When we “come and see” what Jesus is about, we are drawn into the transformative fellowship of being the Body of Christ and we are called to shine the light of God’s reconciling love throughout the earth.

Vicar Bristol Reading
Second Sunday after Epiphany, year A
Texts: Isaiah 49:1-7, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42

In the Gospel of John, the first words we hear from Jesus are a question: “What are you looking for?”

Jesus asks this of some curious onlookers who have been following him. They’re disciples of John the Baptist. While John seems completely confident that Jesus is the Messiah, the two disciples aren’t sure yet. That’s why they’re looking. They’re watching Jesus to see what all the fuss is about. John has said that Jesus is Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that Jesus can baptize with not just water but with the very spirit of God. Understandably, that’s something that these followers want to see! So, they trail behind Jesus, and they watch. And Jesus turns and confronts them with this question: “What are you looking for?”

It seems a little obvious, doesn’t it? They’re looking for… him. They’re looking for some kind of evidence that he’s the Messiah John claims he is. But the question “what are you looking for” goes beyond sight: it is a question about seeking. It is about what is perceived with the heart, not the eyes. Jesus is asking, “What are you hoping to find? What is your soul longing for?”

The disciples answer Jesus with a question of their own, “Where are you staying?” and he says simply, “Come and see.” Instead of dismissing them or scolding them, Jesus welcomes and invites them. “You’re looking for me? Well, come and see. Come and stay a while.” So they do. The text says the two “remain” with Jesus for a time.

And whatever they saw while they were with him, whatever they heard, whatever they felt… was transformative. When they first met Jesus, the two respectfully called him “Rabbi,” teacher. But after spending time in Jesus’ presence, they call him “Christ,” Messiah. Coming into relationship with the Jesus changes them. Not because they find facts or gather proof, but because they personally experience relationship with the incarnate God.

This moment doesn’t just change them, it convicts and motivates them. They leave from this time with Jesus eager to share what they’ve experienced and invite others to do the same: “We’ve found the Messiah – come and see!” They tell friends, they tell family: “Come and see for yourself. Come and experience personal connection with this savior.” So the relationship that is at the heart of this story isn’t only about the relationship between these two potential disciples and Jesus;  it’s also about relationship within community.

These two people are only here getting to know Jesus in the first place because they trusted their leader, John the Baptist. John had a relationship with them, and his testimony convinced them to come and see Jesus for themselves. And then their testimony convinces others. Like a ripple effect, the circle grows wider and wider.

This has always been an important part of the church’s story: sharing how your relationship with Christ has changed you welcomes others into relationship with Christ themselves. And staying in that relationship with one other continues to change you, and draw you even closer to God.

This is why Paul talks about the community of Christ followers as a body, interdependent and interconnected, a body that lives and breathes and moves as a collection of all its parts. God has called you into fellowship, Paul writes to the Corinthians. In other words, God has called you into relationship.

But God’s vision isn’t just for a community of people that are alike, like a sort of club. The circles of those ripples grow and grow. The welcome of God isn’t just about one group of people in one place. Paul writes that there are saints in every place who call on the name of Christ, and they all belong to the same God, like siblings in the same family. In every place”! Just think about that for a moment: The body of Christ is as wide as the whole world! That’s the kind of fellowship you’re called into as a follower of Christ.

If the two disciples in the Gospel story had been listening to John the Baptist, they might have had a glimpse that this is what they were getting themselves into. John said, “This is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The world. Not the sin of one person, not the sin of one nation, but the sin of the whole world. This Messiah who has come to dwell among us is serious about reconciling all of creation to God.

Anyone who wants to come and see what Jesus is about is going to be called into that same work of expansive reconciliation. Those who would be servants of God are called to be a light to the nations, as Isaiah says, in order that God’s saving love might shine to the very ends of the earth. This doesn’t mean being a coercive or oppressive presence in the world. Scripture says this light is given to the world by God. It is meant to be a gift, not a harm.

Those who would be servants of God are called into fellowship, into intentional community amidst diversity. That means doing the hard work of staying in relationship, which requires practicing forgiveness and reconciliation. It means healing and serving; it means breaking down barriers and building up community.

When you come into relationship with Christ, you can’t stay the same; you can’t only live for yourself, because you’re transformed, and you become part of the body. Other parts of the body depend on you, and you depend on them. Things will get difficult and there will be conflict, but you are also given this promise: God doesn’t leave you alone in this task.

Listen to what Paul says happens to those who come into the body: “In every way you have been enriched in Christ. You are not lacking in any spiritual gift.” Let these words be a reminder that you have been equipped and strengthened to be the community of Christ, to grow in fellowship. You have been equipped and strengthened to be a beacon of God’s love in the world. You have everything you need because God has given it to you, so you can be a gift to others.

And God knows something about being in relationship because God is relationship. God is Trinity, three-in-one.

If we take the incarnation seriously, then we know that this Gospel story about Jesus’ invitation to “come and see” shows us something of the face of God. It shows us a God who asks and welcomes questions, a God who celebrates the curious and the seeking, a God who draws all of creation into intimate relationship, a God whose forgiveness knows no boundaries.

But this story also shows us the power of God’s mysterious Spirit. It’s the Spirit’s presence that has John even recognize Jesus as the Messiah to begin with: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven,” John declares, “and it remained on him.” But Jesus doesn’t keep the life force of Spirit to himself: he gives it away. He baptizes others with its power, and he teachers over and over that God’s Spirit will never leave his followers, even when the physical person of Jesus is no longer with them. The Spirit will live in Christ followers forever: advocating, empowering, comforting, teaching, transforming.

That Spirit is, right now, living in you, as it is in all those diverse members of the beloved Body of Christ, throughout the world, in every place. That Spirit is, right now, equipping and strengthening you to live out God’s mission of radical love and reconciliation. Can you see it in one another? It is like a light in the darkness. Go out and shine that divine light to the ends of the earth.

Amen.

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