We are the second coming of Christ. It’s time to wake up and live that way.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The First Sunday of Advent, year A
Texts: Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14 (adding 8-10); Matthew 24:36-44

Beloved 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 time we stopped waiting for Christ and started living as Christ.

At this entrance to the Church Year, we always hear words of Jesus calling us to be ready, even in the middle of the night, for Christ’s return. Jesus says today, I’m coming like a thief in the night (hardly a warm image). In the other two lectionary years, Jesus also says stay awake and read the signs in the earth and skies. I’m coming unexpectedly.

Advent, we say, is a time of practicing waiting for that unexpected time, that coming. “Come, Lord Jesus,” we pray.

But we’re past any time for waiting. Christ has already returned. The Second Coming is already here. And it’s you and me and all who bear Christ’s name.

Paul says that it’s time to live that way.

Today he sums that life up for us: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. . . . Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

And now is the time to live that way, Paul says. There’s no waiting. Now is the day, so live in the light. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, and live in love, now. Rejoice with those who rejoice, now. Weep with those who weep, now. Show hospitality to strangers, now. Wake up and live as the Christ you are, now.

This profoundly changes our Advent. And it’s not just Paul who does.

Advent means “coming.” If we truly heard the Advent Gospels we’d never think that meant waiting for Christ to come again. Because in the next two weeks John the Baptist is going to show up as he always does and call us to repentance and newness of life. He says that in Jesus the reign of God is already here.

That means our Advent prayer needs to be: come, Lord Jesus, in us. Right now. Cover us with yourself, your life, your love. Fill us with your Spirit. So that we can be the coming of Christ right now. Each of us one day will run out of days to serve in this life and will move to the life to come. But right now it’s daytime. Christ is already here. What are we waiting for?

Now, listen to Isaiah again and ask the same question.

“In days to come,” the prophet says, God’s mountain will be lifted up and all people will see it, flock to it. And God will teach all people the way of God’s reign. And everyone will convert their weapons of war into farming implements. They’ll stop making death and start growing life. They’ll stop teaching their children to fight and kill and start teaching them to nurture and love. All will walk in God’s light.

Well, these are those days to come. And you are God’s Christ, anointed to bear God’s mercy into your world. Why would you or I or anyone hear of swords being beaten into plowshares and say, “well, hopefully, some day.” Why do we persist in hearing everything Jesus teaches and saying, “wouldn’t that be nice? But it’s not realistic right now. Some day.”

There’s no “some day,” Paul says. It’s day right now. Even if no one else lives this way, he tells his Romans, you are to live peaceably with all. With everyone.

What are we waiting for? Jesus to return in the clouds and make peace, destroy weapons for us? He’s said that’s not how he operates. God-with-us comes to people and changes them from within, and so changes the world.

But we seem to always hope and wait for a different way of God.

Christians have killed more people in world history than any other group you can name. We’ve spent too much time waiting for Christ instead of being Christ.

The first disciples began the problem. After Jesus rose, they completely misunderstood the cross. They asked Jesus if now he was going to drive out the Romans, lead the rebellion, restore Israel. No, Jesus told them. They would be filled with the Spirit to go as Christ to all the world, vulnerable and loving witnesses. That’s the plan.

Why would we expect Jesus to do anything different now or in some future return? Jesus promised to return, and has. For 2,000 years people have been made into Christ and sent into the world to make peace. To bring mercy and love and grace. To destroy swords and guns, and end violence by living non-violent, passionate lives of peacemakers and love-bringers.

When the Church obsesses over a superhero Christ sailing in on the clouds to fix everything that we can’t be bothered to fix or change or heal, we act exactly as Christ and Paul tell us not to. We become children of the night, seeking power and control. We don’t see our personal lives as relevant to God’s plan of healing all things, and resist change. We start trying to dominate the world and protect our institutions instead of being a little yeast in a large batch of flour, a tiny seed in a massive field. And evil is done, again and again.

Let this be your Advent: pray, “Come to this world, Lord Jesus, in me.”

Night is over, and it’s the day. While you have breath, be the coming of Christ you are meant to be. When you pray “Come, Lord Jesus” that way, things will change.

Because when you and I and all who carry the name of Christ start living as Christ, putting on the Lord Jesus, draping ourselves with love and compassion and patience and hope and making peace in our hearts, in our families, in our world, then Isaiah’s vision would happen now. War would be over. Violence in our families would be done. Attacks in our streets would be a thing of the past. People of faith hating those who disagree with them would be ancient history. Hunger and poverty and oppression all would disappear. All this, Christ says, could be our world right now.

Wake up. It’s already morning, and you are what you’ve been waiting for. Now live it, with the Spirit’s grace, for the sake of all things. And for your sake, too.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God seeks the reconciliation of all things to each other and God in the cross and resurrection of Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Reign of Christ, year C
Texts: Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

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

God didn’t need to die on the cross to forgive your sins or mine.

The holy and Triune God who made all things has a heart wider than the universe God created, deeper than the depths of space. The Hebrews whose Scriptures and faith we share witness to a God whose capacity for forgiveness and love is beyond our imagining. Even in the depths of prophetic wrath, God’s forgiveness is announced. God can and does forgive whenever God wants to. The Bible says so. God just has to say, “you are forgiven.”

And today we heard Jesus, God-with-us, offer forgiveness – before he died – to all who were killing him, from priests to governor to soldiers.

But we needed the cross to see God’s forgiveness of us. To see the love of God for humanity and the creation that draws all things into God. We see our forgiveness at the cross because there we finally are convinced of God’s eternal love and mercy, dying for us rather than destroying us.

God didn’t need to raise Jesus from the dead to give you or me or anyone life after death, either.

The almighty and Triune God who made all things invented life. In God’s creation things live and die and new life comes through death. Stars and galaxies and planets and creatures die and produce new ones. If God wants to provide a life in a world to come after our death here, make a new creation, God can. And will. The Bible says so. God just has to say, “let there be life.”

But we needed Jesus’ resurrection to see this truth. Believers began to realize that if Jesus lives, death can’t stop God. So we will live, too. Paul powerfully proclaims this to the Corinthians. Because Christ is risen, without doubt, Paul says, you and I and all creatures now know that we also will rise to new life.

But something God aches and longs for God can’t do by declaring.

The Triune God deeply desires reconciliation in this creation. Between you and me, between all peoples and all nations. Reconciliation between all people and God. A world of harmony and peace with justice that God intended from the beginning. And God can’t simply say, “let there be reconciliation.” We’re involved – our will, our actions, our love.

Paul claims repeatedly in several letters that the purpose of Christ’s death and resurrection is the reconciliation of all things, and all people to God and all people to each other. God needed to die and rise to lead us to this way.

God had to live with us and proclaim it, model it. Jesus, God-with-us, proclaimed a reign of God steeped in reconciliation, where all are valued, all are loved, all are forgiven, all live in love with each other. Where enemies cease being enemies because they pray for each other and love each other. Where no one is driven away or marginalized for any reason. And that life and witness threatens the power of institutions both religious and political who thrive on control and conflict and judging and winning. They always resist.

So Jesus, God-with-us, let us kill him to show that the reconciliation of all things is God’s heart for the creation and God will stick to that heart even if it means dying. Through Christ, Paul says today, God was pleased to reconcile all things to God, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace through the blood of the cross. In dying and rising from the dead for love, God showed the true path to life for all things.

To see it, you need the eyes of our friend hanging on his own cross.

So many didn’t see Jesus as a ruler that day. Not Pilate, not the Jewish leaders, not the soldiers. Even one of the criminals mocked Jesus for not miraculously saving them. But our friend, with little time left to live, looked at Jesus and somehow saw a king.

He didn’t ask Jesus’ forgiveness. He didn’t ask Jesus to bring him to Paradise. He just asked to be remembered when Jesus entered his reign. He somehow saw the truth that in Jesus, this man dying next to him, God’s true reign was found.

The truth that only power that is let go can do anything good. That only love that is vulnerably given up for others can heal anything. That reconciliation comes by the setting aside of power and the giving away of love, by losing, not winning.

This man gave us a great gift: he gave us a chance to truly see Jesus and find the path to the reconciliation God wants so much.

Remember me, our friend said. And Jesus said, today I will bring you into my reign.

For this dying convict, that was a promise of life in the world to come. His life here was nearly done. But for us, who at least have today and maybe more time than that, Jesus promises the same for this life.

If we want Jesus to remember us in his reign, Jesus says, we can be in Paradise today. Because Jesus reigns right here, in this life, in this world. On earth as in heaven, he taught us to pray. This life, this world, can be the Paradise God envisioned at the creation, when all live in the reign of God.

When we love God with all we have and love our neighbors as ourselves. Living that every day, we’ll know the joy of reconciliation with each other and with God. Reconciliation with those people you don’t have it with right now. Reconciliation in our city and nation between all who hate and mistrust each other. The reconciliation of society, when justice comes for those who are oppressed and violated and marginalized. And this world will become what God always hoped it could be.

What do you see when you look at Jesus’ cross, and remember the empty tomb?

Do you see the fullness of God in Christ that Paul proclaims today, through which God is trying to bring about reconciliation between you and me, between all people, and between us and God? Not by power over, by division and destruction and control and winning. But by love willing to die to bring all creation back. By power willingly set aside in weakness to win us all over in peace. Do you dare to follow that same path, that same weakness and vulnerability, to live in God’s reign?

God can’t force reconciliation, but for those who seek God’s reign in Christ, the Spirit of God is always ready to change their hearts, shape their lives, and bring them into the life of reconciliation. Do you dare such life in the Spirit?

God grant you the eyes of our friend hanging next Jesus, so you can see God’s reign even now, and the trust of this same dying man, so you will live in this reign, with the help of the Spirit. Until all things are united under and in and through and with Christ.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen