Mary sings of the coming of God’s reign as if it is a complete overturning of the world and our lives, which frightens us at times, but we are reminded that, like times of pregnancy, we wait for God’s coming and healing with fear but ultimately joy.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Fourth Sunday of Advent, year C; text: Luke 1:39-55

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

On the First Sunday of Advent I preached that we should be careful what we pray for when we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” because we just might get it.  If we’re asking God to come and change the world, God will also change us, something for which we might not be ready.  At one point that week I thought the sermon would go further down that path, and get into some specific concerns I personally had with the coming of God as promised, bringing justice and peace.  As it turned out, the sermon didn’t go fully in the direction I expected.  But now, as this Gospel reading came into our Advent this year, those concerns moved back to the front of my mind.

It’s because of Mary’s song, the Magnificat, which we sang and now just heard read.

I love Mary’s song.  I just don’t know if I can or should sing it anymore.  I’ve always loved this canticle, and the many beautiful musical settings of it.  But this week it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t sing it.  Not if I want to have integrity.  Not if I value honesty.  Because there is at least a part of me that isn’t sure I want these things to happen, these things Mary sings about so boldly, so beautifully.

And it also seems to me that I can only speak for myself here.  There are parts of this song that appear to strike me very close to home.  But for me to take that and assume you all share those concerns or sins, or worse, to turn it into a harangue against all of us, feels unfair.  So this is going to be an odd sermon, in that what I think I need to do is invite you into my thoughts to hear them as you will, and then you all can see if they’re helpful or instructive for you, if the Holy Spirit has words for you in all this.

Because I really would like to sing Mary’s song again.  And my hope this Advent truly is that God will make that possible for me, and also for you, even if I think I’m resistant to that.

My first problem is this: I’m not certain that I want Mary to be right in what she says.

Listen to her sing:  “God has scattered the proud in their conceit; God has cast down the mighty from their thrones; and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

And as I think about those words, I begin to wonder if I really want that to happen.  Mary’s describing something that sounds very much like a revolution, the world turned upside down.  The whole social order will be transformed: rulers will be thrown down, people in the lowest places lifted up.  The rich will have nothing and the poor will be fed.  The proud will have their thoughts scattered in the wind, for they will have nothing to be proud of.

This is the language of almost every revolution.  There was an English song from the mid-1600s called “The World Turned Upside Down,” and tradition says that the British army played it a century later at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington.  They couldn’t believe they’d lost; it felt as if literally everything was upside down, the whole world overturned.

In our current political climate, there are some groups in our society who would scream “socialism” or “communism” to hear Mary’s hopes laid out in modern terms.  They might be the most honest of all, because she is describing a world turned upside down, a revolution led by God.  There’s no other way to see her words, her hopes.

Now, if you are poor, or lowly, or humble, or hungry, this probably sounds like really good news.  But I don’t know if I want it to happen fully.  Or, at least I know I’m a little afraid of it.

Because, and I know I’ve said this before, I think that I’m one whom Mary would call rich.  Mind you, I don’t usually think of myself as rich.  But I can’t escape the facts.

A couple weeks ago – and be prepared, this is shocking – a couple weeks ago there was a day when I didn’t get to have lunch until about 2:00 in the afternoon.  And as I left the office I thought to myself, “I’m starving to death.”  Now, that’s kind of funny.  But it’s also pathetic and ridiculous, if you take the time to think about it.  I’ve never been forced to miss a meal in my life, never had a day where I worried about what I would eat.

I’ve always had at least two or more good pairs of shoes, a good coat, warm clothes, shelter.  I have a house, a stereo, TVs, several cars, a healthy family with a good medical plan and good life insurance.  I live better than 99% of the world.  Of course I’m rich.  And for that matter, Mary would probably also count me among the proud and the mighty.

So if Mary’s hope is that God’s going to overturn it all, I stand to lose.  Now, there are millions starving to death who will gain considerably.  Millions of suffering people, poor people, oppressed people.  And that’s good.  But we know that our lifestyle in the U.S. cannot be sustained world-wide.  It’s inevitable that my lifestyle will decrease in a new divine order, so that others might simply have life.

Now, I know this, too: I give to Lutheran World Relief, to ELCA World Hunger.  I give a tithe of 10% to God’s work here at Mount Olive, and more beyond.  I recycle and try not to waste.  I turn off lights.  I’m doing things.  It’s just that I really don’t know if I want to lose everything about the style of life to which I am accustomed.

So I’m torn between wanting God to do what Mary says, and not wanting God to do it.  It’s one of those common things in life, that we vacillate between what we know to be good and holy and what our human nature would prefer.  Paul talks about that a lot in Romans 7, of course.

So I know that this is good, what Mary promises, and that in the long run it’s crucial to the life of this world.  But there’s that sinful part of me that wants to resist.

But there’s a second problem I have with her song:  I wonder if God will ever do it anyway.

Has there been any progress toward this kind of vision?  Ever?  Not if tens of thousands still die of hunger each day.  And they do.

Hannah, the prophet Samuel’s mother, sang virtually the same song 1,100 years before Mary.  Look it up: 1 Samuel 2.  And nothing changed.  Then Mary sang it.  And now 3,100 years after Hannah and 2,000 years after Mary, still nothing.

Still there are rich and poor.  Still people like me watching their weight while others starve to death.  Still proud oppressors and beaten-down oppressed.

After awhile, maybe I should get the hint, and realize it’s not happening.  The inevitable question I ask is: were these just nice, beautiful songs, or did these articulate, musical women actually believe they would come to pass?

So I don’t know if I can sing her song anymore if I don’t think it’s any more than hyperbole of joy over the birth of a child, the catalyst for both Hannah’s and Mary’s songs.  I don’t know if I can sing their songs if I don’t actually expect God will do this thing.  It doesn’t feel any more honest than singing it if I don’t want God to do these things.

And then, thinking about all this, I realized something interesting: there is a thread that connects Hannah and Mary beyond their songs, and also connects to today’s other wonderful woman, Elizabeth.  Pregnancy.  Mary and Elizabeth in our Gospel today are pregnant, and Hannah had finally given birth to a child after years of waiting.

And that image of pregnancy, an experience I have only ever lived second hand (except, I suppose, for my own birth) seemed to give me an answer.

It is for me, and perhaps for you, too, as if I am, we are, pregnant.

My fears and struggles with Mary’s song are very much like the fears and struggles of pregnancy. Even with the most wanted birth, pregnancy is frightening.

There is fear of the outcome: Will this be a healthy baby, a happy baby?  Just as I fear the outcome of God’s transformation: will it be a good place, a place of joy even for me?

There is fear of the change in life: Even if the baby is healthy, wanted, hoped for, there is this reality that the parents’ lives will irrevocably change.  Their lifestyle will move from self-centered to other-centered.  They will sacrifice many things for their child, and that’s frightening.  Just as I fear that if God does bring about this change, my life will irrevocably change as well.  I will sacrifice, I will not have the same lifestyle.

And there is fear of the delay: Every pregnant mother I have known, including the mother of my children, has had impatience at some point, or some variation of the fear at least once during the pregnancy that this birth will never happen, that she will be the first woman in history to carry a child for years.  Just as I fear that God may never bring about this age of equality, of peace, of shared wealth.  The difference is one of time, nine months versus several millennia.  But in God’s eyes, is that such a temporal difference?

And as in pregnancy, all these fears subside when one considers the end result: a miraculous gift of life.  Whether you are old like Elizabeth, long-suffering like Hannah, or barely out of childhood like Mary.

And so my fears begin to subside when I realize that I really do want God’s new kingdom, regardless of the cost to me.  That the alternative is much worse than any fears I might have.

And there is one more thing to remember.  Something has changed, with this baby of 2,000 years ago.  The baby of whom Mary sang, her son Jesus, did in fact live a life that revealed that transformed kingdom of God his mother envisioned.  He died for it, as a matter of fact.

But his resurrection began the process of transformation for us all.  It has already turned the world upside down.  In his life, and ever since, whoever met Jesus and followed began to live transformed lives, and changed the world.

Zacchaeus spontaneously returned all he had cheated, and more.

Matthew left his tax booth, Peter his fishing, and both brought the Good News to the world.

Mary Magdalene lost her demons and began to be a disciple, and was the first apostle, the first one sent to proclaim the resurrection.

Martin Luther King started a revolution.  Mother Teresa cared for thousands in one of the worst places in the world.  And millions more lesser-known disciples were shaped by the sacrificial love of Jesus which enfolded them and made a difference in this world, began working Mary’s vision in the world.

And so God works this change now.  As we each meet Jesus in his Word, in this Meal, in our lives, Jesus changes us.  We begin to live lives that reflect Mary’s vision.

More and more we do not fear losing our lifestyle because we have gained so much more: the peace of a heart that trusts in God alone, and sees the pain of the world with God’s loving, compassionate eyes.  A peace that longs for the world to be turned upside down, even if that means I who am on the top am also turned over.

So as it turns out, I not only can sing with Mary, I really want to.

And I invite you to sing with her as often as you can.  Share her pregnancy as an image of our life here, waiting, afraid, expectant, hopeful, nervous.

For God has come to make things new.  In our pregnant lives, this is already happening.  The gift the Church gives in Advent each year is to remind us of what we already know but sometimes forget, and to help us find our desire for it anew.  God give us faith to hold this hope, and live changed lives, until the day of the birth of this new thing God is making in us and in the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Life in the kingdom of God, living as Jesus in the world, is joy for us, even if repentance and giving up of our sinful ways is the pathway to that joy, that new life Jesus gives.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Third Sunday of Advent, year C; texts: Luke 3:7-18; Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7

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

I don’t much care for cauliflower, especially when it’s cooked.  Or split-pea soup, for that matter.  In this, my wife and I agree to disagree.  In fact, the smell of those two foods cooking makes me queasy, uncomfortable.  I lose my appetite.  Yet I am told by people who should know that both these foods are good for me, healthy for me.  They tell me that though this seems like a bad thing, it is a good thing.

That’s Luke’s job for us today.  Did you hear what he said, after expounding at length the deeply angry rants of John the Baptist toward his hearers?  Luke adds a phrase the other evangelists do not.  He comments, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”  Good news you say, Luke?  Must we go back and read those harsh words again?

Given my experience with foods I detest but which no doubt are good for me, I wonder if it might be possible that Luke is telling the truth.  Granted, this second Advent Sunday in a row of hearing from John the Baptist is always a difficult one for us.  Who wants to come to church and be called a “brood of vipers”?
But Luke says it’s good news.  So let’s give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment.

It may be important to do this, if only for the sake of the other readings from God’s Word today, all of which speak beautifully to us of joy.  And they don’t call sadness joy, they don’t do what Luke does.  These readings positively radiate with joy.  In a season of Advent which speaks of watching, preparing, being ready, the third Sunday of Advent is always about joy.  A burst of joy and grace in a more contemplative, serious season, that’s Advent 3.  But along with this, we get that John the Baptist.  What in the world are we to do with him?  His message of fire and axes and destruction sounds like an off-key screech in an otherwise exquisite choral song of joy.

He claims that the world is in dire need of repentance, that we each are in dire need.  He warns that there are so many things that are not of God, that need changing, that the only answer is an utter turning around.  And after the events of this past week in Connecticut, who among us would dare to contradict John’s evaluation?

So what in the world are we to do today?  Do we talk of joy, or do we face John and his view of a broken world, the reality we see ourselves?  Or do we consider that Luke might be right, that they’re the same thing?  Can we find good news for us and for the world here?

Now, Zephaniah and Paul (and really the song from Isaiah we sang today) call us to jubilation, to joy, in God’s grace for us.

Zephaniah spoke in the time of King Josiah of Judah, and called for reform of the worship and faithfulness of the people.  So much of his prophecy is warnings to the people to turn to God from their awful behavior and lives that in fact, it sounds a lot like John the Baptist.

But the section we hear today seems to come from later, from the time of exile, after the punishment.  God promises to take away the shame and the judgments against God’s people, and God is in their midst.  And the only thing to do is rejoice and exult at God’s grace and love.

Paul writes to perhaps his favorite congregation, his beloved Philippians, and urges them to rejoice always in all things, to give thanks even while they are making requests of God.  And this joy is in living in Christ, having faith that God’s grace is ours.

This is the letter where Paul says he considers all things rubbish compared to knowing Christ, and that to live is Christ and to die is gain.  For Paul, the joy comes from a life that models, as he says earlier in the letter, the life of Jesus, who gave up everything to be a servant to us.

So we notice this: even though Zephaniah and Paul speak of unadulterated joy which pervades our whole existence, they both come from a context where they understand our lives to have turned toward God and away from the things that draw us from God.  They assume a life lived in God’s way, with God’s priorities.

In short, they are describing a life of repentance, a life where God’s people have turned from their sin and selfishness and have given their lives to God.  And that actually sounds a lot like John the Baptist, doesn’t it?

Now, John sounds angry.  He sounds terrifying, in spite of Luke’s editorial comment.  Still, Luke says it: “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

Good news, Luke calls it.  For Zephaniah, the fact that God is in the midst of the people is a reason to end their shame, a reason for hope and joy.

John also says the Lord is near, but that means people need to shape up and change.  He calls those who come for baptism “children of snakes” and asks who warned them to flee from God’s wrath which is coming.  He says the axe is laid to the root of the tree that will not bear fruit, and it will be cut down.

For this to be good news, we need to understand a few things.

First, John apparently thinks that some of the crowds who have come are there just for the show, just for a ritual perhaps, thinking the baptism will fix what’s wrong with them, and they can go back to their lives.  Sort of like coming to church week after week but not wanting to change anything about our lives or our choices.  And at that John levels his angry rhetoric.  So John wants the people to take this seriously and not look for easy ways out of their messy lives.

But another thing to remember is that John takes his role seriously, the preparer for the Messiah.  And he sees people who live and create injustice, folks whose lives oppress others, whose lives don’t show the fruits of people who are turned toward God and God’s way.  He sees a world that is out of balance, and a mess, one that needs serious cleansing.

And John’s only approach, the only thing he can think of, is to shock them out of complacency, to get them to take as seriously as he does the coming of the Messiah and their need to shape up.  Because their joy will be found in the repentance, in the new life.  Just as Zephaniah and Paul know, too.

The fruits of repentance John calls for are specific and concrete, each group gets a clear idea of what to do.  Only Luke tells us this part of John’s message, and it’s critical to his understanding of why John’s preaching was good news.

Note first, that the people aren’t turned off by John’s rhetoric.  They actually want to know what they can do to be different, to repent.

If you have two coats, and someone has none, give them one, John says.

If you have food, and others are hungry, share.

If you’re a tax collector and you’re charging extra to line your pockets, stop it.

If you’re a soldier and you’re extorting for money, stop that, too.

And the beauty of these examples is that it leaves us open to consider what John would say to us.  Since each group had specific things they were doing to contribute to injustice and oppression and suffering, each had specific things to change.  And so do we.

And the joy is found, the new life in Christ is found, when we discover those things and change them.  When we turn to God.  When we discover the joy of life lived for God and not ourselves.

Joy is found when people without coats have coats.  When hungry people get to eat.  When people who’ve been cheated are restored what is theirs.  When children can live safely without fear of death or hunger or abuse.  There’s the joy.

And there’s joy for us when we make that happen, when we are God’s agents for justice and peace.

This is the good news: true joy comes from facing the ugly truth about ourselves and finding God’s love healing us, restoring us.

We can be selfish people, and tend to care only for ourselves, and getting beyond ourselves, as John calls, turning to God and God’s way, is our way not only to joy but to life.  To get to God’s joy, we have to go through John the Baptist and his truth, which cleans us and returns us to God.

Think of our good friend Ebenezer Scrooge, whose story hovers over this month each year.  The spirits who visit him are his John the Baptist, helping him see the ugly truth that he had hurt others, shut off love from others, abused others, and wasted his life.

He starts to learn that he’d have been happier had he lived differently.  Certainly others would have.  So when he wakes on Christmas morning, he wakes to joy.  Joy that he is still alive.  Joy that he still has a chance.  Joy that he has been forgiven.  Joy that it is still Christmas Day, he hasn’t missed another opportunity to be gracious to others.  So he brought joy to others in his new life, and he is filled with it himself.

In a life of repentance, with the Lord in our midst, near at hand, we, too, find joy.

Joy in loving others, not for its reward, but because it makes our heart grow.

Joy in caring for the children of God who are in need of our help, because it makes us alive and real.

Joy in being changed into new people by God who have a mission and a purpose in this world.  And wonder of wonders, still enough time to do it.  There’s still a chance to do something.

“So with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

I’m grateful that Luke helps us see this as good news.  From here, we each might want to bring John the Baptist along into our day, our week ahead, and think what he might answer us when we say, “What should we do?”  What is it that he would say hinders us from the joy of following Jesus?  What is selfish in me, in you, that if we let it go we would find God’s joy?  What are we doing that is not of God, that needs forgiveness and turning?  What is God calling me, calling you, to be and to do?  What is our call to make this world a better place, a just place, as God would have it?  These are the questions we need to bring to John the Baptist, so that he can show us the path to joy.

This is the good news that Luke sees in John, the good news that belongs to all who hear these words from God’s servant: that though we are part of the problem of the world, and contribute in our selfishness to the very things Jesus came to remove and eliminate, we need not remain the problem.  Rather, by turning our lives to God we become part of God’s solution, God’s grace, God’s love.

And if that doesn’t bring us all a little joy, we’re just not paying attention.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

They say that Advent is a time of waiting, but what are we waiting for?  God calls us to live here and now in this world, between the first and second advent of Christ, and is refining us right now so that we may joyously anticipate the coming of Christ.

Vicar Neal Cannon, Second Sunday of Advent, year C; texts: Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 1:68-69, Luke 3:1-6

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

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock

What you’re hearing is the sound of a ticking clock that you only hear in the in-between moments; it’s the sound of waiting.  It’s the sound of nervously waiting in the lobby of the dentist’s office. It’s the sound of joyous waiting on your couch before friends arrive for the party, and it’s the sound you hear in the quiet moments, when you clear your thoughts and take stock of your life.

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock . . .  The sound of waiting.

They say that the Advent season is a time of waiting and anticipation for the birth of Jesus, the Son of God.  Advent is the time where people put out their nativity scenes, and light candles, and if you grew up like me, you pop chocolates out of the advent calendar.

But these practices never really helped me understand Advent because we aren’t really waiting for a child in a manger anymore.  Jesus was already born, it happened about 2,000 years ago.  And of course we remember it and celebrate it, and we can even anticipate it, but we don’t really wait for it because it’s already come to us.

So what are we waiting for?

The term “advent” comes from the Latin word “adventus,” which means “coming.”  And in the Christian faith we use this word to mean that we are anticipating the “advent” or coming of a Savior.

In our Gospel lesson today, Luke writes that John the Baptist is called to “prepare the way of the Lord,” and, “make his paths straight.”  In other words, he is called to prepare people for the advent, or coming, of the Savior.

But here’s the thing.  For us, this advent has happened.  The Savior has come.  Our salvation is complete.  It was done once and for all for us through the cross and resurrection.  There is no salvific work left to do.

And as Christians we claim that Jesus’ first advent was not only about salvation, but also about how we live now.  It didn’t end all suffering, and pain, and sin.  Jesus didn’t overthrow the powers of this world.  But he showed us how to live our lives with love, and grace and compassion for our neighbor.

Luke says in our Psalm today that this salvation has left us “free to worship (God) without fear, holy and righteous before you, all the days of our life.”

In other words, because we’ve been made righteous we’re now free to worship and serve God without fear from our enemies; without fear of not being good enough; without the fear that if we don’t serve or worship God in just the right way, we won’t be saved.

So what are we waiting for?

We look around today and we see so much suffering, and pain, and sin in the world.  People are starving to death.  Women are being trafficked as slaves.  Bloody wars occur all over the world and vicious dictators suppress their people.  All the while our own apathy reminds us that sin remains.

But as we learned last week in Pastor Joseph’s sermon, we also we believe that Jesus will come again.  There will be a second “advent” where Jesus will return to us to abolish sin and transform the world into a place of peace, and righteousness and justice.

But this advent is not here yet.

Right now we are waiting in-between these two advents. We celebrate the birth and first coming of Jesus into this world, but we also wait and anticipate when Jesus will return and end sorrow, and death, and sin.

This is the tension of Advent.  Salvation is here but the world is not sinless.  We celebrate what has come, and we anticipate what is coming, and we live somewhere in-between.

This is important for us today because it allows us to say both something true and hopeful about the world.  It says that while the world isn’t there yet, that horrible things still occur, the Triune God has come to this world and to us and is working to make them better.

God’s continued work in the world is confirmed as Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”  Notice that Paul doesn’t say that Jesus Christ has finished a work among you, or that there is some expectation that you are perfect now.

No, this work that Jesus does in our lives is just beginning.  One day, during the second advent, that work will be complete. But for now, we say that work has just begun.  And we wait.

For me, the question that still remains.  What are we waiting for? 

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock

One kind of waiting is very difficult.  It’s a nervous anticipation.

Imagine that you are waiting for your name to be called in a dentist’s office.  You’re sitting nervously on an uncomfortable couch reading some innocuous magazine called Lifestyle.

You’re nervous because you’ve only flossed twice in the past six months, usually the day before, and you know you’re in for a physical and verbal assault on the gums.

It’s not the dentist’s fault.  The dentist is there to remove the stains and cavities from your teeth.  You know that.  But in you heart, you know that if you had prepared yourself better for this day, it would have been less painful.  And in your head you keep thinking, what was I waiting for?

It’s not that our intentions were bad. The last time we saw the dentist we swore we’d floss more, we just messed up the time in-between.

One night, we’re too tired to floss.  Maybe the next day we chew a bunch of hard candies.   Then one thing led to another, we just didn’t do the everyday preparation we should have.  And now, all we can do, is sit there nervously in the lobby, and wait.

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock

But there is also another kind of waiting. Waiting with joyous anticipation.

Imagine you’re throwing a party.  You have all the food and drink ready to go.  You have games planned and music going in the background.  You’ve decorated your home and cleaned up your house.  Now you’re sitting on your comfortable couch at home, excitedly waiting for the guests to arrive. You’re excited because you know that when the guests come, you’ve done everything you can to be a good host.

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock

It feels different, doesn’t it?

Either scenario can be what waiting in the church feels like, or what Advent feels like.  In one scenario, we know that Jesus is coming again and we know we’re not living right now in the way that Jesus calls us to live.

In our day-to-day living, it’s easy to get complacent.  It’s easy to forget to pray at night or to skip worship on Sunday.  It’s easy to forget how important it is to serve to the poor and needy and fight for justice in this world.  One thing leads to another and before you know it we’re not doing what we’re called to do.

Expecting Jesus to come feels like waiting in the dentist’s office when we haven’t flossed for months.  Like a dentist, Jesus cleans us up now matter how much or how little we’ve done to prepare for the visit.  It’s not that our salvation is incomplete.  That work is done on the cross.

But we end up wondering, what was I waiting for?

In the other scenario, we know that Jesus is coming again and we’ve done what we’ve been called to.

Like any party, we know that we haven’t planned things perfectly, and there is always something we forgot to do, but we’ve done what we can to be ready.  We didn’t just wait.  We’ve spent time in prayer and worship.  We’ve served the poor and needy.  We’ve fought for justice, and now we’re excited for the guest of honor to arrive.

In reality, we are always living out both scenarios.  There are times when we do what we are called to do, and there are times where we wish we had done more.

I think this is what messengers like John the Baptist and Malachi do in our lives, they remind us of what God has done and what God will do, and tell us to be ready when the time comes.  They remind us that we are called to places in this world and in our lives that are still a work in progress.

There is still work to be done before the guest arrives.

Malachi says that the Messenger of God refines us like silver, which by the way is a really awful prospect.  Refining silver means placing raw silver in nitric acid and heating it to 1,200 degrees.  Then the silver is churned over and over until it becomes pure silver.

The change that needs to happen in our lives isn’t easy.  It’s painful.  It requires a hard look into our lives.  It requires an honest word from a friend, or a life-changing situation.  It happens in that quiet moment when we realize, I’ve done something to hurt someone else, I only care about myself, my life isn’t what it should be …

Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock – Tick, Tock

This could cripple us with guilt until we remember the first advent where we were already forgiven and freed by a child in a manger.  And a second advent is coming where God will make us pure.  So we say that until Jesus comes back again that work of being made pure, of being refined, has just begun. And Jesus is always calling us to a new way of living.

So how do we discern that call?

I have to admit, I don’t think I can answer this question for you because it’s a personal question.  Everyone is called to something different.  We are being refined in different ways.  But I think the answer lies in the work that the Holy Spirit is doing in us and has been doing since our baptism.  That refining that has been happening our whole life.

Maybe you’ve been given a sense of love for the people in Africa.
Maybe you have a heart for the environment.
Maybe you’ve always wanted to invite a friend into this loving and grace filled world we call the church but haven’t yet had the courage.
Maybe God is calling you back to prayer and to worship.
Maybe God is calling you to seek forgiveness from a friend, or to give it to an enemy.

We are all called to do something different.  The question we have is, what are we waiting for? God is calling us to live here and now in this world.

However God calls us to prepare for this second advent, know that the child in a manger has already come and freed us from guilt and fear, and it is grace to know that the Spirit is refining/working in us even now so that we may live in joyous anticipation of Jesus Christ.

The only question that remains is, what are we waiting for?

Thanks be to God.

We pray for the coming of Jesus into our lives and the world, and in the love of Jesus we are re-made for lives of grace and service, alert not only to Jesus’ coming but also to the needs we are sent to serve.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, First Sunday of Advent, year C; texts: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-10; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36

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

“O come, O come, Emmanuel.”  So we pray each Advent, so we sing today.  “Come, God-with-us.  Come and save us.”  We pray that prayer a lot in our Advent worship.  Hymn after hymn invites the coming of Christ into the world, into our lives.  The Prayers of the Day each week invite our Lord to be stirred up and to come and be with us.  Our readings for each of these four weeks all speak of the coming of Jesus in one way or another.  And so we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.”  “O come, O come, Emmanuel.  God-with-us.”

We should be careful what we pray for.  We just might get it.

Emmanuel is a name which means “God-with-us.”  This is a name Matthew tells us Jesus will receive.  But in Matthew’s Gospel that promise, that Jesus is God-with-us, isn’t really fulfilled until the ascension, after Jesus has risen from the dead.  Then he says, “Look, I will be with you always, to the end of the age.”  It’s a wonderful promise.  And so we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.”  “O come, O come, Emmanuel.  God-with-us.”

We should be careful what we pray for.  We just might get it.

Because we might not really be thinking about what is promised in the coming of Jesus, God-with-us, into the world.  Jeremiah speaks of the righteous Branch coming to “execute justice and righteousness in the land.”  That sounds like a really good thing.  Unless you’re the one implicit in the injustice, the one who’s not working for righteousness.  Jesus gives warnings in today’s reading from Luke, warnings of what will happen at the time of his return.  The coming of the Son of Man will result in the end of time, the end of all things, unexpectedly springing forth, like a trap.  He calls us, his followers, to be alert and always ready for his coming.  And so now, do we want to pray, “Come, Lord Jesus”?  “O come, O come, Emmanuel”?

We should be careful what we pray for, after all.  We just might get it.

Advent’s a funny season.

It’s become a season with fewer fans among Lutheran congregations these days.  Many churches take all of December to celebrate Christmas, trying to go along with the cultural beat in the society and in the stores.  There are pastors who argue for moving Advent to November and just realizing that saving Christmas music until December 24 isn’t working in the world.

But that belies an odd understanding, a limited view of what Advent truly is as a season.  The point of Advent is not just preparing for our Christmas song and celebration, and the music and readings of Advent certainly are very different from that focus.

The gift of actually celebrating Advent as we do here and as the Church has long done is that we are able to hear things we normally wouldn’t, and we are given the opportunity to see the fullness of what this season proclaims.  And it’s a little frightening, to tell the truth.

It is true that in part the coming we think we’re praying for and singing about is our yearly celebration of the birth of Jesus.  Advent helps us prepare for our Christmas celebration.

But it has been so much more for the Church in the hundreds of years it’s been observed.  Advent is really about three preparations: preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Incarnation of God in the world.  And preparing for the coming of our Lord at the end of time.  And as important, preparing for the coming of our Lord into our hearts and lives right now.

Those who would treat these four weeks as simply a warm-up to the Christmas celebration avoid the really terrifying thing about Advent.  The part we may seem to want to avoid: that we believe, and Advent reminds, that our Lord, having come and lived and died and risen from death, will come again.  And the other part we may seem to want to avoid: that we believe, and Advent reminds, that the same crucified and risen Lord has promised to come and be with us now.

These two comings are inextricably linked.  And they have serious implications for our lives.  We should be careful what we pray for.  We just might get it.

It’s possible that most of us don’t really want what we sing and pray for each Advent to really happen.  And it’s not just because we’re frightened about judgment when Jesus returns, though we certainly can be a little wary of that.

It’s more because if we look at what these readings and hymns and prayers are all saying, it is that when the Triune God comes to be with us, we change.  The world changes.  Our hearts change.  Our lives change.  If we just take December to sing our Christmas song we’ll be prepared for our Christmas celebration, if a little tired of the music perhaps.  But we won’t be prepared for the rest of Jesus’ coming.

These other themes of Advent have always been there, and the idea of Christ Jesus coming into our lives now, and preparing us for his coming at the end of the ages has been seen as a good thing by the Church.

We just don’t often see a lot of modern Christianity really talking about or looking forward to or hoping for changes of any kind associated with the coming of God-with-us.  “Come, Lord Jesus, comfort me when I’m blue, when I need you, when I struggle.”  That we hear a lot.  “Help me when I’m in pain.”

But “Come, Lord, and execute justice and righteousness in the land, as you promised in Jeremiah”?  This we don’t hear as often, at least in places like ours where Christians rightly suspect we might be part of the injustice ourselves.

But if we’re afraid of Jesus coming and changing us or the Church, we’re also missing the very center of the joy of the Good News that in Jesus, God is with us.

It is a truth worth noting that if our relationship of faith to the Triune God through the living, risen Lord of life doesn’t affect our hearts and lives enough to radically change us, then it logically doesn’t affect us at all.

In my life the most significant relationships I’ve had or have are the ones with people who deeply affect my heart, my life, my thinking, my reality.  People who don’t have an impact on me don’t have an impact on me.  It’s very simple.

And so it is with faith in Jesus.  If we long for the coming of Jesus into this broken world, the coming of God-with-us to heal the pain that we see and feel, we must recognize that if Jesus is going to do that, things are going to change.

Like an alcoholic who finally has to decide – is the pain of continuing as I am worse than the pain that will come if I try to be healed and find a new way – like that, we each need to decide the same thing.

Is the brokenness and pain of an empty life without God’s daily transforming presence, a life where I search for things that ultimately have no meaning, a life where I focus on myself and perhaps a few close by but not on the good I could do to the world around me, a life where I judge others rather than look into my own heart – is this empty life more painful than the pain and discomfort that will come if God changes my heart and I see things and live things differently?

Are the things I fear to confess to God worth keeping, if the pain they cause and the distance they make between me and God continues, or can I be open to God’s transforming power if the Son of God comes into my heart and life?  These are the kinds of questions we have.

If we spend time with our sisters and brothers in faith who have witnessed for 2,000 years to this new life, we would find they would say there’s no other way we’d really want to live, once we know it.  Life lived in the love of Jesus, they would say – though often complicated and confusing and difficult – is the only life that truly is life.  It’s the secret to the joy of Christian life: life lived in faith, in relationship to the Triune God through our Lord Jesus, is the only life worth living.

I’ve been saying we should be careful what we pray for.  But not if we know what we’re asking.

Our psalmist today is truly our guide to such open and willing prayer for such life with God.  Like the hymn, “O come, Emmanuel,” the psalmist also asks that God’s ways and paths be shown to us.  There is a willingness, a desire for change by God, for direction and guidance.  But there’s also a recognition of our fears: while asking for God’s guidance, the psalmist also asks God three things: remember that you are loving and compassionate, O Lord, don’t think of my sins when you remember me, and lastly, think of your love when you remember me.

It is our sinfulness, our lack of justice, our selfish disregard for the wrongs of this world, it is all the things that Jesus will need to forgive, remove, smooth away that give us the most fear.  We’re afraid that if Jesus comes, he will see us as unprepared, sinful, unready, unworthy.  The psalmist helps us know how to pray with that fear.

And Paul then gives us the answer of almighty God: Jesus will come to us, and yes, change us, but in so doing make us people prepared for his coming at the end of time.  The Lord, Paul says, will make us increase and abound in love for one another (inside our community) and for all (to the rest of the world.)  And even more, he will strengthen our hearts in holiness, Paul says, so that we in fact are blameless when our Lord returns at the end of time.  There will be nothing to fear, for he will make us ready.

And so to that end, with the prayers of the psalmist and Paul in mind, we can now hear Jesus’ encouragement: be alert, and pray.  We’re not staying watchful and alert because we’re afraid of punishment if Jesus returns.  We’re staying watchful because the world is broken and cracked and in need of God’s healing love.  And we want to be ready for our chances to bring that love.

We’re not praying because we selfishly want God to fix all our inconveniences or even all our difficult things.  We’re praying “Come, Lord Jesus” because we want to know in our hearts the joy of God’s love that only Jesus can bring – the joy we know in being forgiven, the peace we know in eating at this altar and leaving filled, the grace we know when God’s love calls us.  And we pray “Come, Lord Jesus” because we want everyone to know that love.

Like ointment on chapped legs on a below-zero day, God’s healing love stings us as it heals us.  It stings like crazy sometimes.  But it always heals us.  And changed by that love, we become the servants of God Jesus hopes for, the alert, watchful ones, who are looking for any chance we can find to bring that healing love to the brokenness of this world.

And so we do pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.  Come, Emmanuel, God-with-us.”

We pray knowing we’re hoping to get what we pray for.  Hoping for God to say, “OK, I’m here.  I’m going to need to remodel you a little, refit you so you can be a loving, gracefilled representative of mine in the world.”  We pray, hoping to hear that, knowing the remodeling might hurt a bit.  Maybe a lot.  But in the long run, it will make us like Jesus.

And then we become God’s answer ourselves, when others pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.”  God says: “you go.  It’s what I made you for.”

And so we pray.  Because, miracle of miracles, God promises to answer our prayer.  Come, Lord Jesus.  Come, God-with-us.  Come, Emmanuel.  Come to us and save us.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Jesus, the Son of God and King of all creation, rules and saves very differently from the way of the world.  As his disciples we are called to learn from how he uses (or doesn’t use) power, and so follow him with our lives.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Christ the King, Sunday 34, year B; text: John 18:33-37

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

There’s a powerful scene in the middle of Shakespeare’s Henry V where, on the eve of battle, King Henry disguises himself and walks amongst his troops, campfire to campfire, trying to sense what they are feeling and thinking.  This play shows Henry a man of the people, a king who shares himself with the commoner.  One could love such a king.

Except in the play and in history, there was a battle the next day, at Agincourt.  And this king waged brutal war to assert his claims of kingship.  He had control of England; he believed France was his by divine right and mandate, and was willing to sacrifice everything to regain authority over those lands.  Regardless of his feeling for the commoner, this king is a king like all others.  Ultimately his rule is defined and supported and extended and upheld by force and violence and threat.

There’s another great scene in history, though Shakespeare never set it.  It involves a minor governor in a vast empire, overseeing a scrap of land at the far eastern reaches of that empire.  And this minor governor is confronting an even more insignificant character, an itinerant preacher and healer who barely owns more than the robes on his back.  Except that this rabbi’s followers are calling him king, and his enemies have arrested him and condemned him to death.  And now the governor, as is his right by his own decree, must decide whether to issue the sentence of death to this so-called king.

As John the Gospel writer tells the story, Pilate, the governor, cannot understand this teacher, Jesus.  When asked if he is a king, Jesus answers “My kingdom is not from this world.  If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over.  But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

To Pilate, this is gibberish.  As it would be to any of us if someone started telling us that they were a ruler but their kingdom was not in or of or from this world.  Where, pray tell, would it be?  If Pilate could have heard an exchange between this insignificant man and his followers earlier that evening, at the time of his arrest, he’d have been even more convinced of the man’s delusions.  When one of his followers tried to resist arrest by swinging his sword, this Jesus told him to stop.  “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”  Then he added, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me twelve legions of angels?”  (Mt. 26:52-53)  Pilate would have known immediately that the sanity of this one was questionable.  72,000 angels at his beck and call?  With that kind of power, if it even existed, why would he look so bedraggled?  And why would he let these events, this trial and this imminent execution, happen to him?

Indeed, that is a good question.  We know who this Jesus was and is.  We know he was killed, and yet rose again from the dead.  We confess – that is, we say we believe – that this Jesus is Lord and King of the universe.  Son of the Most High God.  But if we do not come to grips with Pilate’s question, and indeed, the world’s question – what kind of king is this? – if we, like so many, believe when we call Christ King and Lord we mean a king and lord like the world is accustomed to know, like Henry V and all the rest, if we hold that view, we deny everything our King and Lord stands for and calls from us.  And we stand the risk of rejecting the salvation he so dearly bought for us.

Finally there is only one thing about this question that is true: there can be no way to look at the lordship of Jesus other than his way.

And his way is clear: he will rule by giving up his life for the sake of his beloved people.  He will set aside power to show us the way of the universe as it really is intended to be.

To follow Jesus in this way isn’t to deny that the Triune God has omnipotent power.  It’s simply taking seriously Jesus’ consistent message to us about how God chooses to deal with the pain of this world, how God chooses to reestablish rule over this disobedient planet.  Luther reminded us that of course we believe and know God is omnipotent and ruler of the universe.  But, he said, we can never know God in that way.  We can only know God in the way God chooses to be revealed to us; we are not capable of more.

And God chooses to be revealed to us in that scruffy rabbi being led to the cross.  That’s God’s self revelation.  To Pilate the governor.  To the Jewish leadership.  To the world.  Regardless of the Triune God’s power, this is God’s answer to the disobedience and wickedness and hate in the world.  To let all that disobedience and hate and wickedness do its worst.  To stand quietly in love and be killed.

Of course, when you kill the Lord of the universe, who created life, death itself is reversed and everything changes.  And this rabbi is now seen as the very Son of God, risen from death, in love.  But even in resurrection, his way, which is now called to be our way, doesn’t change.  Risen from death, Jesus continues to show us that God’s way is not the way of power and domination, but of love, invitation to follow, forgiveness, restoration, and grace.

This is a way that is counter to all our intuition, all our sense of how the world works.  It isn’t merely idle talk that Jesus says his kingdom, his rule, is “not from here.”  His way is as foreign to us as the most remote language or culture we could imagine on this planet.

And it is a matter of life and death that we begin to understand God actually means this.  This is the truth Jesus came to show, the truth he talks about to Pilate.  The true way to life and grace in this world.  “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice,” Jesus said.

So, how about we all start listening?  Wouldn’t that be a very good idea, considering what we claim about Jesus?

There are two areas we want to consider as we look at Jesus, listen to Jesus, understand Jesus.

First, our reality as members of a free society.  Regardless of which political solutions we prefer – and we can disagree about various possibilities – as followers of this different King, we are committed to peace, justice, and non-violence, with no exceptions.  If the God of the universe rejects violence as a way to achieve the desired end – a just, loving, obedient world – we can do no less.  And if the God of the universe, incarnate among us, rejected power as a means to an end, we can do no less.

We have just completed an election cycle which continued a trend of recent years where the deceit and hateful words have increased to the point of intolerability.  It is time that we who belong to such a king as Jesus hereby resolve that at least each of us will be and act differently toward our fellow citizens and leaders.  We cannot change others, nor is that asked of us.

But as followers of the true King, who rules our hearts with his death-defeating love, at least we can commit that we will not participate in hateful speech toward anyone, and we will not speak lies as far as we are able to speak truth, and we will work toward a culture which cares more about the poor and those on the fringes than one which only cares about who is in power and who won’t be pushed around by whom.

And we must remember that we belong to a free society, but one which has been deeply shaped and built by violence.  We have a national persona that the only way we can accomplish what we hope for on the global stage is by using might and force.  If national politicians even hint that they have a different understanding or approach these days, they find it very difficult to be returned to office.

So as Christians, followers of the true King, we are called to work and pray for ways to solve the world’s problems that involve diplomacy, generosity, and justice, and to be insistent that we not become a terrorist nation ourselves by imposing our will on others destructively and violently while we cloak it in the name of freedom.

This way, by the way, does not dishonor those who serve us in the military.  They are there to defend us in an increasingly dangerous and hate-filled world.  But we make their jobs infinitely harder when we play the aggressor and in fact raise the tensions and contribute to the hate.

The second area is our own personal way of living.  The truth Jesus reveals about God – that God’s way is self-giving love, a way that refuses to dominate or use violence but seeks to transform by invitation to new life, by resurrection from the way of death – this truth is what defines us.

So we become people who refuse to dominate, to manipulate, to achieve what we hope to see in life.  We become people who do not see life as something to be won, but to be lived, to be loved.  As servants of the servant King, we seek a life from Christ that is Christ, a life like his, a love like his.

Too often even Christians have disdained this as too unrealistic.  To that we can only say, maybe so.  But it is the way our Lord has set for us.  It is not for us to decide how realistic it is.  It is the only way, the only truth, Jesus shows us.  Those who live by the sword, Jesus said, will die by it.

And when we consider these two areas, our public life and our private life, we must always remember how different a king Jesus is.  In fact, Jesus is so committed to this way, he will not force us to live by it.  Unlike Henry and all the rest, unlike most of the world, he is willing to risk losing us all, having us all disobey and walk away, for the sake of having even one of us willingly follow and live in the way of justice and peace.  Remembering that Jesus has enough power to dismantle even any modern government, not just ancient Rome, we stand in awe when we realize he still will only rule over us by our choice, by our willingness to follow.

This is our King, the true King of the Universe, and there is no other way than his way.

Risen from death, he calls us to die to the ways of power and rise with him to the way of love.  We may be as confused as Pilate.  We may be tempted to think as people always have that we would use power in ways that wouldn’t end up destructive.  That’s the way the world works, we think, we know.

But that is not the way of life, according to the crucified and risen Lord of Life.  No matter how tempted or confused we might be, we know that much.  Our King rules in a kingdom, a reign, that is not from here.  But it is a rule of life for all people.  And the grace of our King is that we have the love of our King to lead us, invite us, and transform us.  May we all follow his call, and so transform the world with this new way, God’s way.  It’s how our King lived and acted; it’s now what the King has asked of us.  God help us do so.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen