First Reading: Isaiah 43:1-7

 ¹But now thus says the Lord,
  he who created you, O Jacob,
  he who formed you, O Israel:
 Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
  I have called you by name, you are mine.
 ²When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
  and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
 when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
  and the flame shall not consume you.
 ³For I am the Lord your God,
  the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
 I give Egypt as your ransom,
  Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.
 ⁴Because you are precious in my sight,
  and honored, and I love you,
 I give people in return for you,
  nations in exchange for your life.
 ⁵Do not fear, for I am with you;
  I will bring your offspring from the east,
  and from the west I will gather you;
 ⁶I will say to the north, “Give them up,”
  and to the south, “Do not withhold;
 bring my sons from far away
  and my daughters from the end of the earth—
 ⁷everyone who is called by my name,
  whom I created for my glory,
  whom I formed and made.”

Psalm: Psalm 29

 ¹Ascribe to the Lord, you gods,
  ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
 ²Ascribe to the Lord the glory due God’s name;
  worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
 ³The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders;
  the Lord is upon the mighty waters.
 ⁴The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice;
  the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor. 
 ⁵The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees;
  the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon;
 ⁶the Lord makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
  and Mount Hermon like a young wild ox.
 ⁷The voice of the Lord bursts forth in lightning flashes.
 ⁸The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
  the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. 
 ⁹The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests          bare.
  And in the temple of the Lord all are crying, “Glory!”
 ¹⁰The Lord sits enthroned above the flood;
  the Lord sits enthroned as king forevermore.
 ¹¹O Lord, give strength to your people;
  give them, O Lord, the blessings of peace.

Second Reading: Acts 8:14-17

¹⁴Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. ¹⁵The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit ¹⁶(for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). ¹⁷Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Gospel: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

¹⁵As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, ¹⁶John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

  ²¹Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, ²²and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  An epiphany is a new thought, a new understanding, a new insight.  Turn to your neighbor and share something that has come to you as new insight.

         My experience happened while talking to a group of women in Kenya.  We talked about the different animals we might meet in the bush.  I asked what I should do if I met an elephant.  They all exclaimed that I need not worry that all I need to do is point to my bosom and say, “I nurse my babies just like you do.”  Elephants have breasts between their front two legs unlike cows or horses or camels.  I suddenly wondered if an Anglo was just another type of animal to them like an elephant but not truly in the same category as people!

Let us pray:  May the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.  Open our eyes so that we may see you in new ways in 2022.

SERMON

Today we enter the Season of Epiphany. Thursday we celebrated the day called Epiphany that focuses on the coming of the Magi and the realization that we non-Jews were represented in the Christmas narrative.  Epiphany Season, though, looks at the adult life of Jesus and how his incarnation made God known to us.  During Epiphany, we pray we will have “aha” moments as we discover who our God is.  For six weeks we will be looking at who this Jesus is and what that means.  Epiphany always starts with the Baptism of Jesus when he first publicly claims his mission. 

Expectations

Interestingly, Luke opens our text by first setting the scene.  “The people were filled with expectations.”  Hebrews 12:1 challenges even us twenty first century skeptics at the beginning of the year,

         “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that seasily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked  out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

Luke opens his gospel with a genealogy of generations, the cloud of witnesses, preceding Jesus, waiting for the Messiah.  Luke tells of the crowds waiting outside the Temple as Zechariah offered prayers and met an angel.  People of faith surround us.  Pause for a moment and thank God quietly for the person who impacted your life spiritually.  (Pause.)  The people in our text are waiting and expecting God to act.  Are we excited about how God will act in 2022?

         So what are our expectations as we wait for 2022 to unfold?  The people’s expectations were not silent ponderings but more active.  They were questioning if John the Baptist was the Messiah. They were interacting through eyes of faith with the events of their world unfolding before them.  Do you remember Sunday School in high school when a whole lesson could be the newspaper laid out on the table and just praying over the events recorded?  I guess newspapers are not as “in” as they once were but news certainly sells – not just the rise and fall of the stock market.  My husband and I like to keep our Christmas cards and then read and pray over them gradually during January.  Martin Luther wrote a darling little book where he divided the Lord’s Prayer into seven parts and then for a year we used that devotional to set the theme of praying daily a piece of the Lord’s prayer with all it’s implications.  The question the text confronts us with is, “Are we people expecting” or are we people resigned to receive whatever happens daily?

Experts

…but one who is more powerful than I is coming…

As Luke relates the baptism of Jesus, he notes the people waiting in expectation but he stops to make sure we understand that John the Baptist, that fiery prophet in camel skin clothes, standing in the Jordon, to whom people flocked, was not THE expert but only ,a prophet pointing to someone greater.  John the Baptist knows the people are expecting, longing for a Messiah, and he is clear that he is only preparing the way.

         Each night as a different expert from a different state or a different university weighs in on the statistics of Covid and what it might mean or we take polls on the popularity of our President or we analyze the decisions of our courts, we seldom if ever say “but one who is more powerful than I is coming.”  We seldom admit the limitations of our understanding and that there is a greater power at work in our world.  Even pastors are prone to feel the responsibility of being a Biblical expert.

         So who are the experts we are paying attention to today?  There seems to be an erosion of confidence in traditional voices of authority.  The word “evangelical” has been linked with political philosophy and spirituality has been called into question and belittled.  We are part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and by that we mean we bring the “evangel”, the good news of salvation, not necessarily a critique of politics.  “Evangelical” is used by many to mean that they believed in Jesus as a person who understood and then testified to their own faith through baptism.  However we understand our identity to be evangelical Christians who represent the Good News and can confess that there is “one more powerful than I” who rules our world and understands our lives in ways we do not.  We believe he dealt with sin on the cross.  My feelings and ability to understand does not govern my salvation but through faith that sometimes is strong and sometimes struggles I have access to salvation.  My spiritual struggles in 2022 do not change the fact that Christ died for me.

         John 14 has much to say about who our real expert is, the Holy Spirit

            ^“26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my  name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. ²⁷ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do  not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be  troubled and do not be afraid.”

We do have an expert we can turn to who is always available, willing to listen and interact, and who intercedes for us when we cannot find the right words. 

         Our text reminds us today that when we feel so ignorant in the presence of all the experts in our world that seek to explain reality, the true expert is Jesus who came and will come.  We experience him as the Holy Spirit.  It is appropriate that we start our liturgical year by studying his life, a revelation of the true God who holds our lives in his hands and who speaks to us today in the Holy Spirit.

Experience

Luke then tells of Jesus’ baptism.  Unique to Luke is the additional fact that then Jesus prays and as he is praying the Father speaks and the Spirit descends like a dove.  It is a picture for us of the Trinity.  Luke does not specify the details of the baptism as we like to quibble about – dunk or immerse, backwards or forward – but rather he comments on Jesus praying.  In the midst of that prayer the Trinity appears, the wholeness of God.

         It is in the act of prayer that the door of faith opens to the Father and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  We are not saved by baptism but by the death of Christ on the cross but faith opens the door of relationship, of access to experts and experience, to guidance, to insight, to wisdom, to comfort … to relationship with a real expert.

         Let me first clarify, John the Baptist baptized with water, a baptism of repentance, to prepare the hearts of the people to hear the words of Jesus.  The baptism we practice today is not a baptism of repentance but a baptism of faith, a baptism “with the Holy Spirit and fire.”  We identify with the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Romans 6:3,4 says,

         “³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

As Lutherans we believe that the faith of the parents covers the life of the child and so we bring our children.  All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and need salvation, even children.  We baptize and believe that we cannot by our own strength believe in Jesus or come to him but the Holy Spirit calls, leads and guides us into a faith relationship marked by the Spirit’s presence.  We claim that relationship for them and promise to pray for them, teach them and be with them as they grow.  

         Returning to the baptism experience of Jesus, we see him engulfed in the Godhead, not an individual expression of God.  We stand and bow at a mystery today.  Our God can be acting in uniquely different ways, all at once, and yet in unity.  As the Spirit hovers, God speaks and Jesus shows us that reality.  They work together.  We bow in faith.

         Jesus prays and we see that through prayer that full relationship with our Three in One God is active.

         Let us return to the word epiphany.  Merriam-Webster defines the essential meaning of “epiphany” as:

         1: a Christian festival held on January 6 in honor of the coming of      the three kings to the infant Jesus Christ

         2: a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way

Thursday we celebrated how the Magi started a journey to visit the “new born king and worship him.”  We start 2022 expecting and wanting to see this new born king whom we now call Savior in new ways and in new places.  We acknowledge that he is the only true expert who can lead, guide, and forgive us as we live our lives.  Our prayer is “open our eyes that we may see, open our ears that we may hear, and open our hearts that we may know” Jesus in a new epiphany as we look at his incarnation for the next few weeks.  Let us pray, “Lord, may this be so as we walk with you!”  The people of God said, “Amen!”

First Reading: Jeremiah 31:7-14

 ⁷Thus says the Lord:
 Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
  and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
 proclaim, give praise, and say,
  “Save, O Lord, your people,
  the remnant of Israel.”
 ⁸See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
  and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
 among them the blind and the lame,
  those with child and those in labor, together;
  a great company, they shall return here.
 ⁹With weeping they shall come,
  and with consolations I will lead them back,
 I will let them walk by brooks of water,
  in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
 for I have become a father to Israel,
  and Ephraim is my firstborn.

 ¹⁰Hear the word of the Lord, O nations,
  and declare it in the coastlands far away;
 say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him,
  and will keep him as a shepherd a flock.”
 ¹¹For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
  and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.
 ¹²They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion,
  and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord,
 over the grain, the wine, and the oil,
  and over the young of the flock and the herd;
 their life shall become like a watered garden,
  and they shall never languish again.
 ¹³Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
  and the young men and the old shall be merry.
 I will turn their mourning into joy,
  I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
 ¹⁴I will give the priests their fill of fatness,
  and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty, says the Lord.
 

Psalm: Psalm 147:12-20

 ¹²Worship the Lord, ^| O Jerusalem;
  praise your God, O Zion,
 ¹³who has strengthened the bars of your gates
  and has blessed your children within you.
 ¹⁴God has established peace on your borders
  and satisfies you with the finest wheat.
 ¹⁵God sends out a command to the earth,
  a word that runs very swiftly. 
 ¹⁶God gives snow like wool,
  scattering frost like ashes.
 ¹⁷God scatters hail like bread crumbs.
  Who can stand against God’s cold?
 ¹⁸The Lord sends forth the word and melts them;
  the wind blows, and the waters flow.
 ¹⁹God declares the word to Jacob,
  statutes and judgments to Israel.
 ²⁰The Lord has not done so to any other nation;
  they do not know God’s judgments. Hallelujah!

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:3-14

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. ⁵He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. ⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace ⁸that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight ⁹he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, ¹⁰as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. ¹¹In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, ¹²so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. ¹³In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; ¹⁴this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

Gospel: John 1:[1-9] 10-18

.

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
  ⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
  ¹⁰He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
  ¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) ¹⁶From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  Share with your neighbor what sort of things your family does to get ready for Christmas.

PRAYER:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

Today is the second Sunday of Christmas, a time when we look at the childhood of Jesus, but it is also the first Sunday of 2022.  We stand in this liminal space between the past, the present and the future.  Yesterday the world welcomed the New Year. January 1^st I gave birth to twins.  So Christmas and the birth of Christ and the birth of twins all cause me to be reflective of the backstory leading up to the “big event.”  Today our Gospel text reflects on the “backstory” of the birth of Christ.

         The internet defines “backstory”:

         Backstory is the stuff that went on before the story begins, or more      precisely, before the kick-off event in scene 1. As such, backstory          might better be called “pre-story”. It is a necessary component of any         story. After all, the characters come from somewhere – they have      pasts, they have histories.

Another way to describe today’s text is “flash-back.”  It is easy to think of Christmas as scene 1, the “kick-off event,” the big event around which we orient our Christian faith.  But there is a backstory that goes into “deep history” even before prophecy.  Our eldest son and his wife went through the agonizing process of three miscarriages.  They had dreams and feelings about pregnancy before they received the news of the hoped for birth.  Our son wrote a book that helped him process his grief and which shared the impact on him as an expectant father, the “backstory” for him and his wife. Despite accidental pregnancies, babies have a backstory whether it is accident, rape, or love.  We are products of those backstories of love, of dreams and anticipations or of lust and anger.  Baby Jesus has a backstory and we find it in our Gospel text today.

“the Word was God”

Apostle John describes baby Jesus as “the Word.”  “The Word was with God and the Word was God.”  We are entering into the mysteries of the Trinity here and probably none of us would claim to be experts able to handle that topic but let’s ponder a moment. 

         Our words flow from our hearts and minds and express a truth about us.  We might well backtrack and say we didn’t really mean what we said but in fact the words flowing from our mouth, represent us whether spoken in deceit, in jest, or in truth.  Jesus as the Word of God, is an expression of God, in ways none of us as children of God, as creations of God can claim.  Jesus flowed from God and was God.  Our words flow from us and are an expression of us.

         Jesus as Word of God was at creation, as the spoken Word, “Let there be light!”  and it was so.  Our words have creative ability.  When we stand at the altar and say “I do”, something that was two becomes one.  When we baptize, we believe the words of baptism represent the Holy  Spirit now indwelling our personhood and helping us spiritually in our journey.  Words create new realities.  When the jury reads the word, “guilty,” life of the accused changes.  When the judge said, “From this day forward this child will be a Collins,” the life of two little orphans changed forever.  Words have power to destroy and to create.  Jesus as the spoken word of God changed history forever by entering into our reality.  That little baby of Bethlehem had power even as a small seemingly innocent word has power.  As we enter 2022 we might ponder how we use our words, to destroy or to create value and vision in others we relate to.

         Baby Jesus was the spoken word of God with power to create but also Jesus was the light of God coming into a world corrupted by evil and that word overcame our darkness.  I think of the scene in Les Miserables when Jean Valjean learns that a man is being tried as him and he goes to the trial and confesses his hidden secret.  Monsieur le maire is convict 24601.  Truth brings to light and overcomes darkness.  In the same way Jesus incarnates not as a dictator of power and force but as a small baby and living a reality that love and forgiveness is the only way to bring healing out of wrong and hate. Jesus will ultimately walk through the darkness of death and the cross to emerge alive and offer hope in our world darkened by Covid, war and crime.  So in 2022 will we be agents of light, of love and forgiveness, or will we be agents of darkness and despair?

         The backstory of Jesus, coming to us as the Word that creates and overcomes darkness points to our backstory grounded in sin and possibly shame. Through this little baby, we can grow and have lives of hope in 2022 as we grow in faith.  We do not have to be the person we were in 2021 but can grow with the help of a babe who represents God, creates new life in us, and who shines light into our darkness. The babe left his throne on high as one with the Father to come to Bethlehem as an innocent baby that we might live a life of hope in 2022.  That backstory changes our story.

John the Baptist: The Word was human

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

Apostle John draws us from “the beginning” backstory to the human historical backstory.  Jesus is preceded by John the Baptist, a real man, a real historical person who testified.   Jesus’ birth happened in a human context.  He is not an invisible, imaginary super hero, Greek god, or impersonal “force” like in Star Wars.  Jesus was born into a recorded history with historical people.  These people remembered and testified about Jesus.  The shepherds spread the good news.  The wise men came from afar and returned with the news.  Herod was alerted and so alarmed he killed innocent babies.  Jesus is not a fairytale told to make a point but “true man” and “true God” living with us and experiencing all that we experience.

         So our reflection question as we ponder facing 2022 is not only does the eternal God walk with us but how will we testify about Jesus?  Can we like John the Baptist bow to this baby that does not look like our concepts of God?  Will we bow and allow him to speak into our lives even as we share with others about him?  We speak of 2021 as being the year of Covid but I would challenge us to ponder if indeed it was not more importantly a year of God’s mercy!  John the Baptist testified to “the light.”  Let us think how God brought light into 2021 and how we know he will bring light into 2022.

the world did not know him: The Word worked with our free will

Jesus, the Word of God, became flesh as a man who was testified about by John the Baptist.  Our text goes on to tell us that we did not know him nor accept him.  How can that be?  Jesus did not come as a kingly heir, as the creator of drones and robots but came into a creation that was gifted with free will.  Many look at baby Jesus and see just that, a baby, cute, historical but powerless, a crutch for those who are weak.  Jesus could not demand allegiance but came to woo us into relationship.  Relationships grow and change.  As I just saw this Christmas when grandchildren came that I had not seen for a year, they had grown into young ladies, hair long or short or colored, resembling parents, now driving, and new interests and likes.  Checking in with Jesus at Christmas, Easter and other odd times like funerals is like trying to recognize a bridesmaid forty years later in the airport. The truth is that we do not have to believe that babe of Bethlehem is the person the angels, the shepherds, and the wise men witness to.  We have a choice.  Relationship is not automatic because of baptism or confirmation that our parents made us attend.  Relationship with Jesus is something we accept and grow into.  “Grace and truth” come from relationship with Jesus. 

         He “gives us the power to become children of God.”  As Lutherans we believe that this relationship can be claimed in baptism through the faith of our parents but then through confirmation, we too decide how we want to “buy in” to faith.   When I was a chaplain, I liked to use the image: in the mysterious relationship, the handshake between God and us, he holds on to us when we forget who we are, when we are to discouraged to claim relationship, when we are too sick to proclaim it, when life darkens our eyes, God holds on to us.  But that relationship is not automatic because of our birth.  We were created with free will and Jesus’ backstory is that he wants to work with us as free agents choosing to love him.  We are not in a forced marriage with no say.  We are real people with real choice .

         So as we look through a glass dimly this first Sunday in 2022, we listen to the backstory of Jesus and we ponder how his story intertwines with our on going journey.  The babe of Christmas is God from eternity.  The babe of Christmas is truly human with a story to tell this year that reveals the character of the unseen God we worship.  The babe of Christmas will not force his way into our lives, will not force us to come to church or read our Bible or pray.  The babe of Christmas will not force us to be in relationship. The choice is ours.  His backstory is our story!