We long for God to come to be with us, we hope for this promise that Christ abides with us; but when our Lord comes he’s disruptive, life-changing, and thanks be to God for that.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Fourth Sunday of Advent, year A; texts: Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25

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

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.  He had it all in his mind how it would be: a perfect day, the whole town celebrating, a dance, his beautiful bride.  And then children, if the LORD God willed it, boys whom he would teach his craft, or girls whom his wife would teach to care for a home.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, this stunning thing of her being pregnant.  Truthfully, it wouldn’t have been so bad if the reason was that they couldn’t wait.  That had happened before in this town, and while it was humiliating for a while to be teased, it always passed and people went on with their lives.  That, he could have handled.

But this pregnancy . . .  well  . . . he had nothing to do with it.  That was the terrible thing.  That was the thing he couldn’t even bear to say out loud for fear it would mean it wasn’t just a bad dream.  For Joseph, his hopes for his life were shattered.

Or at least that’s what he thought.  It would be well for us, sitting on Fourth Advent, looking ahead to our Christmas celebrations, it would be well for us to see if we might need to learn what Joseph, guardian of our Lord, needed to learn.  Because what he learned was a hard lesson, though ultimately it was a lesson which gave him life like he’d never dreamed of.  What he learned was how God works salvation for us.  It was a hard lesson for him; it may be a hard lesson for us.  Because God does this salvation by surprising us with the unexpected, the ridiculous, even the terrible, or the terrifying.  But in that surprise we have hope, and life.  In that surprise God is with us.

We call Jesus’ birth holy, but in fact it’s a holy disruption, for his family, and for the world.

It’s a thing we have to keep in mind as we’re tempted to sentimentalize the Christmas story.  Matthew’s account is not terribly sentimental, after all.  He tells of a good man, a righteous man, who is torn between his loyalty to his fiancée and his sense of what is right, a man who seeks to quietly divorce her rather than have her stoned to death.

This threatening opening to Jesus’ story is only the start of what is to come.  Because Matthew will tell us of the cost of this birth to the children of Bethlehem.  And then he will tell us what this child, grown to be a man, became, and what he asks of us, of all who would follow him.

Jesus the child became a man who called us to take up our cross and follow him.  To give up our lives for each other.  To love our enemies and to be people embodying justice and love in the world.

This is the kind of wisdom, the way of life, this holy Child came to bring.  The disruption in his earthly parents’ lives was only the beginning.  Jesus’ whole way is a disruption of everything we are and do.

The promise Matthew makes today is that this Child will be Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.”  It’s a good name.  Until we comprehend what that means.  That’s what Joseph and Mary learned.

Once God comes to be with us, God starts talking to us.  God starts asking things of us.  God starts trying to lead us into new ways of life.  God-with-us is not a neutral, no-impact proposition.  God’s ways of justice and peace and self-giving love: this is the way Jesus talked and walked and preached.

Jesus came to lead us onto paths that lead to the life of the Triune God.  He points humanity, points each of us, down roads that are very different from our current paths and directions.

So however much we get mushy at Christmas, the end result of this impending birth is change for us.  Massive change.  Earth-shaking change.  And, like Joseph, we may not always like it at first.

What we know, though, is that the need for God-with-us is also as real as it has ever been for the world.

The readings from Scripture this morning speak of the human need for God to come and help us.  In Isaiah, Ahaz, the king of Judah, is faced with serious military threats from Israel, the northern kingdom, and from Aram, also to the north and east, and he’s facing moral collapse from within his kingdom.  Injustice and oppression are increasing among his people.

And to this Isaiah promises that a child will be born as a sign, a child called “God-with-us.”  A sign that God still cares about Judah.  But also a sign to call the nation to new life.

The time of Joseph and Mary likewise cried out for help from God.  Oppression from Rome, poverty and want: this people desperately needed God.  And the promise to Joseph today is that a child will be born, called “God-with-us”.

And even when we move forward now to our time, we long for God to save us.  How can we count the ways we are anxious and frightened?  Seemingly ever-increasing intolerance and hatred in our world and our society.  Threats of terrorism, of heart-rending violence and death close to home and across the oceans.  Soldiers – ours, and those of many nations – still fighting in wars, still far from wherever their homes are, still dying, year after year.

In more places than we can count in this world there are people ever in danger, being destroyed by others because of who they were born to be, or because of their faith, or because of any number of other things we find to hate each other about.  We who hope in the one true God want God to come and save us.  We long for this.

Advent is a time when this longing is spoken aloud, sung aloud, dared to be voiced, but this desire, this hope for Emmanuel never leaves us.  And the good news is also the difficulty, all at the same time: God does come to be with us.  But in an unexpected, and disruptive way.

There’s a reason for the disruption, though.  God’s whole purpose for coming in person was to create change in us and in the world.  This is what God means by “saved”.

And again, the clue is in the promised child’s name, now from the angel’s voice to Joseph: his name will be Jesus, which means “God saves.”  “Because he will save his people from their sins,” the angel says.

But for Jesus this isn’t some judicial exchange.  He doesn’t come simply to remove consequences or even punishment for our sins.  He comes to save us from them, God’s messenger declares.  That is, to bring us into new ways without sin.

God’s whole plan was to personally, in person, lead us away from paths that lead to sin into paths that lead to life.  That’s the world’s answer from God.  That’s how God is with us.

The answer for Ahaz and the people of Judah was to live new lives of justice in God’s ways, trusting God to save them, not foreign alliances.  This meant change for them, serious change.

The answer for Joseph and Mary and their people was to live in God’s ways and trust that God had come in person to bring about new life.  This meant change for them, too, serious change.

And it means change for us.  If we’re going to worship this Child, we must remember to worship the man, the Son of God, he became.  A man who was also God, who called us to new lives.

New lives that reflect the justice of God, that all people live safely, freely, and in peace.  When we do things or support things that do not bring that about, or that prevent such justice, this God-child, this man-to-be, who embodied such justice, this One calls us to change.

We are called to new lives that reflect the love of God, that all people have value and worth in God’s eyes, and are precious.  When we do things or support things that do not show that love, or that prevent people from knowing it, this God-child, this man-to-be, who lived that love with every fiber of his being, his teaching, his healing, this One calls us to change.

And we are called to new lives that reflect the vulnerability of God, that are willing to lose all for others, even to giving our lives, rather than dominating or controlling others.  When we seek to be in power, to be the ones who get our way, to be ones who live while others die, this God-child, this man-to-be, who himself died and rose to new life, this One calls us to change.

God needed to come because we were destroying ourselves and this world.  Because we still are.  God chose to come, to be with us, to show us the way to end that destruction and to find life.  But that meant we’d need to change.  And we don’t like that at all.  So we killed him.

But when we killed this God-child, the man he became, God overcame our hatred with resurrection life.  And now, risen, this Child continues to stand at the head of new roads, new paths, encouraging us to follow.

And that’s going to be a disruption.  But truly a holy one after all.

Because when God comes it’s usually not the way we expect, or often even want.  But it is the way we need.

As we enter our Christmas celebrations next week, let us never stop praying for Emmanuel, for God-with-us, despite what it will mean for changing us.  And may God bless us with the courage and faith of Joseph and Mary to accept God’s coming, and all the changes it means, so that through us, too, God will come to the world and continue to transform it from fear to love, from death to life.

It’s not how we thought it would be.  But it’s God’s gift of life to us and to the world.  And our Lord will be with us every step of the way on this new path, thanks be to God, because that’s his name, after all.  God-with-us.  Emmanuel.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.  Amen

Christ Jesus has come to open up for us a way to life, to walk on God’s holy way, where even fools can’t get lost; our challenge is to leave our own trails in the wilderness and risk trusting the healing we will receive to make us ready for that way.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Third Sunday of Advent, year A; texts: Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11

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

It can be a terrifying thing to be lost, with little hope of finding one’s way.  To take turn after turn, looking for signs, to drive further and further down a road with nothing looking like it’s supposed to, to have no landmarks of any kind.  I’ve been lost in wildernesses and in major cities, and there’s always a point of fear when all options seem to have been exercised and no light, no direction has come.

It might be a worse thing, though, to be lost and not know it.  To be confidently going one’s way, certain of direction and purpose, but in fact to be completely and utterly in the wrong place, going in the wrong direction: this is more terrifying.  The only thing worse would be the unaware lost person denying being lost to the one who is trying to enlighten them.  To confidently go one’s way, certain of direction and purpose, completely and utterly in the wrong place, going in the wrong direction, and boldly rejecting any suggestions that this is in fact the situation.

Hope only lies in awareness, it seems.  Being aware, or being willing to be made aware, that one is lost, at sea, in the wilderness, is the path to hope only because if one is aware, then if, if, there is a solution at hand, one might be in fact open to hearing it.  Open to following it.  So long as we remain oblivious, however – either by ignorance or by defiance – there is little chance we’ll be listening for an answer we don’t think we need.

For both Jesus and John, this is the situation: God has a highway that is safe and leads to life, while we’re scratching our way through the underbrush, lost, confused, but insisting our path is the right path.

Both John and Jesus are connected to words from Isaiah which speak of this holy way of God’s, though in very different ways.

The verses from Isaiah 40 that the Evangelists attach to John’s ministry talk about a massive road-building project, earth-movers in the desert.  We heard them last week: valleys filled in, mountains laid low, crooked things straightened out, that’s the plan.  And John’s the voice of that movement, with his fire and axes and threats.  He takes very seriously his role as the one preparing the way for the coming of Messiah, and he’s driving a road through the complacency and apathy of the people with a huge bulldozer.  “Wake up,” he shouts, “you’re going the wrong way”.  Or worse, you’re not going anywhere that God is.

But the verses from Isaiah we hear today, which Jesus, in his reply to John, claims as a sign he is fulfilling, speak of an already existing safe way through the wilderness.  It’s a lovely image of a safe road in a dangerous place, a road which avoids swamps and deserts, a road on which no wild animals will come.  This road is God’s Holy Way, a way leading to God, to life, and Isaiah says not even fools can get lost on it.  The sign that you’re on the holy way, Isaiah says, is the healing of people, the restoring of the creation, and the vision of God’s people walking in joy and gladness in the light of the Lord.

Jesus, like John, wants people on this road, it’s the road to life, but he comes not with bulldozers, fire and axes, rather with a welcome, an invitation to turn around instead of a shout, with forgiveness, and healing.  He comes to prepare hearts and lives through grace and welcome.  The people are no less lost than they were with John, though Jesus has a different way about him.

But while Jesus and John have different approaches, the message is the same: you can’t keep on in the way you’re going.  It is a way of death.  Yet, like the people of their day, we seem to be unable or unwilling to recognize this truth.

We slog through the wilderness of our lives, chopping pathways with the machetes of our own power and control, fighting undergrowth and the wild animals of the brokenness and evil of this world.  And if we actually are lost and either don’t know it or won’t admit it, there is no good outcome to our labor and effort.  In fact, it’s a sure recipe for destruction.

If the people of God are living lost from God, making their own roads in the wilderness of the world, it’s hardly ever a good result.

When the Church is lost, making its own paths, not walking on God’s Holy Way, people get hurt.  The way of the institution becomes the guiding light, and it’s a way that tramples people underfoot if they don’t fit, a way that forgets about God and makes the Church, in whatever form, the new idol, a way that uses power and force and domination instead of offering grace and healing and forgiveness.  A lost Church that doesn’t realize it is lost is a frightening and horrible thing; we know this, we’ve seen it.

It’s not much better for any of us as individuals, when we go our own paths, seeking our own good, our own control, our own decisions, our own way.  When we think we’re the ones who know best, we also hurt others, and hurt ourselves.  We become the new idol, and we forget about God as much as the institution can.

And the irony is that as we struggle through life, either as the Church or individuals, we still are perfectly willing and able to grumble at God for not helping us with the clearing, with the trail, with the journey.  When things get hard, God’s on the hook.

And all along, the Triune God is saying, “I actually have a road just over here that’s safe and good and will lead to life.  I’m not sure why you persist in doing this your own way instead of mine.”  Yet we keep on slogging ahead as if we’re wiser, have better vision, and a clearer purpose than God.

In part that may be because we know from Jesus and John that this is not necessarily a less difficult road: it’s a road of risk and possible loss, of certain vulnerability.

You see, the road might be the way to life, and it certainly is a way walked in the hands of God.

But there are things about it that don’t seem safe to us.  The road of the Triune God is a road where we constantly risk ourselves for the sake of others, because that’s what the roadmaker, Jesus, did and does.  We are willing to lose, to be vulnerable, to let go of our control.

And on this road we’re willing to admit that John and Jesus have a point, that our way of living our lives is often not of God, is broken, is sometimes destructive, and that we’re going to need to be turned around.  We’re going to need to be healed of whatever it is that is broken, that is sinful, that is hurtful.  That’s a painful on-ramp to the highway of God, and even on the highway, such self-truth will continue to be important for us to face.

Whether institutions or individuals, such weakness, such confession, such relinquishing of control, is a fearful prospect.  But it is the road to life, and even fools can’t get lost.  That’s the truth we need to know.

The way of power and dominance and control, where we’re always in charge, where we know the right way all the time, it’s an illusion.  We think it leads to life, but we know in our hearts most times that we have no idea where we’re going.

The Holy Way of God, on the other hand, is filled with forgiveness and grace, and with strength from the Holy Spirit to lift our sagging spirits, to open the eyes of our hearts to see the face of God, and shape us into people who look like the roadmaker, like Jesus.

If we follow our own paths in the wilderness, there are infinite ways we can get lost.  If we follow our Lord, not even fools – and isn’t that Good News for us today – not even fools can get lost.

But it’s not just God’s road which causes us to hesitate.  It’s also not easy for us to admit our way isn’t the best way.  Which is probably why Jesus talks about the possibility of people taking offense at him.

To be told you need fixing, you’re going the wrong way is not something we’re happy to hear.  It’s very easy for us to look at others who seem to be going the wrong way and have all sorts of advice for them.  To look at someone else who seems to need healing – whether spiritual, moral, emotional, mental, physical – and say “they should get some help,” we can do that.

And to look at other institutions, even fellow Christian ones, and see where they’ve gone wrong, where they’re lost, where they’re not walking with God, we’re good at that kind of vision.

Our diagnostic skills are exceptional when it comes to others.  It’s quite another thing to admit we need help.
That’s because this is also a deeply vulnerable place to be, to say we’re not what we are meant to be.  It requires a deep honesty about our hearts, honesty to ourselves, not just to God.  Honesty about motives, intents, about actions and inactions, about thoughts and plans.  It requires our facing that we have things that need to be turned around, healed.

And that’s not our favorite thing to do.  But surely, if we allow ourselves to be honest in our own minds, we know this is true.  We know we are broken, collectively and individually, and act in ways that are not good, that are hurtful.  We know that we would fret if others knew all our inner thoughts and desires.  We know that not only do we not have all the answers to life, we have almost none.

We know that there are places of deep fear inside us, fear that we are lost and don’t know our way, fear that things happen all the time that we can’t control and that terrifies us, fear that we make a mess of things far more often than we’d like to admit.

And that’s what we need to remember.  Because if you’re well and truly lost, if you’re really in the bushes, this is very good news, this holy way of God.

See. if you have a physical illness, you’d rarely want to deny it.  You’d know you needed to see a doctor.  You’re out of options to figure your own solutions out, to keep going as if all is well.  You have only one choice: seek help and hope that someone can help.

So were we able to be honest about our lostness, our inability to make our way in joy, we’d recognize our similar lack of options.  Whatever healing of heart, soul, mind, body we need, we’d see that there is One who offers it.

One who loves us even in our worst moments and sees our best, One who has a way to life if only we’d be willing to let him heal us and put us on that way.

One who modelled this whole way, of setting aside power, control, and dominance, and came among us to love us back to the Triune God, to show us the true way to be human, the true path to life.

It comes down to this.  Jesus’ reply to John is more for us than anything.  He says: “No offense – no offense – but you’re a bit of a mess, and heading in the wrong direction.  I can do something about that (look what I’ve done already), and I can get you going right, and you will find life and joy and hope in that new way.”

So we would be blessed, I think, if we didn’t take offense at this.

Blessed if we admitted our lostness as soon as possible, together and individually, that we might open ourselves to the healing, restoring grace of our Savior and Lord, who not only has made the road, but is on it himself, ready to guide, to direct, to strengthen, to cheer.

No offense, Jesus says, but you’ve got a problem.  And I can help.

Blessed are those who hear these words of our Lord and find life.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The Triune God is pruning us in order that Christ, our root, might bring forth new life from us.

Vicar Emily Beckering; Second Sunday of Advent, year A; texts: Matthew 3:1-12; Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

My home congregation had a tradition of performing a play every year that told the story of Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion. One of the most memorable scenes featured John the Baptist: he marched down the aisle of the nave in a wild wig and a hairy costume, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Prepare the way of the Lord, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” I must confess to you that one of my childhood dreams was to play the part of John the Baptist. Little did I know that that was too lofty a dream for a child, and the part would not be given to a girl. So I never got to see the view from the aisle, but I know well what it felt like to be part of the crowd. And really, that was the proper place for me, for all of us: we are part of the crowd, for we need to hear John the Baptist each year calling us to change how we have been living.

So here we are again, along the banks of the river, listening along with the Pharisees and the Sadducees to John the Baptist’s call to us. “Repent” he tells us, “The kingdom of heaven is near!” In other words, “there is no time to waste! No more excuses to make.” As we heard last week, the time is nearer than we think and this is our wake-up call. It is time to wake up, time to repent, time to turn around and turn away from the harmful ways that we have been living and time to turn back towards God and God’s purposes.

Through John’s warning, we like the people of Judea, are told to stop putting our trust in presidential pledges and party platforms, and instead to turn around and to trust God and God’s promises.

We, like those who journeyed from Jerusalem, are told to put an end to meeting our own needs at the expense of those who live in our home, in our city, across the ocean.

We are called to stop strolling along through Advent, content to busy ourselves with baking and buying and all of our responsibilities without a thought for those who struggle to keep their families fed and warm.

John the Baptist calls us back from the dark path of belittling ourselves when we feel that we lack what is needed, and ridiculing others when we feel threatened by them.

Along with the Sadducees and the Pharisees, we are called away from any sense of entitlement or security based on who we think we are or what we have done.

We are to stop staring at ourselves. We are to look up at Jesus and look out into the world where he leads us.

God loves us, and God also loves those whom we have hurt. We cannot continue to live in these ways: too many people have been hurt, too many relationships broken, too many needs have been ignored, too many times have we trampled on others to get our way, too many times have we hidden our God-given light or snuffed others’ out, too many opportunities to listen or to witness have been avoided, and too many times have we placed our trust in people, in things other than in the Triune God. We are trees who have not borne as much fruit as we could have. And this cannot continue. And there is no time to waste. We must be stopped. We must be changed.

This change requires more than an external makeover because the problem goes deep within us; this change, we are told, requires fire and an ax. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees to cut out and to chop off all of the harmful beliefs and patterns, all of the pieces of us that cause us to hurt ourselves and those around us.

This is what we need to understand about John the Baptist’s words: we are already the tree stump, and these words today are good news for a tree cut down.

The Triune God has already been at work in us since our Baptism, cutting out our old sinful selves, and God continues to do that day after day. Even the news of being cut down is good news because we actually need God to remove the diseased branches so that we might heal, to rip away the vines that choke the life out of us, to prune off the branches that take so much of our energy but bear no good fruit. We cannot be Christ if we are turned inward, and so though it is at times painful, the thorns and the thistles and yes maybe even the parts of ourselves that we would name as our trunk—our ego and the value that we place on our accomplishments and our reputation and how loved we are by others—even these things need to be cut away, down to the very tree stump.

But an amazing thing happens to tree stumps in the wild. On the surface—the part of the stump that we can see—the tree may look dead, lifeless, even decaying. But that is not the whole story. There is life yet within the tree: a whole root system beneath it, which anchors it deep and gives the stump what it needs to grow again. Without these roots, the stump would surely die. But it does not, for from the roots shoot new sprouts which will grow into a new tree, a tree without the disease of the old trunk, a healed tree, a healthy tree.

We, too, have secure roots. We are told today both by Paul and the prophet Isaiah, that the root of Jesse is Jesus: the one promised to Israel, the hope for the Gentiles—the hope for us. We are rooted to Christ: at our very core, we belong to the Lord. It is not us who live, but Christ within us: Christ the root, the anchor who keeps us from being torn up by the storms that may rage through our lives, the one who holds us secure in all seasons of the year, and when the winter passes and the flooding around us ceases, and all of our harmful ways of living have been cut away, Christ, our root, will bring forth new life from us.

Without Christ, we, like the tree stump without its roots, would simply die and decay. If left to our own devices, we would continue to trample over others to get our way, we would continue to cling to our money, to choose the easiest path rather than the path that God calls us down, to try to make people into who we would have them be instead of celebrate who God has made them, and we would continue to turn our back on God. But God has found a way to bring lasting change by choosing to forever be bound—to be rooted—to us through Christ. In this binding, we have been set free. The change within us comes from God, and the One who has claimed us and began a good work in us will bring it to completion. Christ will continue to work in us until we are no longer hurting others or destroying or turning our backs on God.

All of this is to say that when we look in the mirror and we see all of our shortcomings, how far we are from who we want to be, or when we look at each other and only see disappointment, or when we look at a world where sexism, racism, classism, slavery, abuse and poverty still hold power, and all that we can see is an ugly, hopeless, dead tree stump, we are told that God isn’t finished with us yet. God refuses to leave us there as the tree stump. “Wait,” God says, “Just you wait, a shoot shall come out from you and a branch shall grow out of your roots.”

This word of God is our life-giving sap because it gives us hope: real, true, hope that the kingdom has come near, and that we are not to give up on ourselves or one another because Christ is still at work in us. When we look at ourselves honestly and we realize that we can’t live how we have been living, the Triune God is cutting away our dead branches. And when we are reminded what is really important in this life, love of God and of one another, and that all the rest can be left behind, the Triune God is pruning us. And when we find ourselves listening in order to understand the concerns and values of others rather than immediately reacting out of fear or anger, the Triune God makes a new shoot burst forth. And when we give our money out of joy rather than cling to it, the Triune God is at work and a sprout springs up. When we take a second look at one another, and we see each other’s roots—each other’s worth—the Triune God is at work and a new bud flowers. And when we entrust ourselves—not just the parts that we are proudest of or the parts that we think maybe we can do without—but our whole selves to God, a branch grows tall and strong.

We might not always feel it, and this change that Christ is bringing about in us may not immediately be evident. So how do we know that we are being made new? How do we know that we are still rooted to God? We know because Christ has promised it: that he will never leave us or forsake us: that he will be with us always until the end of the age. Until he comes again. Until the very end of our sin, and our hurting, and all suffering. This is the promise and the hope for us, for the Church, the whole world, and for anyone who feels like a tree cut down. It won’t be long now; even now a shoot springs forth.

We live as people of the day, children of light, even if the time looks like it’s still night; so Paul invites us to act as if it is day right now, live as if it is Isaiah’s “days to come” right now.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, First Sunday of Advent, year A; texts: Romans 13:11-14; Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44

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

The middle of the night is a mysterious time, but far stranger are the wee hours of the morning, those hours before the sun rises, the time that isn’t quite night but isn’t quite day, either.  I’m blessed to be able to sleep well most nights, but every once in awhile I’ll wake up a bit early, in those strange hours.

If it’s a big day ahead, with lots to do or many things to attend, I find myself dreading the possibility, as I turn my alarm clock around to see the time, that it actually might be time to wake up.  To see that it’s 3:15 a.m. and I can sleep some more is a gift of grace.  I don’t have to get up yet; I don’t have to start a day that will be full of whatever it’s full of.  To be able to close my eyes and sleep some more, this is a good thing.  But if I look, and it’s only 15 minutes to the time I need to wake up, there’s really no point in going back to sleep.  It’s day already, for all intents and purposes, even if it’s dark.  Best to get up and get at what needs doing.

That time when it’s not quite night and not yet day, that is the time of our lives in this world as disciples of Christ Jesus.  Images of light and darkness, night and day pervade God’s word.  They thread throughout the words of witness believers have spoken and written for 2,000 years, that we live as people of the day in a world threatened by night, that we follow a risen Christ in a world where death seems to have immense power.

Yet a preeminent witness among those witnesses, the apostle Paul, suggests that things might be closer to dawn than we tend to imagine.  “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;” he says, “the night is far gone, the day is near.”  Paul tells us that it’s more like 15 minutes to wake-up time, rather than three hours.  Which suggests that our response needs to be accordingly different.

One of the challenges we have living in the 21st century is that it is the 21st century, nearly 2,000 years since the resurrection of Christ Jesus and the birth of the Church.  Paul’s sense that the time of fulfillment was near at hand has been muted by two millennia of waiting.  We’ve become so accustomed to waiting we’ve developed a centuries-long practice of having a special season, Advent, devoted to teaching us the art of waiting, the practice of patience.  We have come to live our lives with the spiritual expectation that it’s always still a few hours from dawn, not a few minutes.

That’s something I think Paul would have us correct, even now, twenty centuries removed from his writing these words to the Roman church.  To a God in whom, as Peter writes, a thousand years is like a day, time is relative, and 2,000 years is nothing.  Paul, I think, understands this, and his words, still read in our worship, still carried in our Bibles these many years later, still speak to us as a truth we need to hear.  An alarm we do not want to shut off.
 
When we see what Isaiah says the morning, the day of the LORD will bring, our hearts sing with hope.

The prophet tells us a promise of what the LORD will do in the new creation.  It’s a beautiful vision.

It’s a vision of hope, of all peoples coming to God.  “In those days, says the LORD, all peoples will gather together at the mountain of the LORD.”  They will gather in peace, to learn from God.  To learn God’s ways, that we might walk in God’s paths, that’s why all will gather.

It’s a vision of peace, of God’s people laying aside hatreds and weapons.  But it’s a vision of peace that is one of peace with justice.  Where all our weapons are transformed into tools that feed, nourish and sustain God’s people.

There are moments, sometimes painfully brief, where it seems that might be the way the world is moving.  Many swords have been destroyed.  Peace has been made in places where it was long absent.

And there are far more times when we realize bitterly, “not yet.”  Many swords continue to be made and sold, while millions of children starve for lack of plows to till soil and raise food.  We still look to our ways to solve our problems, not learning God’s ways and living them.

This promise of God’s is still just that: a promise.  We still wait for the LORD to come and restore the world.

So when we consider what Paul says, that this restoration is near, at hand, it makes little sense to what our perception of reality tells us.

We know we must hear what he says, because that’s exactly what our Lord tells us as well.  It’s not yet dawn, Paul says, but we’re past the darkest hours.  Today Jesus tells us it could happen at any time.  The hope of all Christians is that Jesus will return soon, to restore all things, and today we’re told he will.

But it’s been a long time, and we’re still waiting.  What are we supposed to do with that?  If waiting for Jesus’ return is like waiting for morning, well, it’s sure a long night.  Wars, famines, plagues, hatreds, all these things still torment our world.

And sometimes if the wait for something is too long, we stop waiting, stop believing anything will come.  And that leads us to inaction, for a couple reasons.

We begin to live as if we’ve got hours to sleep, and that lulls us into inaction.  What’s the rush to act, when it will be far ahead in the future that all this will happen, if ever?

Or we live as if night could never be stopped by day, as if it is all-powerful, and that cows us into inaction.  What can we do, just a few flashes of light in a dark world?

Regardless of what our reality seems to be, we can’t escape one simple thing: our Lord Jesus Christ tells us, and Paul affirms for us, that we are to live our lives at the ready.  Always.  Thinking we know when the time will be is foolish, but Jesus doesn’t tell us to do that.  Acting as if it will never come is also foolish.

So Jesus says again and again, “just live lives at the ready, at all times.”  “The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”  That’s why Paul’s urgency is simple: it’s time, he says, to start waking up.  Start being ready.

And since we do seem to struggle with long waits, it’s a good thing that Paul gives us an answer to how we might stay awake, how we might be ready for our Lord’s return.

Live honorably as if it were already day, he says.  Live honorably as if it were already day!

If it truly is just before dawn, Paul says, then get up, get out of bed, get dressed.  Even if it looks like night.  There’s not enough time to go back to sleep.  We need to take off the works of darkness, he says – put them aside – and start removing from our lives that which is a sign of the darkness.

Put aside our swords and spears: that is, our hatred, our indifference, our pride, our love of violence.  Put aside our self-centeredness and our ignorance of the pain of others.  Put aside our sin and wrongdoing, actions which Paul frequently compares to things of the darkness.

Get rid of them, he says.  You know what time it is: time to put those things away.

And then get dressed with “the armor of light,” he says, start living as if it were already God’s day.  Using plows and pruning hooks, to borrow Isaiah’s words, that is, caring for the world God made so that all may live.  Living honorably.

In fact Paul then seems to say “let’s keep it simple”: just put on the Lord Jesus Christ, get dressed in Jesus.  Cover ourselves with his way of life, his love, his grace, by living our lives as he did, loving and caring for the world and being a sign of God’s love.  Being in our very bodies and lives a preview of the new creation yet to come.

And isn’t this exactly what Isaiah says? “Come, let us walk in the light of the LORD.”  Because when we do, we learn that God’s kingdom has already begun and the day is breaking: first in Jesus, and now in each of us.  Swords and spears do turn into plows and pruners as God transforms our hearts in love.

Second, we also learn what it is to live in the light, to live as light, even when we are surrounded by darkness.  This is the other reason for our inaction, that we fear the work of darkness is too strong, so we won’t be able to make any impact or dent in the night.

Paul addresses this more fully in the verses preceding our reading today.  This whole section of his letter to the Romans, from chapter 12 up to today’s reading, is Paul’s great “nevertheless”: nevertheless, he says, live that way anyway.

Let your love be genuine, rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, Paul says in chapter 12 (12:9, 12).  This is not life in full daylight, but it is light-filled life to be lived in a world where there is darkness and hate and pain, because the light of this love can make a difference.

And if people aren’t going to be responding in peace or love, so be it, he says.  “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all,” Paul says (12:9).  There may be many swords wielded, many weapons fired.  But Paul says, why does that mean you and I shouldn’t start making plowshares with ours?  That’s how the kingdom starts.  We go first.

And the same Jesus who tells us to be ready at all times also tells us parables of mustard seeds and yeast, tiny things that look to have no value but which grow and transform their environment.  Just because the night seems too powerful and evil too strong doesn’t mean we’re not a little seed of hope and light and grace, and that we can’t have any effect.  That’s the gift of the Master whom we serve, the one who is coming but who in the meantime needs us to be about our work. 

Friends, the time is now.  “It is now the moment for [us] to wake from sleep.”

It’s almost day.  It’s time to get up, get dressed, and start walking in the light of the Lord.  There are plenty of things that make us want to roll over and close our eyes, but the light of the Lord is already upon us.

So, . . . let’s wake up!  Let’s ask God to keep us ever watchful, ever ready and prepared with lives of love and service, lives that will transform this world in tiny but powerful ways.  When Christ returns there will be a reign of justice and joy and peace, that we know.  But in the meantime, we prepare for that return by living in justice and joy and peace in this broken world, by being a tiny fleck of light in a world of darkness, and so being a sign of the rising sun that is to come.

And that’s all Christ needs of us, that we live the light-filled life as a sign in the darkness to others and as a beginning of the dawn of God.  And since the day is almost upon us, let’s be at it.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Christ, our true bread, meets our deepest needs and longing by bringing us true life: relationship with the Triune God. 

Vicar Emily Beckering; Day of Thanksgiving, year C; text: John 6:25-35

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Some followed him across the Sea of Galilee because they had heard of what he and done: of the people he had healed and fed. Others had actually seen him feed 5,000 people, and were eager to eat again. They were all attracted to Jesus because of his “signs,” but their faith went no deeper.

“Show us a sign!” they say, “Moses gave our ancestors manna in the wilderness. What can you do?”

They want signs, but they are not really interested in what the sign actually tells them about who Jesus is: the Messiah, the One whom they have been waiting for, the Son of God, who brings the very light and life of God.

All they know is that they are hungry. And so they follow the whispers and the stories about him. They follow Jesus perhaps in attempt to witness the next great miracle, to hear the next great speaker, to eat the magic bread that they have heard so much about.

But Jesus tells them that they are following him for the wrong reasons. They are looking for meaning and hope in the wrong places. The crowds are following him for entertainment, for a good story to share with the people back home, for a piece of bread.

But all of this is temporary. Their wandering in the wilderness will only bring short-term gain. They are hungry, but they are seeking experiences that will not satisfy their longing and food that will not fill them.

The crowd in this story reveals truths about ourselves: we too are hungry and too often, we like the crowds find ourselves wandering through our lives attempting to find happiness and fulfillment and meaning in ways—in so many ways—other than in God.

How often we seek life in our relationships, expecting—even demanding—our families and friends to meet all of our needs.

Or, we seek fulfillment in our work, in our hobbies, in our careers: convinced that if we just earn one more promotion or award of recognition or A on a term paper, then we will finally have arrived.

We try to fill our longing with things, with comforts, or experiences: certain that if we can just move to the bigger, better apartment, or finish the new edition on our home, or buy the newest model phone or car, or see the new opera, or visit that country that we have been waiting to see—then we will finally be happy.

We fill our days with events and projects to accomplish, our nights with parties or TV in order to fight off our loneliness, to distract us from the disappointment that we feel with ourselves or others, to escape reality.

We numb ourselves by ignoring and shoving our feelings down within us so that we don’t have to feel any pain, any hurt, any fear, but we are left feeling nothing at all.

And when these tactics don’t deliver—when we don’t find the happiness that we thought we would—we try again and make more to-do lists to mark down our accomplishments, keep purchasing the new models as advertised, and store up more things in search of something—anything—that will give us a purpose, meaning, life again.

But the truth is that none of this is ultimately satisfying. None of this is the answer to our problem. And none if it will ease the pain or the fear or the emptiness that we feel. Instead, we are left feeling lonely, dissatisfied with our relationships, disconnected from those who we want to care about, frustrated with ourselves, purposeless, and indifferent to the world. This kind of living leaves us exhausted and finally, empty.

In John’s gospel for today, we are told that this kind of life is no life at all: and it is certainly not the life that our God hopes for us. Jesus came so that we might have life and have it abundantly. Abundant life, true life, is life that only comes from God.

This is what Jesus is telling the crowds who have come to see his miracles: They came to hear a great speaker, someone to impress them with his words. They need true words. True words are those from God, words that Jesus the Son speaks.

They came to see signs, but they need true signs that will point them to God. True signs are given so that they might believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

They came seeking bread, what they need is true bread. True bread brings eternal life, and it is a life that only God can give. The true bread that Jesus is offering them is himself, for he alone can bring them this eternal life, he alone can fill their emptiness and satisfy their longing.

He alone is the bread of life, the living water, the light of the world.

Bread. Water. Light. These are all things that humans need to live, and yet, Jesus says that these things are not enough. All the bread and water and light in the world will not satisfy their deepest longings. What the people in the crowd really yearn for—what they have been created for—is true life, real life, abundant life and this can only come from God. And this is exactly what Jesus offers! God’s will according to the gospel of John is that no one may be lost, but everyone who sees Jesus will believe in him and have this eternal life.

Life after death, yes, but if we were to read ahead in to chapter 17 and listen in on Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, we would hear what eternal life really is: it is knowing God the Father and Jesus Christ whom he sent. God is concerned not only with life in the future but with true life now—abundant life is life lived in the joy of relationship with God.

This relationship is what the crowd hungers for and what they most need—this relationship is what we most need.

So when Jesus speaks to the crowds and tells them not to seek bread that perishes but the bread that gives life, he is speaking to us, calling us back from the empty ways that we have been living. Calling us to come back from our wilderness and our wandering, to come back from our restlessness and our loneliness and our longing. We don’t have to live those ways anymore because Jesus is giving us exactly what we need: himself.

Christ—our true bread—is the only one who can fill the emptiness that we carry, the only One who can bring lasting healing, the only One who can satisfy our deepest hunger. We have been hungering and searching for this relationship because it is for this that we have been created. And now, we need look no further, for thanks be to God on this day that this is precisely what we are given! Real life, true life: life filled with joy and abundance because it is life with our God.

And this life is eternal because God will never let us go, because Christ our bread will give himself to us bite by bite week after week. As God provided manna in the wilderness for the Israelites morning by morning, so too does God bring us life by drawing us into the very life of the Triune God here at this table week after week to remind us that what we need at our core—we already have—and we can stop searching for this relationship with God is given freely. In this lifelong relationship, we need not be hungry or thirsty because God will continually give us what we need: God’s own self.

But this relationship is not offered to us alone. We live in a hungry, tired world, a world that also hungers for this life, for this joy of living in relationship with God. And so our work does not end here at this table. From this table, from Christ our true bread, we are sent out to share how this God of love and light and life offers true life—his life—to all.

This is why we give thanks today because our God meets the needs of the whole world and calls us all back from our wandering and our loneliness to this table where no one leaves hungry or thirsty.