Burning Hearts -- Third Sunday of Easter

Luke 24:13-35

April 23, 2023

 

            I once heard an anecdote about Ernest Hemingway that tells how Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. If the anecdote is true, Hemingway responded to the challenge by writing the following six words on a napkin.

            “For sale. Baby shoes. Never used.”

            Think about those six words for a moment. Think about what they imply. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision the different scenarios that would bring about that particular for sale ad. Regardless of any backstory we could construct, there is one certainty from Hemmingway’s brief but powerful mini story: a future that someone imagined and dreamed about was lost. Someone’ s hope had died.

            “For sale. Baby shoes. Never used.”

            There is so much happening in this story about two unknown disciples walking the road to Emmaus, a story that is unique to Luke’s gospel, that it is easy to miss or skip over three little words found in verse 21 – we had hoped. Yet I think those three words tell a story as poignant as Hemingway’s.

            “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” We had hoped.

            We hear these words from the two disciples, one unnamed and one named Cleopas – two disciples we haven’t met before in any of the gospel accounts. The two men were walking toward Emmaus, a town about seven miles away from Jerusalem. As they walked, they were discussing the terrible events that had happened in the great city. A stranger joined them on the road and asked them what they were discussing. The two disciples were sad and surprised at this stranger’s seeming obliviousness to what had taken place in Jerusalem over the last few days. Obviously, he was the only person who did not know about the terrible events surrounding the death of Jesus. So, they filled him in. They told the stranger about the way their religious leaders – the chief priests and authorities – had handed over their beloved teacher, Jesus, to the Romans. Cleopas and the other disciple shared with their unexpected traveling companion how this same rabbi was put through a mockery of a trial, was beaten and tortured, then was crucified and left to die on a criminal’s cross. Finally these disciples, whom we have never met before and will never meet again, uttered those three words that cut to the heart of their grief and the heart of this story. We had hoped.

            Grammatically speaking, this sentence is written and spoken in the past perfect tense. The simplest understanding of what that means and why it is relevant is that the past perfect tense describes an action that was completed before another one took place. It implies a “but.” We had hoped that he was the Messiah, the one to redeem Israel, but he must not have been. We had hoped that Jesus would change everything, but he didn’t. We had hoped that he truly was the Son of God, and that all this talk about death was a mistake, but it wasn’t. He died anyway. Jesus. Died. Anyway.

            The two disciples knew the story the women told. They went to the tomb, found it empty, but saw a vision of angels. The angels reassured them that Jesus had risen. He was alive. The other disciples checked out the tomb as well, but they received no vision. Consequently, the disciples dismissed the women’s story as “an idle tale.” So, as far as these two disciples could see or understand, everything was lost. Their hopes and dreams that God would rescue them, that God’s long-promised Messiah would free them from occupation were lost. Those dreams were dead and done. Jesus died and so did their hope. We had hoped, but our hopes came to nothing.

            I think the disciples had broken hearts. Their hopes for a different outcome, for themselves, for Israel, have seemingly been disappointed. They have broken hearts. They had hoped. While it feels wrong to express this just a few short weeks after Easter, especially when we are called to live as Easter people with clear hope in the resurrection, I know that we also have hearts that have been broken. I know that we have hopes that did not come to fruition, dreams that have not been realized.

            We had hoped that our loved one would finally win the battle against cancer, but she didn’t. We had hoped that our parents would see one more birthday, but they didn’t. We had hoped that our children would not have their own hearts broken, but they didn’t. We had hoped that a job would work out or a relationship would last, but they didn’t. We had hoped. We had hoped. We had hoped.

            There is no age limit for loss or broken hearts or disappointed hopes. None of us are immune to the grief that comes when what we had hoped for doesn’t happen. The only way to move through life without a broken heart or a dream that dies is to live a life devoid of love. The only way to protect our hearts is to refuse to open them to anyone or anything. And that’s not living, is it? It seems to me that every one of us comes here today with some lost hope. Every one of us is here bearing some disappointment. Every one of us sitting here in the sanctuary could tell a story that begins with the words, “We had hoped.”

            And yet I think that as people of faith, we are afraid to speak those words. We have this idea that if we have faith, we have no business admitting hopelessness. We are the ones who are in the hope business, after all. We do hope. We are hoping. We hope and will continue to hope till hope is no longer needed or necessary. That’s the promise. Admitting, “we had hoped,” seems unfaithful.  And it seems that Jesus chides the disciples for speaking those three words aloud as well.

            “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!”

            But was Jesus admonishing these two disciples for having broken hearts, for feeling hopeless, or was it more about calling them to account for hearts and minds that were closed to the truth of the resurrection? I don’t think that Jesus was reproachful of their broken hearts or their lack of hope. I think Jesus was pushing them to see with more than just their eyes. I don’t think Jesus was frustrated with them for what they were feeling. After all Jesus met them on that road. While this expression may seem cliched, Jesus met them where they were. He walked with them on that road. He walked with them and felt their broken hearts and understood their disappointed hopes. He opened the scriptures to them, reminding them that there was more to God at work in the world than they or anyone could see. He taught them about all the promises that had been made about the Messiah and were now fulfilled. He met them on the road, he broke bread with them, so that their broken hearts could become burning ones.

            Those are two more words that I struggle to understand in this story. The disciples are left with burning hearts. When Jesus eats with them, when Jesus breaks bread with them, they are finally able to recognize him, and then he disappears from their sight. And in light of this full recognition, they proclaim to one another,

            “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

            I don’t know about you, but when I hear the words “burning hearts,” I tend to think of heart burn. Heart burn hurts. Heart burn seems very similar to heart ache and heart break. But maybe the burning hearts that the disciples experienced was not so much about pain but about reawakening? Maybe their hearts burned because they were being broken wide open, open to God, open to the promises of scripture, open to the Love that had been let loose in the world? Maybe their hearts burned because they were being made new?

            The resurrection is not about making life perfect, it is about making life new. The resurrection did not eradicate the messiness that comes with life and love. But the love of God in Christ, is love that imbues all creation with possibility, and refuses to give up on us in spite of ourselves. It is a love that binds up our broken hearts. It is a love that takes seriously our disappointments and our lost hopes. It is love that reassures us that there is more in this world, in this life, than we can see or understand. There is much, much more.

            Jesus, the risen Christ, met those disciples on the road to Emmaus. He met them where they were. He met them in their disappointment and discouragement. He knew their hopes had been dashed. But his willingness to walk with them transformed their broken hearts to burning ones.

            Jesus, the risen Christ, meets us where we are. He meets us in the ashes of our hopes. He meets us in the midst of our pain and longing. He transforms our broken hearts into burning ones. He transforms our broken hearts into burning ones.

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

            Amen.

Peace Be with You -- Second Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31

April 16, 2023

 

            The late humorist Erma Bombeck has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. In one of her books she wrote about her youngest son who, at that time, would believe any wild, fantastic, implausible story his friends told him. But when it came to something that she, Erma, would tell him, he always regarded her information with a certain amount of suspicion.

            One day he came to the kitchen where she was working and asked her what day it was.

            “It’s Tuesday,” she answered. He looked at her skeptically. So, Erma continued.

            “Tomorrow is Wednesday. The day after that is Thursday. And the day after that is Friday.”

            Her son continued to stare at her doubtfully for another moment, then said,

            “Are you sure?”

            In the traditional interpretation of this post-resurrection story from John’s gospel, Thomas, aka Doubting Thomas, wasn’t sure. He probably should have believed what the other disciples told him, but he wanted to see the truth of Jesus’ resurrection for himself.

            “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my fingers in the mark of the nails and my hand on his side, I will not believe.”

            For some unknown reason, Thomas was absent when Jesus made his appearance to the rest of the disciples. They were gathered together behind locked doors, out of fear, and suddenly Jesus was there, standing among them.

            The first words he spoke to them were a greeting of peace.

            “Peace be with you.”

            Then Jesus showed the disciples his hands and his side. And they rejoiced at seeing the Lord. Then Jesus again greets them with his words of peace, and he proceeds to commission them for ministry.

            “As my father has sent me, so I send you.”

            As he says these words, he breathes on them, covering them with the Holy Spirit, and giving them the authority to forgive or retain sins. They are commissioned and empowered to share the good news of the gospel.

            Unfortunately, Thomas was not there to witness this dramatic event – Thomas the Twin or Doubting Thomas. Doubting Thomas – this name probably sums up the way most of us have heard this story over the years. When I was a kid, the last thing I wanted to be told in any of my Sunday School classes was that I was speaking or acting like a Doubting Thomas. I didn’t really know the story of Thomas at that time, but I knew that to be a doubter when it came to church was a bad thing. To be called Doubting Thomas was not a compliment. That was not a nickname you wanted to be saddled with.

            Thomas doubted. He was skeptical and he demanded tangible, physical proof that Jesus was really resurrected before he would believe it.

            But what about the others? Jesus also appeared to them and showed them his hands and his side. Mary Magdalene announced to them, without a trace of doubt in her voice, that she had seen the Lord! Yet the disciples didn’t fully trust her word any more than Thomas trusted theirs.

            The disciples were hiding out in a locked room and the sudden presence of Jesus among them surely must have shocked and frightened them. Mary Magdalene’s report of seeing the Lord, speaking with the Lord, and even trying to embrace him had not lessened the disciples’ fear at his crucifixion. It had not lessened their doubt at everything that had taken place in the last week.

            It is only when Jesus appears to them and shows his hands and his side that they believe and rejoice. They too needed proof that Jesus was really and truly alive. Just. Like. Thomas.

            But Thomas put into words what he required for faith. As one commentator said, he set out the conditions for his faith. He needed to see the marks of the nails on Jesus’ hands. He needed to touch them and to touch the place where the sword pierced Jesus’ side.

            So, a week later, Jesus comes again to the disciples, to Thomas. He gives Thomas what he asked for. He gives Thomas permission to go ahead, touch him, place his hands on the marks left by the nails, touch his side. Go ahead, Thomas, see firsthand the proof of the resurrection. In other words, Thomas says, “Show me.” And Jesus responds, “Here I am.”

            And it is at this moment where the misconceptions about Thomas arise. Thomas is now seen as the cynical, skeptical doubter who only believes when he has proof. But this text is not so much about doubt as it is about faith.

            The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the version we read from, and other translations, translate Jesus as saying, doubt. Do not doubt. But the Greek word for doubt is not used in this story at all. The more literal translation for the verb apistos – the word translated as doubt – is unbelieving.

            Do not be unbelieving but believing.

            Now maybe making a distinction between doubt and unbelieving may seem like tomato versus tomahto, but this distinction between doubt and unbelieving takes us in very different directions.

            Do not be unbelieving but believing. Go from being without faith to having faith. Not having faith isn’t the same thing as being skeptical about faith, is it? It’s not quite the same thing as doubt. It seems to me that in order to have doubt, you also have to have, at least a modicum, of faith to begin with.

            Jesus offered to Thomas exactly what he asked for. He told him to touch the marks of the nails on his hands and to put his hand on Jesus’ side. Jesus offered himself as motivation, as a sign for Thomas to believe, to have faith, to go from unbelieving to believing.

            The text does not say overtly that Thomas took Jesus up on his offer, but we do know that when Jesus offers himself as proof and motivation for faith, Thomas utters one of the most profound confessions of faith in all the gospels.

            “My Lord and my God.”

            Thomas is not exclaiming here. He is confessing. He is confessing his faith. My Lord and my God.

            Jesus responds,

            “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen me and yet have come to believe.”

            Is Jesus trying to shame or scold Thomas? That’s how this has been interpreted. Or was Jesus confirming what had just happened? And in his confirmation, he opened the door to faith for generations of believers yet to come. This is one of those moments in scriptural witness when we are able to see ourselves firmly in the story. It’s as if Jesus isn’t just speaking to the disciples gathered before him, he is speaking to us.

            I don’t believe that Jesus was scolding Thomas for wanting to see Jesus with his own two eyes. Instead Jesus offered hope to Thomas, to others, to us, through him. What this passages promises all of us is that our faith is not disadvantaged because we were not firsthand witnesses to Jesus and his ministry, his life, his death, and his resurrection. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” And the peace that Jesus gives to his disciples is given to us as well.

            I think it’s interesting that Thomas doesn’t just want to see the risen Christ. He wants to see his wounds. He does not request a glowing, ethereal being to appear before him. Instead, he wants to see the mark of the nails and touch the wounds left behind. Jesus encourages him to do just that. He willingly shows Thomas where he is wounded so that Thomas will go from unbelieving to believing. What would happen if we did the same? What would happen if we showed each other our vulnerabilities, our pain, the places where we’ve been hurt, the scars that we bear? How would that change how we see each other and what we believe about the other?

            What would happen if we shared the broken places in our lives? I’m not advocating that church be a place of self-obsessed group therapy or maudlin self-revelation. I just realize that more often than not it is in my wounded places, my broken places where I recognize Jesus’ presence in my life, not as a magic fixer of all things broken but as the One who refuses to leave me no matter how broken and wounded I am.

            Doubt and faith are not opposites, they are two sides of the same coin. I walk the line between them every single day. I doubt, I believe. I doubt, I believe. And it is when someone sees me in my brokenness, my woundedness and loves me anyway, that I am reminded that Jesus did and does the same. In those moments my faith is strengthened, and my doubt is lessened.

            What would happen if we understood that being Easter people, people who live everyday with the resurrection firmly in our minds and hearts, means that we are people who acknowledge that we are wounded and we see the woundedness in others? Maybe that sounds depressing to some, but I think it just might be liberating. Maybe it would make us kinder. Maybe it would make us more compassionate. Maybe it would help us to remember that no one gets through  this life without struggles, without scars. Maybe seeing one another in our woundedness would make us better humans. And we know that in this world where broken wounded people break and wound others, we need to be better humans. We need to strive for the humanity that Jesus embodied.

            I found a quote that said, “The church is not a museum fore good people, but a hospital for the broken.”

            Thomas’ faith grew when Jesus willingly offered to show him his wounds. We are wounded people, and Jesus, who was also wounded, loves us. Maybe the people beyond these doors need to hear this message as well. Maybe that is the good news that we share, and the true sign of the resurrection. Those who are wounded will be healed. Do not be unbelieving but believing. Jesus is in our midst, saying, “Peace be with you.”

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

            Amen.

 

 

             

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.