My Message to You -- Easter Sunday

Matthew 28:1-10

April 9. 2023

 

            Being married to Brent Stoker means that great music is a huge part of our life together. Brent has introduced me to some wonderful music since we’ve been together, and alone with all the other things about him and our family that I am grateful for, I am especially grateful for the music. At some point in the last two years, Brent played songs for me by Levon Helm. If you know the group The Band, you know Levon Helm’s music. He was their brilliant drummer, songwriter, and one of the main singers.

            I knew The Band, but I didn’t know Levon’s solo work. So, one day in the car, Brent played me some of it. While I liked everything I heard, I was floored by the song, “When I Go Away.” A simple summary of the lyrics is that it is a song about dying. Levon didn’t write the song, at least the lyrics aren’t credited to him, and I don’t know if he recorded it as he prepared for his own death, but this is a song about dying. And yet it is the most joyful, uplifting, exuberant, spiritual, faithful, hopeful song I’ve heard in a long time. We listened to it, and I was overwhelmed. I’ve given strict instructions to Brent that if I should die first, “When I Go Away” is to be played as the finish to whatever service there may be.

            You would think that a song about dying would sound like a mournful dirge. But this song rocks! It’s part gospel, part rock n’ roll, part country. The opening verse is,

“Early in the morning, a-when the church bells toll,

The choir’s gonna sing and the hearse will roll

On down to the graveyard where it’s cold and gray

And then the sun’s gonna shine through the shadows when I go away.”

            I think the point being made is that dying is a gift not a curse. Dying is just the entry point to the next life, a better life, when all the sorrows and troubles and trials of this world are left behind. Whenever I listen to it, and I’ve listened to it a lot at this point, it makes me feel happy and hopeful and glad. I play it when I’m sad or discouraged, and it lifts my spirits. The next verse of the song is this,

“Don’t want no sorrow for this old orphan boy

I don’t want no crying only tears of joy

I’m gonna see my mother gonna see my father

And I’ll be bound for glory in the morning when I go away.”

            As much as I love this song, when my mom died a few months ago, I found that I couldn’t listen to it. That verse hit too close to home. My faith and hope are grounded in my belief that I will see my mother and father again someday; but I knew that my heart wasn’t ready to hear that verse. So, I stopped playing Levon for a while.

            Until a couple of days ago. I was driving home, and I found myself longing to hear Levon. It was on one of those rainy, gloomy days that we’ve had lately, and I longed to hear a song that would make my heart glad. This song makes my heart glad. I knew that if I listened to it again, I would also have to hear once more the verse about seeing his mother and father, but I felt like could handle it. So I played it, and I sang. And when I heard those lyrics about an old orphan boy seeing his parents one more time, I cried. But I kept singing. My tears were tears of grief, true, but they were also tears of joy. And I realized as I sang that my heart is healing a little, and I am grateful.

            Since I’m jamming to this wonderful song again, it’s message has been on my mind especially considering today, Easter Sunday. Certainly, the ultimate message of “When I Go Away” that death of this life, in this world, is just the gateway to glory is one understanding of resurrection. Through Jesus’ resurrection, death for all of us has been overcome. We may die to these earthly lives, but we will live again on the other side in glory.

            But I think this understanding of resurrection needs to be held in tension with another understanding of resurrection, and that is that God gives us new life now, not just after death. Resurrection happens in the present, not just in the future. Matthew’s gospel tells of Mary Magdalene and the other Mary going to the tomb early that morning. There is no mention of them bringing spices to anoint his body. They knew a stone too big for them to roll away blocked the entrance, and guards had been posted to make sure no one went in or out. They went to the tomb, maybe to sit by it as we might sit by a graveside. They went to grieve, to remember, to wonder, to wait. But the descending of an angel caused the earth to quake and the ground to roll. The angel himself moved the stone away. Dread at the appearance of the angel caused the guards to fall into a dead faint, and surely the women must have been frightened too. But the angel uttered the same words to them that had been proclaimed to others at the birth of Jesus, “Do not be afraid.”

            Do not be afraid. Jesus was crucified, but he has been raised. See the spot where he lay. He isn’t there. Go quickly and tell the disciples that he has been raised from the dead and he is going ahead of you to Galilee. Meet him there. “This is my message for you”

            And the women, filled with both fear and joy, run to do just that. And it is on the way to share this good news with the disciples that they meet Jesus. Alive, risen, resurrected. They meet him in the present, not in the future. They witnessed the resurrection while they were still alive and able to tell the story. They were able to see him, talk to him, touch him. They saw the resurrection in their present long before they saw it in the future.

            And that’s what I mean about holding these two understandings of resurrection in tension. Yes, our faith tells us that resurrection is something we will all experience on the other side of the veil when we are taken up to glory. But resurrection is also right now and right here.

            It seems to me that the resurrection was God’s great “Yes” to life and to love, and God’s great “No” to the powers and principalities that tried to stop love from winning. The forces that put Jesus to death on the cross were people who were afraid; afraid of losing their own power and fearful of what the power of love could and would do. Kill him, they thought, make sure he is dead and gone and out of our hair and out of our way. But they miscalculated and underestimated the power of God and God’s love. Their plans to stop  God’s love by stopping Jesus backfired. They backfired spectacularly! Instead of stopping this love that Jesus embodied and preached, that love grew and spread and claimed people’s hearts and minds. It was not just about resurrection sometime later; it was about resurrection now.

            That’s this tension that I’m talking about. When I was able to listen to Levon again, when I was able to belt out the words, “I’m gonna see my mother, gonna see my father,” I knew, and I believed that something within me had been resurrected. It’s not that I’m over the deaths of my parents, it’s that listening to that music and singing along with Levon reminded me that there is joy to be found in the now, even as I anticipate seeing my mom and dad again in the future. When joy can be born out of grief, that’s resurrection.

            When hope can rise from despair, that’s resurrection. When anger gives way to forgiveness, that’s resurrection. When empathy and compassion bridges division, that’s resurrection. When the fullness of peace is prioritized over the emptiness of war, that is resurrection. When we see one another through the eyes of God rather than through eyes clouded by distrust and suspicion of the other, that is resurrection.

            The abundant life that God offers is not just a reward upon death, but a gift and a promise now. The resurrection does not take away the sorrows of this world. It does not magically make grief and trouble and trials disappear. But resurrection reminds us that new life is ours now. God is making all things new, right here, right now. Our incarnate God who willingly took on our flesh, and in doing so our suffering, is alive and in the world and in this place and in our midst. The stone has been rolled away. The tomb is empty. Love and life have been let loose in the world, so do not be afraid. When fear is released and love is embraced, that is resurrection. That is my message to you.

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

            Amen.

Living Water -- Third Sunday in Lent

John 4:5-42

March 12, 2023

 

            I never got to meet my sister’s mother-in-law before she died. When we visited Greece several years ago, we didn’t get very far out of Athens. That meant that we did not make it as far as Karditsa, the village where my brother-in-law grew up and where yiayia lived.

            I regret not meeting her though. From my sister’s description, she was a small woman but stronger than you could ever imagine. She had survived wars and oppression and occupation. And she just worked hard all her life. One of her daily chores for many years was bringing water in buckets from the well.

            I think yiayia carried water using a wooden yoke across her neck and shoulders with two buckets balanced on either end. It’s no wonder yiayia was strong! Carrying water like that every day would make you strong. But yiayia hauled her water that way for years, not as part of a workout routine, but because she had to. So did this woman from Samaria.

            The Samaritan woman would come to the well everyday to gather water for the daily needs of her household. But unlike the other women of her village, who would probably come to the well early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day and for the time to talk together and hear the news of each other’s families and of the town, the woman in our story came to the well alone. She came at noon when the heat of the day was peaking.

            One of my friends and colleagues in our weekly lectionary group said what would it be like if we could come to this text without any preconceived ideas about this Samaritan woman. What if we read these verses with completely open minds, with only expectations of what the story would reveal, not assumptions about what is there? If we could do that, we would find that there is really no criticism of this woman to be found in the text. Traditional interpretation and scholarship have speculated that the woman came to the well alone at the heat of the day and by herself because she was an outcast among her people. She would have been an outcast among outcasts. We learn from Jesus in later verses as to why she might be an outcast, but if we look at this text with new eyes and open minds, all we know about her so far is that she is a woman, a Samaritan, and that she came to draw her water from the well at noon.

            When she gets to the well, she is not alone. Jesus is there. We may know who Jesus is, but to this woman he is a stranger. But this stranger is thirsty – after all he is clearly traveling, and he must be hot and dusty and thirsty. So, Jesus, this stranger, asks her to give him a drink. We can assume that the Samaritan woman did just that, but she doesn’t do it without asking this question.

            “How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

            Jews and Samaritans were bitter enemies. That enmity is the reason Jesus’ parable about the Samaritan who helps a stranger on the road to Jericho would have shocked and dismayed the Jews listening. The Jews and the Samaritans were bitter enemies. They shared a common ancestor; after all the well where Jesus was sitting and where the woman came to draw water was Jacob’s well. But religious, social, and cultural differences had kept the Jews and Samaritans apart for centuries.

            Jesus, when he spoke to this woman, when he asked her to give him water, and the fact that he was in Samaria at all, was crossing boundaries and lines that were not supposed to be crossed. He was a man alone speaking to a woman alone. He was a Jew speaking to a Samaritan. And the woman clearly understands all of this, which is why she asks the question of him.

            “How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

            Jesus responds in typical Johannine fashion.

            “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

            At first. the woman takes his words literally. You don’t have a bucket. The well is deep. How would you give me living water? Where would you get this water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob was? He gave this well to us, and he and sons drank from it. They watered their sheep from it.

            But Jesus responds to her with a deeper meaning to his words. Everyone who drinks from this well will be thirsty again. But those who drink from the living water that I offer will never be thirsty. The water that I offer becomes a gushing spring of eternal life in those who drink it.

            At this point, the woman still takes his words literally. Sir, please give me some of this water, so I don’t have to keep returning to this well; so I don’t have to keep carrying these heavy jars back and forth.

            And then we come to the moment in the story when our preconceived notions about the woman kick in. Jesus tells her to go and call her husband and bring him back with her. But the woman tells him that she has no husband. And Jesus said to her,

            “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

            And it is this one statement by Jesus, this one moment that has influenced interpretation of this story for centuries. This woman has had five husbands and she is currently living with a man who is not her husband. That must mean that she is a fallen woman! That must mean that she is a terrible sinner and an outcast among outcasts. But does Jesus condemn her? Does he criticize? Or does he just state this as the facts of her life?

            In truth, this woman like any other woman in that time and context would have had no control over her marital status. It’s quite possible that she was married to five brothers in secession, each one dying and passing her to the next brother – which was part of the law. There is nothing in the text to suggest that the man she was currently living with was there for anything other than protection. There’s a reason why widows and orphans are lifted up throughout scripture for special care. They were the most vulnerable in society. A woman needed a man, in some fashion, for protection.

            All we really know about this moment is that Jesus shows the woman that he knows her. He knows her life. He knows her story. As preacher and teacher, Fred Craddock, wrote,

            “All we know is that Jesus, as is his custom in John, reveals special knowledge of the individuals he encounters and alerts them that in meeting him they may encounter the transcendent.”

            Jesus alerts this woman that he has special knowledge of her and in their meeting, she is encountering the transcendent. He is alerting her to the truth of him by telling her her truth. He offers living water. He offers salvation. Through him, worship of God will not be focused only in one place or another. Those who truly worship God, who is spirit, will worship in spirit and truth.

            The woman tells him that she knows the Messiah will come, and Jesus responds,

            “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

            And what does this woman do? She leaves her water, and she runs back to the city calling the people to “Come and see,” just as the first disciples did a few chapters earlier. Come and see this man who told me everything about my life. Come and see this man who knows me. He cannot be the Messiah, can he?! Come and see!

And they did. They went and saw. John ends this story by saying that many people believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, and many more believed after they saw and heard Jesus for themselves. Jesus was invited to stay with them two days, and people flocked to him and they believed. They got a taste of the living water he offered, and they believed.

            Even when this woman believed Jesus and ran back to the city to tell others, she may still not have fully understood what he was telling her, what it meant for him to be the Messiah, and what this living water actually was. As Fred Craddock stated, her question, “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” was not exactly an Apostle’s Creed style statement of faith.

            But the woman knew that she needed something more than just water to quench her thirst. She knew that she needed a Messiah, someone to quench the thirst of a heart that has long been parched. She came to the well for water. She left the well believing in the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.

            Maybe we are more like that woman than we realize. Maybe we don’t fully get what we need until Jesus tells us our truth and offers us a drink of living water. Maybe many of us have felt at some point in our lives that we are looking for something, but we don’t know what that something is. So we look for it in our jobs, in our relationships, in anything and anyone other than the one who offers living water.

            Yet, this season of Lent is the time when all that clouds our vision, all that keeps us from seeing the one who offers us living water is to be pruned and pushed away. This season of Lent shows us what we are really searching for. This woman from Samaria did not know that she needed anything more than her daily water. But when she answered the need of a stranger who was thirsty, she learned she was speaking to the Messiah, the one they had all been waiting for.

            I could end the sermon there. But I want to say one more thing about this woman. This story has power and meaning simply because of this woman. It is good and it is right to lift up a woman who through her testimony brought a city to the feet of Jesus. It is good and it is right to lift up this woman who held no special status, who had lived a life that some would find offensive and wrong, and who managed to survive in spite of having no social or political power. It is good and right to lift up this woman, who had the longest recorded conversation with Jesus in all of the gospels. It is good and right to lift up this woman who may have never felt encouraged or empowered to speak, and yet she courageously and joyously used her voice to share the good news.

            If you take nothing else away from this sermon this morning, remember that this is a story about a woman whose testimony furthers the sharing of the good news of the gospel. That knowledge makes me glad, and it makes me grateful. May it also be true for you.

            Let all of God’s children say “amen and amen.”

Rend Our Hearts -- Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:1-2. 12-17

February 22, 2023

 

            Am I a thing that dies?

            When I was a new seminary student, one of my professors told us a story about his oldest son, who at that time was a little boy. The story went that my professor, his wife, and their two little boys were visiting friends and enjoying a meal together.  After dinner, while the grownups sat and visited, the children went outside and played in the long summer twilight.

            On the way home, it was clear that the older son – who was really very little – had been frightened by the older children. Whether they had teased him or talked about things that scared him, his parents weren’t sure, but on the ride home, in the darkness of the car, he broke the silence by asking,

            “Am I a thing that dies.”

            My professor shared that his wife did not deflect the question or lie to her son. She answered honestly; yes, you are a thing that dies. But then she began to list all the things that he would do before that happened in the distant future. He would start school, learn to read, make new friends, etc. And soon the little boy was adding his own ideas to that list, things he hoped to do in all the life that he had yet to live. And by the time they pulled up to their house, their son was laughing with his little brother and asking if he could play in the bathtub for a while and making the plans that little boys make.

            Am I a thing that dies?

            Ash Wednesday is the day in our church year when we proclaim through word and through deed that we are things that die. Yes, this is also the day when we acknowledge that we are sinners, that we need both confession and absolution, and this service helps us to walk with humility through this season of Lent. But the crux of this day and this service is that from ash we came, and to ash we will one day go.

            And for that reason, some people have a hard time with this particular ecclesial tradition. I understand that. Death is not easy. With death comes grief, in all the ways that it manifests itself. Death can break our hearts. Death can break our hearts wide open.

            It would seem from reading these words from the prophet Joel that God wants us to have hearts that are broken.

            “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.”

            Rend your hearts, not your clothing. I looked up the word rend in my Merriam-Webster dictionary app. It is an emotionally charged word, much more than I realized. When the people are called to rend their hearts, that conveys a passionate action. It is not just about opening our hearts in the way that a flower blooms; it is about tearing them open. It implies a forceful, physical act.

To think about rending our hearts in this way puts these words in a different light – at least for me. Why would God want us to do something that carries this kind of connotation? Why would God want that? Does God want us to suffer? Does God want us to be miserable and grieving? Does God want our hearts to break? I don’t think so. I don’t believe so.

            I think God wants us to rend our hearts not for the sake of suffering but so they will be wide open. And like it or not, what most often breaks our hearts wide open is grief. But it is when our hearts are broken open, when we are open-hearted, that we are finally able to make room and to make way for God to rush in. When our hearts are open, we are open – to God and an abiding relationship with God – and to an abiding relationship with one another.

            But the trouble with being open-hearted is that when we are open-hearted, we are vulnerable. Being vulnerable is uncomfortable and scary and often overwhelming. So we devise ways, without even realizing it, to avoid that vulnerability. We say the right things, and we offer the right rituals, but if our hearts remain closed, we’ve missed the point. So, I don’t think that God wants us to suffer as much as God wants us to be open-hearted, to risk being vulnerable to the heartache and the heartbreak that the world and just living brings. God wants us to abide in relationship with God and each other. If rending our clothing makes us open-hearted to God, then fine, but if not, we must rend our hearts instead.

            Four weeks ago my mom died. When I flew to Minnesota after she fell and required surgery, I didn’t really believe that it would be the last time I would see her on this side of  Heaven. But I’m grateful that I was able to be with her in those last days and in her last moments. When she died, we just sat with her for a few minutes. We didn’t move. We didn’t rush out to find a nurse or immediately begin the process of calling and texting family and friends. Instead we just sat there in the quiet, in that stillness. And I was overwhelmed with grief. I’ve read recently that grief is love with nowhere to go, and when my mother died, I felt that keenly.

            But even in my grief, I was also filled with wonder. How overwhelmingly powerful it was that I witnessed the last breath of the woman who witnessed my first?

            My mother’s death was quiet and mostly expected, but we also know that death can come with great trauma, and I would never try to diminish or minimize that truth. We feel that trauma by looking at the heartbreak in the world around us due to natural disasters and war and violence, and we feel this trauma up close in our community with the unexpected death of beloved children.

            But it seems to me that this is why God calls us to rend our hearts, to be open-hearted even when it is grief at the sadness of the world around us that breaks our hearts wide open. To walk in the world with open hearts is to know that death walks with us, but the gift of knowing that is that we can more fully see one another and ourselves as God sees us, and I believe that God sees us as precious. Our lives are precious. Each one of us is precious. And our mistakes, our sins, are failings and faults, our falling away and falling down doesn’t change that. Not even a little.

            And I think that is what is at the heart of this service, this liturgy, and this ancient practice of bearing ashes; it is a reminder that God calls us to be open-hearted, because when we do, we feel the terrible grief of the world, but we also feel the glorious joy that the world holds us as well. To be open-hearted is to see not only what is ugly and brutal but to see what is beautiful, to see what is precious. So, in this season of Lent, I encourage each of us not to give something up but to let something go – to release what keeps our hearts closed, to let go of what prevents us from seeing the beauty and the preciousness of each life.

            Rend your hearts not your clothing. Open them wide and know that it is a gift to say that we are precious children of God who live, die, and live again in the Lord.

            Thanks be to God.

            Amen.

Wade in the Water -- Baptism of the Lord

Matthew 3:13-17

January 8, 2023

 

            “Wade in the water. God’s gonna trouble the water.”

            I can’t explain why, but when I was contemplating this passage from Matthew and where it might lead me in a sermon, the words, “Wade in the water. God’s gonna trouble the water,” kept coming into my mind. I had no idea what those lyrics would have to do with this text other than Jesus and John were in the waters of the Jordan River for baptism and water is a predominant part of our baptismal ritual, but I decided to go with my instinct and trust that God would work through it all somehow, so “Wade in the Water” it is.

            Wade in the Water is a spiritual, born out of the days of slavery in our country. In the early 1900’s the Fisk Jubilee Singers kept this spiritual and others in the publics’ conscious by performing it in Tennessee and around the world. It is believed, although it cannot be proven with certainty, that Wade in the Water was also a coded song. The code within the lyrics were connected to the Underground Railroad. Supposedly when an enslaved person seeking freedom through escape on the Underground Railroad heard these lyrics, they knew to keep to the water. Traveling through water left no scent and no footprints that could be followed by dogs or humans.

            And the lyric, “God’s gonna trouble the water,” is scriptural as well. I had to do a deep search to find these words. It felt like I knew the reference, but I also could not think of where it was or where it is referred to. It turns out that it is only referenced through a footnote in the later translations of the Bible, including the New Revised Standard Version which we read. It is in John’s gospel, chapter 5, and the story of Jesus healing the sick man by the pools of Bethzatha or Bethsaida as some may know it. The man is waiting to go into the pool for healing, but he needs to be physical placed in the pool. He cannot go into the water on his own strength. He tells Jesus that he has been waiting for that to happen, but before he can finally make it into the waters, someone goes in ahead of him.

            In the story Jesus tells the man to stand up, take his mat, and walk. The man does what Jesus tells him to do, and then the story moves on. But the part of this story that we do not hear, but is only footnoted, is that it was believed that this pool could heal because there were periods of time when it would become stirred up, troubled, apparently for no visible reason. It was believed that an angel of the Lord went down to the pool at certain times and troubled the water. Whoever stepped into the pool when it was troubled would receive a healing.

            God’s gonna trouble the water, so travel in the water, hide in the water, be healed from the sin of slavery through escape to freedom because God’s gonna trouble the water.

            While I love this history and making this unexpected connection to the gospel of John – a connection I had not considered before – I still wondered what this might have to do with our passage from Matthew’s gospel, with Jesus being baptized by John.

            Does it beg the questions that some people wrestle with when it comes to Jesus’ baptism as to why he was baptized in the first place? If baptism is connected to salvation, did Jesus require or need it? Or, even though Jesus had no need for baptism concerning salvation or the forgiveness of sins, was he baptized as a way to model for others what must be done for salvation?

While these questions can open the way for interesting discussion, I’m not sure that either really get to the heart of what drove Jesus to stand with the crowd and be baptized by John that day. Let’s remember that Jesus was not undergoing a Christian baptism. It wasn’t Christian in the way that we think of and perform baptism. Ritual washing for spiritual cleanliness had gone on long before John or Jesus came onto the scene. But John imbuing baptism with an understanding of repentance and forgiveness was different. Perhaps that is at the heart of why people flocked to him for baptism? They recognized a deep longing within themselves for repentance, and John’s message spoke to them in a way they had not experienced before.

But why was Jesus there? If Jesus did not require baptism for the same reason that others did, why did he come that day? Out text makes it clear that John understood that Jesus did not need baptism.

“I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

            Jesus responds to John’s protests that doing so would fulfill all righteousness. And so it seems to many biblical scholars that Jesus being baptized was an inauguration, an anointing of his ministry. This was confirmed when he comes out of the water. Jesus looks to the heavens and sees them opened up to him and the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. Jesus hears the voice of God from the heavens proclaiming,

            “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

            Jesus’ ministry was anointed at this moment. But were the waters troubled?

            We have no way of knowing what the waters of the Jordan were like that day. Were they full and rushing? Were they calm and still? Was the water full from rain, as the waters around here are? Or was the Jordan not much more than a creek because rain had not fallen in a long time? Did John standing in those waters, no matter how high or low they were, have the same effect as an angel, stirring them up, preparing them to be waters of healing and balm?

            We don’t know. But what we do know is that in his ministry, Jesus was going to trouble  waters – if not literally than figuratively. Jesus was going to stir things up through his preaching and his healing and his exorcisms. Jesus was going to trouble the waters of the religious elite. Jesus was going to stir up the people who followed him to both great loyalty and betrayal. Jesus would stir the waters of faith that had become stagnant. He would remind anyone who would listen that the law given by God was not to punish or exclude but to open the way to life with God and with one another.

            It seems to me that when Jesus waded into the water that day, the waters were indeed troubled. Jesus’ ministry was anointed. His identity as the Son of God was clear. His time in the wilderness would solidify that identity, but the claim and the call on him was unveiled at that moment in the Jordan.

            In a few minutes we will reaffirm the vows made at our own baptisms. We do this not just because this is a good Sunday for it with Jesus’ baptism in our texts, but because if Jesus’ ministry was anointed in his baptism so was ours. Whether we can remember our baptisms or not, whether we were baptized as infants or as believers, our being claimed by God as his children, our call into the ministry of all believers, the priesthood of all believers, was anointed in our baptisms just as Jesus’ was.

            When we baptize infants we confess that God’s grace and mercy and call is present in our lives whether we know it or not. When we are baptized as believers, we acknowledge that we have felt that grace and now respond to its power. Either way, the grace of God is everywhere, in every moment of our baptism. To remember our baptism each week, to see the water poured into the font, is to proclaim that the grace of God abounds and that the Spirit of God moves where it will.

            Our baptism is not just a one-time event, it is the beginning of our call. It is the sign and symbol of God’s claim, call, and love, just as it was for Jesus that day with John in the Jordan. Maybe today, we are also being reminded that God troubles the water and that we are called to do the same.

            How will we trouble the water? How will we stir things up? What new ministries will be inaugurated? What visions and dreams will be made real? How will God trouble the water, and how are we being called to do the same? In our worship we remember our baptism. How will we trouble the water? 

            Wade in the water. Wade in the water, children. Wade in the water. God’s gonna trouble the water.

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

            Amen.

Empire -- Epiphany

Matthew 2:1-23

January 1, 2023

 

            The easiest course of action for today would have been to preach the Epiphany portion of Matthew’s gospel, meaning that I would have begun in Chapter 2, verse 1 and ended at verse 12. That was my original idea. I was only going to focus on those first twelve verses, talk about the magi, and how the coming of Jesus was the revealing of God’s light into the world.

            But Epiphany isn’t actually today. It is this Friday, January 6. Today is the first Sunday after Christmas Day or the first Sunday within Christmastide, and the portion of Matthew’s gospel selected for today was Chapter 2, verses 13 onward. These verses pick up the story after the Magi are warned in a dream about the evil intentions of Herod and they return to their home by an alternate route. These verses tell the story of how Joseph is also warned in a dream – again – to flee. Take your family, your wife, your baby boy and go to Egypt. Herod is about to search for this child and if he finds him, he will destroy him.

            Joseph, like the magi, heeds the angel’s warning. He, Mary, and Jesus run for their lives to Egypt, and they stay there until an angel tells Joseph in another dream that Herod has died. It is safe to return to Israel once more. But when Joseph heard that Herod’s son, Archelaus, was ruling in his father’s place, he was afraid to return to Bethlehem. Apparently Archelaus was as bad as, if not worse, than his dad. Once again, Joseph is warned in a dream; he must take his young family to Galilee. In Galilee, Joseph and Mary and Jesus made a home for themselves in a town called Nazareth.

            These are the highlight of this last part of the story. And I thought long and hard about focusing primarily on the coming of the magi and sticking with just the highlights of the last part of the story. But if you only skim through the highlights, you leave out the tragedy of the story. Herod did seek out Jesus to destroy him. Perhaps if the magi had done what he asked them to do, it would have only been Jesus who was destroyed. But because the magi slipped away, Herod resorted to an even greater evil. Rather than just try to destroy one little boy, he would kill all little boys born within approximately the same time frame. And a massacre ensues.

            “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

            I struggled with whether to include this. Just stick with Epiphany, Amy. Let’s just have a happy New Year, Amy. 2022 was hard in so many ways, let’s not start 2023 by talking about tragedies and massacres, Amy. Let’s just bathe in the light of Epiphany. Epiphany, when God’s coming into the world as a child was revealed to the larger world, when the Light of God shone for all the world to see. Through Epiphany, the good news was not reserved only for Bethlehem or Judah or Israel, but for all of God’s creation.

            In these verses we see the providence and protection of God at work as Jesus is saved again and again. But what about those other little boys? What about their mothers and fathers? Did they not count? Did God not want to protect them as well? Or did God very much want to protect them, but what the coming of the Light reveals is how deeply the darkness is embedded in the world? What the coming of the Light of God reveals is that darkness does not want the Light. The darkness shrinks from the Light and all it reveals. It will do everything it can to resist the coming of the Light.

            From the very beginning of Jesus being born into the world, there has been resistance. The powers and principalities have obstinately refused to let go of their hold on the world. Not to be cute, but if ever there was an example of the empire striking back, it is in this story. And I’m not referring only to the Roman Empire, to which Herod was both a proponent and a stooge. I’m referring to empire in the larger sense.

            An empire is a political realm. And certainly the Roman Empire was a political realm. Yet these verses also point to the empire of power. Herod was determined to hold onto power, so much so, that massacre of the innocent and most vulnerable was seen as a viable option. Having the blood of babies on his hands was clearly no big deal. Herod used the power that he wielded, the power of military force, the power of brutality, the power of wealth and cruelty to protect his reign. He used his power to protect his power. He ruled an empire of power, and he was going to sustain that power through whatever means necessary.

            But something else that Epiphany reveals is that Jesus, God in Jesus, wields a different kind of power. This is not the power of military prowess. This is not the power of wealth or influence. The power that God in Jesus holds is a radically different power. It is the power of Love. The power of Love. These words are said so often that they almost sound trite, cliché.

            However, we have the vantage point that the gift of the coming of the Light truly reveals. We can chart the entire course of Jesus’ life on earth. We know the rest of the story. We know how Jesus used his power of Love to overcome, to persuade, and to confront empire. We know just how far Jesus was willing to go with his power. He didn’t overthrow the empire of power by using deadly force. He overthrew the empire of power by giving his own life. The empire struck back by crucifying him on a criminal’s cross.

            But the empire of power could not and ultimately cannot defeat the power of Love. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t keep trying. That massacre of innocent children by Herod was not the first of its kind nor, terribly, was it the last. Innocent lives are still lost through starvation and neglect, through violence of war and the violence of poverty, through abuse, through apathy and through willful ignorance.

            There is a powerful painting of the massacre of the innocents by a 19^th century artist named Léon Cogniet. In this painting, a young mother is holding her baby boy behind a crumbling wall. In the background you see chaos. Another woman holding her child is running from a Roman soldier. But this woman, the main subject of the painting, is hiding. She is holding her child tightly, her hands over his mouth to keep him from making any sound that will give them away. But what is so striking about the painting is where her gaze is focused. She is not looking at her child. She is not looking toward the chaos on the other side of the wall. She is looking directly at the artist. She is looking directly at us. And in her eyes, there is terror, yes, but even more there is accusation. It is as though she is telling us that we have allowed this to happen.

            How is that possible? We were not there when Herod gave those deadly, terrible orders. We were not part of the plan to massacre innocents. But if the Light of God coming into the world revealed the empire of power for what it truly is, then have we helped to defeat that empire or have we contributed to its ongoing reign? Have we truly looked at, acknowledged, admitted the devastation that the empire of power wreaks, or have we turned and looked the other way?

            Please believe me, I don’t want to stand in this pulpit like some prophet of doom. I want us to have a Happy New Year, a fulfilling New Year. But I also want, long for, and hope and pray for a peaceful New Year. But I know that if peace is something that I want, if peace is something that I yearn for, then I must look into this mother’s eyes and see how the empire of power still seeks to rule and reign. The coming of the Light into the world, the revelation of Epiphany to all of God’s children means that we can see, really and truly see, the good that the Light reveals and the darkness that still seeks to resist and fight back.

            We are given the gift of sight today and every day. We are given the gift of opportunity to fight back against the empire of power with the power of Love – the Love that Jesus embodied in his life, his ministry, his healing, his teaching, his death, and his resurrection. May we all work toward the day when the only empire in existence is the one built on that kind of Love, on God’s Love. May that be the power we seek.

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

            Amen.

A Child Born to Us -- Christmas Eve 2022

 Isaiah 9:2-7/Luke 2:1-20

 

We were in a strange country, in a strange room and bed. The room was windowless and the darkness around us was thick and deep. My children were little, and the strangeness of their circumstances startled them awake. Into that deep darkness, they cried out with their little voices,

“Mommy! We’re scared. Where are you? We can’t see you.”

The darkness felt impenetrable, and in this different room, I could not find a light, so I called out to them in response, trying to find a way for us to reach one another in the dark.

“Listen to my voice. Follow the sound of my voice. I’m right here. Listen to me. I’m right here. Just follow my voice.”

            But the dark was too much for them. They were afraid to move, afraid to trust that my voice would lead them to me. When I finally found the light and turned it on, the sudden brightness flooded the room. Everything became clear. Reassured by that swift, bright light, the children ran to me. I was more than just a voice in the dark.

            “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.”

            Walking in darkness changes our gait and pace. We move cautiously, inch-by-inch. We grope our way forward, taking tentative steps, unsure of what obstacles might lie ahead. Voices sound strange in deep darkness. Is that voice we hear ahead of us or behind? Darkness leaves us blind and unsure. Deep darkness leaves us hesitant and distrusting, only the small bit of ground currently underneath our feet seems certain. We only believe in the steps we take. We have no faith in what lies ahead. And where we have been seems swallowed up in darkness’s coal-colored pitch.

            “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.”

            I wonder if the people who heard Isaiah’s words were like my children. They stared into the darkness of the world and cried out for help. But even if they heard a voice calling them forward, they were too afraid to follow its sound. The darkness seemed to stretch on forever. They could not remember its beginning, and they could not imagine its end. Isaiah’s prophetic promise of their deep darkness being shattered by a light must have descended on their ears like notes of sweet music. When would this light come? Where and how? How much longer would the darkness of their lives endure?

            “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.”

Perhaps for a moment the people who heard these words believed. Perhaps they waited with great expectation for the light to come. Perhaps God’s voice shimmered around them, calling them to listen, to follow, to trust. But the darkness was easier to bear. And this great light seemed too long in coming.

They settled into their darkness once again, moving cautiously forward, inch-by-inch. Night’s shadows blurred Isaiah’s words. Darkness seemed to swallow up even God’s promises.

Until …

Until the darkness surrounding some shepherds was shattered by the Light. The shepherds must have been used to the dark. They lived their lives on the hillsides, in the valleys and in the open spaces. The night sky, whether dark with clouds or brimming with stars must have been as familiar to them as the ground they walked upon. The shepherds must have been accustomed to the dark, so did they take the night sky for granted? Did the familiarity of the heavens cause them to become merely commonplace to the shepherds below them? Did those shepherds cease to gaze with wonder at the brightness of the Milky Way shining above them?

Until …

Until an angel shone before them and proclaimed the birth of a child, a child born to them; a child born to lead them out of the darkness, a child born to be God’s salvation, a child born to be the Light the world had been waiting for.

Did those shepherds take the stars for granted, until the raucous praises of multitudes of angels pierced the quiet of the night? Did the gift of wonder return to them as their rusty alleluias and quavering glorias rose in pitch and tempo to match the heavenly hosts’? Did the gift of wonder return to them when the Light finally broke through?

It must have been Light unlike any other they had seen or imagined or believed possible. It was Light that suffused the entire cosmos with its glow. To them, those shepherds and those ordinary folks living in the darkness, a child was born, and the Light of God filled the world.

God was in the world, born with a baby’s cry, a mother’s tears, and a father’s fearful astonishment. God was in the world, and the darkness was swallowed up in this glorious, riotous Light.

             A child was born to them – to shepherds, to carpenters, to inn keepers, to women, to men, to old, to young. A child was born to them, and on this night, this holy night, we ponder that this child was not only born for them so long ago but born for us as well. Born to bring Light into this dark world, born to set us free from the brokenness that binds us.

            On this night, this holy night, we remember that a child has been born for us, that the darkness has not overcome the light, in fact the opposite is true. On this night, this holy night, we are reminded that there are still reasons to be filled with awe and wonder. On this night, this holy night, we are reminded that our hopes will not go disappointed, that God’s peace is bigger than the wars we wage, that there are still reasons to be joyful, and that Love, God’s Love, God’s overwhelming, life changing, creation renewing Love, comes in unexpected and unlikely ways.

            A child is born – for us! On this dark night, this silent night, this holy night, let us renew our wonder at what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do. A child is born for us and Light shines in the darkness.

            Alleluia! Amen.

 

 

 

 

Immanuel -- Fourth Sunday of Advent

 

Isaiah 7:10-16/Matthew 1:18-25

December 18, 2022

 

There have been many times in my life when I would have loved to have a sign from God, telling me what to do. I would have loved to have a clear sign from heaven pointing me in the right direction. When I reached a crossroads and I wasn’t sure which way to turn, a sign would have been welcome. Whether it was a billboard with the words, “Amy, go that way,” or a large flashing arrow or even a hand reaching down from the heavens turning me toward the way I was supposed to follow, I know there have been moments when I have longed for a sign from God. Tell me what to do, God. Show me where to go, God. Give me the answer, God. I would prefer not to figure this particular problem out by myself, Lord, so a sign would be appreciated right about now.

Yep, there are plenty of times in my life when I would have rejoiced at a sign from God. At least I think I would have liked a sign. I say I would have liked a sign. Sometimes I wonder if asking for a sign from God is more about me not wanting to do the hard work of decision making than it is needing wisdom from the Almighty. I also wonder if there were times when I asked for a sign simply to confirm a decision I had already made.

This is what I’m going to do, God, but if you could give me a sign confirming my choice, I’d appreciate it.

But I also know that there are plenty of times when I would rather not have a sign from God because receiving a sign from God means that God is involved. God is with me. I know that seems counter-intuitive. Isn’t God with us what we pray for, what we long for, what we profess to want more than anything? Yes. And no. God with us can mean comfort and solace when we are hurting or grieving or scared. But God with us can also mean that we are being called to do something or be something or live something that is going to be hard and messy and scary. So, while I may hope for a sign from God, I also think that I don’t want a sign from God. A sign from God does not mean that the path before us will be easy or smooth or trouble free. More often than not, it means the opposite.

Look at the situation that is described in our passage from Isaiah. Although King Ahaz is put into the uncomfortable position of being offered a sign by God.

“Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, ‘I will not ask, and I will not put God to the test.’”

At first glance, it doesn’t seem to make sense why this is not the right answer for Ahaz to give because it is a quote from scripture. Jesus basically said the same thing when he was being tested by Satan in the wilderness. You would think that the answer to Ahaz would be one of praise and affirmation.

Good answer! Good answer!

But that’s not the response that Ahaz receives, is it?

“Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also?”

But here’s the thing, while it might seem like Ahaz is being pious and righteous in his response, the truth is he does not want a sign. Ahaz, the king of the southern kingdom of Judah is in tough spot. The king of Israel and the King of Aram are united. They want Ahaz to join them, not as an equal but so they can take control of Judah and split it between the two of them. If Ahaz won’t join them, then they’ll take Judah by force. All of Judah which includes Jerusalem are terrified of the reign of violence that is bearing down upon them. In the face of this, Ahaz has sought help but not from God. Ahaz has sought help from the Assyrian empire. But that’s not a true solution either, because Assyria certainly won’t let Judah remain an independent kingdom either. Under Assyria, Judah will become a vassal state.

But Isaiah brings words of assurance from the Lord to Ahaz. These two kings that are united against him are nothing more than smoking stumps. They may look dangerous. They may sound dangerous, but they will soon burn out. Ask me for a sign, the Lord tells Ahaz through Isaiah. Ask me for a sign. You can make it as high as heaven or as deep as Sheol. Ask me.

The Lord is not being tested. The Lord wants Ahaz to ask for a sign. But Ahaz does not want a sign. He doesn’t want it, because I suspect he knows that it will reveal something that is contrary to what he has already decided to do. He has sold out to the Assyrians. A sign from God would only show how little faith he has in God’s providence and power to work good for him and for his kingdom.

But the Lord won’t be put off. Ahaz might not want a sign, but he’s getting one anyway.

“Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.”

Here’s your sign, Ahaz. The woman shall bear a child and his name will be Immanuel. What does Immanuel mean? God with us.

A sign is provided in our gospel story as well. We don’t know if Joseph prayed for a sign from God or not. Maybe he did, but I suspect that he didn’t. But he received a sign anyway.

When it comes to the two birth stories of Jesus in our gospels, we most often go with Luke’s version. We will hear Luke’s story on Christmas Eve. In Luke there are taxes and a difficult journey to Bethlehem. Luke gives us shepherds and hosts of angels. In Luke’s telling, Mary has a voice. But Matthew is different. As one scholar put it, when it comes to the birth story in Matthew’s gospel, don’t blink, you’ll miss it. In Matthew’s gospel, the story begins, “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way …” then it immediately moves to the story of Joseph.

What do we know about Joseph? We know that he is a carpenter. He is considered to be a righteous man. As Debie Thomas wrote, he was most likely a quiet man. He worked hard, did what he was supposed to, tried to live according to the law and the prophets, and wanted nothing more than to get on with his life quietly. He was betrothed to a young woman named Mary. Betrothal was much more than an engagement as we understand it. It was an official relationship. It meant that they were married, and it was the first step in a two-step process. The second step of the process was when Mary moved into his home, and they lived as husband and wife.

However, Mary turns up pregnant. Pregnant and with a preposterous story about her carrying the Son of God. Okay. I suspect that Joseph felt like any of us would have felt – betrayed, angry, hurt, heartbroken. Maybe this was an arranged marriage, maybe he loved her deeply, maybe it was both. But from all accounts Mary had been unfaithful. But Joseph was a righteous man. In spite of everything, he did not want to see Mary publicly disgraced. In truth, she would have been publicly stoned to death for her sin had it been found out. So, Joseph decides to divorce her quietly. Let’s be clear, this might have saved Mary and the baby’s life, but it would not have helped her live happily ever after either. Even with a quiet divorce, Mary would have been reduced to begging to survive.

Joseph goes to sleep convinced of what he must do. But God is going to give him a sign whether he likes it or not. In a dream an angel comes to Joseph,

            “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.”

            Here is your sign, Joseph. God is with you. The child Mary is carrying will literally be God with you. But what does this sign from God actually mean for Joseph? Again, as Debie Thomas wrote, it means that he isn’t going to marry Mary and live happily ever after. No, this quiet, head down, do the right thing, righteous man is being asked by God to enter into the scandal and shame of this pregnancy. Just because Mary and Joseph knew the true origins of this child, did not mean that others would believe or accept it. Joseph is asked by God to raise a child that is not his own. Joseph is being asked by God to enter into what will be a messy, complicated, difficult life. Joseph is going to need to trust God more than ever. Joseph is going to need to have more courage than he believed he had. The way forward will not be smooth or easy. This child will save, true, but he will also terrify those in power and terrible death will be the consequence of their fear. But God is with him. God is with them. Immanuel, Emmanuel, God with us.

            God with us is does not make things easier. It can have the opposite effect. But God with us means that like Joseph we can do more and be more than we ever believed possible. God with us means that we are called into lives that are complicated and messy and hard. But isn’t that what God chose as well? God didn’t flutter down into our lives on a silver-lined cloud. God was born in the messy way that we are all born. God came into the world as we all do, tiny and helpless and frail. But that is our great hope. God is with us in all ways. God is with us at all times. God is with us. Immanuel. Emmanuel.

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

Sorrow and Sighing Will Flee Away -- Third Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 35:1-10

December 11, 2022

 

            One of the biggest mistakes I made as a young minister in my first solo pastorate was singing the carol Joy to the World at Easter. Before you assume that I had just lost my mind, let me explain why I did this. I was reading a denominationally approved worship resource that made the claim that since Isaac Watts, the composer of the song, wrote Joy to the World more about the second coming of Christ rather than the birth of Christ, that it was completely appropriate and right to sing this particular carol on Easter Sunday. After all, weren’t we supposed to be joyful on Easter, celebrating the rising of Jesus from the tomb, and the conquering of sin and death?

            I read that and thought, “I’ll give it a try.”

            Big mistake. Epic fail.

            This was a gracious congregation, who allowed me to make mistakes. But I was told politely and firmly that I shouldn’t do that again. Joy to the World was Christmas not Easter. It evoked visions of snow and Christmas trees and twinkling lights, not lilies, spring flowers, and Easter eggs. Don’t worry. I’m not telling you this to prepare you for both Christmas Eve and an upcoming Sunday in April. I knew the minute we started to sing that Easter morning that I’d made a mistake. Singing Joy to the World on Easter, no matter how theologically appropriate it might be, didn’t work for me either. I promised then and I keep that promise today – Joy to the World is for Christmas only. It was too jarring to hear it at any other time.

            But if Joy to the World was jarring on that bright spring Sunday so many years ago, this passage of joy from the prophet Isaiah would have been jarring to those first listeners as well.

            Scholar Barbara Lundblad Taylor asks this question of the passage,

“What is it doing here?”

            Taken on its own, it is beautiful and compelling language. It is poetry at its most masterful. The imagery 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.”

            That is powerful. But hear these other powerful words from the mouth of the 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. The chapter after our chapter tells of King Sennacherib’s capture of the people of Judah. He challenges them, demanding that they submit to him. So, these eloquent words of promise, 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 prefaced 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 of this passage claims that it is in the wrong place in the text. It 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 passage, stuck where it is between doom and gloom, must have been moved by some scribe from its original place to where it now resides.

            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 are capable of recognizing 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?

            This Sunday in Advent is called “Gaudete Sunday.” Gaudete is Latin and it means “rejoice.” This is the day when we celebrate joy. This is the Sunday when we turn from the deeper purple of Advent to a lighter shade of pink. We light a pink candle on our Advent wreath. We hear Mary’s song of joy after being visited by the angel Gabriel. 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.

Yet perhaps we are so used to, and so ingrained into the narrative of despair that these words of interruption, of disruption seem too good to be true. We are intimately acquainted with sorrow and sighing, aren’t we? The whole world seems to be full of sorrow and sighing. Despair is written through the whole text, and joy seems to be just a footnote.

But if the Spirit hovered over the scribes, over the prophets, and inserted this text of joy when it was needed most, maybe just maybe the Spirit is hovering still. Maybe we are being reminded once again that in the final draft, God will turn our sorrow into songs of praise, our sadness into shouts of joy. In the final telling, there will be streams in the desert, lions and lambs will lie down together, swords will be transformed into plowshares, and the world will be filled with joy.

God interrupts our narrative of despair with joy. And that joy is not reserved for one day or one season. God’s joy will be the air that we breathe and the ground that we walk upon. God’s joy will be in the water we drink and the bed upon which we sleep. God’s joy will live in us and through us and with us. God’s joy will transform all of creation, all of us, and sorrow and sighing will flee away, no longer finding a place in us or in the new thing God is doing.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven, and heaven and nature sing.

Let all of God’s children shout with joy, “Alleluia!”

Amen.