Listen to God’s voice: you are God’s beloved, the pleasure of God, and the Spirit is on you to be God’s promise to the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Baptism of Our Lord, year A (First Sunday after Epiphany)
Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17; Acts 10:34-43

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

It’s not clear if anyone nearby saw or heard what happened to Jesus in the Jordan.

In John’s Gospel John the Baptist says he saw the Spirit descend on Jesus. But the other Gospels, including Matthew today, if they say anything, say the heavens were opened “to Jesus” and “he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove.” Then the voice speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

So did anyone else see the heavens opened? See the Spirit like a dove? And if they didn’t, did anyone hear the voice of God, either? It may be that only Jesus was privy to this whole event.

Regardless, Jesus did experience this, and two things changed him utterly.

He saw the Spirit of God come to him. Now he knew he was connected into the life of the Trinity from which he came, and God’s Spirit, part of the divine dance he knew before creation, now filled him.

And he heard the voice of the Father, calling him a beloved Son, well-pleasing. What that meant to Jesus as the eternal Word, we can’t know. But as a human being like us, this must have been a powerful gift, to be affirmed as beloved and a pleasure.

These two things were meant for what was now coming. From the river, Jesus went into his ministry, the job he came to do as God’s Word from before creation. He headed into the wilderness for forty days of temptation, which we’ll hear about in over a month as Lent begins. After that, he was preaching and teaching and healing and calling people into God’s love. Fulfilling Isaiah’s prophetic word today, being the God’s covenant for all the people, God’s fulfilled promise. A light to the nations, opening eyes, bringing those imprisoned out into the light. Proclaiming justice and, Peter reminds Cornelius in Acts today, proclaiming peace.

Jesus did all of this with this new confidence from his baptism: He was joined into God’s life through the Spirit. And he was God’s Beloved Son, well-pleasing to God. That’s what carried him through all the coming challenges and trials.

But are you content today to simply come to the Jordan River again, as we do every year, and just watch?

The early Church boldly looked at words like Isaiah’s today, and Isaiah’s words for next week, and the ones we heard in Advent, and said, “These are about Jesus, the Christ. He’s God’s servant Isaiah promises.” We look at the same verses from Isaiah and agree: clearly we’re talking about Jesus.

But sometimes we in the Church just stop there. We celebrate this moment where Jesus is baptized and named God’s beloved, well-pleasing Son, and look forward to all the saving work he will do, culminating in his revealing of the height of God’s love for the world in dying on the cross and rising from the dead. We claim him as the Christ, God’s Son, our Savior. And happily move on with our lives.

You could do that today. But first, listen more carefully to the Church’s witness.

The Church took their understanding of Isaiah a lot further.

The experience of Pentecost – another coming down of the Spirit of God, this time on the people of God – led those first believers to understand that Isaiah’s promises applied to them, too. That they were part of God’s covenant to the people, God’s light. God’s servants.

They claimed this on themselves in baptism. So even though we don’t know who besides Jesus saw or heard anything at the river Jordan that day, after Pentecost the Church said, “We were there, too. We, too, are washed in God’s water, have the Spirit within us. We, too, heard God’s voice say we are God’s beloved children, well-pleasing to God.”

Though the Church at times forgets this, there have always been voices calling us to the riverside ourselves, delighting not just in Jesus as the baptized beloved Son of God, but delighting that you, and I, and all God’s people, are God’s beloved, well-pleasing to God.

And therefore, also called to all these servant missions that Isaiah declares, that Jesus fulfills, and now are yours to do, and mine.

This is the joy of your baptism, if you can hear God’s voice and trust God’s Spirit.

In the waters of baptism – even if you were too small to remember it – God’s voice said, “This one, this is my beloved child. I am well pleased with you.” God’s Spirit filled you, and still does. God’s Spirit, as Isaiah proclaimed to us in Advent, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of God, the Spirit of joy in God’s presence.

God’s Spirit, Isaiah proclaims today, gives you breath and strength, holds you by the hand and keeps you, and then gives you as God’s covenant to the people, God’s promise to the world. Gives you the power to open eyes, and free those imprisoned and in the dark.

Remember, though: before Jesus began his calling, he faced that wilderness testing.

That story is coming in Lent, but remember it now, too. Jesus needed to hold tightly to “You are my beloved” and to the Spirit within him, to deal with the testing in the wilderness, and the testing of his ministry. He needed to keep learning who he was, what God needed him to do, and that learning often happened in the middle of suffering and challenge.

It will for you, too. This world is eager to crush your hope of being God’s beloved, to shut your light down, to tell you you are not important to them, much less to God. You yourself might be one of the voices saying to yourself, “I can’t be God’s beloved child, God’s covenant with the world.”

Suffering and difficulty also test your sense of this truth and its calling. When things are hard, it’s equally hard to keep in mind who and whose you are and what your path is. Being light in this world today, a peacemaker in a world lusting for war, a voice of freedom in a country of walls, will be very hard.

And even though Jesus did his forty days in the wilderness and then his ministry, there wasn’t a clear line between testing and ministry for him. People always questioned him, doubted him. He had setbacks, failures. He even had moments wondering if God the Father was with him, and he was the Son of God, one within the Trinity! This continued through and including the cross. It will for you, too.

But: can you hear God’s voice? Listen carefully.

The Scriptures proclaim it, and it’s about you: you are God’s beloved child, and well-pleasing to God. You are. God’s Spirit is in you.

And now God needs you to fulfill God’s covenant promise to the world. To walk away from your baptismal water wet with that promise and keep that wetness as a reminder of God’s blessing and call. So, like so many of God’s beloved before you, you can proclaim the good news of God in Christ through your words and deeds, serve all people, following Jesus’ example, and strive for justice and peace in all the earth.

You are beloved of God, God’s Spirit is in you, stirring in your heart even now. You are not alone, even in the wilderness of this world. Go as God’s beloved and love and serve as Christ.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Enlightenment is seeing God’s light of hope in the baby, at the cross, not in spite of them, and then radiating that light into the world yourself.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Epiphany of Our Lord
Texts: Matthew 2:1-12; Isaiah 60:1-6 (with reference to John 1)

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

Are you here seeking enlightenment tonight?

Light is a powerful image for humanity. Every part of this globe every day is partially covered in darkness. Even those on the equator have half their days in darkness, and even though those near the poles have times when the sun barely sets, they still have moments where there isn’t enough light to see by.

So we have learned to use light to help us see. To overcome our fear of the darkness, where things invisibly threaten us. We learned to burn wood, we learned to put a piece of string in the wax bees make and light it, we eventually harnessed God’s electricity for light whenever and wherever we needed it. So we don’t stumble in the dark, bruise our shins, break our legs. So we aren’t afraid.

But we also learned this about light: it’s a helpful way to describe understanding. When we are confused, lost, afraid, and come to understand hope, or direction, or clarity, we say we are enlightened. Our minds now have light in them, we say, shining so we can see – not with our eyes but with our hearts and our minds and our spirits.

So I ask you again, are you hoping for enlightenment tonight? Is that why you came?

Maybe the Magi were seeking enlightenment, too.

They famously read the skies and interpreted the movement of planets and suns millions of miles away as indicating truth of something on earth. We’ve long since abandoned that idea. How can the rotation of our solar system, let alone distant galaxies, say anything about who we are, what God is doing?

But even in the Magi’s day, astrology was pretty subjective. Different cultures believed different things about what they saw in the skies, and it wasn’t like the star they followed came with an instruction guide. Somehow, they came to believe it was important that they go in a certain direction and see what they believed this heavenly body was indicating. But even as they arrived in Jerusalem, they didn’t know where to go.

Maybe they were looking to be enlightened as much as we are. So, they showed up at a house and saw a baby in the night, just as we’ve showed up in this house and heard about a baby in the night.

And Matthew says they were enlightened. They were overwhelmed with joy. What they saw opened their eyes, their hearts, their minds, to God’s grace coming into a dark and frightening world.

That’s an enlightenment we’d love to have.

Where is God in a world where children are killed by wicked rulers who feel their power threatened, 2,000 years ago and today? Where people are permitted to destroy the climate and wreak havoc on innocent humans, animals, landscapes? Where so many of God’s children are homeless and starving? Where powers that work evil and suffering seem nearly invincible?

We truly are here once again, as we always are, to ask of God: where is the beauty of your light in the darkness of the world? Where is the One whom we seek to be found, we ask like the Magi, and how will that One bring light?

And here is the light that John tells us shines in the darkness and cannot be overcome: God comes in a human child.

But anyone who saw the baby Jesus might not find it obvious that God was in this child for the healing of the world. Our Christmas movies always have a glowing light surrounding the Holy Family, presumably so the shepherds knew where to look, and the Magi knew where to kneel and set their presents.

But God’s truth is hard to grasp in this baby. If Matthew said a great warrior hero was God-with-us, maybe that’d be easier. Where is John’s promised light in this poor little family, this poor little baby?

But Matthew and John know the truth. The light of God, the heart of God the Son came to reveal, God-with-us, is only seen in this humility, this vulnerability.

That’s the enlightenment you need: not believing God is with us in spite of looking like a baby, but believing God-with-us can only be known in this little baby. You can’t understand God-with-us if you don’t understand this baby.

You see, God’s light is the humility, the vulnerability. God’s light is the suffering and death on the cross. Whatever the Magi saw, whatever the centurion on Golgotha saw, look for that: God isn’t known in spite of vulnerability and humility, but because of it.

See this and be radiant, Isaiah says, and then your heart shall thrill and rejoice.

You can be overwhelmed with joy at God’s coming this way, like the Magi, when you see this is the only light that makes sense in the world’s darkness. That this vulnerable baby and this dying Jesus on a cross is  the true light that actually can conquer evil. God’s plan of healing starts with vulnerability and always remains vulnerable, to reveal how evil can be dismantled forever. Not with power and might, our human approach. But with radical, self-giving love, modeled by the Creator of the universe.

You see that when you see this vulnerable child. When you look at the cross, and then at the empty tomb. That’s where you find enlightenment, when you finally understand the power of power-releasing love, the light of self-giving that cannot be extinguished by the worst evil.

And then, Isaiah says, you will also become light for the world.

See and be radiant, Isaiah says. Go be light.

You might not get the attention of whole nations and kings, as Isaiah promises, but what if you imagined that God meant that promise for you? What if you trusted that the light of Christ shining in you, the enlightenment you have received in God’s epiphany that this path of vulnerable love is the only light that can pierce all darkness and end it, what if you trusted that God would make that light shine from you? From your eyes, your face, your words, your actions?

This is the enlightenment to pray for: that God helps you see not only God’s light in this baby, in all that Jesus is and does, but also God’s light in you until you, too, are burning brightly as a candle in the night. Showing God’s hope, God’s love. And lighting others. Until eventually the promised dawn of God’s healing and life brightens for all the creation.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The creation is good. You are good. That’s God’s word from the beginning, in Christ’s Incarnation, and now incarnated in you.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday of Christmas, year ABC
Texts: John 1:1-18 (with Genesis 1); Ephesians 1:3-14

Beloved 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 said, “This is good.”

The holy and eternal God spoke a Word into the chaos and called a universe into being. Incarnated a creation in the heart of the life of the Triune God, within God’s inner dance.

And on this planet God made water and seas, plants and creatures of all sizes, heavenly bodies to give light and hope, land and mountains and valleys and deserts and gifts abundant. Minerals, fruits and vegetables, sunlight and grass, beautiful breezes, all for God’s creatures to dance and play and thrive. And God said, “This is good.”

And God made human beings, too, in the beginning. In God’s own image these creatures were made. And God said, “This is good, too.” You are good. God said so.

You may not have heard that message often from people of faith.

Somehow that song of God was waylaid. People were told they were not good, not beloved, sinful from before birth. But in this time of celebration of the Incarnation of that creating Word of God, where God’s Word took on our human body, gave us a face and a voice to know God’s own Triune heart, this is the only song that makes sense: God said humanity was good in the beginning, and in taking on our own body, God said, “This is still good.”

“Did you not hear me in the creation?” God asks at Jesus’ incarnation. “I meant it then, and I still mean it. You are good enough for me. Good enough for my life to live within you, to be born as one of you.”

John says this Word in our flesh, whom we know as Jesus, reveals God’s true heart to us. Not our view of what God must think. God’s true heart. And God’s true heart is that you, and this whole creation, is and always will be good.

Paul sings this song with joy and gladness today.

Did you hear it? You were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, Paul sings, in the beginning, to be holy and blameless before God in love. You are destined for adoption as God’s own child, Paul delights.

Take a moment to absorb that: before the foundation of the world – you were chosen. Your destiny has always been to be God’s child. You are good, in God’s heart, from before you even were, you have always been God’s hope and dream. Your adoption has been God’s plan from the beginning, to draw you, along with the whole creation, into the Triune God’s heart and life.

I call you good, God says in Christ’s coming. Beloved. My child.

But you say, “what about sin? Am I not sinful?”

Of course you have sinned, and sin grips your life at times. You can and do feel stuck and unable to change. You can and do feel guilt and shame over thoughts, actions, inaction. But the Incarnation of Christ Jesus tells you this truth: sin is not your core identity. At your core, you are God’s beloved, God’s child. And God says, “you are good.”

Maybe as Lutherans we got waylaid by Martin’s own experience. Luther felt deep pain at his sinfulness. He had a voice inside him – and some of us hear this voice, too – a voice that said, “You’ll never be good enough for God, you deserve punishment now and in eternity.” And the Church repeated that Word to him. And when he discovered that the Word of God in Scripture said something completely different to him, it changed him forever, changed the Church. He found God’s grace, God’s welcome, God’s love. Whatever was broken and flawed in him was covered by God’s wholeness and completion. Nothing could separate him from God’s love in Christ.

Our problem is we’ve developed a theology that tries to get everyone to feel what Martin felt, the shame, the guilt, the fear, before declaring to them that God loves them anyway. That was a mistake. For centuries we’ve focused on making everyone believe their core identity is sin, that they are worthless and bad. And then somehow trying to move from that to saying, “But good news – God loves you!”

A friend of mine who’s struggled with pastors and other Christians telling her this for years put it this way to me recently: “It’s like a parent putting their child to bed, and every night giving them a kiss, tucking them in, and saying, ‘Good night. The most important thing you need to know is that I love you and you don’t deserve it.’” Even we human parents know that sounds like abuse. But how often have you been told that’s God’s view of you?

Jesus and Paul speak of sin, but not as your core identity.

They speak of it much more as we might use modern language of addiction. It’s not your true self, but it does stick to you. Sin can be life-long habits that are extremely hard to break. Addictive behaviors, where you keep repeating your sins over and over again, and seemingly can’t break free. Paul called this living by the way of the flesh, and somehow we misunderstood and said, “our very humanity is sin, and hateful, and bad.”

But that’s not the heart of God Jesus showed you. That’s not the rich grace Paul talks about in Ephesians today, a grace that gives us, gives me, forgiveness of sins, but in the context of being chosen from before the foundation of the world to be God’s beloved.

Do you sin? Yes. Are you stuck in sin at times, like an addiction? Yes. But sin is, as many wise believers have said for centuries, a disease. And disease is not the core reality. Disease is what you want to get rid of, cure, heal. So that you can be your true self.

And God’s Incarnation in our human life is exactly that healing.

In Greek, the word “salvation” also means “healing.” So Jesus says to you, always: “God loves you. I, God-with you, see you as beloved. I forgive all that needs it. Now come, follow me.” Entering into God’s life that Jesus reveals heals you so you can be who God truly sees in you.

And God means the whole world to know this joy. True salvation for God, true healing, happens when all God’s children hear “you are good, you are beloved,” and believe it and live into it. As Paul says today, this is mystery, but it is God’s will, and God’s good pleasure – it pleases God, Paul says – “to gather in Christ all things in heaven and all things in earth – all things – in the fullness of time.” To draw all things into God’s life of love, and heal all things, transforming suffering and pain, forgiving sin, giving hope. And God will only be satisfied when the whole creation is gathered in.

Good. That’s what God said in the beginning.

That’s what God said again in Christ’s Incarnation. That’s what God proved in the cross and resurrection of Jesus. And that’s God’s message to you today in this season of celebrating the Incarnation.

And God is still incarnate, but now in you. Because you are good enough for God to live in. Good now. Good always. So you incarnate God’s love in your life, and God’s love and life heals your sin, breaks you free when you’re stuck. To be what God says you are: good.

And then you get to join Paul’s song and reveal this hope and joy to the rest of God’s beloved creatures, and to God’s precious creation.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen