to worry about. So many lives to grieve. So many broken systems. So much heartache and sadness. So much fear. How I’d love to feel like those young geocachers, finding joy in something so simple: following GPS coordinates, finding a box of treasures, and signing my name in a book.

Instead, I feel burdened. Burdened by what I hear on the news about violence, terrorism, and xenophobia. Burdened by this world, where it feels like everything is going wrong. Burdened because I don’t always know what to do in the midst of such conflicts and crises. Burdened because I can’t escape. We can’t escape. We are a part of this world, too.

I know there is hope in Advent, as we wait for Jesus to come to us in this world, in a human body. Because it reminds me that God gets it. That God knows what it feels like to have a sliver or to ache for those who are hungry even though our own bellies might be full. The realities of this world are embraced and understood by God. And God, too, feels burdened by the burdens that we carry.

We live in a time when rejoicing feels hard, and yet our scripture readings today invite us to rejoice, shout aloud, and sing for joy! God, too, is the subject of these verbs which is a fun thing to consider:  our God is one who sings and shouts and rejoices!

So let’s ask ourselves this same question as the crowds ask John the Baptist: what are we to do? How can we rejoice like those young geocachers? How can we sing praises in a time when the burden is so heavy we don’t feel like lifting our voices to sing? How can we shout aloud when all we can muster is a small quiet whisper? How can we join God’s voice in rejoicing at the goodness of God’s coming kingdom into our world?

John invites those gathered to share with one another, to be fair, and to be kind. These are simple behaviors, behaviors we learned as children, but ones that we all can practice in our daily lives. I love how John has a specific piece of wisdom for each group, like he knows exactly what they need to hear. We’re invited to practice this ordinary kingdom work, too–to share with our neighbors, to act with justice, and to be kind to one another. When we do so, our lives become places of holiness, thin places, where God’s presence is made known more clearly.

But we’re also called, like Luke the Evangelist, to claim this as good news. To name the promise of Advent…that God is near…that God is coming to us. When we name it, we are more likely to notice these encounters with the sacred, and then our hearts will be moved to rejoice–to sing with joy and celebrate the coming of God!

God’s incarnation is a strange reality, though. Because it is here, and yet it’s not. It is coming. It’s on the way. It is a work in progress. Our invitation from Luke is to inhabit this holy space, this already and not yet space, these moments pregnant with hope, joy, love, and peace. Those experiences of the ordinary that somehow transcend what seems possible given the world we live in. It’s about noticing the times when everyday people like you and me bring kindness and love to others. In so doing, we shape God’s coming to us. We name it for ourselves and for others. We come to meet God as God meets us.

This is why we pray “your kingdom come” Sunday after Sunday…so that our hearts and lives might be shaped by God and that we might better embody God’s justice and mercy in the world.

This is why we sing hymns, the young and the old, singing with one voice…so that the words we sing might join together and become true in our own lives and in the life of the community.

This is why we live as John invites us to live with kindness and love toward our neighbors…so that all might become participants in God’s reign of peace.

This is why we are able to shout with joy as we name this as good news. God’s incarnation is breaking in even when the powers of this world try to restrain it. There is reason to rejoice! Both for us, and for God!

When we act like God is actually coming into this world, then we somehow come to believe it. God shows up. God’s kingdom breaks in. We see it! And suddenly we become a witness, not just to God who is coming, but to God who is here, in our midst.

Perhaps for these next few weeks of Advent we might become something like geocachers for God. We can study the world with our Advent senses…living with an awareness of how God might be coming near to us through what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. You won’t need a GPS or a map; just yourself and your ordinary life. The goal of this Advent geocaching adventure: to seek the treasures of God’s coming into the world and name them as good news!

And, in case you need a little help along the way, a friend of mine who has logged many hours geocaching gives these words of wisdom: “Don’t just give up if you don’t find the cache right away. Sometimes it’s right there and you just have to keep looking for it. It might look different than what you thought. Sometimes it’s a really small container or it’s hidden in a funny spot.”

Whatever you do, don’t just give up. God is here. So keep looking. Keep sharing insights with one another. Keep spreading the joy and light of God’s coming into this world. And don’t forget that God often shows up in the most unexpected places!

Amen.

We have always known what God is doing to bring peace to this world. Here, once more, we remember. And we also remember that our lives are Advent, so it will take time. So we pray for God to direct us on the path to peace, and one day, all people.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Second Sunday of Advent, year C
   texts:  Luke 1:68-79 (the Benedictus, appointed as the psalm for today); Luke 3:1-6

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

“In the tender compassion of our God, the Dawn from on high shall break upon us:
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
And to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

You see, don’t you? We already know what we need to know to live in these times. We’ve sung it with Zechariah for 2,000 years.

Sometimes we forget we know this. So we come here to remember, to be reminded by each other.

Sometimes we remember we know this, but fear it’s not enough to stand in these times. So we come here to stand with each other in this community of Christ, and be encouraged – given hearts.

As distressing as these days are, the Good News is, we already know what God is doing in us and in the world to make all things new. The Good News is, because we are Advent people we already know this will take time. The Good News is, because once more we meet the Triune God here, and are healed by God’s Word and grace, we can remember again what we already knew. And once more find God’s peace.

The Dawn from on high is even now shining on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. We know this.

Because the Dawn, the Light of God’s coming into our own bodies and living with us, comes from “the tender compassion of our God,” we sing. Compassion, like our words “patience,” and “empathy,” is rooted in the ancient word for suffering. In the grief of our world today we come here to remember this deepest truth we know about the Triune God: this God enters our suffering.

Yes, on the cross, but not only there. No, God’s con-passio – God’s “suffering with” us, begins in this birth we will celebrate. Dawn from on high is in our world because whatever we know about those who suffer, we know the Triune God who made all things, galaxies, microorganisms, light, joy, life, this God is with them. With us.

We live in darkness, under the shadow of death. Our whole world does.

But God is with us in this darkness, and has destroyed death’s permanent power. So we are not alone. And death cannot survive.

The Dawn from on high is even now revealing the path of peace. We know this.

The evangelists saw in John’s preaching the voice of Isaiah’s promise, preparing for God’s coming by announcing a highway in the wilderness, a safe, level, smooth path for all. In our day we leave wilderness pristine. For most of human history, walking through the wilderness was life or death. A winding forest path meant threat of bandits or wild animals. A long desert journey meant if water ran out, people died.

So a highway in the wilderness, safe, level, smooth, for all people to find safety and life in God, this is Good News. And Zechariah says it’s the path of peace God’s Dawn reveals to us.

We already knew this. We’ve prayed a prayer for it for 1,600 years.

In Vespers, Lutherans have prayed it for over 200 years, Anglicans for more than 500.

“O God, from whom come all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey your commandments; and also that we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may live in peace and quietness.”

We will pray this again on Wednesday; come, pray it with your sisters and brothers. We have prayed this for 1,600 years because it is what we need God to do to give us life in such times of grief and pain. This world needs the peace this world cannot give. We need help to walk that path.

This peace of God comes when our hearts are set to obey God’s commandments.

Listen to that wisdom: there is agency here, God is setting our hearts. That’s in our song, too. “Guide our feet” isn’t strong enough for what Luke writes. There is an agency in this word, we are being moved, straightened into God’s path of peace.

We know what needs to be done, we always have. We know our lives are shaped by love of God and love of neighbor. We know this is the path of peace, that we do this love, act this love in all our moments.

But we need God to set our hearts to do this, or we will fail.

We will fail in fear of this path. While a highway is being built, it’s not fully safe. Builders, and the first walkers, can be harmed in the wilderness. Walking the path of peace means we might be hurt. So we ask God to set our hearts. So we’re not afraid.

We will fail because we are overwhelmed by the size of the task. All we can see is wilderness ahead, the pain, the brokenness, the fear of this world. It’s too much. But we’re not asked to build the whole highway ourselves. Neither can we walk away from it. So we ask God to set our hearts that we take the steps we need to take today, to do what we can do. Tomorrow is another day, another prayer.

And this peace of God comes when our hearts are defended from the fear of our enemies.

Listen to that wisdom. Zechariah sang of being saved from our enemies. This wise prayer names our true need: to be saved from fear of our enemies.

We’ve known this, too. Eight decades ago, President Roosevelt told us the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. We have forgotten this in our culture’s fear mongering. When those who tell the news pander to our fears without challenging our leaders, our society, or even us, to change our ways, when there is no limit to the amount of fear politicians will manipulate to achieve power, when the sheer volume of news that we now receive from all over the world overwhelms us with terrifying pain and suffering, we need not to be saved from our enemies. We need to be defended from our fear of them.

So we pray that God would take away our fear. So we see no enemies on this path at all, only sisters and brothers.

We have always known what God is doing to bring peace to this world. Here, once more, we remember. And we remember that our lives are Advent.

This path of peace God is making will take time. God is willing to take the time, even to the point of being in a womb for nine months and growing into adulthood with us. The Son of God sees the only way to God’s peace is by the joining of all God’s children into this path of peace, one person at a time, one community at a time. There is no quick path, no short-cut, that avoids the healing need of all people walking God’s highway together.

But the Dawn from on high is shining, even if the Day of the Lord has not yet fully arrived. Muslims greet one another with “Salaam,” Jews with “Shalom,” we with “Peace,” and we name for each other this path, this hope, that all will walk together.

We remind each other so we don’t forget. We walk with each other so we don’t stumble. And we pray, we pray for God to set our hearts and take away our fear so each of us is able to walk in this path of peace.

Because we know, though it will take time, one day all flesh truly will see the salvation of God.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God’s Incarnation in our reality, as one of us, whom we meet in Jesus, helps us face reality as it is, and gives us the grace and love and strength to live in it and make a difference.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   First Sunday of Advent, year C
   texts:  Luke 21:25-36; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

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

It’s enough to make us crawl under the pews and hide.

Are you tired of this yet? We’ve heard intense words of Jesus from Holy Week for a month, and it’s getting heavy. Especially the apocalyptic. Two weeks ago it was “wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes.” Last week Jesus faced execution. Now it’s signs in the sun, moon, stars, and on the earth. Confusing things will happen, Jesus says, causing people to “faint from fear and foreboding.”

The Gospels are supposed to be Good News. How much more of this can we stand?

But we might have already been under the pews before this. On Thanksgiving, my mother-in-law was in the kitchen and said, “Did you hear the news?” Without thinking, I said, “No, and I don’t want to. I’d like this to be a news-free day.” I don’t know what she meant to share. I just knew I didn’t want to hear it.

Because it just gets worse and worse, doesn’t it? Jesus’ words, heavy and fearsome as they are, barely cover the dread we get by checking the news. Since last Sunday we’ve got at least two more shootings: white supremacists in North Minneapolis shooting into a peaceful protest, someone in Colorado shooting up a Planned Parenthood clinic. By next Sunday surely something else horrible will have happened.

Maybe you could scoot over and make room for me under the pew. We could make a snug little place and hide from this world that intrudes even into the words of our Savior, so that even in here we can’t pretend to be safe, quiet, at peace.

Well, it may be hard to believe, but Jesus’ honesty is actually good news.

In Advent we prepare to celebrate once more the Incarnation of the Triune God into the world. Into our reality.

This is where our salvation begins: God enters our reality, as it is, names it for what it is, and joins our lives, our flesh. It is the death and resurrection of the Son of God that reveals the end of the powers of evil and death that bind us and this world. But it is this coming among us in the flesh that makes that possible. The true God, whom we meet in this Jesus, claims our reality and owns it.

Too often we want religion to insulate us from what’s going on in the world. We want to hide our head in the sand and pretend all is well, and we want God to support that.

The Son of God always does the opposite, from his birth on. Jesus speaks the truth about the world as it is, not as we wish it, and he honestly warns us that things will be hard.

We might not want to hear it. But if we’re going to follow a Lord who can actually save us, I’d rather follow the one who knows the score, who is aware of the suffering and evil of this world, who lives in it with us, than one who paints a rosy picture that I want to see but that isn’t true.

Facing the truth about this world makes our hearts heavy. So Jesus warns us to be on guard for that, and shows us a different way to live.

First, he challenges us not to be so weighed down at heart about the evil and suffering of this world that we live in dissipation.

That is, that we avoid facing reality by wasting our lives, frittering away our time, spending our resources on things that don’t last.

Jesus tells us to guard against avoiding the pain of reality by letting life and opportunity sift through our fingers like sand, pursuing a materialistic culture’s dreams instead of God’s dreams.

Second, Jesus warns us not to be so weighed down at heart that we fall into drunkenness.

To be on guard against seeking things that numb us to the pain of our reality and the reality of the world. Jesus could have said “addiction,” because there are so many things we humans can be addicted to as we self-treat our pain: alcohol, drugs, money, sex, gambling, work, and more. Treating our weighty hearts with false cures that only get us into worse difficulty.

 A. E. Housman wrote, “Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink / For fellows whom it hurts to think: / Look into the pewter pot / To see the world as the world’s not.” [1] That’s what Jesus warns us against, preferring that we face the hurt it takes to think and see the world as it is.

Third, Jesus tells us to be on guard against being weighed down in heart with worry over this life.

Jesus warns us not to wallow in fear, freeze in our anxiety. This third way is probably most honest, since it sees the truth of the world. But when we worry and are afraid, we get so heavy in heart we are no better off than on the other paths. Jesus would rather we faced reality, not be stuck in it.

But these three warnings are only part of the gift. Only by truly seeing reality as it is can we also deal with it, even overcome it. So Jesus’ last word is the heart of our hope: “Pray,” he says. Pray for the strength to deal with these things.

And Paul tells us what Jesus means.

Paul believes we have all we need from God to endure and thrive in a frightening reality.

Jesus said, don’t let your hearts get heavy. Paul says that the Lord will make us increase and abound in love for one another and for all. Jesus said, pray for strength so you can stand in those days. Paul says that God will so strengthen our hearts in holiness that we will be blameless before God when Jesus, the Son, comes.

So this is our hope: the Spirit fills our hearts with love for each other and for all. When we live in love in a world filled with pain and suffering we are a sign of hope to come. A heart filled to abounding is a light heart, and it’s how we can both find light and be light in a darkening world.

And this is our hope: the Spirit strengthens our hearts in holiness. We think of what we can and can’t do in this world, and we fear. We follow those three paths Jesus warned us against. Being Christ, being holy, is to be set apart as God’s light in the world. Even in community that can feel pretty isolated in an evil world. So our hearts are strengthened for this path of holiness.

It’s good, though, that we begin Advent today. Advent teaches us much about waiting and anticipating. About leaving our hiding places.

Watching the pregnancy of Mary as we once again anticipate celebrating her Son’s birth reminds us that we are in a time of pregnancy. Grace and life in Christ will be born into the world, are being born. But we’re still in the time where we can’t always see how it will be. So sometimes we want to hide in fear.

Like pregnancy, there is much pain associated with the birth of these things, too. So we try to avoid that reality rather than face it.

But the One whom we follow on this path sees all that pain and evil and knows how to deal with it. Has dealt with it. Which means we and all God’s children will not be overcome. The healing of Christ is coming into this world.

So for now, we do as we are told. We pray – for love, for strength. And we wait.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad (1896), LXII: “Terence, this is stupid stuff,” lines 23-26.