When we are overwhelmed by the problems of the world we turn to Jesus for strength and guidance; then he sends us back out to be a part of God’s healing for the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year B
   texts:  Mark 1:29-39; Isaiah 40:21-31

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

Even allowing for Mark’s tendency to exaggerate, it must have been overwhelming.

Jesus heals a man in a synagogue.  That night, at Simon Peter’s house, “the whole city was gathered around the door.”  Of course there was a crowd.  Once people realize there’s help available somewhere, they line up for it.  Word gets out in mysterious and potent ways.  Maybe all 1,500 people in Capernaum weren’t there, but it felt like it.  Even Jesus was overwhelmed.  After he “cured many who were sick” and cast out “many” demons, they finally got the door closed, got to bed.  But in the early pre-dawn darkness, Jesus slipped out, went to a place with no people, and prayed.

What do you do when there are so many who need help, and they’ve come to you?  If you’re Jesus, you help.  You heal.  You cast out demons.  But when you can, you get away, to pray, to find open space, to clear your head and heart.  To be filled up inside after pouring out so much.

But what do you do if you’re not the Son of God?  What do you do when you are so overwhelmed by the needs of the world around you and you don’t think you can do anything?  It’s one thing to be tired out from healing and exorcism.  It’s entirely different to wake up the next morning, find the crowd gathering outside the door, and realize the only one who knows what to do has left in the middle of the night.

Our home in this story is that moment with Simon and the others at daybreak.

Of course they leave to find Jesus, hunt for him.  They can’t do anything for these sick people, these hurting friends and neighbors.  They know their neighbors know they don’t have that ability.  These crowds grew up with boneheaded Simon; they won’t see him as a healer.  So Simon and the others think, “Why try and fail when we can get Jesus, the one person who could take care of things?

Turning for help is actually also why Jesus is gone at the moment.

In need, overwhelmed, Jesus turned to the Father.

This time of prayer in a deserted place is powerful witness.  We don’t understand the mystery of prayer within the life of the Trinity, but living as one of us there were many times when Jesus needed prayer.

In prayer he quiets himself, receives wisdom and encouragement, is restored by the Holy Spirit.  In this moment the Triune God is once more dancing in that inner divine life, Father, Son, and Spirit moving in and among each other.  After the night he had, Jesus deeply needed this communion in God.

Then he was ready to go on.  When the disciples find him, he announces they’re heading for another town, to proclaim the Good News, what he came to do.  He is sent to declare that God has come to be with the people of the world, bringing a rule and reign of life and love and grace.  Renewed by his communion in prayer, Jesus is ready to face the overwhelming crowds again.

Now Simon and the others need to learn this pattern.  So do we.

When the world’s need overwhelms us, we come here, looking for our Lord, for strength and wisdom.

Mark’s exaggeration seems apt in our time.  The problems and pain of today are overwhelming, as if the whole city, the whole world, has come for help.  There is more healing and restoring needed here than we can handle.  If we help one person, here, or in our jobs or neighborhoods, it seems there are twenty more needing help, and there are systems that keep making more in need.  We’re afraid to open the door for fear of being overrun by what we’ll see outside.

So we follow the lead of Simon Peter and the others.  We come here looking for our Lord, because Jesus knows what to do when we don’t.  But we also follow Jesus’ lead.  We come for prayer, quiet, peace.  To be filled up after pouring out.  To commune with the Triune God, to be strengthened, restored.

But after restoring us, Jesus always says, “Now, here’s the plan.”

Jesus’ job isn’t to do our work.  It’s to make us ready and send us out.

The disciples have no idea what to do with the needs of the crowd, so they run into the wild to find Jesus, to hand off the job, comforted they’re not in charge.  But not too much later they, too, will be sent out in pairs to actually preach, actually heal, actually cast out demons.  That’s Jesus’ work, to prepare the disciples, to prepare us, for our ministry in his name in the world.  To change us so we can actually do it.

We come here looking for Jesus, and are restored, but we know he’s going to train us and send us back into the world.  He won’t let us stay inside or hide behind his power and might, as if there’s nothing we can do.

He will send us as he sent the first ones, transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, given new hearts, new strength, to know what to do with the overwhelming needs of this world.  Christ’s risen life will fill our hearts to be Christ ourselves.

What do you do if you’re not the Son of God but there are so many who need help, and they’ve come to you?

You realize you are in fact a child of God, so you do what Jesus does.  You help.  You heal.  You even drive out demons and fear.  In Christ Jesus we see Isaiah’s promise come to pass, that the everlasting God who stretched out the heavens like a curtain, to whom we are like tiny grasshoppers, actually cares about us, puny as we are, and has come to lift up the lowly, strengthen the fainthearted, renew the hearts of the world.  Even uproot death with resurrection life.

The only way the rest of the world will know this is if we, by our lives, our ministry, open the door of the house and go into the crowd ourselves.  When we need rest, strength, the support of our Lord, we come here for life.  We pray.  We hear the plan for what’s next.

Then we open our doors and go back into the street.  But we don’t go alone.  We are filled with Christ’s grace and healing, and our risen Christ goes with us fully.  We stand, then, as Christ in the face of evil and death, doing what we can.  As it always has been from Simon until now, we become God’s healing, renewing, life-giving presence in this world.  And we are not overwhelmed.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

When we are overwhelmed by the problems of the world we turn to Jesus for strength and guidance; then he sends us back out to be a part of God’s healing for the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year B
   texts:  Mark 1:29-39; Isaiah 40:21-31

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

Even allowing for Mark’s tendency to exaggerate, it must have been overwhelming.

Jesus heals a man in a synagogue.  That night, at Simon Peter’s house, “the whole city was gathered around the door.”  Of course there was a crowd.  Once people realize there’s help available somewhere, they line up for it.  Word gets out in mysterious and potent ways.  Maybe all 1,500 people in Capernaum weren’t there, but it felt like it.  Even Jesus was overwhelmed.  After he “cured many who were sick” and cast out “many” demons, they finally got the door closed, got to bed.  But in the early pre-dawn darkness, Jesus slipped out, went to a place with no people, and prayed.

What do you do when there are so many who need help, and they’ve come to you?  If you’re Jesus, you help.  You heal.  You cast out demons.  But when you can, you get away, to pray, to find open space, to clear your head and heart.  To be filled up inside after pouring out so much.

But what do you do if you’re not the Son of God?  What do you do when you are so overwhelmed by the needs of the world around you and you don’t think you can do anything?  It’s one thing to be tired out from healing and exorcism.  It’s entirely different to wake up the next morning, find the crowd gathering outside the door, and realize the only one who knows what to do has left in the middle of the night.

Our home in this story is that moment with Simon and the others at daybreak.

Of course they leave to find Jesus, hunt for him.  They can’t do anything for these sick people, these hurting friends and neighbors.  They know their neighbors know they don’t have that ability.  These crowds grew up with boneheaded Simon; they won’t see him as a healer.  So Simon and the others think, “Why try and fail when we can get Jesus, the one person who could take care of things?

Turning for help is actually also why Jesus is gone at the moment.

In need, overwhelmed, Jesus turned to the Father.

This time of prayer in a deserted place is powerful witness.  We don’t understand the mystery of prayer within the life of the Trinity, but living as one of us there were many times when Jesus needed prayer.

In prayer he quiets himself, receives wisdom and encouragement, is restored by the Holy Spirit.  In this moment the Triune God is once more dancing in that inner divine life, Father, Son, and Spirit moving in and among each other.  After the night he had, Jesus deeply needed this communion in God.

Then he was ready to go on.  When the disciples find him, he announces they’re heading for another town, to proclaim the Good News, what he came to do.  He is sent to declare that God has come to be with the people of the world, bringing a rule and reign of life and love and grace.  Renewed by his communion in prayer, Jesus is ready to face the overwhelming crowds again.

Now Simon and the others need to learn this pattern.  So do we.

When the world’s need overwhelms us, we come here, looking for our Lord, for strength and wisdom.

Mark’s exaggeration seems apt in our time.  The problems and pain of today are overwhelming, as if the whole city, the whole world, has come for help.  There is more healing and restoring needed here than we can handle.  If we help one person, here, or in our jobs or neighborhoods, it seems there are twenty more needing help, and there are systems that keep making more in need.  We’re afraid to open the door for fear of being overrun by what we’ll see outside.

So we follow the lead of Simon Peter and the others.  We come here looking for our Lord, because Jesus knows what to do when we don’t.  But we also follow Jesus’ lead.  We come for prayer, quiet, peace.  To be filled up after pouring out.  To commune with the Triune God, to be strengthened, restored.

But after restoring us, Jesus always says, “Now, here’s the plan.”

Jesus’ job isn’t to do our work.  It’s to make us ready and send us out.

The disciples have no idea what to do with the needs of the crowd, so they run into the wild to find Jesus, to hand off the job, comforted they’re not in charge.  But not too much later they, too, will be sent out in pairs to actually preach, actually heal, actually cast out demons.  That’s Jesus’ work, to prepare the disciples, to prepare us, for our ministry in his name in the world.  To change us so we can actually do it.

We come here looking for Jesus, and are restored, but we know he’s going to train us and send us back into the world.  He won’t let us stay inside or hide behind his power and might, as if there’s nothing we can do.

He will send us as he sent the first ones, transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, given new hearts, new strength, to know what to do with the overwhelming needs of this world.  Christ’s risen life will fill our hearts to be Christ ourselves.

What do you do if you’re not the Son of God but there are so many who need help, and they’ve come to you?

You realize you are in fact a child of God, so you do what Jesus does.  You help.  You heal.  You even drive out demons and fear.  In Christ Jesus we see Isaiah’s promise come to pass, that the everlasting God who stretched out the heavens like a curtain, to whom we are like tiny grasshoppers, actually cares about us, puny as we are, and has come to lift up the lowly, strengthen the fainthearted, renew the hearts of the world.  Even uproot death with resurrection life.

The only way the rest of the world will know this is if we, by our lives, our ministry, open the door of the house and go into the crowd ourselves.  When we need rest, strength, the support of our Lord, we come here for life.  We pray.  We hear the plan for what’s next.

Then we open our doors and go back into the street.  But we don’t go alone.  We are filled with Christ’s grace and healing, and our risen Christ goes with us fully.  We stand, then, as Christ in the face of evil and death, doing what we can.  As it always has been from Simon until now, we become God’s healing, renewing, life-giving presence in this world.  And we are not overwhelmed.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We wait for the Lord’s healing grace in this world because God’s good time is not our time, because things take time to be done the right way; but we wait where we know we’re going to see what we’re promised.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Presentation of Our Lord
   texts:  Luke 2:22-40; Malachi 3:1-4

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 Spanish, the same word means “wait” and “hope.”

The context gives the meaning.  I learned this in my clinic’s waiting area (with help from Anna afterward).  The sign said, “If you have been waiting more than 15 minutes, please inform the front desk.”  Below, in Spanish, for waiting it said, “ha estado esperando,” which literally could be “a state of hope.”  Here it clearly meant “waiting.”

Tonight’s readings make that sign amusing.  People are waiting for the day of the Lord’s coming in Malachi and Luke, waiting for a long time.  Far more than 15 minutes.  So how long do we wait for God before we need to inform someone?  Whom do we inform?

The Spanish are right: waiting and hoping are two sides of one thing.  In our hurry-up, fast food, get-it-to-me-now culture, we associate waiting with boredom, frustration, irritation, even lack of hope.  Can we imagine a Simeon today, waiting his whole life to see God’s promised Christ, ready to die when he does?  We don’t know what the prophet Anna is waiting for, but it’s been about 63 years.  15 minutes is nothing compared to Christian waiting for God’s healing and restoring of all things.

Maybe we also should glue waiting and hoping together.

It’s a modern convention to separate them.  Our ancestors fully lived this.

The Presentation is February 2, forty days after Christmas; the purification rites for the mother happened forty days after childbirth.  But in Ireland and Britain it held further significance as a cross-quarter day.  The year was divided into so-called quarter days, Christmas Day, the Annunciation (March 25), St. John the Baptist/Midsummer Day (June 24), and St. Michael’s Day (September 29).  These Christian festivals, importantly, are very close to the solar turning points, the winter and summer solstices and the spring and fall equinoxes.

Roughly half-way between these days were other important festivals marking time.  Presentation is the cross-quarter day between Christmas and Annunciation.  Each of these eight days held significance to our Christian ancestors who had things that needed to be done by those dates for life and livelihood, to survive.  It’s not accidental that in the Middle Ages in Europe the Presentation was a day for predicting the length of winter ahead (and without a rodent’s help).  They relied on weather and the land to live; half-way between the longest night and the longest day they dreamed when spring would come and food would be abundant.

There is evidence that this Christian celebration was also one of those festivals overlaid upon pagan celebrations of this mid-point that also were part of a culture dependent on the earth for life.  This has long been a day of waiting and hoping for the future to come.

Our Church Year is our way of joining our waiting with hoping.

Our culture has lost this sense of life in the year and dependence on God’s creation which paid close attention to the creation.  Our marking points in the year are based on our entertainment schedules, from awards season to sports championship times, or our political calendar.

But we Christians walk this Church Year.  We’ve gathered tonight for Eucharist to mark 40 days since our celebration of our Lord’s birth.  We may not have as desperate a need for good weather coming, but it’s good and right that we intentionally choose this calendar as our way of knowing where we are in our waiting.

That’s the whole point of a calendar, to mark the waiting.  From the classic film and cartoon stereotype of someone x-ing out days in anticipation, to our need to tell how many days until Christmas, marking time helps us wait.

So we mark our year, moving through the story of God’s grace coming into the world and into our lives, to help us in our waiting and remind us of our hope in God.

We notice from Malachi, Simeon and Anna that our place of waiting is also important.

All three center the place of waiting on the Temple of the Lord.  That’s where Malachi says the coming will be, that’s where Simeon goes when the Spirit lets him know the child has come, and that’s where Anna spent over six decades praying, fasting, waiting.

We join our waiting with our hoping when we come into this holy place and seek God in God’s house.  In this place we know we will hear words of grace and hope, words of promise that will be kept.  In this place we know we will be fed and strengthened.  In this place the Triune God has promised to be, so like those saints of old, we gather here to wait for the Lord.

But this coming of the Lord is clearly not meant to stay in this place.

Malachi speaks of the purifying of all the people of God; the coming might start in worship but will restore the whole nation.  Simeon takes it even further, declaring that this child he is holding will be a light to all the nations of the world, as well as the glory of his own people, Israel.

So it is with our waiting and hoping in this place: we take it into the world, fully expecting to see God’s healing coming to all things, fully believing in the possibility that the light of God will make a difference in the world’s darkness.  Bearing the light ourselves infuses our waiting with hope, because living in the rich blessing of God becomes abundant and joyful when we share it and see what happens in the world.

Yet our hoping is in turn wrapped up in our waiting: God’s fullness comes in God’s good time, not instantly.

Sometimes we’re tempted to despair at this, but this story of Jesus and Simeon shows God’s promises will be kept, even if they take time.  Simeon waits his whole life, and finally sees.  At the end of this story, though, Jesus is still just a little child; growing, filling up with wisdom, but still a little child.  He is not Christ for the world yet.  There is still the path to the cross and resurrection.  Some things take time.

We know this if we cook.  There are things that cannot be rushed, even in a microwave world with instant meals.  If you want a good oatmeal, you need to toast steel cut oats, and then boil them for about a half an hour.  Chili really only tastes best on the second day.

With the Triune God it’s the same.  To get what God is hoping for – literally the restoration of the hearts of humanity which will restore this planet – God needs to play the long game, bringing healing through the Son one community of faith at a time.  God’s grace will make all things new, but the way God needs it to work, it will take time.

So we return to our sense of marking time in the Church Year.  While we wait for God’s good time, we walk through the year’s story of God’s grace, to be filled with hope in our waiting.  And so we can recognize signs of healing and grace when we see them, like Simeon and Anna did.

It’s been longer than 15 minutes.  Things take time with God.

But on this night we once more meet Simeon and Anna we are reminded of the hope we have in this child they celebrated and for whom they praised God.  On this night we once more bless candles for our year’s worship we are reminded of the light which shines in our darkness and one day will fill all things.

We wait.  But we wait with hope.  Because God is faithful, and God’s promises are being kept.  It will take time.  But that we have, until all things truly are made new.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We wait for the Lord’s healing grace in this world because God’s good time is not our time, because things take time to be done the right way; but we wait where we know we’re going to see what we’re promised.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Presentation of Our Lord
   texts:  Luke 2:22-40; Malachi 3:1-4

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 Spanish, the same word means “wait” and “hope.”

The context gives the meaning.  I learned this in my clinic’s waiting area (with help from Anna afterward).  The sign said, “If you have been waiting more than 15 minutes, please inform the front desk.”  Below, in Spanish, for waiting it said, “ha estado esperando,” which literally could be “a state of hope.”  Here it clearly meant “waiting.”

Tonight’s readings make that sign amusing.  People are waiting for the day of the Lord’s coming in Malachi and Luke, waiting for a long time.  Far more than 15 minutes.  So how long do we wait for God before we need to inform someone?  Whom do we inform?

The Spanish are right: waiting and hoping are two sides of one thing.  In our hurry-up, fast food, get-it-to-me-now culture, we associate waiting with boredom, frustration, irritation, even lack of hope.  Can we imagine a Simeon today, waiting his whole life to see God’s promised Christ, ready to die when he does?  We don’t know what the prophet Anna is waiting for, but it’s been about 63 years.  15 minutes is nothing compared to Christian waiting for God’s healing and restoring of all things.

Maybe we also should glue waiting and hoping together.

It’s a modern convention to separate them.  Our ancestors fully lived this.

The Presentation is February 2, forty days after Christmas; the purification rites for the mother happened forty days after childbirth.  But in Ireland and Britain it held further significance as a cross-quarter day.  The year was divided into so-called quarter days, Christmas Day, the Annunciation (March 25), St. John the Baptist/Midsummer Day (June 24), and St. Michael’s Day (September 29).  These Christian festivals, importantly, are very close to the solar turning points, the winter and summer solstices and the spring and fall equinoxes.

Roughly half-way between these days were other important festivals marking time.  Presentation is the cross-quarter day between Christmas and Annunciation.  Each of these eight days held significance to our Christian ancestors who had things that needed to be done by those dates for life and livelihood, to survive.  It’s not accidental that in the Middle Ages in Europe the Presentation was a day for predicting the length of winter ahead (and without a rodent’s help).  They relied on weather and the land to live; half-way between the longest night and the longest day they dreamed when spring would come and food would be abundant.

There is evidence that this Christian celebration was also one of those festivals overlaid upon pagan celebrations of this mid-point that also were part of a culture dependent on the earth for life.  This has long been a day of waiting and hoping for the future to come.

Our Church Year is our way of joining our waiting with hoping.

Our culture has lost this sense of life in the year and dependence on God’s creation which paid close attention to the creation.  Our marking points in the year are based on our entertainment schedules, from awards season to sports championship times, or our political calendar.

But we Christians walk this Church Year.  We’ve gathered tonight for Eucharist to mark 40 days since our celebration of our Lord’s birth.  We may not have as desperate a need for good weather coming, but it’s good and right that we intentionally choose this calendar as our way of knowing where we are in our waiting.

That’s the whole point of a calendar, to mark the waiting.  From the classic film and cartoon stereotype of someone x-ing out days in anticipation, to our need to tell how many days until Christmas, marking time helps us wait.

So we mark our year, moving through the story of God’s grace coming into the world and into our lives, to help us in our waiting and remind us of our hope in God.

We notice from Malachi, Simeon and Anna that our place of waiting is also important.

All three center the place of waiting on the Temple of the Lord.  That’s where Malachi says the coming will be, that’s where Simeon goes when the Spirit lets him know the child has come, and that’s where Anna spent over six decades praying, fasting, waiting.

We join our waiting with our hoping when we come into this holy place and seek God in God’s house.  In this place we know we will hear words of grace and hope, words of promise that will be kept.  In this place we know we will be fed and strengthened.  In this place the Triune God has promised to be, so like those saints of old, we gather here to wait for the Lord.

But this coming of the Lord is clearly not meant to stay in this place.

Malachi speaks of the purifying of all the people of God; the coming might start in worship but will restore the whole nation.  Simeon takes it even further, declaring that this child he is holding will be a light to all the nations of the world, as well as the glory of his own people, Israel.

So it is with our waiting and hoping in this place: we take it into the world, fully expecting to see God’s healing coming to all things, fully believing in the possibility that the light of God will make a difference in the world’s darkness.  Bearing the light ourselves infuses our waiting with hope, because living in the rich blessing of God becomes abundant and joyful when we share it and see what happens in the world.

Yet our hoping is in turn wrapped up in our waiting: God’s fullness comes in God’s good time, not instantly.

Sometimes we’re tempted to despair at this, but this story of Jesus and Simeon shows God’s promises will be kept, even if they take time.  Simeon waits his whole life, and finally sees.  At the end of this story, though, Jesus is still just a little child; growing, filling up with wisdom, but still a little child.  He is not Christ for the world yet.  There is still the path to the cross and resurrection.  Some things take time.

We know this if we cook.  There are things that cannot be rushed, even in a microwave world with instant meals.  If you want a good oatmeal, you need to toast steel cut oats, and then boil them for about a half an hour.  Chili really only tastes best on the second day.

With the Triune God it’s the same.  To get what God is hoping for – literally the restoration of the hearts of humanity which will restore this planet – God needs to play the long game, bringing healing through the Son one community of faith at a time.  God’s grace will make all things new, but the way God needs it to work, it will take time.

So we return to our sense of marking time in the Church Year.  While we wait for God’s good time, we walk through the year’s story of God’s grace, to be filled with hope in our waiting.  And so we can recognize signs of healing and grace when we see them, like Simeon and Anna did.

It’s been longer than 15 minutes.  Things take time with God.

But on this night we once more meet Simeon and Anna we are reminded of the hope we have in this child they celebrated and for whom they praised God.  On this night we once more bless candles for our year’s worship we are reminded of the light which shines in our darkness and one day will fill all things.

We wait.  But we wait with hope.  Because God is faithful, and God’s promises are being kept.  It will take time.  But that we have, until all things truly are made new.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen