Blessed. Salt. Light.

Matthew 5:1-20

February 8, 2026

 

            “Have a blessed day!”

            These are words I often hear when I am checking out at a store. I bring whatever it is that I’m buying, whether it is groceries or clothes or toothpaste. I try to exchange pleasantries with the person who is working behind the counter. That same person tallies up my purchases. I pay. I say, “thank you.” And as I’m leaving, the employee sends me on my way with, “Have a blessed day.”

            Whenever someone says that to me, I assume that they are probably connected in some way to Christianity. I don’t mean to imply that people of other faith traditions would not wish blessing upon someone. I think they absolutely would. But considering our context, when someone at a store here or in Columbia or even in Nashville wishes me a blessed day, my assumption that they are implying a Christian based blessing is probably more accurate than Hindu.

            But other than that brief consideration as I walk out the door, I haven’t really thought too hard about what someone is saying when they wish me a blessed day. Until I sat down to write this sermon. Then I started thinking about it.

            When someone says this, are they using the word blessed as a synonym of good? Or do they believe that blessed is an upgrade from good? That makes me wonder what do we mean when we use the word blessed? I used to use the word blessed when I referred to good fortune. We are blessed to have a roof over our heads. We are blessed to have plenty of food. We are blessed to have resources. But if blessing, especially in the context of our faith, implies divine favor, then if I am blessed to have a roof over my head, what about the person who does not? Does God not bless the unhoused person? So, now instead of blessed, I use the word lucky. We are lucky to have a roof over our heads. We are lucky to have enough to eat and warm clothes.

            I have made this linguistic switch because I don’t believe that some of us are blessed with divine favor over and above others. And my change in terminology also stems from what I read in this passage from Matthew’s gospel.

            I will confess to you that we are catching up on our gospel reading by putting two weeks’ worth of passages into one. I should have read the Beatitudes, verses 1 through 12, last week, but the ice storm and missing church threw me out of whack. I could have skipped the first twelve verses altogether and jumped straight into salt and light, but the Beatitudes sets the stage for everything that comes next, so I think it’s important that we hear them.

            Jesus begins each beatitude with the word blessed. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. I have often heard this as an imperative, meaning you should be, must be, poor in spirit if you want to inherit the kingdom of God. But a commentator I read writes that grammatically Jesus is not giving a command. Jesus is stating what is and offering a promise.

            Blessed is a person who is mourning – mourning a personal loss, mourning a communal loss, mourning the world as it is versus the world as it should be – because I promise that person will be comforted. Blessed is the person trying to show mercy to others, because I promise that person will receive mercy as well.

            Jesus is addressing these beatitudes and the rest of the sermon on the Mount to his disciples. And in this sermon he is offering them an upside down version of the world that they know. If blessed means favored by God, then no one would have expected that the poor in spirit or the meek or those in mourning to be the ones favored. They would have thought the opposite to be true. Blessed are those who rejoice. Blessed are those who are strong. Blessed are those who wield power. Blessed are those who have status. But Jesus is turning their worldview on its head. It seems to me that Jesus is not only declaring those who would be at the bottom of the ladder as having divine favor, but Jesus is also teaching the disciples that these lowly ones are seen by God. They are loved by God. God stands by them. God values them. These are the ones, Jesus tells them, that are blessed, that are seen, that are valued.

            Last week we considered that Jesus’ initial call to the first disciples was only “follow me.” Now, he is beginning to flesh out that call, to give the disciples a deeper look into what following him means. The people who need to hear my good news, the people you will one day teach and preach to may be ignored and considered without worth by the world, but God sees them and values them. They are blessed.

            Jesus now pivots. He shifts from third person to second.

            “You are the salt of earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

            Notice that Jesus does not say that the disciples are like salt or should try to be like salt. He states, “you are the salt of the earth.” Salt is not something they are to emulate. Salt is what they are. Salt is what we are.

            The more I learn about cooking, the more I realize how important salt is. I like to watch cooking shows, not so much for the recipes they share, but because they teach me technique and how flavors work together or not. And every cook, every baker that I watch, emphasizes the use of salt.

            I once told you the story of when I was a little girl and I tried making scrambled eggs for my brother after he had been sick. I confused teaspoon with tablespoon and put a tablespoon of salt into the eggs. Unless you are making enough eggs to feed a platoon, a tablespoon of salt is way too much for two eggs. I have been leery of salt. But I’m learning that without salt, food is flavorless. I’m learning that salt is a key ingredient, an essential ingredient in just about anything I prepare.

And as one commentator wrote, we may take our salt for granted, but in Jesus’ time it was a precious commodity. Salt was sought after. This commentator noted that soldiers were often paid in salt, which is where we get our word salary. Salt was used for food preservation, and disinfecting wounds, as well as flavoring a dish. Jesus tells the disciples that they are the salt of the earth. They are a precious commodity. They are not just there for themselves but to sent out, dispersed, into the world, to care for, to heal, to reveal God. As this same commentator wrote, even if they, as salt, increase thirst in others, it is a thirst that should draw people to the living water that God offers.

After Jesus declares the disciples to be the salt of the earth, he then tells them that they are light of the world. We so often think only of Jesus as the light of the world, especially in this season of Epiphany, that we may forget that Jesus clearly states that the disciples, those who follow him, are the world’s light too.

Many years ago when I was teaching a confirmation class in another church, we played a game. The person who was “it” had to take a lit flashlight, go into a dark room, and  it somewhere in that room. Then all the lights were turned on, and it was up to the rest of us to find the flashlight. In a dark room, a lit flashlight is easy to find. But when all the lights are on, that flashlight was a lot harder to find.

The point of the game was this, we live in a world of light – some of that light is good and helpful, and some less so. But if we are the light of the world, then we need to find a way to shine so that others can see. We can’t hide the light that we are. We have to shine. We have to remove the basket we want to cover ourselves with, and shine so that the whole house is illumined.

Jesus tells the disciples that God sees those that the world doesn’t see. God values those that the world does not value. Jesus tells the disciples that they are the salt of the earth. They are precious and called to be salty, to reveal where life has become flavorless, to reveal where healing must happen, to increase thirst for God, and even to set the world on edge. And Jesus tells them that they are the light of the world, and that their light must not be hidden or made indistinguishable from all the other lights out there. Their light needs to be set up high, so that others can see not only that it shines but that it points to the light of God.

Blessed. Salt. Light. The words Jesus spoke to the disciples are the words he speaks to us. Who is it that God sees that we must see? How are we to be salt in a world that has lost its taste for righteousness? And how can our light shine so that others may finally see?

The good news is that we don’t have to become these things. We already are. This is who God created us to be. And the even greater good news is that we are not alone. We are not called to be disciples by ourselves. We are not called to be salt and light in isolation. We are called into the body of Christ to be the body of Christ. We are already who God created us to be. We just have to believe it. We just have to live it. Blessed. Salt. Light. May every day be blessed. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

The Kingdom Draws Near

Matthew 4:12-23

February 1, 2026

 

            In her newest book, A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance, theologian Diana Butler Bass writes about the calling of the first disciples. When Bass was a student in a Christian college, she heard a sermon during the school’s Mission Week about Jesus’ call to follow. The sermon emphasized the sacrifice that the disciples made, leaving their nets, their livelihood, their families, everything to follow Jesus and go fish for people. The goal of the sermon, as Bass wrote, was to inspire those young Christian men and women to make the great sacrifice and follow Jesus into the mission field where they would also “fish for people.”

            Bass writes that while the story was inspiring – these brothers, Simon and Andrew, and then James and John left everything behind to follow Jesus – it also left her feeling inadequate. Her thought was, “I could never do that.”

            How many times have you heard a sermon preached on Jesus’ call to these first disciples, whether from Matthew’s gospel or from Mark or Luke, and thought the same thing? I could never do that.

            How many times have I preached on this text, or from the other gospels, and wondered the same thing? I could never do that. I don’t know what your answer is, but I can say honestly, that I have felt that deep sense of inadequacy every time I’ve preached this. It might be true that as a Teaching Elder in our denomination, I have moved to new places and new calls a few times now, but I haven’t left everything. I haven’t just dropped my nets and walked away. So, yes, this story leaves me feeling inadequate, just as Bass describes.

            But then Bass’s essay takes a surprising turn. She writes about what these brothers were actually leaving. Fishing at that time was a state run and state owned enterprise, meaning that in the Roman Empire. Caesar owned everything. Even if the brothers might have owned their boats and nets, Caesar owned everything else – the land, the lake, and the fish. What they caught did not belong to them. It went to the state. What they might take home to their families was minimal. This was subsistence work at best. They were like sharecroppers or tenement farmers. They did not own or benefit from the fruits of their labor – Caesar did. In fact, Bass points out, that everything they did was for Caesar. Everything their families did was for Caesar. They did not choose a career or a vocation in that empirical system. They did the work their place in the society dictated. These people were overtaxed and overworked and at the end of the day they had almost nothing to show for it.

            So, knowing this, Bass encourages her readers to read Jesus’ call again.

            “’Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

            Maybe it wasn’t that great of a sacrifice after all? Maybe Jesus’ call was a welcome interruption? Maybe they threw down their nets and leapt out their boats with joy because following this man, fishing for people, sounded like a much better option than giving Caesar anymore of their blood, sweat, and toil. And if word had been spreading about this new rabbi, and I suspect that it had, then they would have already heard that he was proclaiming to people that the kingdom of heaven was drawing near. Isn’t that what they longed for; for God to show up and show out? Why wouldn’t these fishermen, these men whose backs were breaking under the yoke of Caesar, want to walk away from that life and follow this man into the kingdom of God? Why wouldn’t they jump at the chance to see the new thing God was doing? Maybe leaving everything was not such a great sacrifice after all.

            I guess we could stop there and celebrate with them, but the truth is that even though they may have been overjoyed to follow Jesus, answering the call to “Follow me,” means sacrifice. Maybe it doesn’t mean sacrifice in the beginning, but it will come eventually. Following Jesus and becoming fishers of people does not mean that there won’t be times when they will look back the way they came and want to return.

Notice that Jesus does not tell them what will happen when they follow. I don’t mean to imply that Jesus is trying to fool the disciples into following him. But in that first moment of call, he doesn’t give them the full picture either. It seems to me that the easiest thing about following Jesus was leaving their boats behind. The real challenge, the real sacrifice would come every day after that.

            Let’s think about what it means to follow Jesus. When I first discerned my call to ministry, I was thrilled and awed and humbled and excited. I went into my first year of classes with this, “I love Jesus! I’ve been called! I’m going to be a minister!” mentality. But then the day to day work of learning and being pushed and stretched in my every belief, in my every assumption set in. That’s not just true for seminary students. It’s true for all of us take this call to follow Jesus seriously. And it will be true for these new disciples as well.

            What did it mean to follow Jesus? It meant that the disciples witnessed Jesus healing people and feeding people and sitting at table with not only the religious bigwigs like the pharisees, but also with the most unsavory and unwelcome of people. They witnessed him ministering to the margins and loving the vulnerable and the enemy and the stranger and the strange. Eventually Jesus will tell them, plainly and clearly, that he is the Messiah, true, but what that means is very different from what they think it should mean. He will die, but first he will suffer, and he will hurt and he will be killed. And only after his brutal death will he rise again to new life. And if they want to follow him, they’re going to have to be prepared for the same. Dropping their nets and leaving their boats behind was the easiest part of following him even if they and we might think it was the hardest.

            Because make no mistake, the disciples make mistake after mistake after mistake while they’re following. They stumble. They falter. They misunderstand, I think sometimes willfully. They don’t get what he tells them. And when the end comes, they deny him. They run away. Their fear overwhelms them.

            But the disciples prove that they are more than the sum of their mistakes. Because with the power of the Holy Spirit, they do incredible things, and they do fish for people. And I think they finally understand the sacrifice of following.

            Recently I read a statement from the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, and I’m paraphrasing his words. He said that the time has come for clergy to get their affairs in order, to get their wills written, because we can no longer put only our words between the most vulnerable and the powers and principalities. It is time to put our bodies into that breach.

            When I read his words, I shook, literally shook. Because I didn’t just read them on an intellectual level. I felt them deep in my bones, my heart, and they caused me to shake because I know them to be true. And I also worry that I won’t have the courage to act on them if that call comes to me.

            Jesus did not call the disciples to leave their boats and worship him. He did not call them to drop their nets and intellectually assent to belief in him. Jesus called them to follow. Following Jesus is risky business. There is no way to get around that, much as I may want to. There is no guarantee that when we follow we won’t also be asked to put our lives on the line, to put our bodies into the breach.

            And what is most mindboggling of all is that Jesus called them to follow because the kingdom of heaven had come near. The kingdom of heaven was now in their midst. And what the kingdom is built on is love. Love is the foundation of the kingdom, but you’ve heard me say again and again that the love Jesus called the people to have, to give, to live, was not warm, sentimental, mushy gushy love. It was love that cares for the least of these, love that puts its work boots on and does the heavy lifting of the world. Jesus said follow me and love God and love your neighbor and love yourself. And what’s most frustrating of all is that following Jesus and loving as he loved, as he loves, means that you will make some enemies. The powers and principalities of this world don’t want this kind of love. They are scared, no terrified, of this kind of love because they think its weakness and they cannot understand that it is actually strength. But then Jesus made it even harder because he called us to love our enemies too. And when I think about all of this, when I think about everything Jesus experienced and everything the disciples experienced, and everything that comes with following him, I just want to go back home and curl up under the covers of our bed and stay there. Because it just all feels like too much and too hard and more than I can do or give. And I want to cry out to Jesus, where is the good news in all this?! Where is the good news?!

            And yet, maybe this is why Jesus only called the disciples to follow, just follow, just put one foot after the other and follow him. The big picture will come. The call to sacrifice will be there. But just put one foot after another and follow, and when those other moments come, you will meet them.

            And here’s the thing; it may seem like there is very little good news to be found in this call to follow Jesus, but I will tell you that in those moments when I have caught a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven, in those moments when I have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit, in those moments when I have looked into the eyes of a stranger and seen Jesus in their eyes, I know just how good the good news is. And so I answer the call again. I step out of the boat again. And I put one foot after another and I stumble along behind. 

            That’s what we are called to do, just put one foot after another and follow, even if we stumble and fall and want to give up. We just put one foot after another and keep going because Jesus calls us, again and again, to follow him, to be fishers of people, because the kingdom of heaven draws near.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

What Are You Looking For?

John 1:29-42

January 18, 2026

 

            In seminary one of the big decisions you must make is what kind of internship experience you will have. If you wanted to graduate in three years, you would have to find an internship that was summer only, or that you could do part-time during the year while you still attended classes. But if you were willing to make seminary a four-year experience, you could do a full year internship after your second year of seminary and come back to finish school in your fourth year. That’s the option I wanted. I was still single. I could go where I wanted without worrying about how it would affect someone else, and it would provide me with the opportunity to experience a new place and church.

So, when it came time to look for a church internship, I was excited to get a call from a pastor who co-pastored a church with his wife in Alaska, wondering if I was interested in the internship their church offered. The church was not located in a city like Anchorage or Fairbanks. This couples’ church was in Barrow – now called Utquiagvik -- north of the Arctic Circle. I was excited to get the pastor’s call, and I began to think about it and pray about it, and I was seriously considering accepting. This would be the adventure of a lifetime. I thought that was what I was looking for: adventure. This would be the experience to end all experiences. I would be an arctic advocate for Jesus.

Because I was seriously considering this, I talked to my parents about it. They listened and told me to think hard about it before I made any decisions. I don’t know how long it was after this initial conversation that my mother called me. Her voice over the phone sounded serious and urgent, which she was. She wanted to converse seriously with me about the reality of spending a year in the Arctic Circle. “Amy, she said, You are an adult and you can do what you choose, but please think carefully about what this would mean. I think you could find a way to adapt to the cold – as an aside, I lived in Northeast Iowa 11 years, so I did learn to adapt to cold – but I don’t know how you could deal with the lack of light. You will have months of relative darkness, and I don’t think that would be good for you. I think it could really cause you harm. I fear you will end up terribly depressed and that makes me worry.”

I took her words to heart. She was right. I am not an arctic kind of person. I need light. I crave it. I doubt I would have made it the full year. I’ve been to Alaska in the years since, and it is beautiful. But I also went there in the summertime when there was nothing but light. How would I have coped with so much darkness?

You might be wondering where I’m heading with this story because light is not overtly mentioned in our passage from John’s gospel. In some ways this reading from John acts as a hinge passage between the story of Jesus’ baptism which we read last week and the calling of the first disciples, which we will read Matthew’s version next Sunday. In John’s gospel, which is distinctly different from the three others, we do not read a description of John baptizing Jesus. Instead we read John the Baptists’ testimony to Jesus and to his identity.

If we were to read this chapter in full, we’d see that it takes place over a few days. Our part of the passage starts on the second day. John sees Jesus coming toward him and declares,

“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

The day before this John was questioned by religious leaders who wanted to know who he, John, was. They wanted to know the full scope of John’s identity. But John tells them about the identity of another one who will come. John tells them that he is not the Messiah, but there is one who is the Messiah. He is the one they’ve been waiting for. 

            Knowing more about what happens on the first day explains John’s remarks on this second day. John exclaims, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  Then he goes on to say that this Lamb of God is the one I was telling you about yesterday. He may be coming after me, but he ranks far ahead of me. I didn’t know him, but this is why I’ve been baptizing. And I witnessed the Spirit descend on him and remain there. The one who told me to baptize told me that this is how I would recognize the Messiah. This is the Son of God.

            We move to the third day. On this day John is standing with two of his disciples. Jesus walks by, and as he does, John proclaims, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” When John’s two disciples hear this, they leave John to follow Jesus. 

Now we come to the crux, the heart of this passage. Jesus sees John’s disciples following him, and he asks them,

“What are you looking for?”

They call him “Rabbi” which the gospel writer translates for us readers as “teacher.”  But instead of answering his question, they ask him what seems like an unexpected question, at least for a moment and a meeting like this. These potential disciples ask, “Where are you staying?” Jesus responds not by giving them directions or details. He just says, “Come and see.”

Every question in John’s gospel means more than what it seems. When John’s disciples ask Jesus, “where are you staying?” they’re not just asking him about his place of residence. They’re not looking for a house tour or a place to hang for a few days. They want to know about his relationship with God. Their question implies something more, something deeper.

“Look our teacher, John, has proclaimed you to be the Lamb of God, so we want to know for ourselves. If you are indeed the Lamb of God, the rabbi, the teacher we’ve been looking for, then what is your relationship to God? Are you in intimate relationship with him?  Are you staying with God? Are you abiding in God’s presence? Are you the one we’ve been waiting for, hoping for, longing for? Are you the one we’ve been looking for?”

Maybe they were asking, “Are you the Light we’ve been looking for? The Light that will pierce this deep darkness the world is shrouded in?”

What are you looking for? What are we looking for? What is it we seek when we seek to follow Jesus? What are we looking for? Is it a fulfilment of religious concepts like hope, peace, joy? Do we want our own beliefs and values validated? Are we looking for a personal savior or friend? Are we looking for a reason to keep going or a reason to finally stop? Are we looking for justice for causes close to our hearts? Are we looking for righteousness? Are we seeking to be valued, to be cared for, to be loved? Are we looking for the one who will tell us that we are right and others are wrong?

Maybe it’s none of this or maybe it’s all the above and more? I think Jesus understood the great lostness of humanity. I think he understood that we all come seeking … something. I think Jesus realized that we all come seeking Light to lead us from the darkness.

I need to stop and say that I don’t think all darkness is bad. The darkness of the physical world, the night can be beautiful. It is in the darkness that we can see the stars. But there is another kind of darkness, and I think this is what John’s gospel tries to get at over and over again. I think John speaks to the darkness of fear and hopelessness and violence and destruction. God took on flesh to be the Light that broke through that kind of deep darkness. I think the people who followed Jesus were looking for that Light. I think we are looking for that Light. It is Epiphany after all, the season when we acknowledge the Light of God, the manifestation of God, the revelation of God. And the revelation of God is that the Light of the World has come.

What are we looking for? We are looking for the Light, the Light out of the darkness, the Light of the World, the Light that took on flesh and bone and walked with us.

What are we looking for?

The disciples following Jesus wanted to know if Jesus abided with God; they wanted to know about his relationship with God. They wanted to know if he was the Light that they had been seeking. And what’s interesting is that Jesus does not give them a definitive answer to this question. He just replies, “Come and see.”

Jesus doesn’t say, come and worship. Jesus doesn’t say, come and believe. Jesus says come and see. Come and experience. Come and find out for yourselves. Come and find what you have been looking for. Come and find the light you are seeking.

My mom was right all those years ago. The darkness of an arctic winter, while it is right for some, would not have been good for me. To be physically and emotionally and mentally okay, I need light. But looking back, I also realize that I wasn’t considering that internship because I felt called but because I wanted to do something different. I wasn’t called there, and I’m grateful for those who are. My call led me a different direction. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Maybe that is why Jesus’ question stays with me. I’m still not always sure what I am looking for. Yet, I think that I am looking for more than just a regular dose of daylight. I am looking for the Light with a capital L. I am seeking the Light that breaks through the darkness. I am looking for the Light that cannot be overcome by the world’s darkness. Maybe you are looking for that too.

But whatever you are looking for, whatever we are looking for, Jesus calls us to come and see. Jesus calls us to follow, to experience the Light even as we seek it. Jesus calls us to follow and to trust that the Light of God will guide our way, step by step. That is the answer to the question and that is the call and that is the way. Come and see. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

Amen.

Righteousness Fulfilled -- Baptism of the Lord

Matthew 3:13-17

January 11, 2026

 

            Muscle memory. This is a term I hear and use often, but when I gave this phrase some thought I wasn’t sure if I fully understood what muscle memory means. According to the Cleveland Clinic, it refers to “the process by which repeated physical actions become ingrained in our neural networks allowing us to perform them with less conscious thought over time. It is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating specific motor tasks into memory through repetition enabling automatic movements without the need for conscious thought.”

            Muscle memory is essential for becoming proficient at an instrument or at a sport or an athletic endeavor. Muscle memory is what Brent builds when he sits down and plays the guitar at night while we’re watching television or just talking, or what Zach is building when he practices scales on the piano repeatedly. They are both building muscle memory.

            This makes me wonder if there is an emotional muscle memory as well. The last time my brother came down to see us from Minnesota, he brought some more things that belonged to my mom; things that I had asked to keep but wasn’t able to get home the last time I was in Minnesota. Some of the things he brought were some of mom’s aprons. She had one apron that when I saw it again, I told my brother,

            “Seeing that apron is like muscle memory. It is an ingrained part of mom and all my memories of her”

            My brother understood what I meant and agreed. This was my mom’s Christmas apron, and she donned it every Christmas when she was getting our big family meal on the table. Maybe she wore it at other times too, but to me it will always be Mom at Christmas. I don’t have memories of every moment, every Christmas that she wore that apron, but I don’t have to have them. Seeing her in that apron is so deeply ingrained in my mind, my memories, my emotions, that it is part of my emotional muscle memory – even if that isn’t a real thing. So, as I was getting our Christmas meal together this year, I put on my mom’s apron and added again to my emotional muscle memory.

            If there is physiological muscle memory and maybe an emotional muscle memory, then I also wonder if there is spiritual muscle memory. We are encouraged by scripture and by spiritual practitioners alike to make spiritual practices and devotions part of our daily lives. Daily practice makes for daily habits. But I also think that they become embedded in our psyches. They become grooves in spiritual muscle creating muscle memory. These muscle making practices include our sacraments of the Lord’s Supper and baptism.

            Baptism is the overarching theme of our worship today. In the church calendar, this is the traditional day we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord. And on this Sunday, we also remember our own baptisms by reaffirming them as a congregation.  

            Matthew’s account of Jesus being baptized in the river Jordan begins at verse 13. However, we need to go back a few verses to grasp the larger picture of this story. In verse 11, John was calling the people to repentance, to turn around and reorient themselves to God, to be washed clean of their sins and their transgressions. He promises them that one would come who will baptize them not with water but with the Holy Spirit. So they must repent.   

            Right after John said this, practically in the next breath, Jesus shows up. He wades into that water, asking for baptism along with everybody else. It is understandable why John hesitated to do this. It would be like a renowned musician asking a first time student to teach her how to play a scale.  

            John must have felt this way because he tells Jesus, “You need to baptize me, Jesus.  There’s no way I can baptize you!”

            But Jesus responds,

“Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” 

            “Let it be so now.” In other words, Jesus was saying, No, John. This must happen now. Jesus’s message to John was that his baptism was not something that could wait. The time is now. Righteousness in this context conveys a sense of discipleship, more than a moral judgment.  Jesus wants John to understand that the time for his baptism is now, this moment. It is critical for discipleship that he be baptized. So John does what he is asked to do. John is obedient to God’s will, just as Jesus is. He consents and baptizes Jesus there in the river. 

            When Jesus rises from the water, the heavens suddenly open. The Spirit of God is seen descending to Jesus like a dove, and it lights upon him. A voice is heard, and unlike the other gospels, we infer from Matthew’s text that everyone there could hear this voice. It is the voice of God saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

            Matthew’s gospel calls to mind the Genesis story. The Spirit of God hovered over the waters, calling creation out of chaos. The Spirit of God descends upon Jesus as he stands there in the waters of his baptism. Jesus is not newly created in this act, but he is confirmed. His identity is clear. This is my Son. This is God’s Son. This is the kingdom of heaven drawn near and embodied in the identity of this man.

Jack Kingsbury, a preeminent Matthean scholar and one of the most frightening teachers I’ve ever experienced in seminary or otherwise, says that the whole first part of Matthew’s gospel is asking the question, “Who is Jesus?” In this story, we have our answer. Jesus is God’s Son, the Beloved. 

            One of my colleagues in our preaching group reminded us that John’s baptism was not a Christian baptism. John was performing a ritual baptism, a ritual cleansing, and those were practiced long before Jesus came to the Jordan that day. But John’s call for repentance gave a new twist to these ritual cleansings, and Jesus’ baptism signified a greater change in the understanding of baptism. Baptism now created a new path for new life. It wasn’t just the water alone. It was the water and the Word. This informs our Christian understanding of baptism. The waters of baptism, whether we are sprinkled or immersed, cleanse us. Spiritually speaking, they wash us clean. In theological terms, we see baptism as our way of symbolically dying and rising with Christ. We go into the water and into his death. We rise from the water and we rise into new life. Baptism is a sign of our adoption into Christ. Whenever I baptize someone, I am acutely aware that baptism joins this person with a larger family. Not only are we born into a family, mother, father, siblings, through our baptisms we become members of the family of God. Our baptisms are the sign and seal of God’s grace, love and adoption. 

            Jesus was baptized, as many commentators and scholars say, so that we could truly be baptized. It wasn’t just that he was modeling baptism as a good thing to do. Jesus, that real human being who was also God incarnate, waded into those waters, and through the power of the Holy Spirit changed them and us. 

            But one big question always rises from this story. Did Jesus himself need to be baptized?  We are baptized for all the reasons I mentioned above. But even as we claim Jesus to be truly human, a real flesh and blood person, we also believe that Jesus was without sin. There were no transgressions on his part. He had no need to repent. John wasn’t making his call for repentance, for turning back to God, to Jesus. He was leveling those words at the others who had gathered at the river that day. As I said before, I completely understand John’s hesitation to baptize Jesus. It should be Jesus baptizing John. But remember Jesus responds to John by saying the time is now.  Now is the time for this baptism. Now is the time that righteousness is fulfilled.

            For Jesus his baptism was the confirmation of his identity as God’s son. And as one commentator puts it, it was also his launching. His baptism was a key step in Jesus becoming ready to serve. In southern terms, we’d say that Jesus being baptized meant that he was fixin to go out into the world, to launch his public ministry, to do God’s will. Jesus waded into the waters of the River Jordan to be baptized because it was time. It was time to publicly serve God and live out God’s will.

            Don’t our baptisms do the same? In our baptisms our identity as children of God is formed. In our baptisms, we are called, even when we are baptized as infants, we are called. We are sent into the world, sent out on a path of discipleship that will be lifelong. In our baptisms, we experience the sign and seal of God’s grace. So, we remember our baptisms every time we worship with one another – even if we can’t physically remember them, they are part of our spiritual muscle memory. We remember our baptisms when we witness the baptism of another, when we covenant to pray for the newly baptized one, to love them, to guide them, to help and hold them just as others promised to do the same for us. And we remember our baptisms when we come forward and touch the water and take a stone. Each time we remember our baptism, we add to our spiritual muscle memory. We embed our identities more completely with Jesus. We remember again that we are called and that we are sent – out. We are sent out into the world to love and forgive and repent and witness and work. We are sent out into the world to be, as a billboard I read recently proclaimed, the reason someone believes God is good.

            We remember our baptisms so that we remember God’s promise, God’s call, God’s sending. We remember our baptisms because they are part and parcel of our spiritual muscle memory. We remember our baptisms because we remember the one who was baptized to make all things new, to fulfill all righteousness. We remember. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen and amen.

           

 

           

           

An Eastern Star -- Epiphany

Matthew 2:1-12

January 4, 2026

 

            It was Christmastime and our daughter, Phoebe, was two. I had taken Phoebe to have her picture professionally taken and we were given a Rudolph the Reindeer statue as a gift from the photography company. This was not a fancy statue, but it was cute. Rudolph’s antlers were meant to hold Christmas cards. But it wasn’t very effective as a card holder simply because if you tried to put more than one or two cards into the antlers, it would fall over. But Phoebe loved it, so I used it in our Christmas decorations.

            Our Christmas decorations also included a nativity. Like the one we have here in church, it came with shepherds and sheep, a couple of barn animals, an angel, Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus, and the wise men. I put it together carefully and set it on a little table near the Christmas tree.

            Not long after doing this, I happened to look at the nativity set and saw that a certain red-nosed reindeer had joined those gathered around the manger where Jesus lay. I realized Phoebe must have moved him there, and I smiled, and then I moved it back to where I’d originally placed him. I don’t think a day had passed when I looked at the nativity and Rudolph was there again. I returned him to his original spot once more. The next day, Rudoph was back at the manger, and I realized I was fighting a losing battle. Without ever saying a word, Phoebe made it clear to me that Rudolph belonged at the side of Baby Jesus along with all the other characters in the story. So, that became his rightful place on that Christmas and for several Christmases after.

            Looking back at it now, I think Phoebe had it right. She probably didn’t realize the theological statement she was making when she first toddled Rudolph over to the nativity. Technically, a reindeer with a red nose who could fly in a story that included Santa Claus didn’t belong in the nativity scene depicting the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But for that matter, considering the divine importance of that birth and the full nature of that child, he also should not have been lying a trough used for feeding animals, nor should he have been surrounded by those animals or shepherds either. And even though I admit it’s taken me many years to even consider questioning it, the wise men’s presence by Jesus’ side should be suspect as well.

Who were these wise men? Tradition may call them kings, but scripture does not. Matthew refers to them as wise men who came to pay homage to the new king. Paying homage meant that they willingly knelt before this young king, which is a big deal especially if they were actual kings. We also know them as magi, which is connected to the word magic. It has been speculated that rather than kings, they were Eastern astrologers, who studied the stars and planets.

            Whatever and whoever they were, they were not Jewish. They were not from Israel. They were outsiders. They were foreigners. They were strangers. They were not from those parts, and their people were not from around there. But these outsiders traveled for who knows how long to see this child, because the star they witnessed at its rising revealed to them that a king had been born. And they must have realized that this was an extraordinary king, because why else would they have followed the star to find him?

            There are many layers to this familiar story. But one question about it has plagued me for a long time. If these wise men were so wise, why, WHY, did they go to Herod’s court and ask about this new king? As one commentator I studied wrote, King Herod was well known in the ancient world for being both paranoid and brutal. He killed at least one of his wives and a few of his sons because he thought they were plotting against him. One story says that Caesar, the Roman emperor, said of Herod that it was safer to be his pig than his son. Considering Herod was Jewish and did not consume pork, any pig in his court would have been safe. But his sons were not.

            It’s no surprise then that when the news got out that a new king had been born, that Jerusalem was afraid right along with Herod. The people of Jerusalem may not have been afraid of this new king, but they were smart enough to know that if Herod was afraid, anything could happen. And if we were to continue reading this story after the wise men return home by another way, we would know that the people were right to be terrified. Herod would seek to stop this infant king in the most brutal way possible.

            And what about this star that the wise men saw? The nature of what it might have been has been under debate for a long, long time. It has been depicted as being much larger than any other star in the heavens. Some scholars conjecture that it was two planets that crossed paths at just the right moment, making them appear to be one extra large star. Or perhaps it was a star that was imploding, again giving the appearing of being much larger than it was. Maybe the wise men saw a comet blazing a trail across the night sky and they followed it.

            Yet whatever it was that the wise men witnessed, they recognized it as a sign. They recognized it as a revelation of something new happening in the world. They understood it as a sign that a new king had been born. So they followed this sign. They followed this star, and what I believe Matthew is trying to make clear is that the light of that star shone not just for the people of Israel, but for the whole world. It shone for all people. It was a sign for all people that God was Immanuel – God with us, God with them, God with all.

            Maybe this was another reason why the people were afraid. If you have been taught your whole life that God was only with you and your kind, your people, then seeing outsiders coming to worship a king that you believed would be born only for you and yours, would have been disconcerting to say the least. If you are a leader who wields power with seeming impunity, then the last thing you want is to find out that others, that strangers and outsiders, have seen and recognized a sign telling of a new king, a new leader. Not only are your power and leadership threatened, but that light that reveals this new king is also a light that will shine into every dark corner revealing every dark deed.

            It wasn’t only this baby king that was a threat to Herod. It was also the light that led the wise men to seek him. That star, that glowing light in the sky, revealed that the Light of the World had been born. The Light of God was now shining in their midst. And nothing can be hidden when the Light of God shines.

            Epiphany means revelation. So what is revealed in this story of wise men following an eastern star to the side of a baby? What is revealed? What is made manifest? Although we don’t normally associate fear with Epiphany, I think that fears are revealed. The fear of Herod is certainly revealed, but the fear of the people as well. They weren’t just afraid of Herod’s response, although they were right to be afraid of Herod’s response. They also were afraid of the unknown. Whatever the expectations of the Messiah were, I doubt anyone expected that he would come as a baby born in the humblest of circumstances, and that he would be recognized by the “others” even before he was recognized by his own.

            What does Epiphany reveal for us? What fears come to light? Are we equally afraid of the unknown, the other, the outsider, the stranger? It seems to me that our greatest fear comes from the unknown. I suspect that if we’re honest with ourselves, we are as afraid of these things as the people of the ancient world were. I know that I am eager to proclaim that God is Immanuel, God with us, but am I equally as happy that God might be with them as well? Do I want God to be Immanuel for those I dislike and disagree with, for those I consider to be not just other but enemy? Do I want God to be Immanuel with people who have hurt and dismissed me? If I’m honest, no, but that’s the thing about Epiphany. The Light shines for all, not just me, not just the people I love, but all. The Light shines for all. The Light of God is the Light of the World. And that is wonderful but it is also kind of scary.

            It seems to me that Epiphany is more than just a familiar story that we tell and celebrate around January 6 each year. Epiphany is meant to shake us up. Epiphany is Rudoph gathered at the side of the manger. Epiphany is strangers coming from a strange land because they recognize that a child has been born for us. Epiphany is light shining in the darkness. Epiphany is the revelation that the good news is not just good news for some, but for all. Epiphany is the light that reveals the ugly and the cruel and the evil as well as the good. Epiphany is meant to shake us up and to disorient us and to turn all that we think we know upside down. Epiphany reveals our deepest fears. But it also reveals our greatest hopes and desires. Epiphany reveals that God is still working, still calling, still seeking, still with us.

            So let this Light reveal our fears, because when we can see them we can also let them go. Let this Light reveal all that darkness conceals, because then we can work for what is good and right and just. Let the Light shine into every place where violence exists because then we can work to live in peace instead. We have been walking in darkness for so long, but the Light of the World is shining. May our lives be shaken up and turned around and changed forever more. Because that is what happens when God is with us. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

            The Light has come.

            Amen and amen. 

Testify to the Light -- First Sunday of Christmas

John 1:1-18

December 28, 2025

 

            I know what it means to be afraid of the dark because I was afraid of it when I was a little girl. I didn’t worry too much about the possibility of monsters under my bed, but I was convinced that horrible creatures lurked in my closet. The closet in my room was a long one, and along with my clothes it held my play kitchen and many of my books and other toys. During the day, I loved playing in that closet. At night it was a different story. When darkness fell anything that “went bump in the night” did their bumping in my closet. When the lights of our house went out at night, my closet, which was a wonderful refuge of play and imagination during the day, became the scariest place in my home.

I had a couple of different methods for dealing with my fears. The first, and perhaps most obvious, was that before I went to sleep, I would turn the closet light on. I would keep the door closed, but the door had slats in it, so the light would shine through the slats. If any monsters thought about roaming out of the closet during the night, the light would keep them at bay. For another level of protection, I also used to line up my favorite stuffed animals on either side of me in bed. I was certain that they would protect me while I slept, so if any of the terrible monsters in my closet managed to slip past the light, I would be safe.

            I eventually grew out of my fear of the dark, but I received a vivid reminder of what it means to carry that fear when I spent the summer of 2006 working as the program director for my dear friend, Chris, at the camp she ran in rural Michigan. The mission of the camp was to provide a positive camping experience for people, children and adults, with special needs and children from lower income and disadvantaged homes and neighborhoods, especially in the Detroit area. In our orientation with the other staff members, Chris reminded us that many of the kids who attended that camp had never experienced full blown darkness. In their urban environment, there was never an absence of light. And night at the camp was dark. That meant that kids, even older high school youth, would be afraid of the dark. We needed to be sensitive to their fears. That wasn’t hard for me because it reminded me of my own childhood fears. I knew what it was to be afraid of the dark.

I suspect that I’m not the only one who was once afraid of the dark, but I also think that most of us adults would describe fear of darkness as something that only afflicts children. Yet even though we may not think we are afraid of the dark, we live as though we are. I admit to making use of nightlights throughout our home. I keep one in each bathroom in case someone must get up in the night. And we keep the front porch light on because it deters unwanted visitors while we sleep.

            But even if I didn’t employ nightlights in our house, I think there would be plenty of light coming from outside. There are streetlights, and the neighbors around us also have lights on. There are the lights that come from greater Columbia. We live about two and a half seconds from Maury Regional and there are plenty of lights there. Even if Columbia is not a major urban metropolis, there is still a significant amount of artificial light, so dark is not that dark.

            But what does all this light do to us? There is a growing body of scientific evidence that considers the large amount of artificial light we produce to be light pollution. And light pollution has negative consequences on the natural world.

            One creature that is affected by light pollution is the sea turtle. The sea turtle already has the odds stacked against it, but it is struggling because of light pollution. Female sea turtles return to the same beaches year after year to lay their eggs. Human development on those beaches is encroaching on their habitat. But the developments are not the only problem. The light from those developments disorients the turtles. As they’re swimming in from the sea, they use the dark shape of the beach to guide them. The lights confuse them and they have a hard time going from the sea to land to lay their eggs. We might think that more would help them find their way. But the natural world does not work like that.  

            Too much artificial light also affects and disorients the baby sea turtles trying to swim back out to sea. All the lights we humans use are messing with the sea turtles. Maybe that seems like a relatively small blip in the greater scheme of things, but the reality is that light pollution is affecting a wide variety of creatures, and that includes us.

            An earthquake struck the Los Angeles area in the mid 1990’s, knocking out the power grid that keeps greater LA bathed in light. Once the darkness had settled, people began calling emergency services, afraid, because of a strange glow in the night sky. 

            It was the Milky Way. 

            Many people had never witnessed that before because the artificial lights of Los Angeles kept the heavens from being viewed. And what’s more, scientists believe that 80 to 90 percent of people in major cities have lost their ability to see the Milky Way.  It’s not just that our lights block it from us. We can no longer see it.

            We have surrounded ourselves with light, but we can no longer see.

            “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.”
            Into the darkness came John. He was not the Light, but he testified to the Light. He pointed to the Light. He knew that the Light of the world was upon the people, but could they see it?

            We read this story about John the Baptist differently in different contexts. In a couple of weeks, we will encounter him as he baptizes Jesus. In Advent, John appears as the one who is calling us to make ready, to prepare. But today we see John the Witness; we see the John who testified to the Light. The Light is here; it is shining on us. Do we see it?  Karoline Lewis of WorkingPreacher.org wrote that this is a cosmic event. God is reordering the world and all creation. But we need a human to point the way. That human is John. He testifies to the Light because the people walk in darkness. What does it mean to walk in darkness?

            Obviously the people who lived at the time of Jesus lived in more literal darkness than we do. I’m sure they had no problem seeing the Milky Way, because there was no abundance of artificial light to block it. They would have had the light of fire and oil lamps, but they would not have had the great lights that project into our own night sky.

            But the literal meaning of darkness only touches the surface. The darkness went to their very soul. Their world was ordered by the Law, but it was a dark world because they could not see how God was working in their midst. Oh sure, they had the words of the prophets and their ancestors in the faith. They waited for the promised Messiah. They prayed and sacrificed and did what they thought God wanted them to do. Yet the darkness was pervasive. 

            The people who walk in darkness have seen a great Light. John came to testify to the Light. We have so much light, perhaps too much light that it is challenging to recognize how these words might speak to us. With so much light all around us, how can we possibly walk in darkness? Yet the darkness is pervasive. 

            So what darkness do we walk in? Is the darkness our fears? Is it our lostness? Is it our brokenness? Is it our loneliness? Is it our ability to forget that just by being human we have inextricable bonds with every other human being? Is it our willingness to put ourselves above God? Is it our knack for thinking we need only ourselves? Is it that we try to replace the Light with a capital L with all the other smaller, lowercase lights out there? 

The darkness is pervasive, but the good news of the gospel is that Jesus is the Light of the World. On Christmas Eve, we remembered that what we celebrate in this season of the year is not just that that a child was born over two thousand years ago but the promise of God, and the steadfastness of God in keeping that promise. As we remember the birth of the Christ Child, we also remember the promise of God to be with us, really with us, to not leave us alone in the darkness of our own making, to give us and the whole world the Light that is Life.

In Eugene Peterson’s translation of the Bible, The Message, Peterson translates verse 14 this way,

“The Word was made flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.”

The Word was made flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. That is God with us, walking and working and living beside us. That is the Light that has come into the world. That is the Light that is true light and true life and true love.

            The true Light of the world is in the world, and we are witnesses just as John was. He testified to the Light, and now it is our turn, our time, our call. May we testify to the Light through our words. May we testify to the Light through our living. May we testify to the Light through our love. The Light is here. The Light of the world is shining. Testify!

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

            Amen.

A Child Born for Us -- Christmas Eve

Isaiah 9:2-7/Luke 2:1-20

December 24, 2025 

            Approximately two thousand and twenty-five years ago, a baby was born. He was born in a nondescript town located in a land halfway around the world from here. He was not born to royalty or nobility. His parents were common folk and probably as nervous and uncertain as most new parents are. He was not welcomed into this world on a bed of soft linen but was born instead where the animals were sheltered from the cold of a desert night and the predators that lurked in the darkness.

            There should have been nothing extraordinary about that birth so long ago. How many other babies were born that night as well?  All births are blessings and miracles, but this birth was different; is different. It is this birth, this humble birth, that we remember. It is this birth in lowly circumstances that we celebrate. It is this birth of a baby in a nondescript town in a faraway land that brings us together on this night, in this sacred space, in reverence, in awe, and in joy.

            Luke tells us that this birth was heralded by angels; that the dark sky over Bethlehem was suddenly filled with thousands upon thousands of heavenly beings singing their glorias, shouting their alleluias. And this good news was proclaimed to shepherds out in the fields, tending to their flocks. And of course they were terrified. Who wouldn’t be with the appearance of one angel, much less a multitude? When the angel song receded back into the night, the shepherds ran to see the baby for themselves, and there he was – a baby like any other and like no other before or since – and he was with his mother and his father, wrapped up tight and warm in cloths to protect him from the night air. The shepherds shared how they had learned of the baby’s birth, how they had received this good and glorious news, and all were amazed at their story. And Mary, his mother, who had also been visited by an angel, treasured and wondered at these stories, these proclamations and prophecies about her baby boy in her heart.

            That is the story that brings us here tonight. That is the two thousand twenty-five year old story of good news of great joy that we gather to hear again this evening. We gather to hear it read and proclaimed and sung and prayed.

             But why else do we come? Is it just to hear a beautiful and ancient story, or do we come to be reminded that this story is more than just a story. It is a promise. It is a promise – the promise – to which the prophet Isaiah speaks. His words, his vision, speaks to the yearning of his people – for freedom from captivity, for fullness of life, for a return to home, for belonging, for peace.

            Isaiah speaks to the heart of his people, to their longings and to their fears. He proclaims that even though they have walked in darkness, now they have seen a great light. Even though these people have lived in a land of deepest darkness, the light has found them once again. The light of hope, of peace, of joy, of love, of God, is shining on them – breaking through the darkness and bringing them into the light. A child has been born for them. A child has been born for them, who will break the bonds of captivity, who will heal their wounded, broken hearts, who will fulfill the promise of God for them and for all people.

            So, we come tonight not just to hear this sweet, familiar story, but to hear again the promise of God. To proclaim again that God’s promise is born among us and for us and for all people everywhere. God’s promise is for us because we also have hearts that are broken. We also yearn for freedom from what holds us captive, for lives that are full, and are abundant in goodness and grace. We yearn for home, we yearn for belonging, we yearn for peace.

            The old, sweet carol proclaims that in the little town of Bethlehem, the hopes and fears of all the years were met by the birth of a child born for us. So, we come here tonight not just for the story but for the promise because we carry with us our hopes, our fears, our dreams, our disappointments, our longings, our burdens. We come here to be reminded of the promise that the bonds that hold us captive will be broken. We come here to be reminded of the promise that peace, real peace, true peace, full and abundant peace, will come to fruition. We come here to be reminded of the promise that we are not alone, that God is with us, that there is more in God’s heaven and earth than we can see or understand or know. We come here to be reminded of the promise that God became a child born for us, born for us because of love.

            We come here tonight to be reminded of the promise that what is broken will be made whole, what is lost will be found, and that we are not alone. God is with us. Hope is with us. Peace is with us. Joy is with us. Love is with us. God is with us.

            A child has been born for us so that we can live for God and for one another. A child has been born for us so that we can be reminded of the promise of God. A child has been born for us. Let us join the angels and the shepherds in proclaiming this good and glorious news. And may the sound of our alleluias reverberate tonight and always.

            Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

            Amen.

           

The Holy Way -- Third Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 35:1-10

December 14, 2025

            There were some good things, really good things, about living in northeast Iowa like great neighbors and a great neighborhood. Phoebe and Zach had lots of other kids to play with. We could walk or ride our bikes to most places in town. There was a hatchery right in the heart of town and in the Spring the kids and I would go and hold the baby chicks. And I think in all 11 years that we lived there, we always had a white Christmas. The first snowfall was perfect. Everything looked beautiful with the fresh snow, especially with Christmas lights twinkling from every house. But by January that first snowfall had turned into many, many snowfalls. There would be so much snow that the plows would run out of places to put it and it would get dumped into huge piles on the edge of large parking lots. And these were not piles of snow that you wanted to climb and play on and slide down. There were dirty, mucky, and icky. They were just gross.

            And it was cold. I sound like the proverbial old person whenever I remember the winter it hit 40 below for a week. And that’s 40 below without adding in the wind chill. I don’t want to remember how cold it was with the wind chill in the mix. Just believe me when I tell you that it was bitterly cold, and I don’t think I fully thawed out until the first two years I lived in Oklahoma before moving back to Tennessee. Iowa was and is cold. Cold.

            But sometime in those long winters, usually in February, we would have a brief thaw. The sun would shine, replacing the long days of gray. The temperature would rise above freezing, sometimes even into the low 40’s, and if it happened on a Saturday, you could guarantee there would be a long line at the car wash because it was the perfect opportunity to get the sludge and salt off your car – at least for a day or two. I remember feeling like I was coming back to life a little bit, and I could believe that Spring would indeed come again. A thaw like this wouldn’t last long. Winter would usually roll back in with a vengeance. But it was a welcome interruption in a long, cold winter.

            This passage, chapter 35, from the prophet Isaiah might have had that same effect on its first audience as a brief thaw did for me living in Iowa. It was a welcome interruption. Scholar Barbara Lundblad Taylor asks this question of chapter 35;

“What is it doing here?”

            Taken on its own, it is beautiful and compelling language. It is poetry at its most masterful. The imagery of the prophet’s words and the visceral response they evoke are both beautiful and amazing.

            “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing … for waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.”

            These are beautiful and powerful words indeed. But hear these other powerful words from the mouth of this same prophet:

            “For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of vindication by Zion’s cause. And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever.”

            That is Isaiah, chapter 34:8-10; the chapter and verses just before the one we read today. In chapter 36, the chapter that follows our chapter, Isaiah tells of King Sennacherib’s capture of the people of Judah. Sennacherib challenges them, demanding that they submit to him. His representative denounces their king Hezekiah and tells the people not to be deceived by Hezekiah’s promise that they will be saved from the Assyrian conquest. So, these eloquent words of promise in Chapter 35, of creation being reordered to reflect the fullness of God’s glory; words that tell of the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking, the speechless singing, are both preceded and followed by words of judgment, vengeance, capture, and forceful submission.

            What is this passage, this chapter of beauty and promise, of expectations upended, of miraculous reordering, doing here; stuck between prophecies and stories that convey the exact opposite? Some of the scholarship about this passage claims that it is misplaced in the text. Some unnamed copyist placed it here when it should have come later. Some scholars believe that this chapter rightly belongs to Second Isaiah – which is considered to begin at chapter 40 and contains words of new hope after the exile of God’s people has finally come to an end. Our chapter, stuck between doom before and gloom after, must have been mistakenly moved by that same scribe from its original place to where it now resides. But perhaps it was not a mistake after all. Perhaps it is where it is for a reason.

            Again Lundblad Taylor wrote,

            “Some things even our best scholarship cannot explain. The Spirit hovered over the text and the scribes: ‘Put it here,’ breathed the Spirit, ‘before anyone is ready. Interrupt the narrative of despair.’”

            Interrupt the narrative of despair. Isn’t that what we desperately need right now? Isn’t that what every generation has needed? An interruption in the narrative of despair. Isn’t that what we are preparing for during this season of Advent? An interruption in the despair that seems to not only loom around us but is growing exponentially. How is God interrupting us right now? How is God speaking words of hope, whether we are ready for them or not, whether we can recognize them or not? How is God’s interruption turning our expectations upside down? How is God’s interruption like a blooming desert, like streams rushing through arid land, like waters flowing recklessly out of a sparse and thirsty wilderness, like a Holy Way where no harm can befall a traveler?

In ecclesial terms, this Sunday is known as Gaudete Sunday – which is Latin for Rejoice. On this Sunday, we turn from the deeper shade of royal purple to a lighter pink. We light a pink candle on our Advent wreath, and joy interrupts us on this day just as these words of joy interrupt passages before and after that are anything but joyful.

For the last two Sundays the prophet Isaiah has shared a vision of instruments of destruction being transformed into tools for life, of predator and prey lying down together in companionable peace, and today we read that all of creation will sing forth God’s praises. All creation will be transformed and renewed. There will be waters in the wilderness and streams in the desert. Burning sand will become pools of clear water. Thirsty, dry ground will transform into springs of water.

And this will not be reserved for the natural world only, but all humanity as well. Weak hands will be strengthened; feeble knees will be made firm. The blind shall see. The deaf will hear. Those who cannot walk will leap like deer. Those who cannot speak will sing for joy. The whole of creation will sing God’s praises. The whole of creation will reflect the joy of God.

The narrative of despair will not only be interrupted but rewritten. The joy of God will be so pervasive, so ubiquitous that sorrow and sighing will no longer have a place in the story. Everlasting joy shall be upon the heads of the children of the Lord, of those ransomed and returned. They shall come to Zion singing. Joy and gladness will be theirs. Sorrow and sighing will flee away. Forever.

            In the weekly preaching group I participate in, we talked about what it would mean for sorrow and sighing to flee away and what that imagery evokes. It’s not just that sorrow and sighing will leave or dissipate or disperse quietly. They will flee away. Sorrow and sighing become personified in this description, and they will leave as though they are being pursued or driven off or chased. Joy will not let them linger but will actively chase them away – not just for a little while but for good and for always.

            How I long for joy to chase away sorrow and sighing forever. Today is our daughter, Phoebe’s birthday, but it is also the 14^th anniversary of the terrible school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. I remember that day too well. Even though it was Phoebe’s birthday, it was also a school day and it was filled with the usual chaos of getting them up and dressed and to school on time. I wished Phoebe a happy birthday, but I also had to hustle her and her brother out the door and out of the car and there was little time for hugs and the “I love yous” were quickly and carelessly said. I had so much to do and so much to prepare, that I didn’t hear about the shooting until I got home. But when I heard what was happening in Connecticut, my other plans seemed foolish. I watched the news and I cried and cried – for everyone affected, but especially for every parent who hustled their children off to school just as I had but who wouldn’t welcome them home again.

            And with the news yesterday of the shooting at Brown University and the mass shooting at a Hannukah celebration in New Zealand, it would seem that sorrow and sighing are permanent residents in our world and that joy cannot easily or completely chase them away.

            Yet that’s what makes this interruption of despair that Isaiah offers us more necessary than ever, because it reminds us that God is not done. The promise that our hope rests upon is that God is not done; that the words of Isaiah represent far more than just an interruption. One day creation itself will be reordered and realigned to God’s purpose and intention. One day all of creation will be glad. One day the desert will rejoice and the crocus, that first flower that blooms even in snow, will rejoice and sing. One day, weak hands and feeble knees will be strengthened and firmed. One day the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will leap for joy. One day there will be streams in the desert. One day there will be water in the wilderness. One day there will be a highway that runs straight and true, and it will be a Holy Way. And travelers on that Holy Way will not go astray or walk with fear. But that Holy Way will take them and us back to Zion, back to God. We will walk that Holy Way, singing for joy. And behind us, sorrow and sighing are fleeing into the distance, into the past, into what was but will never be again.

            The promise of Advent, the promise of God, the promise we cling to is that one day joy will be more than an interruption. It will be the fullness in which we live and move and have our being. It will be the paving stones of the Holy Way, the way that leads us to God. One day joy will send sorrow and sighing packing. One day they will flee away. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s hopeful, peaceful, joyful children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.