God needs you to incarnate God’s presence in your life, your love, no matter how small or unimportant you might feel you are.

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

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

This time the angel said “don’t be afraid” to Joseph.

It’s a pretty common Biblical greeting. Mary heard it at the start of all this. The shepherds will, too, outside Bethlehem. Jesus essentially said, “don’t be afraid” to John the Baptist last week.

But Mary and John had huge, frightening jobs they were asked to do for God’s mission. The shepherds were about to see the sky torn apart with the light of an uncountable mass of angels.

Why did the angel need to calm Joseph? “Don’t be afraid to get married,” the angel said. That’s all. Go ahead and take Mary as your wife. Pretty simple calling. Lots of people get married.

That’s why you should pay more attention to Joseph.

It’s not an obvious thought.

Joseph’s barely in the Gospels. Only Matthew tells any significant part of his story, and after the Egypt exile, Joseph disappears. Well, except for that awkward moment in at the Temple when twelve-year-old Jesus reminds him he’s not really his father. And try to find a hymn about Joseph in our worship books sometime.

Last week Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest ever to be born. That’s not Joseph. And Joseph isn’t asked to carry the Savior of the world in his own body. That would be Mary.

Joseph’s job in God’s plan is to be a good husband. Provide for this mother and this child.

So why “don’t be afraid?” for him?

He wasn’t afraid of marriage. He was engaged to Mary, after all.

But in light of her pregnancy, he faced the great pain that he had to either believe or doubt her story. He faced shame and scandal among his neighbors, the loss of his hopes and dreams for a quiet life, a son to carry his family’s bloodline to the next generation. Even though Scripture says they had more children, Joseph would never have a first-born son with Mary.

So with this particular child, he’d always be a supporting role. A side player. There to keep safe, and, we hope, to love. Mary would be called “Mother of God,” Theotokos. “Father of God” was never Joseph’s title.

But Mary needed to give birth safely. This child, God-with-us, would be vulnerable for years and need to be fed and clothed and sheltered and cared for until he could do what he needed to do. Joseph’s job, as simple as it seemed, was absolutely essential for God’s plan.

But the angel thought he might be afraid of doing it. So Joseph gets a “don’t be afraid,” too.

Joseph’s role is more like yours and mine than any others in this story.

This is Joseph: someone who does a critical job for God, but one that’s barely noticed, that to the world seems unimportant, even boring, that might cause embarrassment or sadness, that changes expectations and hopes.

And yet, only Joseph could do this job. Only one person was engaged to Mary. No one in the world was in Joseph’s position to be guardian for her and for this baby. No one else in the world was in a position to provide a loving father figure, a guiding hand, for this divine yet human child.

So Joseph asks you a few questions: what if you’re like me, he says, and there’s something that only you are suited for? Something God needs for only you to do and be as Christ in the world? Something that your life, your relationships, your gifts, only qualify you to do?

And what if it doesn’t seem very important, compared to others’ calls? What if it means adjusting your dreams and expectations? Or means sacrifices that you didn’t anticipate?

Would you be willing to do that? Joseph asks.

God will ask you to do something today, or tomorrow, to bring love, healing, and life to your world.

Something that only you can do that will cost you in some way. Maybe your expectations about your life or what you deserve will have to change. It may be inconvenient, or make you fear embarrassment, or be really challenging.

Maybe it will be protecting others from evil rulers out to destroy, like Joseph. Or maybe just speaking a word of hope to someone who can’t see it anywhere. Or being the only person in position to be God’s love in some place. However God’s call manifests, this is absolutely true: you are the one person in the world who can do what you do.

Now, you might not get an angel visit – or even an angel in a dream – though some certainly have experienced that, even today, and in this community. But God will always get the message through.

And God always starts with, “don’t be afraid to do this. To be this.” God’s message to Joseph, and to you, is “I am with you always.” Emmanuel. My Spirit is in you, giving you courage and hope, to do what only you can do for me.

So all will be well. Don’t be afraid. But you are the one God needs.

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

God comes to heal, not to destroy, and following the path of Christ is seeing and hearing that mercy and love, and then living it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday of Advent, year A
Texts: Matthew 11:2-11; Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm 146:5-10

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

Even John saw the problem.

The contrast between John’s rhetoric and Jesus’ peacemaking we saw last week was so stark John started to worry about Jesus. In prison, nearing his death, John sends two of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

John knows Jesus personally. John, led by the Holy Spirit, had no doubts about naming Jesus as God’s Anointed.

But now he isn’t sure? He’s facing death wondering if he failed at the one job he had?

John saw a people and a world woefully unprepared for Messiah.

He saw corruption in the religious leaders, oppression from a crushing overlord. He saw people living apart from God’s way. And he saw in binary, in black and white: you either bear fruit or you don’t. You’re ready or you’re not.

John’s just being a Biblical prophet. He’s calling out bad behavior, sinful action, disregard of God’s law and God’s way, and not putting any nuance on it at all. If he thinks you’re outside, as we heard last week, he’ll say all kinds of terrible things about you and to you. To call you back to God.

But Jesus sees all that John sees. Corruption and oppression, people living apart from God’s way, people not bearing the fruit of faithful lives. He just has a very different strategy for calling people to God’s way, to dealing with evil. He’s different.

That’s why he answers John the way he did.

Jesus says, tell John what you see and hear: blind people have their sight restored, deaf people are given hearing.

People that couldn’t walk now dance. Even dead people are raised. And – and this is no small thing to Jesus – and those who are poor have the Good News brought to them.

Jesus knows his Isaiah. And he knows John knows his Isaiah. So Jesus is saying, John, do you remember Isaiah 35? When God comes to save, blind people will see, deaf people will hear, lame people will jump for joy, and people who can’t speak will sing. Weak hands are strengthened, feeble knees firmed up.

Remember Psalm 146, John? Jesus says. All those things Isaiah promises, but also, justice for those who are oppressed, food to those who are hungry. Strangers are cared for, along with those who lack family support. These are the signs of God’s coming.

So Jesus asks John, “who do you think I am, if I’m doing all these things promised for when God comes to save? How can you be offended by me, and worried that I’m not the one?”

In a world of darkness and fear such as ours, where we see corruption, oppression, violence, evil, just like John did, we sometimes raise John’s question.

We’re now 2,000 years after the coming of this Christ, this Messiah, and it still seems bad. How can you know Jesus’ way is God’s way? Shouldn’t God be doing something stronger? Bring judgment, destroy the wicked, end all that the wicked do? Maybe John has the right idea.

Because if God isn’t taking the world’s evil seriously enough to come and put an end to all of this, what are we missing?

But Jesus asks, “what do you see and hear me do? What does that tell you?”

Here’s what I see and hear.

I see and hear Christ moving in the world for healing and life. Look at all of you, to start with. Dedicated, passionate people who bring light into the shadowy corners of the world every day. I see Christ everywhere I look here, anointed people witnessing to God’s love by bearing the same love in your families, in your daily lives, in this place, this neighborhood, this world. I see people with imagination and courage standing against the powers of evil, making a difference every day. Sharing your wealth for God’s work, sharing your time and sweat to bring God’s healing hope into this world in more ways than I can count. That’s what I see and hear.

And that’s just this community of faith. I see evidence of this in our siblings and neighbors in this city, throughout our nation, throughout the world. God is working against the evil, the corruption, the oppression, the pain, all over this earth.

Maybe these aren’t the specific physical healings Jesus did,. But all the other signs, bringing God’s Good News to those who are poor, those who struggle, bearing God’s justice for those who are oppressed, being God’s love in a world of hate, all things Messiah is supposed to do, all that people are doing. People are being Christ in the world for light and healing and hope.

Can you see and hear that?

Blessed is anyone who isn’t offended by me, Jesus says. He means you and me.

You can look at all the wickedness and evil in the world and despair that God isn’t showing up to get rid of it all. You can spend your Advent waiting and watching for that big, bright, flashy moment when God says, “all right, we’re cleaning this place up, getting rid of the bad guys, cutting down the unfruitful trees.”

Or you can look and listen for where the Triune God has actually said you’ll find God’s healing and mercy and love. You can listen and look for signs of Christ in everyday people, here and throughout the world. You can spend your Advent waiting and watching for where God really is coming and bringing life and hope, and you can join that coming yourself. Because you are baptized, anointed. You are Christ.

Don’t be offended, Jesus says, if my way of healing and hope doesn’t fit your anger, or self-righteousness, or even hate for others. Just look and listen. You’ll be amazed at what you see and hear God doing in you and in this world.

And then ask yourself, do I trust Jesus enough to do this his way?

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

 

“No more of this!” Jesus’ way is love for enemies, healing of relationships, ending of violence and hatred.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday of Advent, year A
Texts: Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

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

“No more of this!” Jesus cried out.

The night of Jesus’ arrest and trial, Peter slashed someone’s ear off to defend Jesus. Jesus wanted none of it. “No more of this,” he said, and healed the man’s ear.

I believe Jesus would say the same to John the Baptist after these harsh words. John did good things. He pointed to Jesus as Messiah. He suggested helpful, concrete actions for how to turn toward God in repentance. But this speech? It’s hate-filled, inflammatory, without nuance.

And, with all due respect to John, Jesus’ way has nothing to do with it.

But you tell me: do you really think we need more public leaders defaming whole groups?

Haven’t we already had enough of insults, of assuming evil intent, of calling for destruction? A president who this week called his own citizens “garbage,” “worthless,” “criminals” because they came from Somalia? Who sees one immigrant do a bad thing and screams hateful words seeking to ban all immigrants, including friends dear to this congregation? Aren’t you tired of hate-filled rhetoric that doesn’t see human beings, but publicly insults, offers demeaning stereotypes, invites violence?

But this is John the Baptist, you might say. He’s preparing the way for Messiah. He’s on the right side. And after all, it’s the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They likely deserved it.

Are you sure? Are you certain every single Pharisee and Sadducee of this time deserved to be called snakes and threatened with destruction, with being cut off from Abraham’s family? What about Nicodemus? Joseph of Arimathea?

And Matthew says these Pharisees and Sadducees came for John’s baptism. He doesn’t say they came to judge or critique. They apparently came for the same reason others did – for baptism of repentance. Yet John assumes they’re all wicked, all have ulterior motives? This seems wrong.

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Jesus, the Messiah John means to prepare us for:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43-45)

That’s Jesus’ way for you to deal with people you don’t trust, your enemies. Not with hate and violent threats. With love and prayer.

Listen to Isaiah. When Messiah comes, a wolf will share sleeping quarters with a lamb, and so will a leopard with a baby goat. Cows will eat alongside lions, who’ve learned to eat grass instead of meat. Babies will play with vipers, not condemn them in rage. “No one will hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,” God says.

That’s the way of Christ Jesus calls you to follow.

Until we can say again and again, “no more of this!” to the way of hate, we won’t find Christ’s reign. All our self-righteous posturing that makes John’s speech – or our speech – OK because it’s on the “right” side, is worthless.

Isaiah claims this peaceable reign of God will come with Messiah. And that’s now, not in a distant future, because Messiah is here. Jesus means “no more of this” with as much intensity as he can muster, means that loving enemies and praying for them right now is the only path to God’s reign.

Paul deeply wants his Roman people to live this.

There’s great conflict in these congregations, Jewish Christians against Gentile Christians. They’re calling names, rejecting fellowship. The unity of Christ’s family is falling apart. And Paul wants none of it.

Paul believes Isaiah’s promise is now, that adversaries are meant to live in love with each other in Christ. That the way of Christ embraces all together, including those who know they’re right with God and that’s why they don’t like the others.

Paul astonishingly claims today that Jesus both came as a Jew to confirm the promises to the Jewish ancestors, and also, also, so that Gentiles might “glorify our merciful God.” Gentiles aren’t an add-on after the fact, they’re part of God’s plan from the beginning, which Paul underscores with four Scripture quotes.

So, when Paul says “welcome one another, just as Christ has welcomed you,” he’s talking to two groups who increasingly can’t stand each other but whom Christ has put together, saying, “you were and are welcomed by Christ. Your only path is to welcome each other. Love each other. Take care of each other.”

John thinks preparing the way for Messiah means chopping down all fruitless ones and throwing them in the fire.

Jesus wants nothing to do with Peter’s sword or John’s ax. Jesus says, “I’ll dig around that tree, put some manure on it, care for it a bit. Maybe that will bring fruit.” John prejudges whole groups of people and deems them expendable because he doesn’t see their fruit. Jesus sees individual beloved children of God worthy of all attention and care, and hopes to nurture each one to bear fruit.

The difference is huge for us. The rhetoric of hate and insult, the stereotyping, goes both ways. We’re often as guilty as any. Just because we think we’re on the “right” side doesn’t make it right. Until you and I believe Jesus meant this new, peaceable reign to start here and now, act on that, bear that fruit, and abandon the idea that if we think we’re in the right, whatever anger and hatred we have for others is justified, until we do this, the world will continue in suffering.

Again, don’t take my word for it. Jesus is very clear.

Jesus believes his way will bring healing, hope, and life to the world, that if we trust him enough to follow this path, things will change. Now, there’s no promise this healing, this peaceable reign, will come easily. No promise that the enemy you pray for and learn to love will reciprocate. You might lie down with a wolf and get hurt. Jesus knows exactly how that feels.

But in Christ Jesus is all the love of God you know, all the hope you have for life here and life to come, all the joy of knowing you are in God’s heart forever. Christ has the words of abundant life for you and for all. Where else would you go?

And if this path really leads to the healing of all things, do you really want to miss that?

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

Wake up and be the Christ you are made to be, for the healing of the world.

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

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

Let’s talk about “woke.”

The term describes people awakening to their privilege, implicit biases and prejudices, and facing them. Realizing what people other than themselves experience, whether racism or sexism or abuse or oppression or poverty, or anything else, as well as their institutional aspects.

“Woke” has become a term of derision and mockery among many who can’t be bothered to face anything different than their own experience, beliefs and practices, who lack the imagination to step outside their tiny, limited minds and lives and see the world from another’s perspective, and act on that vision.

So we probably need to let go of the word “woke.” It’s beyond redeeming in our culture.

Fine. Let’s use Jesus’ word. Awake. Keep awake, Jesus says. It’s time to wake up from sleep, Paul says. And apparently for Paul and Jesus, hitting the snooze bar on your alarm is the last thing you should do.

This metaphor makes so much sense.

At this point in my life I wake up several times in the night. Sometimes, once awake, my body at this age says, “as long as you’re awake, you could probably use the bathroom.” I don’t turn any lights on, I go, and as I get back into bed, I tap my watch to show the time. It’s a moment of truth. If it flashes 1:45, or 3:32, I relax in relief. I can go back to sleep. I’ve got hours before the six o’clock alarm. Some days I’ll even hit the snooze bar after the alarm and blissfully stay in the dark.

Paul and Jesus say that when that happens in my life of faith that’s a problem. I’m too often breathing a sigh of relief and going back to sleep. I’ll ponder whether I’m ready to get going on what Christ is calling me to do, on what I see out there in the world, and think, “I’ve got more time. No need to act now.” Even if the alarm goes off, I can buy another 9 minutes, or the equivalent in real time avoidance of serving as Christ in a world in desperate need.

I must not be the only one. Christians can’t hear Isaiah today without doing it.

It’s an amazing promise that in days to come all will come to God’s mountain and God’s word will spread to all nations, making a massive change in how people live with each other. Whole countries will take their weapons of war and melt them down and make tools for feeding the world’s people.

And we hear this and say, “won’t that day be wonderful? When it happens.” We push this promise into an unknown future day when God comes to fix all things. We’ll do it with the reading we’ll hear next week, too, the peaceable reign of God where wolf lies with lamb and babies happily play with venomous snakes. Won’t that be wonderful when that day comes?

But that’s just hitting the snooze bar. Looking at your watch and going back to sleep. Nothing in Isaiah says this is some unreachable future. “In days to come” could mean tomorrow. Next week. For people who are Christ in the world, those days to come are now. It’s time to wake up, Paul says. Get out of bed. Start bearing God’s word of peace and love and wholeness into the world. Because it’s the spread of God’s word of life, Isaiah says, that leads individuals and even nations to things like disarmament and to focusing energy on feeding, sheltering, healing.

But maybe that work seems too much for us to handle, that’s why we stay in bed.

Here’s another truth of my sleeping. Most of my adult life, since college, I’ve had anxiety dreams from time to time. In college, the dream was that the final exam had started, and I was nowhere near the place. I also was completely unprepared, I hadn’t studied at all. And I was often missing some key pieces of clothing. Usually pants.

Since I’ve been a pastor, the dream is the same, just different details. Now the service has already started, I haven’t prepared a sermon. I’m usually a long way away from the nave, and as always, I’m missing clothes. Still pants, a lot, though now sometimes it’s missing robes, and I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt at the door of the church as the procession is about to start.

It doesn’t take a genius to see what my brain is doing. It’s painting a vivid picture of an inner anxiety that I’m not prepared to do my job, I’m not ready, I’m running out of time. Now, my anxiety dreams always end with me waking up and realizing I have days till the thing, I’ve got time to be ready. I know my job, and I can do it. I can go back to sleep.

But our anxiety about waking up as Christ, about being able to do what needs doing for Christ in this world never really goes away. Even awake, we realize we’re not terribly confident that we can do anything to make a difference in this world, to be a part of God’s coming into the world in Christ for hope and healing.

So, Paul refocuses that anxiety and just talks about how you live in the light.

Being awake is walking decently in the day, he says, with three pairs of behaviors that aren’t part of that.

The first is reveling and drunkenness. Paul says if you’re awake you don’t escape reality by masking it, hiding it. Doing all the things we find ourselves addicted to that keep us from looking at the world as it is and facing that world. Whether media, entertainment, or even real chemical addictions, we find ourselves trapped in avoidance. It makes us feel good and we don’t have to worry about not doing our Christly work.

The second pair is illicit sex and licentiousness. This is more than Paul being prudish. Paul says we need to look at how we shape our lives and priorities for our own pleasure, at the expense of others. Is your highest goal what pleases you, rewards you? We can’t live lives focused on pleasure while others aren’t even able to live.

The third pair is quarrelling and jealousy. If you’re going to be awake, avoid the in-fighting in your community and family, Paul says, watch your tendency to distract yourself from what needs doing by disagreement and conflict. Our ability to get angry about something important can wake us up. But it also can become the focus, where we stay in the anger, blame others for the world’s problems, and never quite get to doing something about them.

Paul doesn’t say anything about your ability to be Christ. Neither does Jesus.

They both seem to think being awake and alert is enough to do what’s needed.

Because when you’re awake, Paul says, you put on the Lord Jesus Christ, clothe yourself in the goodness and healing of God in Christ. You are a washed, baptized child of God, you have been anointed as Christ, wrapped in Christ. You are the next coming of Christ the world is waiting for. Flawed, anxious, feeling unskilled, it doesn’t matter. This is what you and I were anointed to be and do.

So stay awake. Resist the snooze bar. Avoid Paul’s distractions and Jesus’ complacency. Wake up and let Christ fill you and hold you and clothe you as you go out as a child of the light for the sake of a world wrapped in the shadows of fear and hopelessness. And in you, Christ’s light will shine.

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

On Reign of Christ Sunday, the church considers what it means to follow a crucified king. Jesus rules from the cross, extending his mercy and compassion to all. As followers of Christ, we reject all forms of violence and instead go out to serve.

Vicar Erik Nelson
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 23 C
Texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

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

Every Sunday, there’s something I notice that I don’t think many other people do.

In all the dozens of hours I’ve spent sitting right there, (point to my seat in the chancel) I’ve always looked up in the south chancel window, and looked for the ear.

Out of context, that ear in the stained glass seems totally random. But in context, it serves as a powerful object lesson.

This ear comes from Luke 22, the chapter directly preceding today’s Gospel reading. As the temple guards came to arrest Jesus, one of Jesus’ followers did something totally expected, totally natural. He wanted to defend Jesus. So he took out his sword and struck one of the attackers, a slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

Jesus’s response to this episode, though, tells us a lot about his identity as our ruler. He said, “no more of this!” picked up the ear, and healed the slave.

This episode is an example of what happens when we misunderstand what kind of king Jesus is, and what his reign looks like.

We often think Jesus needs us to take up swords to defend him. Sometimes these are literal swords, like the episode in the garden. But often we also see Christians tempted to take up the sword of the state or the sword of scripture to cast down their enemies.

But this is not the kind of leader Jesus is.

Jesus is a ruler whose reign is marked by tenderness and mercy. He loves his enemies and makes room at the table for everyone.

In Jeremiah, God is the one who gathers us up, mending our damage. In the Psalm, God breaks the bow and shatters the spear. In Luke 22, Jesus heals the slave’s ear.

And in Luke 23, Jesus gives us an even deeper insight into the reign of Christ, that is marked by forgiveness, compassion, and promise.

In the beginning of the reading, they take Jesus up to the place where criminals were taken to be killed. Of course, Jesus was not a criminal. He did nothing wrong.

But his life was a threat to his rulers. They saw the way he welcomed outsiders in, and went to the margins, and they heard him say that this was the way of God, his Father.

And this combination — claiming his identity as the Son of God, the long-awaited Savior-King, and challenging these old orthodoxies and strict binaries — led to the arrest and sham trial that got him killed.

As they took him to the hill and nailed him to the cross, they mocked him and jeered at him. All four Gospels tell us about the sign they made that said, “King of the Jews.” This was a funny joke to the Romans. They wanted to send the message that this is what happens when you challenge the empire.

And his response to that was only, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

Jesus knew that the world protects power at any cost. Jesus knew that his ministry that challenged unjust systems and structures would be met with deadly force by the ones with the most committed to maintaining those structures. 

We sometimes put the blame only on the religious leaders who handed him over to be executed. Or we point only at the Roman politicians and soldiers, as they were ones who actually carried out the killing.

But we don’t see the ways that our own systems today continue to crucify Jesus. The image of God is seen in every unhoused neighbor who shivers in the cold tonight. Christ is crucified again and again whenever we act with callousness and cruelty against other children of God.

And yet we hear Jesus say, in the face of such violence and cruelty, “Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

Jesus offers his killers — and us — forgiveness.

And in response to those grace-filled words, Jesus faces more cruelty. “He saved others; let him save himself. If he is the Messiah of God, God’s chosen one!” and, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”

In the face of this mockery, Jesus was silent. Ironically, the things these soldiers said were true. Jesus could have saved himself. He could have called down armies of angels to defend him from death.

And yet he chose to stay there, refusing to inflict more violence, in a violent world, showing us a surprising, paradoxical image of God’s power. God’s love and power is shown to us most clearly in Christ dying for his friends.

The thing a bully wants most is a response. In his silence, Jesus didn’t give these soldiers what they wanted. In his silence, I hope these soldiers heard the shameful cruelty of their words.

In the face of our mockery, in response to our hard hearts, Jesus here gives us an opportunity to recommit ourselves to his way.

And in this last interaction, with the two other crucified people, Jesus shows us an image of his way… he shows us what his reign is like.

This first criminal continues the mockery, and in response to it, Jesus continues to be silent. 

The second criminal rebukes the first, confessing both his own sin, and Jesus’ innocence. His next line to Jesus, I think, reveals his guilty conscience, the deep shame he carried inside him.

He has faith that Jesus will enter into his kingdom, but he thinks he can’t come along. It’s not a kingdom for people like him. He says, “Jesus remember me,” because he thinks there’s no way he could deserve to be in that place. He could only be a memory.

But the way that Jesus responds overturns his expectations. He overturns our expectations. He shows us that the way of God, the reign of Christ, is marked by abundance and mercy. He tells him that today, you will be with him in Paradise.

Thank God that second criminal got to hear those words of life.

But my mind also goes to that first criminal. The one who, in the depths of his pain and anguish and grief, mocked Jesus.

I believe that those words of life were for both criminals hanging there. Those words of life were for the Roman soldiers who nailed him to the cross, and the religious leaders who ordered it. Those words of life are for us.

In his death, rising, and ascension, Christ broke the power of sin, death, and the devil.

In the midst of the crucifixion, Jesus remained the image of the invisible God. Our reading from Colossians tells us, “through Christ, God was pleased to reconcile to God’s own self all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of Christ’s cross.”

Thank God that we hear those words of life. We are reconciled to God. I tell you that today you will be with Christ in Paradise.

And it’s not because of any of our good works, and can’t be prevented by any of our wrongdoing. Before and beyond anything we do or don’t do, Jesus has told us that, “today you will be with me in Paradise.”

But thankfully, we don’t have to die today, in order to get there. In a few minutes, as we come forward to the table, to receive Christ’s body and blood, we will experience a moment with him in Paradise. 

But as we come to the table, we’re not meant to just stay here. We receive the body of Christ so that we might be the body of Christ in the world.

We come and receive Christ’s abundance that we might go and give from our abundance.

When we leave today, we bring Paradise with us. Every time we follow Christ’s example of forgiveness, compassion, and promise, eternity breaks into the everyday.

The reign of Christ is a now and not-yet thing. He reigns among us now. And he will come again to reign among us forever. All the wars will end. All the systems of oppression will be broken. All will be fed and warm and safe.

But we don’t have to wait until then to do the work. We can end conflict in our lives. We can work to overturn systems of oppression. And we can feed the hungry and clothe the naked and shelter the homeless now.

And in doing so, today, we will be with Christ in Paradise.

Thanks be to God.

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