You are already filled with the Spirit of God, who moves in you with every breath, filling you, changing you, leading you into the life God has always wanted for you and for this world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Baptism of Our Lord, year B
Texts: Genesis 1:1-5; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11, with references to 1 Corinthians 6 and 12

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 beginning, God breathed on the waters of chaos.

God’s Spirit, like wind, moved over the waters, and, as light was separated from darkness, land from waters, God opened a space for the creation.

In that beginning, God created humanity in God’s own image, and God breathed again, into these frail creatures. God’s breath filled them, and as they took breath, they breathed in God. God still breathes into the creation, into us. Our every breath breathes in God’s Spirit, exhales God’s Spirit.

When Jesus rose up out of Jordan’s waters, baptized, and saw the Holy Spirit descending, this wasn’t the Spirit’s arrival in his life. Human, like us, from his first breath he breathed God’s Spirit. Yes, Jesus was also God’s Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, one with the Father and the Spirit, yes, that, too. But in his humanity, he was filled with the Spirit. We all are.

So what happened at the Jordan? The presence of God’s Spirit was witnessed publicly. Jesus saw the Spirit, heard his Father’s voice, was confirmed as God’s beloved Son. So as Jesus headed into the desert and then his ministry, he went reassured that the Spirit was with him.

In the beginning, God breathed life into us. But that doesn’t always mean we know it.

In Acts today, Paul comes to Ephesus, and finds disciples of Jesus. But when he asks them if they received the Holy Spirit when they became believers, they say, “We haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” We haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit!

Yet with every breath the Spirit of God had always moved in them. They just didn’t know it. So Paul teaches them, and baptizes them in the name of Jesus. Then, as always in Acts, after their baptism Paul lays hands on them, and the Holy Spirit fills them. As at Pentecost, they spoke in tongues, they prophesied. They knew the Spirit was in them.

But the Spirit had always been with them. Naming that, calling it out of them, opened them to see the Spirit’s presence and gifts, just like Jesus.

It isn’t just Genesis that says this about the Spirit. Paul knew it, taught it. Maybe even shared it with these disciples.

Paul told his friends at Corinth in his first letter that faith itself is evidence of the Spirit’s presence. He said no one can confess Jesus as Lord if the Holy Spirit isn’t with them. (12:3) So the fact that these Ephesian disciples believed in Jesus proved the Holy Spirit was already there.

But he also could’ve told them a deeper wonder: God is never “out there,” but within. He could have said, as he also did in that first letter to Corinth, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?” (6:19)

Their very bodies are where the true God lives! That’s always been their reality. They just didn’t know it.

“We haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

Is this our problem? Lutherans talk a lot about Jesus, the Christ, about the cross and resurrection. We talk about and pray to the Father and the Son a lot. But the Spirit doesn’t often get much attention from Lutherans.

That may be because the Holy Spirit is God’s wild card. The Spirit is the uncontrollable God in the world, who moves where she wants, fills whom she wants, does what she wants. The Spirit breathed over the waters of chaos at creation, and still breathes into this world, and there’s nothing we can do about it. She will fill all people, no matter what they believe, will inspire and give gifts to all people, no matter who they are.

We’ve always been a little afraid of this unpredictability of the Holy Spirit. It’s easier to nail down doctrinal truths, tighten up our theology. There you can feel a little secure.

But calling on the Holy Spirit, who can’t be controlled? You’d have to be a little reckless even to try.

But don’t you know, Paul says, that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?

How have we let that truth be buried, this astonishing, miraculous proclamation of Paul? We spend our lives looking for God. We talk about God, make theories about God, we try to get all our teachings in order.

But in our dark hours of the soul, when we’re lost and afraid and can’t see through the brambles of the woods that have overgrown our path, none of that helps at all. When you’re terrified, or despairing, or angry, or grieving, or desperately lonely, or feeling guilt, words and theories do nothing. You need to know if God is with you, and nothing more.

But don’t you know, Paul says, that God is in you already? That your body is God’s temple? There’s no place to “go” for God. The Spirit of God lives in you, Paul says. The Hebrews say, you know this in your every breath.

In the beginning of your life, God breathed into you, and you were filled with the Spirit. You became God’s house.

But no, you say, we know science. Breathing, respiration, that’s a natural function. All animals do it. You take in oxygen, it feeds your body, you exhale carbon dioxide. It’s a mechanical function of a living organism.

OK, say our Hebrew ancestors. Maybe so. But this is also true: your breath is God’s breath. Your spirit is God’s Spirit within you. God has taken up residence inside us, has always been there. There’s no other temple.

John might not have been right about his baptism.

He distinguishes between his – a symbolic washing away of sin after confession – and the baptism in Christ, which, he says, is a baptism in the Holy Spirit.

But if the Holy Spirit was in all those people who came to John at the Jordan, if she brought them there in the first place, John didn’t realize the Spirit was also in his baptism.

Our baptism, like John’s, is also a washing away of sin and evil, and every day we renew that washing, every day we seek God’s forgiveness and cleansing, we start afresh.

But unlike John, in our baptism, the Church, as in Acts, asked the Holy Spirit to come upon us. The Spirit of wisdom and understanding. The Spirit of counsel and might. The Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. The Spirit of joy in God’s presence.

But the Holy Spirit isn’t waiting for this asking, waiting to enter a person until the Church says so. We ask the Spirit to come knowing she’s already here, so we name that, recognize that anew. We need to hear that there is such a thing as the Holy Spirit in us, and then we are able to see what happens.

So breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe of God.

You’ve been doing it your whole life, but now, like those folks near Ephesus, you know what you’re doing. You are living in God, and God is living in you.

Your baptism was the public announcing of this grace. Your washing in the waters of God, the waters God breathes upon, wasn’t the first time you were forgiven, either. But it is your washing, your cleansing in God. Just as it’s a sign that God’s Spirit is in you.

So breathe of God. Exhale into God. You are never alone. You are God’s beloved child, and God is well pleased with you. With each breath, the Spirit is moving in you, even when you don’t know it. The Spirit’s gifts are yours, as close as your breathing and sighing.

And now, following Jesus’ steps, it’s time to move from the waters, cleansed of sin, filled with the Spirit, with God’s voice still ringing in our ears, to do our work and life as God’s beloved children.

But not alone. Never alone. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

The only time we have to live is right now, in this present moment, where God comes and fills the time with grace and love; so will we be kind, will we love, will we be Christ, today, right now?

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The First Sunday of Christmas, year B
Texts: Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:21-40

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 December 31^st, Two thousand seventeen. What direction are you looking?

Are you looking to the past today? It’s the day to do it. Websites, news organizations, magazines, everyone does their lists this time of year. The best and the worst of 2017 are chronicled and numbered for our entertainment, and sometimes our depression.

But are you also doing a list for 2017? Regrets, loesses, bad decisions? Remembrance of loved ones? Joys, love found, moments of happiness?

It’s December 31^st, Two thousand seventeen. Are you looking forward?

That’s usually tomorrow’s job, January 1st. Are you joining millions of others making resolutions for 2018, plans for being a different person this time? Are you looking forward with dread over impending personal crises or what might happen in the world?

Or are you looking forward in hope? Are there things planned you can’t wait for, coming events that will bring you joy?

Time is tricky.

We think we live time in one direction, past to present to future. But often we get trapped outside of our present moment. We linger on the past, or dwell on the future, and don’t live in our present. So on this arbitrary day that someone decided ended our 365 day trip around the sun, we’re either focused backward or forward. But it’s often how we live our whole lives.

What if we learned to really live in the present?

In the fullness of time, Paul says, God was born among us.

Actually, Paul says “When the fullness of time had come,” so he’s saying the birth of Jesus happened at just the right time in world history, when everything was ready, at exactly the right moment for God’s Incarnation among us.

But maybe there’s more we can see here. Maybe “the fullness of time” isn’t just a question of a moment in history.

What if Paul is saying that God fills time by coming? That is, the timeless God from before even the birth of the universe enters our time, our history, in this moment, and fills it with God?

Time itself would be transformed. There’d be no past, no future, there’d just be now, filled with God.

We know a little about this, because we find that fullness here.

There is a mystery about our worship here. Externally, there’s a certain amount of time it takes. We rarely finish Eucharist before one hour and fifteen minutes. This is longer than a lot of other Christians, and some wonder why we do this.

Because: when we’re in here we lose track of time. That is, we lose track of the chronology of time. In this place, we live in time that is filled with God, and we don’t perceive how the clock is running. We don’t check our watches, we don’t drum our fingers on the pews. (Well, maybe once in a while some of us do; we’re human.)

But in this place when we worship, we are here. We’re not living in the past. We’re not living in the future. In this moment we are simply here.

In this place, for this time, we are filled with God. It is the fullness of time here. It is all the time we need. It is outside of chronological time. And in this space, opened up by God in our midst, we meet God’s fullness. God is born among us. We receive God Incarnate in Word and Meal, in each other, in prayer and song. We are filled.

But if God comes to us in the fullness of time here, could we experience this outside of these walls, too? Simeon must have.

Simeon lived with a promise that transformed every moment of his life.

However old he was when he heard it, he lived confident that he would not die until he saw God’s Messiah.

Think of that. Every day might be the day. For however many years, however many decades, this day might be the one. Every day he’d look into each face, treat everyone with grace and compassion because, who knows, this could be the Messiah.

Imagine what a full life that would be for us!

Every day you get up with joy, because this could be the day. Every person you see, you love and respect, because this could be the one. Every moment you are aware of who you are, where you are, what you are, because you don’t want to miss the coming of God’s Christ in the world.

There’s no time to regret the past. No time to worry about the future. Just the joy of being in a world where God is coming to bring life and love, and knowing you’ve been promised to see that coming.

What do we miss when we don’t live such a life?

If we spend our days living in the past, dwelling on past losses or victories, fretting about past actions or missed opportunities, what are we missing in the fullness of the moment we actually are living in?

If we spend our days anxious about what is to come, or anticipating a good thing, or wishing we could become someone we aren’t, what are we missing in the fullness of the moment we are actually living in?

If we spend our days in a present that isn’t really present, distracted by entertainment or news or whatever else we’re chasing, what are we missing in the fullness of the moment we are actually living in?

And not just what. Who are we missing? Who are we not listening to, or loving, or being kind to, or simply being with, when we’re not “here” in our present? Are we missing Christ?

It’s December 31^st, Two thousand seventeen. Today, right now, is the fullness of time.

And we are promised what Simeon was, that we will see God-with-us.

Today, right now, this is the day that the Lord has made. In this moment, in this fullness of time, God is here, blessing us with hope and life and light.

The past can teach. We learn from mistakes, remember loved ones, recall graces. But we can’t live there. The future can direct. We hope for good, plan to grow and change, look forward to what God is doing. We can’t live there, either.

But we can be Simeon today, right now, and watch every moment for Christ’s coming. We can be love right now. We can show compassion and do kindness, right now. We can look in every face for the face of God’s Christ, right now.

Today, in the fullness of time, is all the time we know we have. And here, filled with God, right now, is the only time we can really know what it is to live.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

When we open the door of our heart to God, we make an opening in the world for God’s light; we also are changed forever.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas Day)
Texts: John 1:1-14 (adding 15-18), with reference to Luke 9:58

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

“Mary’s consent opens the door of created nature, of time, of history, to the Word of God,” Thomas Merton writes. [1]

God’s Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth, because Mary opened the door. The light shines in the darkness and cannot be overcome, because Mary said “yes.” Her son Jesus, the Word of God from before time itself, “was in the world” because of Mary.

But ponder this troubling thought: Mary opens the door. And we slam it shut.

Merton’s poem continues: “Mary sends the infinitely Rich and Powerful One forth as poor and helpless . . . A vagrant, a destitute wanderer with dusty feet, finds his way down a new road. A homeless God, lost in the night, without papers, without identification, without even a number, a frail expendable exile.” [2]

John says, “The world came into being through this Word, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own did not accept him.” Jesus said: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58)

God-with-us, Emmanuel, for whose coming just yesterday morning we sang our longing, does come to ransom captive Israel. Does come to join life with all peoples and tribes. Does come to restore the whole creation by entering into it in person. Does come to reveal God’s eternal love for the creation and for all creatures in it.

But this timeless Word of God arrives and walks down a dusty road homeless, without identification or papers, “a frail expendable exile.” And this homeless God is sent to a cross.

For two thousand years, people have claimed to receive God’s Word-made-flesh. But for two thousand years the Church has also done many horrible things, caused pain and suffering. For two thousand years, people have claimed to follow this Christ, but have done wickedness and evil in that name.

For two thousand years, people have claimed to accept God-with-us, but have lived lives of selfishness and neglect, have oppressed and harmed others, have tried to hold salvation as our possession, not live into it as a new way of life. For two thousand years, Christ’s followers have not followed Christ. We recognize this in ourselves, too.

The Word came to what was his own, and his own did not accept him.

This is the paradox of the Incarnation and of this day: we want God with us. But we’re not prepared to accept God with us.

John declares that in Jesus of Nazareth we see the face of God, the Son who reveals God’s heart to us. God’s Word, God’s Logos, God’s Blueprint for the whole universe, present at the creation itself, the Son of God, one with the Spirit and the Father, this “infinitely Rich and Powerful One,” now enters our life as a poor and helpless baby of a poor and willing young mother.

When we see who this baby becomes, hear him proclaim God’s love and God’s reign, hear him invite us to follow his path, when we see him die and then rise from the dead, we know John speaks truth. Jesus is God-with-us, the face of the Triune God for us, a face that radiates undying love. In Jesus we see the heart of God we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to see.

But accepting God’s Word, receiving Jesus as God-with-us, means being changed. And that’s where we hesitate.

Too often we act as if faith is just thinking and believing the right things.

We tend to keep faith in our heads, a matter of right teachings, because that keeps God at arm’s length. Talking about God, talking about doctrine, talking about faith, as if they’re objects for our consideration. Then we don’t have to be changed.

“Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of God has no place to lay his head.” When faith doesn’t reach the heart, when we shut that door to God’s making a home in us, that’s when believers do horrible things. That’s when we kill, and when we persecute those who disagree. That’s when we ignore the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying. That’s when we don’t live lives shaped by God’s love. That’s when we become a force of darkness instead of light. And God remains homeless.

“Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of God has no place to lay his head.” When we want God-with-us only on our terms, standing in the background like a good butler until we need something, and then send God back into the shadows, God remains homeless.

We keep God at arm’s length because John this morning promises a great but terrifying wonder: “To all who received this Word, who believed in his name, the Word gave power to become children of God, who were born not of human things, not of flesh, but of God.”

That’s why we intellectualize our faith, keep God on the sidelines of our lives. Because the alternative is standing in front of Gabriel like Mary, in that heartbeat where we have to decide: do I let God into my life and be changed forever? The alternative is God growing inside us, like Mary. The alternative is God taking the Blueprint of the universe enfleshed in Jesus and re-writing us to that Blueprint, making us children of God who look like God.

All who receive Christ are given power to become new beings. Children of God.

Mary’s whole life is transformed. She becomes the one who embraces, loves, shapes, and nurtures God in the world. Family, disciples, friends, many who meet Jesus also receive him into their lives. It takes time for some of them, but they are transformed, too.

And as much as we can see when Christians have not received Christ and have done evil, as much as we see where we have failed, John’s truth is also visible throughout these two thousand years: year after year, century after century, people’s receiving Christ into their lives transformed them into Christ in the world, children of God who, knowing the heart of God in Jesus, became that heart in the world.

For century after century, year after year, people’s consent opened the door of created nature, of time, of history, to the Word of God, to God’s Blueprint, and they were changed into Christ in the world, children of God who, seeing the face of God in Jesus, became that face in the world.

Now we hear Gabriel’s invitation ourselves.

To accept this Word among us, to receive this God-with-us as our own. We need to be as aware as Mary was of what this will mean for us. We will be changed. We will let go of lots of things we cling to. We will start on a new path, where we are God’s children, made in God’s image, where our lives no longer are our own.

But when we do, when we’re made into the pattern of God’s divine Blueprint, what happened with Mary will also happen with us. Others will meet God through us. Others will find hope through us. Others will see God’s glory, full of grace and truth, through us. Others will know the heart of God’s love, through us.

Mary’s consent opens the door to the Word of God. Our consent keeps it open, so that God’s Word can keep creating life and justice and light in this world that so desperately needs it.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] Thomas Merton, “Hagia Sophia: IV. Sunset. The Hour of Compline. Salve Regina”, from In the Dark Before Dawn: New Selected Poems of Thomas Merton, (New Directions Publishing Corp, New York, 2005), p. 71

[2] Merton, ibid

 

It is in the ordinary, tired, everyday life of this world – even this child we celebrate tonight – that God is truly found. And God’s transforming light and life finds room in everything ordinary, even us. Until all is made new.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord
Texts: Luke 2:1-20

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

“Let’s go to Bethlehem now and see this thing that’s happened, which the Lord told us about.”

This is pretty remarkable, actually. Whatever they saw and heard on that Bethlehem hillside, afterward the shepherds didn’t shrug it off as a dream. They didn’t stay frozen in fear. They looked at each other and said, “Let’s go see.”

But what did they see when they got there? We know what Christmas cards and movies and carols say. They found a barn or cave, a soft light rising up from a manger. Cow and donkey placidly lie on either side. A holy couple sits demurely beside the glow, and a silent, beatific God-child looks up in wisdom and peace. Soft heavenly background music completes the scene.

But that’s nothing like what greeted the shepherds when they got to town.

We tend to take this moment of God’s coming into the world and wash it in sentiment and light.

We clean the whole picture up so it looks like it’s supposed to. All is calm, all is bright round yon virgin. The little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes. Love’s pure light, radiant, beams from the child’s holy face. Beautiful.

Many of our carols go this way, and we’re good with that. We love this irenic picture to complete a night of perfection in a world of brokenness and pain. On my vicar year, the high school shop teacher helped me build a stable for our Nativity figures. It’s beautiful. Since then I’ve often dreamed about figuring out a way of installing a warm spotlight on the ceiling that would wash the manger in a glow, only the manger. Because no matter where we put candles, Jesus is always in the dark.

But that perfect scene isn’t what the shepherds saw. And as long as we insist on perfection tonight – in our Nativity scenes, in our carols, even in our families – as long as we insist on bathing everything in a warm glow, we miss what’s really important. What the shepherds actually saw is what gives us life. Gives us hope that cannot be quenched, even by imperfection, suffering, pain, loss, or whatever else we try to shoehorn out of this night.

Seeing Jesus in the dark, that’s what we need to see. That’s what the shepherds help us see.

Because what the shepherds saw was utterly ordinary.

They didn’t find a barn, or a cave. Luke says there was a manger. But Luke’s Greek is good, and he never says there was no room in the “inn.” He uses the Greek word for “inn” in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here he uses a word better translated “guest room.”

In a culture of hospitality, it’s unthinkable that this couple would have been turned away, especially by relatives. But if cousin Betty and her whole family were already in the one upper room on the roof, Joseph and Mary would have been welcomed into the main room where everyone else slept. Including one or two animals the house owned, brought inside for the evening for warmth and security. Put the baby in the manger so he doesn’t roll around on the floor with the others.

So in a dark house lighted by a couple oil lamps, the shepherds see an exhausted mother, without a chance to freshen up, a tiny baby wrapped in cloth, sometimes screaming like all babies do. An extended group of folks hovering around. A family probably short on patience, now greeting a bunch of rubes from the hills.

So how did these shepherds believe this was the Messiah the angels told them about? A newborn is beautiful, even miraculous. But also ordinary. Without the spotlight and background music and beatific mother and child, what did they see in this utterly ordinary scene?

When we start asking this, we realize it’s always the question with Jesus.

We imagine a practically perfect Jesus as a boy, but Mary must have had hundreds of ordinary moments with a boy who sometimes smelled bad, who skinned his knee, who had to learn to behave. How did she see God’s Son in this ordinary kid?

As an adult, Jesus was a gifted teacher, and attracted followers. But it’s pretty clear from the Gospels that they saw him in mostly human terms, until the end.

And the end: that’s the big question, isn’t it? How did they look at a man hanging on a cross, humiliated as a criminal, and say, “Yes, there’s God-with-us. That’s the one.”

We start asking the question tonight, with the shepherds, because this question’s never going away. How do we see God in this ordinary baby? In Jesus, who looks like us, talks like us, is like us?

Luke says we hear as well as see. That helps.

The shepherds left the family apparently satisfied they’d seen what was advertised. But what they went and proclaimed was “what had been told them about this child,” the same thing that led them to the baby.

Mary “treasured all these words” she heard from the shepherds, and “pondered them in her heart.”

The disciples heard Jesus speak about God’s reign, about God’s love, heard his invitation to follow in God’s way. Slowly they figured out who he was. The acts of power helped, but what they heard opened them to see what they needed to see.

And they probably didn’t see God on that cross. Only failure and disaster and the end of all their hopes. But then they saw Jesus alive on Sunday, and heard, heard, him say “Peace be with you,” and, “woman, why are you weeping?,” and they could see. When he broke the ordinary bread in that ordinary little house in Emmaus, and spoke, their eyes were opened.

When we strip away the sentimentality to see the ordinariness of this birth, we might be afraid we can’t see God on this night anymore.

But the opposite is true. Like the shepherds, and Mary, and the disciples, we, too, have heard. And we need to see what God’s doing as clearly as we can if we’re going to find God’s life in this child, whom we’ve been told is God’s Son.

When we look with clear and open eyes what we see is this wonder: God comes into human life in the most ordinary of ways. In a simple, ordinary birth of a child. In the growing life of a young boy. In the teaching life of an obscure rabbi. Isaiah says, “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2)

But in this ordinary life, in an ordinary world, God has come. Into an ordinary baby, born in difficult, harsh, threatening times. Just like every baby born tonight in hospitals or shacks all over this difficult, harsh, threatening planet. This we have heard, and this we now see. God has come to restore all the creation by imbuing God’s own self into the creation.

We’ve already known this, already heard this, if we’ve forgotten.

Tonight we will gather once again at the Table this ordinary rabbi sets before us, and eat a small piece of bread, sip a little wine. But in this ordinary bread, in this ordinary wine, grown from the earth itself, made into nourishment in the same way for thousands of years, we have heard, yes, we have even seen for ourselves, God is present. We taste the death and resurrection of this ordinary one, this Jesus, in this ordinary meal. And we know Christ has come to us.

And if Christ can inhabit ordinary bread and wine, can inhabit this ordinary baby born long ago, then here is our Christmas wonder:
Christ can inhabit us.

Because there’s nothing more ordinary than we who are gathered here. We know our failures and flaws, our weaknesses and doubts, our brokenness and pain. If God can only be seen in the perfection of a photo-shopped picture, there’s no room for us in God, and no room in us for God. If God can only come into a perfect family, perfect relationships, a Christmas out of the storybooks, then how could God come to us?

But the shepherds heard and saw and proclaimed God in the ordinary of this world, bringing healing and restoration from within. We might not be much to look at, either. But in us, as in the whole of this ordinary world, God is transforming the whole creation.

So let’s go to Bethlehem now and see this thing that’s happened, which God told us about.

There is no place in the whole creation where God is not, so all the creation will be healed. That’s what we see on this holy night.

There’s nothing so ordinary that God is not there, so everywhere God makes newness of life. That’s what we see on this holy night.

An ordinary baby. A tired set of parents. Strange shepherds. A humiliating death. See, God is there! And God’s life cannot be stopped.

A morsel of bread. A sip of wine. Ordinary people trying their best but feeling that’s not enough. See, God is here! And God’s life cannot be stopped.

It’s a lot to process. So let’s not only go see. Let’s also take a seat beside Mary and ponder in our heart these things we’ve seen and heard. Until we can see God and God’s healing in all things, making ordinary extraordinary, making wholeness out of brokenness, even life out of death.

Good news of great joy indeed!

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

Joy to the world: we are anointed, Christ-ed, for grace to those in pain, we are light for those in darkness, and we get all this from God, so it’s not ours alone.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: John 1:6-8, 19-28; Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

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 Hebrew, “Messiah.” In Greek, “Christ.” In English, “Anointed.”

They’re all the same thing. They’re the title we give to Jesus, sent from God, who is God’s face for us, who died and rose from the dead. Our Savior. Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed.

So we’re not surprised that at his first sermon in his hometown Jesus claimed Isaiah’s words for himself: “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,” he said, “because the LORD has anointed me (“messiahed” me); God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.” Today this is fulfilled in your hearing, Jesus said. (Luke 4:16-21) And it was.

Because of course the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One will do these things. It’s what we long for and expect, amidst all the pain in the world. “He comes the prisoners to release,” we sang today. “He comes the broken heart to bind, the bleeding soul to cure, the humble poor to enrich with treasures of grace.”

Now, John the Baptizer was sent to prepare the coming of this Christ.

To testify to the Light of the world that Jesus the Christ, the Anointed, the Messiah, was. A light no darkness can overcome.

But we heard something interesting about John today: “He was not the light;” we heard, “he came to testify to the light.” John was asked directly: “Are you the Messiah?” (Are you the Christ? The Anointed of God?) “I am not the Messiah,” John said. John claimed his job was to make the way ready for the Anointed of God, to straighten Christ’s highway. To point to the Light that is come.

But John was clear: he didn’t consider himself worthy to untie Messiah’s sandals, let alone be called Christ.

In Hebrew, “Messiah.” In Greek, “Christ.” In English, “Anointed.”

They’re all the same thing. But they never applied to only one person. To be anointed, or in Hebrew, to be “messiahed”, was to be set apart for God’s holy work in the world. So Israel’s kings were all anointed, messiahed, Christed, to be God’s holy workers.

But today we hear the prophet himself claim this anointing, just as Jesus did hundreds of years later. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, has anointed me, Isaiah says. To do all these wondrous things. In fact, in the Hebrew Scriptures, the whole nation of God’s chosen were called the anointed.

And this is true for we who are baptized into Christ. In Scripture and in liturgy we are called the anointed of God. We have anointing oil placed on our foreheads like rulers of old as we are set apart through the waters of Baptism to be God’s holy ones for the healing of the world.

John might have been clear about what he wasn’t. But let’s be just as clear about what we are.

In Hebrew, “Messiah.” In Greek, “Christ.” In English, “Anointed.”

They’re all the same thing. And, wonder of wonders, this is your title as a baptized child of God. You are Christ in the world. Messiah. The one God has anointed to bring healing and hope into the world.

You are also the light of the world. Jesus, the true Light, declared it: “You are the light of the world,” he said. “. . . let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14, 16) In our baptismal liturgy we both anoint God’s child and proclaim this one the light of the world. It’s our truth.

Like John, we testify to the true Light, we point to the Anointed One who died and rose and gives life to the world. But in the wonder and mystery of our baptism, we also are the Light. And the Christ. Or, the Messiah, the Anointed. The Spirit of God is upon us, and has anointed us.

It’s no mystery why Christ Jesus would make us this.

There is far too much darkness and pain in the world for one person to handle, even the Son of God. We know this so well in these days.

And don’t we sing with joy at the Great Vigil of Easter this wonder: that light, when it is divided and borrowed, only gets stronger? The light of Christ no darkness can overcome gets more powerful when it’s divided, when each child of God is light in the darkness, over the whole world, over centuries. With such light, what chance does darkness have?

God’s Spirit is upon us, and has anointed us, and made us light. So God’s healing could spread to all nations and peoples, in all times and places.

So what Jesus claimed from Isaiah is ours to claim, too, as God’s anointed.

And we need Isaiah’s words very much. The darkness that covers this world is manifested in so many difficult and complex and intractable ways. We’ve talked about this a lot. We know the list. We know the things that cause so much suffering, and make our hearts heavy. As we become more aware of our complicity, more aware of the depth of the darkness, the more daunting it is to consider what we can do. What can God’s Anointed, if that’s what we are, do to heal such systemic suffering? What can God’s Light, if that’s what we are, do to dispel such darkness? Haven’t we already shown we’re not up to this?

But a wise rabbi has said, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work. Neither are you free to abandon it.” ^[1] And that’s what Isaiah says, too.

Isaiah shows a path we can actually envision. Not to solve all things or complete the work. But not to abandon it in despair, either. Like Jesus, we can claim this as our calling:

To bring good news to the oppressed. To bind up the brokenhearted. To proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners.

There is no day where we lack this opportunity.

There’s no day when we don’t meet someone oppressed. By unjust systems, by other people, by depression, by the pain of the world, by many things. When you meet that one, can you, God’s Christ, God’s Light, be good news to them? You maybe aren’t able to remove all that oppresses them. But can you be God’s love for this child of God?

There’s no day when we don’t encounter someone brokenhearted. Over suffering, over loss, over grief, over fear, over betrayal, over many things. When you meet that one, can you, God’s Messiah, God’s Light, somehow bind them up? Be God’s bandage and wrap their pain? You aren’t always able to remove it. But can you be God’s healing for this child of God?

There’s no day when we don’t meet someone captive. To addiction, to fear, to mental illness, to many things. When you meet that one, can you, God’s Anointed, God’s Light, bring release to them? You aren’t able to fix it all, perhaps. But can you be God’s light for this child of God?

The bigger, deeper, intractable things, the structures and systems, those we work on together as God’s community of Christs. That’s how the greater darkness goes away.

But you, and I, we can be Christ and Light every day. The Spirit has anointed you for this. So, dear friends, you already are Christ. You already are Light. God has said so. God has made it so.

So rejoice always, Paul says. And by all means don’t quench the Spirit.

The Spirit of God is upon you and me, anoints us and makes us light. We can do this healing. This lighting. This work of the Anointed. Because God is faithful, Paul says, and will give us what we need to do it. And forgive and restore us when we fail, so we begin again.

Jesus said that first generation wouldn’t pass away without seeing the coming of Christ. Little did we realize he was talking about them. About us. We are the coming we’ve been waiting for.

Messiah, Christ, Anointed. Light. That is what we are, broken and flawed, graced and forgiven, constantly sent out as the coming of God’s Christ and God’s light in the world. And nothing will ever be the same, now that we know this.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

[1] Rabbi Rami Shapiro, paraphrase and trope on Rabbi Tarfon in Wisdom of the Jewish Sages: A Modern Reading of Pirke Avot (New York: Harmony/Bell Tower [div. of Crown/Random House], © 1993), p. 41