The gift of our Baptism into Christ is primarily the entrance of the Holy Spirit into us, growing faith and calling us into our ministry and service in the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Baptism of Our Lord, year B
   texts:  Mark 1:4-11; Acts 19:1-7

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

“We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

What a strange thing for these Ephesian believers to admit.  Clearly getting doctrines straight before baptism was not a high priority for the disciples of John the Baptizer who made it all the way to Greece.  It’s hard to know which is more surprising: that John still had disciples going around as far as Ephesus proclaiming a baptism of repentance, well after he completed his task to prepare people for the Messiah; or that these evangelists didn’t even bother to tell the people much about Jesus.

We can’t know what they told.  But since one of the few things John actually said about Jesus’ ministry was that Jesus would baptize believers with the Holy Spirit, one wonders: if they didn’t get to that part of John’s teachings, what, if anything, did these wandering preachers preach?

“We haven’t even heard there is a Holy Spirit.”  This seems critical for us.  Do we understand our baptism as connected to what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives?  Or do we live as if we’ve never heard there is a Holy Spirit?

We sometimes focus on the wrong things when it comes to baptism.

When we talk about baptism we seem to most often talk about rules.  Who should be baptized?  How much should they know before they are?  Is it OK to baptize babies?  Is the baptism of other communions of the Church as valid as ours?  Is the Table of the Lord only for those who are baptized, or can others come?  What of those who aren’t baptized, are they in danger of not being saved?

All such questions focus on baptism as status and seem to consider this Sacrament our chance to sort who’s in and who’s out, to control the gate, keep the room free of riffraff.  The absolute monstrosity of centuries of the Church declaring that those who died unbaptized could not be brought to eternal life, in defiance of anything the Scriptures say, is only one example of how we consider baptism as a means of control: of the Church, of others, even of the Triune God.  It is ridiculously arrogant to believe we have any say over whom God loves, saves, blesses, or raises from the dead.  God will do whatever God wants to do.

But this odd story from Ephesus points out another reason why these questions distract us from a really important thing.  Ephesus reminds us that Baptism is really all about the Holy Spirit.

That’s the experience of Baptism in the early Church: the presence of the Spirit was central.

The pattern of baptism in the early life in Acts was that evangelists would baptize “in the name of Jesus” – it’s not clear if the Triune Name was being used yet.  Then the apostles would come, lay hands on them, and pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the believers, as Paul did today.

So in Acts 8, Philip preaches to Samaritans who “accept the word of God,” and baptizes them.  Later, Peter and John come and lay hands on them so they receive the Holy Spirit.  All of this we do at once in our baptisms today.

Sometimes it didn’t work that way, though.  In Acts 10, the Holy Spirit fills a group of Gentiles before anybody does anything.  Peter wisely recognizes that if the Holy Spirit has come, there is no reason to withhold baptism.  For the early Church, the presence of the Spirit of God was so deeply connected to their understanding of Baptism, they sometimes needed to baptize after the Spirit got there, to catch up.  The same thing happened at Pentecost.

Likewise, Jesus’ baptism is when we see the Spirit of God come upon him.

We don’t know why Jesus needed to be baptized, certainly not for repentance and new life.  We do know what happened, though: the Holy Spirit came upon him and his Father’s voice called him beloved, one in whom he was well pleased.

As he walked out of the waters of the Jordan, filled with the Spirit of God, he had an understanding that he was God’s anointed, God’s beloved Son.  With hair and clothes dripping, he kept on walking out into the desert to meditate and fast and pray for 40 days on this new life ahead of him, this ministry.  From his baptism, and the inflowing Holy Spirit, it all began, the teaching, the healing, the calling, and the path to the cross and resurrection.

This is the only thing that matters for us, too, because that same Spirit is poured into us.

We don’t need Baptism to protect us from God’s impotence or carelessness; Christ Jesus has shown us the Triune God is neither.  If anyone will be saved, God will do it, and nothing we do or don’t do will change that.  Baptism is never a question of our safety.

Baptism is, however, a clear place where we proclaim the Holy Spirit comes upon us and we are changed.  Like Jesus.  Sent into ministry.  Like Jesus.

Let us be clear also: the Holy Spirit is not limited by our ritual, our actions, not even by this commanded Baptism we do as Christ’s Church.  The Holy Spirit can and does go wherever she wills to go, and moves in and with people far beyond our reach and knowledge and control.

But we are promised by our Lord that the Holy Spirit will in fact come to us in baptism and change our lives.  We see that happen to Jesus, and that’s what we should be expecting for ourselves, and for Sophia today.

Baptism for us, like Jesus, is our time of in-Spiration, when we are Spirited by God to live our lives of discipleship.

John baptized a baptism of repentance, inviting people to turn from their old ways and follow in God’s path.  Baptism into the name of the Triune God is far more than that, it is the Holy Spirit joining us to the life of the Triune God, giving birth to us as children of God.

But the life after both kinds of baptism is the same: a new beginning going in God’s direction instead of our own.  It’s no accident that when we baptize, or affirm our baptism, we begin by turning away from evil and the powers of evil that are against God.  In Christian baptism we understand John’s call to turn around and start new.

What is different is that our baptism has the same gift given Jesus in his baptism, the coming of the Holy Spirit.  The presence of the Holy Spirit empowers our beginning, our repentance, our new life.  The Holy Spirit gives us the grace and strength to walk in God’s ways and not our own.

We begin to look different to others, and even to ourselves, because the Spirit is transforming us, creating fruit and life in us that others can see.

That’s our grace and gift in our baptism.  We go from the font Spirited to live new lives in the world, part of God’s grace and healing of the world begun in Christ and continued in us.

When we come to the font now, placing water on ourselves in remembrance of our first washing, we want to keep our eyes open for this Spirit of God.

Our baptism is our Pentecost, as it was for Jesus, and our remembrance and living into our baptism is our constant joy in the grace of the Holy Spirit working in our lives and in the world.

We not only have heard there is a Holy Spirit, we live as children of God who expect that having the Spirit fill us will change us, and like Jesus, send us out into our service and ministry.  We not only have heard there is a Holy Spirit, we expect to see signs of the Spirit’s work in us everywhere we look.  The more we expect this, talk of this, look for this, the more we will see it.

So let’s keep our eyes open to the work of the Spirit, be unafraid to tell each other what we have seen.  For the Holy Spirit has given us new birth, and the Father has called us beloved children, and our whole ministry and service in Christ now lies before us.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The gift of our Baptism into Christ is primarily the entrance of the Holy Spirit into us, growing faith and calling us into our ministry and service in the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Baptism of Our Lord, year B
   texts:  Mark 1:4-11; Acts 19:1-7

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

“We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

What a strange thing for these Ephesian believers to admit.  Clearly getting doctrines straight before baptism was not a high priority for the disciples of John the Baptizer who made it all the way to Greece.  It’s hard to know which is more surprising: that John still had disciples going around as far as Ephesus proclaiming a baptism of repentance, well after he completed his task to prepare people for the Messiah; or that these evangelists didn’t even bother to tell the people much about Jesus.

We can’t know what they told.  But since one of the few things John actually said about Jesus’ ministry was that Jesus would baptize believers with the Holy Spirit, one wonders: if they didn’t get to that part of John’s teachings, what, if anything, did these wandering preachers preach?

“We haven’t even heard there is a Holy Spirit.”  This seems critical for us.  Do we understand our baptism as connected to what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives?  Or do we live as if we’ve never heard there is a Holy Spirit?

We sometimes focus on the wrong things when it comes to baptism.

When we talk about baptism we seem to most often talk about rules.  Who should be baptized?  How much should they know before they are?  Is it OK to baptize babies?  Is the baptism of other communions of the Church as valid as ours?  Is the Table of the Lord only for those who are baptized, or can others come?  What of those who aren’t baptized, are they in danger of not being saved?

All such questions focus on baptism as status and seem to consider this Sacrament our chance to sort who’s in and who’s out, to control the gate, keep the room free of riffraff.  The absolute monstrosity of centuries of the Church declaring that those who died unbaptized could not be brought to eternal life, in defiance of anything the Scriptures say, is only one example of how we consider baptism as a means of control: of the Church, of others, even of the Triune God.  It is ridiculously arrogant to believe we have any say over whom God loves, saves, blesses, or raises from the dead.  God will do whatever God wants to do.

But this odd story from Ephesus points out another reason why these questions distract us from a really important thing.  Ephesus reminds us that Baptism is really all about the Holy Spirit.

That’s the experience of Baptism in the early Church: the presence of the Spirit was central.

The pattern of baptism in the early life in Acts was that evangelists would baptize “in the name of Jesus” – it’s not clear if the Triune Name was being used yet.  Then the apostles would come, lay hands on them, and pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the believers, as Paul did today.

So in Acts 8, Philip preaches to Samaritans who “accept the word of God,” and baptizes them.  Later, Peter and John come and lay hands on them so they receive the Holy Spirit.  All of this we do at once in our baptisms today.

Sometimes it didn’t work that way, though.  In Acts 10, the Holy Spirit fills a group of Gentiles before anybody does anything.  Peter wisely recognizes that if the Holy Spirit has come, there is no reason to withhold baptism.  For the early Church, the presence of the Spirit of God was so deeply connected to their understanding of Baptism, they sometimes needed to baptize after the Spirit got there, to catch up.  The same thing happened at Pentecost.

Likewise, Jesus’ baptism is when we see the Spirit of God come upon him.

We don’t know why Jesus needed to be baptized, certainly not for repentance and new life.  We do know what happened, though: the Holy Spirit came upon him and his Father’s voice called him beloved, one in whom he was well pleased.

As he walked out of the waters of the Jordan, filled with the Spirit of God, he had an understanding that he was God’s anointed, God’s beloved Son.  With hair and clothes dripping, he kept on walking out into the desert to meditate and fast and pray for 40 days on this new life ahead of him, this ministry.  From his baptism, and the inflowing Holy Spirit, it all began, the teaching, the healing, the calling, and the path to the cross and resurrection.

This is the only thing that matters for us, too, because that same Spirit is poured into us.

We don’t need Baptism to protect us from God’s impotence or carelessness; Christ Jesus has shown us the Triune God is neither.  If anyone will be saved, God will do it, and nothing we do or don’t do will change that.  Baptism is never a question of our safety.

Baptism is, however, a clear place where we proclaim the Holy Spirit comes upon us and we are changed.  Like Jesus.  Sent into ministry.  Like Jesus.

Let us be clear also: the Holy Spirit is not limited by our ritual, our actions, not even by this commanded Baptism we do as Christ’s Church.  The Holy Spirit can and does go wherever she wills to go, and moves in and with people far beyond our reach and knowledge and control.

But we are promised by our Lord that the Holy Spirit will in fact come to us in baptism and change our lives.  We see that happen to Jesus, and that’s what we should be expecting for ourselves, and for Sophia today.

Baptism for us, like Jesus, is our time of in-Spiration, when we are Spirited by God to live our lives of discipleship.

John baptized a baptism of repentance, inviting people to turn from their old ways and follow in God’s path.  Baptism into the name of the Triune God is far more than that, it is the Holy Spirit joining us to the life of the Triune God, giving birth to us as children of God.

But the life after both kinds of baptism is the same: a new beginning going in God’s direction instead of our own.  It’s no accident that when we baptize, or affirm our baptism, we begin by turning away from evil and the powers of evil that are against God.  In Christian baptism we understand John’s call to turn around and start new.

What is different is that our baptism has the same gift given Jesus in his baptism, the coming of the Holy Spirit.  The presence of the Holy Spirit empowers our beginning, our repentance, our new life.  The Holy Spirit gives us the grace and strength to walk in God’s ways and not our own.

We begin to look different to others, and even to ourselves, because the Spirit is transforming us, creating fruit and life in us that others can see.

That’s our grace and gift in our baptism.  We go from the font Spirited to live new lives in the world, part of God’s grace and healing of the world begun in Christ and continued in us.

When we come to the font now, placing water on ourselves in remembrance of our first washing, we want to keep our eyes open for this Spirit of God.

Our baptism is our Pentecost, as it was for Jesus, and our remembrance and living into our baptism is our constant joy in the grace of the Holy Spirit working in our lives and in the world.

We not only have heard there is a Holy Spirit, we live as children of God who expect that having the Spirit fill us will change us, and like Jesus, send us out into our service and ministry.  We not only have heard there is a Holy Spirit, we expect to see signs of the Spirit’s work in us everywhere we look.  The more we expect this, talk of this, look for this, the more we will see it.

So let’s keep our eyes open to the work of the Spirit, be unafraid to tell each other what we have seen.  For the Holy Spirit has given us new birth, and the Father has called us beloved children, and our whole ministry and service in Christ now lies before us.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

There is a time for waiting and watching and wondering, but this is not it. Epiphany is a time to focus, and to follow the star, wherever it leads.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
   The Epiphany of Our Lord
   Texts: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72: 1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2: 1-12

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

When was the last time you set out on a journey, with only a star—a single star—for your guide? When I am going somewhere, I typically want to know where I am supposed to go, how I’m going to get there, and what I should do once I’ve arrived. Failing that, I would at least like an address that I can plug into my GPS. When it comes to following what God has planned for my life, I have often asked God to put a big neon sign in the sky, laying out all the details of the path ahead. The idea of following a star sounds, quite frankly, a little crazy, even terrifying. If the wise men had tried to talk me into joining them, they would have had a hard time getting me out the door!

The wise men, however, seem to have taken their mysterious journey in stride. They were likely astrologers, so it was probably not such a strange thing for them to follow the guidance of the star. They may in fact have roamed often in response to what the skies told them. We don’t know where they were coming from, beyond the general statement “from the East.” We don’t know if they knew each other, or if they were strangers who met following the same star. This journey seems to be exceptional, somehow, even if they were accustomed to star gazing. There is nothing to indicate that the wise men themselves were Jewish, and yet, they travelled for days seeking the king of the Jews, so they could honor him. When the star disappeared, they stopped to ask directions, and continued onward. The wise men followed all of this, seemingly without question. Nothing else seemed to matter.

From the start, looking at it logically, nothing about this journey makes any sense. A star that shines and then disappears, about which they have only partial information. A king with ego issues and ulterior motives. The words of scribes and chief priests who serve the king. The star again. And finally, a dream. No GPS, no map, and truth be told, when they set out the wise men didn’t even know where they were going! Not exactly a pre-planned journey, although it certainly had a focus. Nothing mattered but following the star, going wherever it led them.

What was it about this child, this star, that motivated the wise men to travel such a distance, with almost no information? Why were the wise men so committed to finding Jesus, the baby who would be king of the Jews, that they set out on this incredible journey, and persisted in following the star despite the challenges, until they found him with his mother and father in Bethlehem? What was it they were really seeking?

The promise of this baby born in Bethlehem was not simply a continuation of the house of David, although he was that. He was a king, but he was not an ordinary king. He was not only salvation for the people of Israel, although he did come to save us. More than all of these things, the wise men were seeking the one who would be, as Isaiah describes, a light for all nations, a light that will guide exiles home. The psalmist tells us that this baby who will be king will bring justice for all who are poor. He will deliver those who are oppressed, have pity on those who are weak, redeem those caught in violence. In light of this promise, nothing else mattered, but following the star.

Following the star is no simple task. For one thing, a star is not exactly a neon sign. It is so easy to get distracted from the journey. If we don’t get wrapped up in the details of the end of the journey—where we are going, how we will get there, what we will do when we arrive—there are many other things all around us that clamor for our attention. The constant ping of notifications on laptops, smartphones, iPads, and tablets. Striving for success and approval, as defined by the world around us. Voices that tell us, constantly, that where and who we are is not enough, we have to keep climbing. The busyness of schedules so full that there is no time for gazing at stars, and following the star is out of the question.

Following the star is not easy, but if we take a moment to think about what the star means, we know, just as the wise men did, that nothing else matters. We live in a broken world that is in desperate need of light, mercy, justice, and redemption. We need the God who has come to us in Jesus, who will bring us home, show us what is really important. We need the God who stands with those who are most impacted by poverty, oppression, and violence, and who calls us to make that our priority, above anything else. We need the God who reminds us that if one person among us is suffering, we all suffer. Nothing else matters. We need to follow the star.

God is with us on this journey, and gives us the courage and faith to take it, but God does not follow the star for us. That is our job. There is a time for waiting and watching and wondering, but this is not it. Epiphany is a time to focus, and to follow the star, wherever it leads. Each time we take an action to bring light to the dark places in our world, we are claiming the promise of the one who set the star in the sky to guide us. When we walk the road with someone who is in pain, we open our hearts to the God who promises healing, and forgiveness. When we share the abundance of this world with a neighbor, we are following the star to Jesus, whose mercy will bring a day when no one will go without. When we stand against oppression, and are willing to change so that oppressive systems fall even if it’s not convenient for us, we are proclaiming that there is room on the road for everyone. The wise men knew, and we know, that the star leads to hope not just for some, but for all.

We don’t know where the star will lead us, or how we will get there. On our own, we would never find our way. Following the star is about believing in the promise of God and stepping into the promise, knowing that God is always faithful. It means that, no matter what else we do, or what might call for our attention, there is nothing more important than taking the next step toward the star.

I still don’t know if I would have gone with the wise men, if they had invited me to follow the star with them, but I hope I would have. Because the star, as hard as it may be for us as human beings to keep track of, and as scary as the unknown journey might be, reminds us that God has always been faithful, and always will be faithful, to God’s promises. It is also a reminder that we are not in charge of the journey. We are followers, ones who trust in God, who has never failed. We know the mercy, justice, healing, and love of God, and we respond by taking a step in the direction the star is leading us, not knowing where we will end up. Nothing else matters, as long as we follow the star.

Amen!

There is a time for waiting and watching and wondering, but this is not it. Epiphany is a time to focus, and to follow the star, wherever it leads.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
   The Epiphany of Our Lord
   Texts: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72: 1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2: 1-12

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

When was the last time you set out on a journey, with only a star—a single star—for your guide? When I am going somewhere, I typically want to know where I am supposed to go, how I’m going to get there, and what I should do once I’ve arrived. Failing that, I would at least like an address that I can plug into my GPS. When it comes to following what God has planned for my life, I have often asked God to put a big neon sign in the sky, laying out all the details of the path ahead. The idea of following a star sounds, quite frankly, a little crazy, even terrifying. If the wise men had tried to talk me into joining them, they would have had a hard time getting me out the door!

The wise men, however, seem to have taken their mysterious journey in stride. They were likely astrologers, so it was probably not such a strange thing for them to follow the guidance of the star. They may in fact have roamed often in response to what the skies told them. We don’t know where they were coming from, beyond the general statement “from the East.” We don’t know if they knew each other, or if they were strangers who met following the same star. This journey seems to be exceptional, somehow, even if they were accustomed to star gazing. There is nothing to indicate that the wise men themselves were Jewish, and yet, they travelled for days seeking the king of the Jews, so they could honor him. When the star disappeared, they stopped to ask directions, and continued onward. The wise men followed all of this, seemingly without question. Nothing else seemed to matter.

From the start, looking at it logically, nothing about this journey makes any sense. A star that shines and then disappears, about which they have only partial information. A king with ego issues and ulterior motives. The words of scribes and chief priests who serve the king. The star again. And finally, a dream. No GPS, no map, and truth be told, when they set out the wise men didn’t even know where they were going! Not exactly a pre-planned journey, although it certainly had a focus. Nothing mattered but following the star, going wherever it led them.

What was it about this child, this star, that motivated the wise men to travel such a distance, with almost no information? Why were the wise men so committed to finding Jesus, the baby who would be king of the Jews, that they set out on this incredible journey, and persisted in following the star despite the challenges, until they found him with his mother and father in Bethlehem? What was it they were really seeking?

The promise of this baby born in Bethlehem was not simply a continuation of the house of David, although he was that. He was a king, but he was not an ordinary king. He was not only salvation for the people of Israel, although he did come to save us. More than all of these things, the wise men were seeking the one who would be, as Isaiah describes, a light for all nations, a light that will guide exiles home. The psalmist tells us that this baby who will be king will bring justice for all who are poor. He will deliver those who are oppressed, have pity on those who are weak, redeem those caught in violence. In light of this promise, nothing else mattered, but following the star.

Following the star is no simple task. For one thing, a star is not exactly a neon sign. It is so easy to get distracted from the journey. If we don’t get wrapped up in the details of the end of the journey—where we are going, how we will get there, what we will do when we arrive—there are many other things all around us that clamor for our attention. The constant ping of notifications on laptops, smartphones, iPads, and tablets. Striving for success and approval, as defined by the world around us. Voices that tell us, constantly, that where and who we are is not enough, we have to keep climbing. The busyness of schedules so full that there is no time for gazing at stars, and following the star is out of the question.

Following the star is not easy, but if we take a moment to think about what the star means, we know, just as the wise men did, that nothing else matters. We live in a broken world that is in desperate need of light, mercy, justice, and redemption. We need the God who has come to us in Jesus, who will bring us home, show us what is really important. We need the God who stands with those who are most impacted by poverty, oppression, and violence, and who calls us to make that our priority, above anything else. We need the God who reminds us that if one person among us is suffering, we all suffer. Nothing else matters. We need to follow the star.

God is with us on this journey, and gives us the courage and faith to take it, but God does not follow the star for us. That is our job. There is a time for waiting and watching and wondering, but this is not it. Epiphany is a time to focus, and to follow the star, wherever it leads. Each time we take an action to bring light to the dark places in our world, we are claiming the promise of the one who set the star in the sky to guide us. When we walk the road with someone who is in pain, we open our hearts to the God who promises healing, and forgiveness. When we share the abundance of this world with a neighbor, we are following the star to Jesus, whose mercy will bring a day when no one will go without. When we stand against oppression, and are willing to change so that oppressive systems fall even if it’s not convenient for us, we are proclaiming that there is room on the road for everyone. The wise men knew, and we know, that the star leads to hope not just for some, but for all.

We don’t know where the star will lead us, or how we will get there. On our own, we would never find our way. Following the star is about believing in the promise of God and stepping into the promise, knowing that God is always faithful. It means that, no matter what else we do, or what might call for our attention, there is nothing more important than taking the next step toward the star.

I still don’t know if I would have gone with the wise men, if they had invited me to follow the star with them, but I hope I would have. Because the star, as hard as it may be for us as human beings to keep track of, and as scary as the unknown journey might be, reminds us that God has always been faithful, and always will be faithful, to God’s promises. It is also a reminder that we are not in charge of the journey. We are followers, ones who trust in God, who has never failed. We know the mercy, justice, healing, and love of God, and we respond by taking a step in the direction the star is leading us, not knowing where we will end up. Nothing else matters, as long as we follow the star.

Amen!

God comes to us as one of us, revealing the heart of God, light in darkness, and now transforms us to do the same for the healing and restoring of the whole world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Second Sunday of Christmas
   text:  John 1:10-18

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

This was the only way it was going to work.

The problem of a world filled with pain and evil was never only a human problem.  The God who made this world has always been in pain over what we have done with it.  We have taken God’s great creation and made a disaster.  We’ve taken God’s great gift and turned it to harm against each other.  This world is not what it was created to be, and that has always angered God, saddened God, our ancestors in faith have testified.  It angers us, saddens us, too.

The question is what, if anything, is God doing.  When we see the evil people do, knowing this is not what God wants, we wonder what God’s answer is.  When we see people struggle to survive, that global problems of hunger and poverty place the majority of the world’s people in a life that barely clings to existence, we wonder what God is doing about this.  When we see the problems that beg for answers, our first thought is: what about God?

John the Evangelist says God in fact is doing something, the only thing that can deal with all of this mess, all of this brokenness, and bring it to healing, without also destroying us all and starting over.  God is doing the only thing that would work.  Are we willing to see, wise enough to listen?

It will take that, because we don’t seem to be looking for what God is doing.

Maybe because it’s about God changing us, changing people, to be a part of the needed healing and cleansing and restoring.  This always seems to surprise us.

When you imagine God solving the problem of world hunger, what do you imagine?  A miraculous intervention changing all the deserts into fertile land?  A power move overturning corrupt governments that deprive their people of needed resources?

When you imagine God stopping evil in this world, what do you imagine?  God intervening with power and might in every terrorist act?  God destroying those who live their lives to harm others?

The problem with expecting God to fix things apart from us is there really are no good answers on that path.  In the Great Flood God learned that destroying humanity didn’t solve the problem of evil.  It only caused a lot of death.  From there God had to make a new plan.

We’re still trying to catch up to that plan.

John says we’ve had this problem from the start.

This Word among us, John says, who made all things, came to his own, to the very people he had made, to us, and we didn’t know him.  We didn’t accept him.

From the beginning of John’s Gospel we see the problem: God’s answer, to come in person, is not the answer we’re looking for.  It’s not the magic solution, no-work, instant fix we secretly seem to expect God ought to do.

So God walks among us and we don’t see.  God’s plans to change the world have begun and we’re missing them.  If we look, though, we’ll see a wonder.

God’s way shows us the true heart of God.

This Son of God, John says, gives us what we only guessed at before: inside knowledge of God’s true heart for the world.  “No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

With Jesus the world no longer needs to speculate as to the nature of God, the heart of God.  We never have to look at a natural disaster again and wonder, “was God angry with these people?”  We never have to face a tragedy of evil and ask if it was punishment from God.  The Son reveals to us the heart of the Triune God, and the heart of the Triune God is and always will be love.

God’s coming to be with us was the only certain way we could know this heart of God.  Not in thunder from a mountain or massive acts of nature or in miracles; those could always be misinterpreted.  In person, God could talk to us, model for us, show us true life.

God’s answer for the pain of this world is and always will be love, in person.

God’s way is therefore the only way that really is light in darkness.

This is a world in darkness, but God’s light has come and cannot be stopped.

It’s not always evident that this is true.  When the Son of God first came into this world, the darkness resisted mightily.  But the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus wasn’t a tragic mistake or something that the Father somehow overlooked in the plan.

It was the plan.  Coming in person not only revealed God’s heart as love, it showed the power of God as loss, the might of God as self-giving.  Rather than fight the darkness of this world by destruction and force, God’s plan was to enter it and transform it from within.  That’s why we struggle to see this, understand this.  We are addicted to wanting power solutions, flashy miracles.

But God said, “I’ll open myself up to the darkness and it will do all it can to me, and light will still win.”  That’s the plan, and in Jesus’ resurrection we see just how that plan is working.  When God doesn’t fight evil but stands in its way on our behalf, stands even in our way as we make evil, God brings a light that darkness cannot overcome.

This was the only way that was going to work.  We need to learn this.  Because the next part of the plan is where we get stuck.

You see, the plan was never to stop with just Jesus.  It was to begin to change the world through those who joined with the Son of God.

To those who believe in him, those who saw what God was truly doing in Jesus, John says, the Son of God gives power to become children of God themselves.

That’s the plan.  The whole deal.  God’s solution to everything that ails this planet, everything we wish God would fix, everything wicked and ruined and oppressive.  God will bring healing through us, through God’s children, across this globe.

It’s genius.  We are changed into children of God; so we, like Jesus, bear God’s heart in the world.  We, like Jesus, become people who are always love, all the time.  We, like Jesus, become people who stand as light in darkness not with power but with a willingness to lose.

Do you see how brilliant God is?  The problem with this world was never something God could separate from the problem with people, the problem with us.  Any solution of power, even with divine power able to create universes, couldn’t fix God’s greatest pain about this world: the hearts of God’s children were cold and selfish, the root of all that is wrong in this world.

Change the hearts and you’ve got something, God thought.  Changed people, which is the primary hope.  And then a changed world, because these people are going to go out there and make a new creation with God’s Spirit giving them grace to do it.

This was the only way that would work.  It’s time we saw that and rejoiced.

This coming of this child in Bethlehem we celebrate was the beginning of God’s massive attempt to reconnect with us and all people to heal and restore all things.  The changing of our hearts, and of the hearts of the people of this world, is the only way the Triune God is able and willing to change this world.

No one has ever seen God.  But the Son of God has made the Father’s heart known to us.  Now we, children of God ourselves, get to show that same heart to the world, and see God’s healing begin.

Joy to the world indeed.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen