We all have experiences when God’s presence with us is especially clear. The world briefly shines with heavenly light – but then the moment passes, and we need to make sense of what we have witnessed, and what it has to do with our daily lives.

Vicar Jessica Christy
Transfiguration of Our Lord
Text: Mark 9:2-9

You have to be ready for the week after church camp. That’s what the older kids warned my youth group as we were preparing to go to summer camp for the first time. They promised that it was the kind of experience that was going to change our lives – and that we wouldn’t want to leave when it was over. They were absolutely right. For that week in the Wisconsin woods, I felt closer to God than I ever had in my life. We spent our days reading scripture, discussing our faith, and playing amidst the beauty of nature. And at night, we’d gather around the campfire to sing quiet songs and bare our souls to one another beneath the endless, starry sky. For seven days, it was like we were living on holy ground, where faith and friendship were all that mattered.

And then, it was over. We went home and returned to our regular rhythms and responsibilities. The older kids’ warnings were right: the transition wasn’t easy. After that week of intense, faithful joy, the rest of the world seemed lifeless and unhallowed. I spent the next months longing to return to that sacred place where Christ was so clearly and unapologetically the center of my life. Camp had been so special, and everything else was so ordinary, that it was hard to see what the one had to do to the other. In confirmation, we would reminisce about our summer and ask each other: why couldn’t all of life be like church camp? Why couldn’t we stay in that sacred space?

And so I feel for Peter, James, and John as they’re walking back down that mountain. I can’t imagine how strange it must have been for them to witness the miracle of the Transfiguration, and then return to their work as though nothing happened. On top of the mountain, they see Jesus filled with the light of creation as he is named God’s son. They see the old heroes of their faith walking the Earth. They hear the very voice of God. When Peter sees Christ shining in the presence of Moses and Elijah, he understandably thinks that this is it – the Day of the Lord has finally come. Here and now, all of God’s promises are at last being fulfilled. He wants to crystallize this moment, to build dwelling places for the ancient prophets so they can stay and usher in God’s reign on Earth. He thinks that this is what the coming of God’s kingdom looks like, shining high above the mess of everyday life.

But Jesus has already told him that’s not quite right. In Mark’s Gospel, the Transfiguration is immediately preceded by Jesus’ first prediction of his own death. Jesus proclaims that he will experience suffering, rejection, and death, and then rise again on the third day. Peter is appalled. He pulls Jesus aside and tries to silence him, but Jesus doubles down on his claim and calls on the crowds to follow his difficult way. There will be no path to glory that does not pass through the Cross. So of course the disciples can’t stay on the mountain with Jesus and the prophets. They can’t just escape to enlightenment and leave the rest of the world behind. They might wish it were that easy, but that’s not how God works. The mountaintop isn’t where Christ lives.

So back down the mountain they go. Back to the hard days on the road. Back to the press of the crowds. Back to a teacher who has stopped glowing and gone back to saying that he’s about to die. They have to return to lives in which everything about their world has changed – and yet everything seems the same. They’re not even allowed to tell people what they’ve seen. Maybe they couldn’t put it into words if they tried. It must have been lonely. It must have been hard.

The three disciples had a special revelation, and that means they had a special challenge as they came down that mountain. But their experience wasn’t all that unique. Human beings are so marvelously receptive to beauty and wonder that we all have shimmering moments when God’s presence in our lives is made especially clear. All of us are given glimpses of the Transfiguration. Sometimes it happens in the midst of worship – during a beloved hymn, or at the baptism of a child. For some people, it comes in prayerful meditation. Sometimes it is revealed in an experience of nature, the overwhelming beauty of a sunset or the stars or the sea. Or it is found in art, or a relationship, or something else altogether. Even if we haven’t seen Christ shining on the mountaintop, God invites each of us, in our own ways, to stand on holy ground and witness a flash of God’s glory. That is a marvelous gift, and as Peter says, it is good. But then comes the hard part, when the curtain falls back into place and the heavenly light fades. The moment passes. The world returns to normal, and we have to figure out what to do with what we’ve seen and felt. We might struggle to articulate what happened to us. We might wonder if it was even real. We might long to return to that place where God shone so bright and clear, and wonder why God so often remains hidden from our sight.

But friends, the good news is that the Transfiguration is all around us. It may not be obvious at every moment of our lives, but it is always here. Christ came back down the mountain, back down to us, and the whole world shines with his image. The Transfiguration is not some perfect vision up in the sky. It is not something we have to wait for or search for on some distant summit. It is here and now, illuminating everything. In Christ, all ground is hallowed ground. Jesus taught the disciples to return to the crowds, because the crowds are where he’s really found. We are called seek out and serve the light of Christ in one another.

The Trappist monk Thomas Merton was standing on a busy street corner when he had the most famous mystical vision of modern times. All of a sudden, he saw the people around him “shining like the sun.” He wrote that it was as if he were seeing the crowds around him through God’s eyes, and everyone’s innermost beauty was for an instant laid bare. He realized that the glory of God is in everybody, “like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven…and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.” At this vision of light, Merton was overwhelmed with love for these strangers, and only wished he could show them how brightly they shone.

If we follow where Jesus leads, then the path back down the mountain brings us to one another. We witness to the Transfiguration in each other, and when we do so, we are ourselves transfigured. We carry God’s light into the world for each other to see.

Christ is shining all around us. Christ is shining in us. Trust that, and seek it, and you will see that it is true. You will see Christ – everywhere.

In Luke’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit starts her work through a few chosen people. It’s easy to envy these people their clarity – of course Simeon could be faithful when the Spirit was directing him! – but that same Spirit is filling and guiding us now.

Vicar Jessica Christy
Presentation of Our Lord
Text: Luke 2:22-40

I wonder if Simeon woke up that morning knowing that the day had finally come. When the Holy Spirit tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Now, today is the day,” what was that like? Was it a voice? A vision? A sensation in his bones? What does it feel like to be grabbed by the Spirit?

Because Luke tells us that the Spirit had a special role in Simeon’s life. Not just that, he says it three times in a row: the Spirit rests on Simeon, she reveals to him that he will see the messiah in his lifetime, and when the time comes, she guides his steps to the temple. Simeon has been eagerly waiting for the Christ, but he has been living with the Holy Spirit for a long time. Because of the Spirit, he can live in the marvelous hope that he will witness God’s salvation. Through the Spirit’s eyes, he can see that a poor young couple is God’s chosen family, and that their ordinary baby will deliver his people. And it could only be the movement of the Spirit that builds such instant trust between Mary and Simeon, that she places her newborn into the arms of a stranger. The Spirit transforms his life, his sight, his relationships. Because the Spirit is upon him, Simeon can see God’s reality shining through the surface of the world around him, and that changes everything.

But what the Spirit reveals to Simeon isn’t entirely joy and light. He sees that the arc of this baby’s life isn’t going to be an easy one. He blesses the little family, and then he confirms what Mary already knows: her child is going to bring turmoil into this world. Mighty people are going to be brought low, and lowly people are going to be lifted up. Jesus is going to reveal things that the world would rather keep hidden, and so people are going to resist him, resent him. None of this is news, but then Simeon goes farther. He tells Mary that this turmoil is going to touch her. A sword is going to pierce her soul. This precious, promised baby is going to bring her unimaginable pain. Simeon has seen God’s salvation, and yet he knows that the world isn’t quite saved. Not yet.

This could be reason for mourning or fear, and yet Simeon rejoices, because by the Spirit, he sees through the pain to what lies beyond. There’s going to be hurt and confusion, but out of those wounds will come God’s salvation. He isn’t going to see God’s plan fulfilled, but he’s seen its beginning, and he knows how it will end: with the glory of Israel, the illumination of the whole world, and the healing of the nations. Whatever conflict is coming, the Spirit has shown him that conflict will not have the last word, and so he can depart in peace.

I envy Simeon’s clarity. He’s righteous, and patient, and so full of hope. God has given him this amazing gift of experiencing life under the Spirit’s guidance. Not only does he get to see Christ, but he knows that he’s seeing Christ, and he knows exactly what Christ represents. He’s given such perfect insight into God’s plan, and he fulfills his role so faithfully. And it’s a beautiful story, but it’s a hard one to live up to. Simeon feels like one of those untouchable saints. Yes, of course he knows what to do – the Holy Spirit is giving him personal instructions. Where does that leave the rest of us who are waiting and hoping to see Christ? Because in this fallen world, God’s will for us isn’t always so obvious. We don’t always recognize Christ’s presence, or respond when the Spirit is pushing us to get up and go. When we see all the disorder and ill-will around us, we might falter in our hope that we will ever witness God’s salvation. Not all of us will be able to face death with such certainty or such joy. So what does Simeon’s clear vision have to do with all of us who still see God through a mirror, dimly?

But the good news is that Simeon’s gift isn’t anything special. He might look exceptional, but that’s not the story that Luke tells. Throughout Luke’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit is hard at work transforming the world – and she does start with certain chosen individuals. She fills Mary and John the Baptist. She leads Simeon to the temple. She greets Jesus at his baptism, guides him through the wilderness, and enlivens his teaching. But then, at Pentecost, everything changes. The promise that God made to the prophet Joel is fulfilled: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” Tongues of fire appear over the apostles, and through them, the Spirit fills the assembled crowd. And from there, she spreads like wildfire. When Peter is speaking to a group of Gentiles in Caesarea, she falls on everyone who hears the word. The circumcised believers are astounded by this, but Peter asks them, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” The Holy Spirit is setting the whole world ablaze, and nothing is going to stand in her way.

That same Spirit is in us now. We might not experience that in the same way as Simeon, but our gift is no less than his gift, and we are just as empowered to see this world through Spirit-filled eyes. Like Simeon, we can see through this world’s appearances to recognize God within. Where the world shows us despair, the Spirit shows us hope. Where the world shows us strangers, the Spirit shows us beloved siblings. Where the world shows us the least of these, the Spirit shows us Christ. And where the world shows us death, the Spirit shows us abundant new life. We’re still waiting for God’s plan to be fulfilled, but like Simeon, we know how this story ends. We know that peace and life and love win. That’s not what our senses tell us. That’s not what politics or science or even common sense say, but it’s what our faith tells us, and by the Spirit, we can believe that it’s really true. And that means that we get to carry that truth, that reality into the world.

Like the candles that we carried in tonight, we all bear the Spirit’s flame.  Even if we doubt, or falter, or fail to recognize God’s call, the Spirit has been given to each of us, and she will never leave us behind. Even now, she is filling us with the light of Christ for all the world to see. So with Simeon, we can proclaim: look, Christ is here. God is now healing the world. Come and see for yourself. Come and find God’s light. Come and find God’s peace.

When we hear that God knows everything about us, we might feel nervous. All of us have things about ourselves that we’d rather hide from God’s sight. But we don’t have to be afraid, because scripture tells us that what God sees in us is wonderful.

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Second Sunday of Epiphany, year B
Texts: Psalm 139:1-18; John 1:43-51

What exactly happens to Nathanael? This might be the strangest call story in any of the gospels. In the space of an instant, he goes from a tough-minded skeptic to praising Jesus as the son of God. And it’s hard for us to understand why. It all starts when Jesus calls Philip, who quickly believes that Jesus is the messiah. So Philip grabs Nathanael to share the news. But Nathanael’s not buying it. He doubts that anything good could come out of a poor little village like Nazareth. But Philip challenges him to come and see for himself. So Nathanael follows. When Jesus sees the pair coming, he greets Nathanael as an honest man. Again, Nathanael is guarded. “How do you know me?” he asks. Jesus responds that he saw him earlier, standing under a fig tree before Philip approached him. Maybe Jesus is referring to a supernatural vision of Nathanael or maybe he just saw him in passing, John’s Gospel isn’t clear. All we know is that Jesus saw him before they met, and understood something about him. That’s it. That’s the miracle, that Jesus saw and knew Nathanael. It doesn’t sound like much, and even Jesus is a bit taken aback that Nathanael responds with such enthusiasm. “You will see greater things than these,” Jesus promises his newest disciple. But Nathanael doesn’t need to see to believe. He only needs to be seen.

The idea that God sees us and knows us can be a source of joy, but too often, we hear it as a source of terror. In many Bibles, Psalm 139 is titled “the inescapable God.” The writer sings that there is nowhere we can go that is apart from God. If we go to heaven or Sheol or the far side of the sea, God will be there. God is above and below us, before us and behind us. Not even our innermost thoughts are hidden from God. It’s beautiful and comforting to hear that that nothing can separate us from God, but every time I’ve discussed this psalm over the past week, someone has joked about how ominous it sounds. “The inescapable God” – it sounds like a threat as much as a promise. You can run, but you can’t hide. In this age of stalkers and hackers and the NSA, we’re uneasy with the thought of some unseen force watching our every move. It makes our skin crawl.

But it’s not just our modern nervousness about surveillance that makes us uncomfortable with the idea that God knows us completely. We don’t like the thought of other people watching us because they could have bad intentions, but we know that God would never hurt us. No, we’re nervous because there are things about each of us that we’d rather God not see. All of us have parts of our soul that we have roped off and declared unhallowed ground. Our insecurities, our ugliest thoughts, our worst impulses – we’d much rather hide those away than entrust them to God. When we don’t love something about ourselves, we have trouble believing that God could love it. We have trouble believing that God could love us if God knew us too well. We’re terrified of being exposed as unlovable. And so we try to hide parts of ourselves – from each other, from ourselves, from God – and it scares us to be reminded that that doesn’t work. “Where can I go from your spirit, or where can I flee from your presence?” Nowhere? That’s not very reassuring in those moments when we’d prefer to run away and be alone.

If anyone knew about trying to hide from God, it was David, to whom our tradition attributes this psalm. Israel’s greatest king was far from a perfect person. He had plenty of things to be ashamed of. Whenever we think of the sins of David, we tend to think of his crimes against Bathsheba and Uriah, and that’s part of his story, but it was far from the only thing he did wrong. In his pursuit of power, he committed treason, extortion, and murder. His very last act before dying was to give his son a list of his surviving enemies, with orders to hunt them down and kill them. Scripture tells us that God gave the honor of building the temple to Solomon because David had too much blood on his hands. He was great, but he was rarely good. There are plenty of things he must’ve wished he could hide from God’s sight.

And yet, the sinful psalmist whom we name David says that God’s knowledge of him is wonderful – more wonderful than he can understand. He tells us that we are God’s creation, and as God’s creation, we are marvelous. God knows all that we think and do. If we had to see ourselves like that, as we really are, we might want to flinch away, but God keeps looking, and calls us good. We can give up on parts of ourselves. We can despair completely and say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” but even the darkness is not dark to our God, for the night is as bright as the day, and darkness is as light. God looks at us in our wonderful, terrifying fullness, and God sees light in even our most shadowy places. It’s not because God thinks we’re perfect, or because God ignores our sins. No, it’s because God knows us, and God knows that each of us are made wonderfully, even when it’s hard for us to see. That’s the message we need to live. We all need to be loved for who we are. We need to hear that we don’t have to earn love, because we already have it. God loves us at our worst just as much as at our best. And when we accept that nothing in us is too ugly or sinful for God is when we can finally stop running and do something our sins.

On this Martin Luther King Sunday, we are called to face hard truths about our sinful nature. We are challenged to confess that, not only is this country still broken, but we are still broken too. Even in this wonderful community, where people try so hard to do justice and love kindness – none of us are free of sin. All of us contribute to the injustice of this world. Consciously or not, we perpetuate worldviews that place some human lives above others. We participate in economic systems that take advantage of those who have less than us. We look away when we see our fellow children of God suffering. These are scary things to face, because they mean admitting that terrible ugliness lives within us. We don’t want to deal with that. We don’t want add racism or classism or sexism to the pile of things that we dislike about ourselves. And so, when we hear that we have failed to live alongside all people as equals, our instinct is to push that truth away. We shut down or lash out because those things are so unlovable, and we desperately want to be loved.

But we can confront these sins, and all other sins, because God already sees them, and God loves us anyway. There’s nothing to hide, and there’s nothing to lose. The God who knit our cells together in the womb knows us more intimately than we know ourselves. God is better acquainted with our sins than we ever could be. God sees us in our entirety, and scripture tells us that what God sees is wonderful. That means we can finally stop trying to run away. We can follow Christ without being ashamed of all the ways we fall short. God knows us completely and loves us completely, and nothing we do can ever take that away. We are seen and known by God, and we can rejoice in that without fear.

Amen.

“God meets us where we are, as we are, and speaks to us in words we can understand. Christ’s star shines differently in each of our lives, leading us to where God calls. 

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Day of Epiphany
Text: Matthew 2:1-12

They watched the stars for their signs. They spoke the language of constellations and comets. They believed they could read the movements of the heavens to better understand events on this earth. We call them Wise Men, or Magi, but they were astrologers, and they came to Judea because they saw something unusual in the sky. These men bearing gifts for the newborn king were foreigners, with a foreign religion, and strange, foreign ideas about how to make sense of the world. The idea that there could be anything right or real about their astral predictions seems absurd, even blasphemous. We think astrology is silly now, but back then, it was evil to the people of Israel. The Bible repeatedly condemns those who claim to be able to discern God’s will by looking at the sky. The Magi weren’t just different; their difference was dangerous. And yet – they were looking at the stars, so God came to them through the stars. God had a plan for them, so God met them where they were, and spoke to them in a language they could understand. God called to Zechariah in the temple, to Mary in Nazareth, and to the Magi in a star chart.

This might sound unsettling, that God announced the birth of Christ through pagan divination, but it is an act that is full of promise for us. It says that God comes to us where we are, as we are. We don’t need to be more righteous, or more pious, or more learned, or more faithful to see Christ. We don’t need to be someone else in order to have a relationship with God. We only need to be ourselves, and Christ will find us, and speak to us in words that we can hear. We see this when Jesus explains the kingdom of God to peasants in Galilee using parables about things from their daily lives, teaching about eternity with seeds and sheep and weddings. We see this on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit allows everyone in the crowd to hear the good news being proclaimed in their native language. We see this when Paul stands on the Areopagus, and defends the Gospel to the leaders of Athens using the terms of Athenian philosophy. We see this in scripture itself, where the words of Jesus, who spoke Aramaic, are preserved in Greek, so the good news could spread like wildfire across the Greek-speaking world. And we see this with startling clarity when God speaks to a group of foreign astrologers through an unusual star.

And today, God speaks to each of us in our own lives, using the language of our own hearts. We know that we meet God in this place, in our worship and the sacraments, but the Spirit is not bound by these walls. The God who made all things is present in all things and calls out to us through all things. Parents can meet God in their children. Musicians can meet God in their music. Scientists can meet God in their research. Lovers of literature can meet God in poetry. We find God in art, and in nature, and in our vocations, and in our relationships with each other. The light of Christ can flash forth out of anything. And so, the star that rises in my life to lead me to Christ is not going to look the same as the star that God sends for you. We all encounter God in different places, and hear God’s call in different words. It can be disorienting to realize how many paths there are to God. We can get distracted by jealousy or judgment when we see that someone else’s star shines differently than our own. We can be suspicious and possessive, wanting God to speak in only the language we understand. But in the end, it is a joyful thing that God is revealed to us in so many ways, because it means that all of us are surrounded by signs of God’s love, no matter who we are or what we do. It means that no one is unworthy, no one is unreachable. It means that we all can see God at work in our lives, if only we are willing to look.

But God doesn’t do all the work for us. Even though God meets us where we are, wherever we are, God doesn’t let us stay there. When God gives the Magi a sign in the stars, they have to get up and travel down a long road to see the promised child. They leave the comfort of their homes with no confirmation, no advance word, just the inner certainty that something special has been revealed to them. They’re willing to be strangers in a strange land so that they can pay tribute to the new king themselves. And that experience transforms them. God defies the expectations that they had at the beginning of our journey. Because as it turns out, the Wise Men don’t read the stars quite right. They head in the right direction, but they take a wrong turn at the very end. They’re looking for a king, so instead of going to Bethlehem, where the star points, they go to the palace in Jerusalem. They think they’re seeing the star clearly, but their sight is distorted by their bias. They need to change if they are going to understand the message that God is really revealing to them.

But they do change, despite their initial mistake. When the star leads them to an ordinary house in an ordinary little town, they aren’t confused or dismayed. Matthew says that they are overwhelmed with joy. What God is doing in them is bigger than their preconceptions. The revelation that God is giving them is far better than anything they expected to see. Instead of clinging to their assumptions, they’re delighted to discover that they were wrong. These proud, wealthy men who once looked up at the sky and claimed mastery of its movements now fall to their knees before an unremarkable child. These are powerful people. Mere days before, they marched into a foreign city and announced their desire to see the newborn king, apparently with every expectation that their wishes would be obeyed, but now they gladly hand over their riches to a little boy who has no obvious glory or grandeur. Instead of a star, they now see Christ, the light to all nations, and their understanding of the world is forever changed. The king they first met is exposed as a fearful tyrant, and the real king is a poor boy with no crown but the crown they have seen for him in the heavens. God has touched their hearts and transformed their lives – and they return home by a different road.

Finding God in our lives is only the first step. It’s a big and wonderful step, but it’s just the beginning. If we’re going to know Christ, we can’t just observe his star from a distance then move on with our lives. Like the Magi, we have to respond. We have to be ready to learn and to change. The real question is not where we will see God, but if we will follow where God leads. Will we have the courage to leave the lives we know, so we can get up and go see the promised king? Will we have the faith to keep following the road, even when it doesn’t lead where we thought it would? Will we be able to set aside our expectations and our pride to kneel before the Christ child, and offer up our gifts in service? It’s a tall order, but the good news is that we don’t just get one chance at this. Christ is always being born in us and around us, and God is always inviting us to witness to his presence. His star will keep rising for us, again and again, until we at last come to Bethlehem, where we will lay down our treasures before Christ, and find ourselves overwhelmed with joy.

In the infant Christ, God is so powerless that Jesus cannot even name himself. The name that is above every name must be breathed into being by someone else. Christ became helpless for us, and meets us in our places of greatest weakness.

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Feast of the Name of Jesus
Texts: Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 2:15-21 

The Apostle Paul was in prison when he wrote his letter to the church in Philippi. He had crossed the wrong people as he shared the gospel, and now he was in chains, waiting to learn his fate. He didn’t know if he would live or die – and the traditions of the church say that the epistle to the Philippians was the last letter that Paul wrote before his execution in Rome. The words in this letter may come from the apostle’s last days on earth. He is completely at the mercy of others. But in spite of his captivity and his helplessness, Paul writes about gratitude and joy. Philippians is his happiest letter. He is thankful for all that he has experienced in witnessing to Christ, and he has made his peace with whatever happens to him next. Either he will die for his faith and join Christ in heaven, or he will walk free and continue his work. Whatever is coming, whatever relief or whatever suffering, it will be for the glory of God, and so he can write about joy from a jail cell.

It’s an amazing attitude for him to have, but Paul doesn’t have to find this peace for himself. He says that he has learned it by following the example of Jesus. And he finds strength in that example by recalling the words of a familiar song. That’s what we read from Philippians today. It’s called the Christ hymn, and it may well be one of the very first statements of the Christian faith. Paul is quoting it, and Paul’s letters are the oldest writings in the New Testament, so these words have to be one of the very earliest Christian documents that we have. It’s not long, but it says what it needs to say. It tells of Christ’s preexistence with God, his birth as a human being, his death on a cross, his exaltation from the grave, and his glorious reign over all creation. It’s a familiar story. But the first stanza uses some compelling language that didn’t make it into any of our creeds. It says that although Christ Jesus “was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” Before entering this earth, Christ had all the power in the universe. All things were his to command. All mysteries were his to know. He could have held fast to this power, could have used it for his own advantage, could have forced all of creation to bow before him. But the hymn tells us that’s not how God views power. The misuse of power belongs to humans, not to God.

We all know how naturally we human beings exploit power. In the public realm and in our private lives, we have all seen people pursue power just for the sake of being powerful. And the state of our world testifies to how rarely that power is used wisely. All of us could easily name people who we’ve seen misusing their status to benefit themselves and hurt those below them – but we can’t just point fingers at others. It’s safe to say that all of us have, at some moment, abused power ourselves, even if it was a just childish impulse like laughing at a less popular kid on the playground or bossing around a younger sibling. Our world is full of hierarchies, and we are so anxious to protect our place within them. Falling down a pecking order is embarrassing at best and dangerous at worst, and so we cling to what we have.

Even the gospel can be a means by which we try to set ourselves above one another. As Paul writes to the Philippians, “Some proclaim Christ from envy, rivalry, and selfish ambition, not sincerely or out of love.” In our grasping hands, even the good news can be a tool for declaring who’s in and who’s out, who’s righteous and who’s sinful, who wins and who loses. We can use Christ to try to get ahead, to prove that we are better than others, to show that we and those who think like us are the real Christians. That’s obviously missing the point, but the church has long demonstrated how easily we turn the gospel into a cudgel for beating others into line. If we can gain advantage from something, our instinct is to take advantage of that thing, and the gospel is no exception.

It’s all because we’re afraid. Life is so tenuous. Everything we know can be upended in a single moment. Power is how we try to run from our frailty. We flee helplessness with everything we have. We run from the thought that our fate could be outside our control. But we all know that’s how it really works. All of us are under the control of countless forces that give us little say in how we live our lives. We’re subject to the demands of our fragile bodies. We’re enmeshed in economic systems that dictate our fortunes. We live under the authority of the planet, and geopolitical powers, and social trends, and the whims of the people around us. So little about our lives is truly under our control. And we hate that. We want to be autonomous, invulnerable, free. So we strive and strive to hold on to something that will make us the masters of our own destiny. For some of us, that thing is the pursuit of physical fitness. For others, it’s money. It might be influence, or knowledge, or professional success, or the perfect family – whatever it is that makes us feel like we’re in control of our lives. But nothing can free us from our vulnerability. Nothing can free us from our mortality. So we keep on trying, and are never satisfied.

But Paul shows us that we can be free of all this anxiety. We all know that Paul wasn’t a perfect man, but when push came to shove, when his life was on the line, he found peace. Remembering that Christ made himself helpless, even to death on a cross, he discovered the grace of helplessness for himself. Because helplessness is where we find Christ. Paired with this letter written by a man in prison, we read a story about Christ being named and circumcised as a tiny infant. We think of the newborn Jesus as sweet and beautiful, and of course those things were true of him as they are true of all babies, but here we are called to witness his absolute vulnerability, his absolute dependence on others. The second person of the Trinity, the living Word who existed before time itself and through whom all things came into being – that God made flesh has given up the ability to even name himself. It’s absurd. The Word cannot say his own name. The name that is above every name must be breathed into being by someone else. This is how God chose to come to us. This is how we meet Christ, and how Christ meets us: weak, fragile, human.

Christ was equal with God, but he poured himself out and became equal with us. He embraced our weakness for himself. He experienced our birth and our life and our death for himself. And then, when God raised him up from death, Jesus lifted up the rest of us with him. It is in Christ that our human weakness is known and loved, and it is in Christ alone that our human weakness is overcome. The way out of our fear is not in grasping for power that can hold our weakness at bay, but in following the path of Christ and choosing to embrace our vulnerability. We want flee from our frailty, our vulnerability, our mortality – but we don’t need to run away, because our helplessness is where God knows us best. We have to open ourselves to weakness, even to death, to feel Christ at our side. But when we learn to humble ourselves is when we can sing for joy in spite of our frailty, in spite of our fear, in spite of our chains. That’s when we know Christ is right there with us, holding us in love, and promising us that weakness is the way to God’s true power, and that the way of the cross is the way to eternal life.