This is a special musical presentation of Mary, Did You Know, a solo by Chris Lewis at Faith Lutheran Church Chancel Choir.
This is a special musical presentation of Hallelujah to the King by the Faith Lutheran Church Chancel Choir.
This is a special musical presentation of He Shall Be Called by the Faith Lutheran Church Chancel Choir.
Tonight, we come together to celebrate and reflect upon the God who pours God’s very self into a human person, the God who stands outside of time, yet entered time and became human, the God who took on flesh and bone to dwell among us. Tonight, we celebrate the mystery of the God who is infinite but becomes finite; the God who is all powerful but becomes all-vulnerable. We reflect upon the God whose very womb gave birth to all of creation, to the entire cosmos, but now is born of a woman’s womb to bear the good news of God’s grace and love for this world. We reflect upon the living, creative Word that spoke the universe into being, but now cries from a baby’s lungs. We reflect upon the breath of God that swept across the dark waters of the deep separating the day from the night, but now quietly exhales, breathing softly on a teenage mother’s cheek. Tonight, we reflect upon and celebrate the gift of incarnation – the ultimate gift of love. We celebrate God coming among us and to us with skin on. We celebrate God’s unconditional love for this world made manifest for all to see in the person of Jesus. And, as we ponder this mystery, will we recognize him, will we know him when he comes among us?
Yes, as we come and stand in awe of this great mystery, we must ask ourselves, “Will we recognize him?” because this One who takes on our flesh is willing to dwell in what we might consider the most despicable of places, the most vulnerable of people, and the most wretched of circumstances. God gave God’s own true Son to us to show us how deeply God loves this world and how each one of us is immeasurably loved, but will we know him when he comes?
I share with you a story that may be helpful as we ponder this question. The story is about an old shoe cobbler who had spent his life making new shoes and repairing old shoes. One Christmas Eve night, he dreamed that Jesus would come to visit him the next day. The dream was so very real that he was convinced it would come true. So, the next morning he got up, went out and cut green boughs, used them to decorate his little shop, and got all ready for Jesus to come and visit. He was so sure that Jesus was going to come he just sat down and waited for Him.
Well, the hours passed, and Jesus didn’t come. But an old man came. The man was a refugee who had walked for miles after fleeing danger in his home country. He was seeking a safe place to live. This old refugee came inside the cobbler’s shop for a moment to get out of the winter cold and get warm. As the cobbler talked with him, he noticed the holes in the old man’s shoes, so he reached up on the shelf and got him a new pair of shoes. He made sure they fit, made sure the man’s socks were dry, and then sent him on his way.
Still, the cobbler waited. But Jesus didn’t come. However, an old woman came. A woman who was hungry because she hadn’t had a decent meal in days. They sat and visited for a while, and then he prepared some food for her to eat. He gave her a nourishing meal and sent her on her way.
Again, he sat down to wait for Jesus. But Jesus still didn’t come. Then he heard a little boy crying out in front of his shop. He went out and talked with the boy and discovered that the boy had been separated from his parents. The little boy was afraid and very lonely, and didn’t know how to get home. So, the cobbler put on his coat, took the boy by the hand and led him home.
When he came back to his little shoe shop it was almost dark and the streets were emptied of people. Then, in a moment of despair, he lifted his voice to heaven and said, “Oh Lord Jesus, why didn’t you come?” And, in that moment of silence, he seemed to hear a voice saying, “Oh shoe cobbler, lift up your heart. I kept my word. Three times I knocked at your friendly door. Three times my shadow fell across your floor. I was the man with the bruised feet. I was the woman you gave food to eat. I was the homeless boy on the street.”
Yes, Jesus had come, and the cobbler had truly experienced Christmas. Jesus had come and the cobbler just didn’t realize it. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said:
Christ comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. Christ confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor…
Yes, the God of the cosmos, the cosmic Christ, who left God’s place in glory to take on human flesh in the person of Jesus and visit us in this dark dreary place, has come to give us God’s very self, all because of God’s unconditional love for all people and all of creation, and God’s love for you. Christmas is about God pouring God’s very self into all creation, and Christ’s presence is continually and forever being born among us. To be Christian is to see Christ in everyone and everything. That is the reality that shapes and informs everything we do, the way we live. So, celebrate Christ’s coming tonight, tomorrow, and throughout all twelve days of Christmas. And then, celebrate and continue to live the meaning and work of Christmas every day throughout the year. As Howard Thurman said:
When the song of the angel is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks –
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost, to heal the broken,
To feed the hungry, to release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations, to bring peace among people,
to make music in the heart.
This is a special musical presentation of O Come, Lord Jesus Come by the Faith Lutheran Church Chancel Choir.
The Birth of Jesus the Messiah
American political satirist and journalist, P. J. O’Rourke, once said, “Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.” I agree with him - family love is very messy, and the messy, dysfunctional aspects of family life too often become systemic, passed down through generations. Quite honestly, life is very messy. And the Bible is brutally honest about this messiness in our lives as it contains stories of all kinds of people in the depth of messiness and dysfunction. One of the beautiful aspects of scripture is that it speaks the truth about our very lives, the truth about the messiness that creates all sorts of systemic problems within families and communities, the messiness that prevents us from living in relationship with others, the messiness everyone experiences in some form. And it is so fascinating that when looking at the messiness in our own lives, our reaction to it or our inability to thoughtfully respond in a healthy manner is usually rooted in some aspect of fear.
In today’s gospel reading, we meet up with Joseph as we hear Matthew’s version of Jesus’ birth. While the gospel of Luke focuses on Mary, the gospel of Matthew focuses on Joseph. And guess what? Joseph faces a very messy situation! Matthew does not give us the sweet, saccharine, syrupy, heart-warming stories of angels and shepherds and a baby born in a cattle stall. No. Matthew focuses on Joseph and the heart-wrenching struggle he was facing. The woman to whom Joseph is engaged, the woman to whom he is already contractually espoused, is pregnant. Mary and Joseph have not yet moved in with each other, they have not yet had sex, and Joseph experiences extreme heartache as he faces a very messy problem. Mary is pregnant and this could only mean one thing, she has been unfaithful. Can you imagine the emotions Joseph must have had when he heard this news? Anger, shock, hurt, disappointment, betrayal, fear and a need to distance himself from the mess.
Yet, as Matthew describes Joseph and the situation in which he finds himself, Matthew calls Joseph “righteous.” Now, to be righteous, according to Torah, one must strictly follow the law. Therefore, as a good law-abiding Jew, Joseph could have had Mary stoned to death. After all, stoning was the punishment commanded in chapter twenty-two of Deuteronomy for engaged women who slept with other men. But Matthew also tells us Joseph was a man of compassion. So, instead of stoning Mary, Joseph decided he would quietly dismiss her as his wife. A quiet dismissal would hopefully minimize the public disgrace she would have to face. It is fascinating that, in the depth of his fear and the messiness, what never occurred to Joseph was that there is yet another way to be righteous - the way of acceptance and forgiveness and grace. Joseph, all on his own, couldn't possibly imagine how God could be present in so difficult, so utterly messy, so heartbreaking, so embarrassing, and so dangerous a situation as Mary's pregnancy. Therefore, God had to help him.
Joseph was afraid. He was afraid to take Mary as his wife. The gospel writer tells us that, in the deep darkness of sleep, God came to Joseph in a dream. An angel of the Lord spoke to him saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” God brought truth, grace, forgiveness, and love into the irrational depths and quandary of Joseph's mind, heart and being. In ways deeper and more magnificent than the mind can possibly imagine, God changed Joseph. And because God changed Joseph, Joseph became a channel of God's grace in the world.
In the depth of the messiness of life, in the mire and sludge of the unexpected and unexplainable, in that which Joseph perceived as betrayal, in the overwhelming darkness of an experience that created fear – yes, in that place, Joseph finds God present to him. God penetrated the darkness and the fear within Joseph, and that experience of God led Joseph to take Mary as his wife and name the child “Jesus” which means “God saves.”
Now, Matthew was writing to a Jewish Christian audience, people who intimately knew Jewish scripture. So, the gospel writer connects Joseph’s experience to the words of the prophet Isaiah, the words we heard in our first reading today. The prophet says:
“Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and they shall name him Immanuel.” (Immanuel is the Hebrew word for “God with us”).
The truth about this Isaiah passage is that when Isaiah spoke these words to King Ahaz, the king was not very hopeful. When invited by the prophet Isaiah to “ask a sign” of God, Ahaz was not interested. In fact, Ahaz said, “I will not ask.” You see, Ahaz was living in fear and he was sure he would be defeated at the hand of the conquering Assyrians. However, Isaiah – good prophet that he was – was persistent. He pointed to the perennial sign of hope and new life for all people in any time saying, “a young woman will conceive and bear a son.” The truth about Isaiah’s words to Ahaz is that the baby of which he was speaking was already in utero. We are not told who the mother of that baby was. But, because a newborn child is always the promise of hope, even in hard times, Isaiah names the child as a sign of God’s presence: Immanuel God with us.
Immanuel, God with us! These are powerful words packed full of meaning and, centuries after Isaiah, Matthew connects these words to Jesus’ birth. These words gave Jesus identity and, as theologian Daniel Patte suggests, they do not simply describe Jesus. No, these words “Immanuel, God with us” were part of Jesus’ very vocation. Jesus’ calling was and is to manifest and make known God’s presence in people’s lives and save people from their sins. Jesus’ calling then and now, is to manifest and make know God’s presence to us in the depth of our fear and the messiness of our lives.
Joseph discovered that the presence of God in the depth of the messiness of life drives out fear. God’s presence moved him beyond fear. Joseph also discovered that the experience of God’s presence brings forgiveness. And, he discovered God’s presence brings change – change within self, change within the mess, and change to the world as he perceived it to be.
We live in a world that is notorious for crushing hope. We live in a world that is notorious for turning love into a stingy commodity as if there is not enough to go around. We live in a world where we participate in creating systemic messes - messes in our lives, messes in our families, messes in our communities, monumental messes in our country and colossal messes in the world. So, I ask you, what are the messes in which you live? Listen to the voice of God’s presence in your life, the voice that will penetrate the darkness of any situation, the voice that always says, “Do not be afraid.” Listen to the voice that always says, “You are loved, and your sins are forgiven.”
Christmas is all about God’s presence to us, Immanuel God with us. Christmas is all about incarnation. Christmas is about the love and grace of God that is on the way, the love that is in fact already here!! Christmas is all about God putting skin on God’s dream for the world – about God’s dream becoming flesh in this very broken, messy world. Christmas is God’s invitation to each one of us to experience within ourselves the love that forgives sin and the love that comes to bring healing to the world. And, it is only the presence of Immanuel, God with us, that transforms the systemic, predictable, messy patterns of living and enables us to live into the dream of God where all things are made new. Yes, love is on the way and the Child will be born again in us, in the depth of our neediness, in the depth of our messiness, in our hurting and in our pain, and in our deep longing for God. Do not be afraid because the hopes and fears of all the years are met in this One, Immanuel, God with us – this One who is, in fact, already here!
Today's sermon was the Children's Christmas Pageant at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan. Please join along and celebrate the great work of our young church members!
This is a special musical presentation of Creation Will Be At Peace by the Faith Lutheran Church Chancel Choir.
I have a quotation by theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, hanging above my desk and I read it every week. His words have meaning for me as I work on my sermon. This is what he said, “People have an idea that the preacher is an actor on a stage and they are the critics, blaming or praising him [or her]. What they don’t know is that they are the actors on the stage; he [or she] (the preacher) is merely the prompter standing in the wings, reminding them of their lost lines.” In other words, as we gather to worship, the liturgy that we experience week after week, that work of the people, is a work that we do. We hear the readings and proclamation of Scripture and then we act out the Gospel in the ritual drama of a meal. We believe that God acts in our words and, in that ritual of drama making, the Gospel happens. And then, that work of the people happens not simply in the context of Sunday morning worship, it continues to happen as we leave worship and live our lives throughout the week. I really appreciate Kierkegaard’s words when he says the gathered people are the actors and the preacher is the prompter standing in the wings reminding the people of their lost lines.
I am reminded of Kierkegaard’s words as we hear today’s gospel reading about this unkempt, eccentric preacher, John the Baptist. John is the one standing in the wings of the wilderness on the banks of the Jordan river, crying out lost lines to the actors saying, “This is it! Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. Turn around, turn back to God.” And, I have to say that for someone who might be considered a “prompter standing in the wings,” he is the one who is stealing the show.
You just gotta love John the Baptist. He is such a colorful figure. I love it when he appears on the scene each Advent. This intriguing, eccentric, prophetic figure is the one who introduces us to the narratives of Jesus’ ministry in all the gospels. And, in Matthew, he bursts on the scene with this fiery, passionate, colorful language as he proclaims his message of repentance.
So, what is repentance? When we look at the word, metanoia, which is the Greek word for repentance in scripture, it refers to far more than simply being or saying one is sorry for past sins. It is far more than mere regret or remorse for such sins. While that is in part what repentance means, the heart of the word refers to a turning away from the past way of life and turning to the inauguration of a new one. It literally means, “If you’re on the wrong road, turn around and go the other way!”
Another understanding of repentance, one that I find so meaningful, comes from Lutheran theologian, Richard Jensen. He describes repentance as it relates to baptism. And, by the way, baptism is something that John the Baptist is doing as he calls people to repent. Jensen writes:
The daily baptismal experience has many names. It may be called repentance. Unfortunately, repentance is often understood as an "I can" experience. "I am sorry for my sins. I can do better. I can please you, God." So often we interpret repentance as our way of turning to God. That cannot be. Christianity is not about an individual turning to God. Christianity is about God turning to us.
In repenting, therefore, we ask the God who has [already] turned towards us, buried us in baptism and raised us to new life, to continue his work of putting us to death. Repentance is an "I can't" experience. To repent is to volunteer for death. Repentance asks that the "death of self" which God began to work in us in baptism continue to this day. The repentant person comes before God saying, "I can't do it myself, God. Kill me and give me new life. You buried me in baptism. Bury me again today. Raise me to a new life." That is the language of repentance. Repentance is a daily experience that renews our baptism. [Touched by the Sprit, p. 49]
I would add that we should note the command to “Repent,” as we find it in today’s reading, is in present tense. This denotes continual or repeated actions: "Keep on repenting!" "Continually be repentant!" It isn't like a door we pass through once that gets us into the kingdom. Repentance is the ongoing lifestyle of the people in the kingdom of God. And, repentance and its seal in baptism signal another theme to be sounded repeatedly in Matthew’s gospel: God's power is present, but it is not unrelated to what we do. One thing is clear for Matthew, God's power calls for and enables a transformed new life of discipleship. Repentance then directs our vision not so much to sorrow for the past, but to the promise of a new beginning. The promise is that, because God's reign is so near, it has the power to bring about this new orientation of life.
And what is this new orientation? Well, it is Gods’ vision for this world, God’s deep desire for peace and equity for all people. It is what we find in Isaiah’s vision in our first reading today, Isaiah’s hope-filled vision for all of creation. In Isaiah, we are given images of God’s dream for this world – images of righteousness, of equity, of peace, of the cessation of harm and war, of the unity of all nations under the rule of God. As people who live into the reign of God, that is people who live into the presence and power of God, we live into a world where God’s reign is so near it has the power to bring about this new orientation of life.
I find it interesting that dreams, especially hope-filled dreams, have a way of shaping what it is we are enabled to see. One theologian suggests, “Hope-filled dreams are like lenses that train us to interpret and to act in the present. Each generation learns to dream the visions that are taught by those who have dreamed before and by those who are able to keep dreaming in the present. To borrow a metaphor, every Christian needs to have a ‘hope chest.’”
Every Christian needs to have a “hope chest.” For Christians, our hope chest holds this vision of God’s dream for the world. And, so we dream not just about what is, but about what it might be if God's reign, God’s kingdom, is indeed drawing near. God invites us to dream something beyond what we can presently see. We are invited to dream God’s dream about a different world where there is no predator or prey, no fear or hatred. And, this is the dream that sets our course as we live into the reign of God, as we live into the presence and power of what God is already doing in this world.
So, on this second Sunday of Advent as we prepare our hearts to make room for Christ’s arrival, I encourage you to turn around, turn toward God who has already turned toward you, and live into God’s dream for the world. I think we will again be surprised at what God is up to. We will again be surprised that the God of the universe was willing to enter into our very lives and our history and take on our vulnerability in order to give us hope. The God we know in Jesus comes to earth, into our very existence, to take on our lot and our life and give us hope by being with us and for us, inviting us into abundant life, life that truly matters and has meaning. And, this God who comes down out of heaven to pitch a tent among us in the person of Jesus, is inviting us to live into God’s dream for this world, helping us to see in the face of our neighbor, not a competitor for scarce resources, not an enemy, not a person to fear, but a sibling in Christ, our very own kin.
Yes, John the Baptist is standing in the wings prompting us and giving us our lost lines. He is there pointing beyond himself to God, telling us the advent of a new age is upon us. He is telling us that, in the person of Jesus, God is guiding us as we move through the wilderness of life and live into God’s kingdom of hope and love.