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

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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!

First Reading: 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26

¹⁸Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a linen ephod. ¹⁹His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. ²⁰Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, “May the Lord repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the Lord”; and then they would return to their home.
  ²⁶Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people.

Psalm: Psalm 148

 ¹Hallelujah! Praise the Lord^| from the heavens;
  praise God in the heights.
 ²Praise the Lord, all you angels;
  sing praise, all you hosts of heaven.
 ³Praise the Lord, sun and moon;
  sing praise, all you shining stars.
 ⁴Praise the Lord, heaven of heavens,
  and you waters above the heavens.
 ⁵Let them praise the name of the Lord,
  who commanded, and they were created,
 ⁶who made them stand fast forever and ever,
  giving them a law that shall not pass away. 
 ⁷Praise the Lord from the earth,
  you sea monsters and all deeps;
 ⁸fire and hail, snow and fog,
  tempestuous wind, doing God’s will;
 ⁹mountains and all hills,
  fruit trees and all cedars;
 ¹⁰wild beasts and all cattle,
  creeping things and flying birds;
 ¹¹sovereigns of the earth and all peoples,
  princes and all rulers of the world;
 ¹²young men and maidens,
  old and young together. 
 ¹³Let them praise the name of the Lord,
  whose name only is exalted, whose splendor is over earth and heaven.
 ¹⁴The Lord has raised up strength for the people and praise for  all faithful servants,
  the children of Israel, a people who are near  the Lord. Hallelujah! 

Second Reading: Colossians 3:12-17

¹²As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹³Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Gospel: Luke 2:41-52

⁴¹Now every year [Jesus’] parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. ⁴²And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. ⁴³When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. ⁴⁴Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. ⁴⁵When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. ⁴⁶After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. ⁴⁸When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” ⁴⁹He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” ⁵⁰But they did not understand what he said to them. ⁵¹Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.
  ⁵²And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  Turn to your neighbor and share where you were at age 12.  Does anything stand out in your memory?

Let us pray:  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, My Rock and My Redeemer.

SERMON

Where were you at age 12?  For most of us that puts us somewhere around grade 6 or 7.  When I was growing up, at age 12 my family and I made an important life decision.  My father and mother were masonic.  We were attending a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, and it was time for us to decide if I would follow my parents foot steps or would I go to confirmation classes.  The confirmation classes met three times a week after school for two or three years.  I could not do both.  We had to choose.  That choice impacted the direction of my life.

         Today is the first Sunday in the Christmas season. We sit in the afterglow of the Christmas meal, presents, phone calls and all that yesterday included.  For many it included the grief of death of loved ones and fear of the virus.  The Christmas season will be two Sundays this year and will carry us into the new calendar year and through Epiphany on January 6 when we celebrate the wise men.  Traditionally these two Sundays are dedicated to looking at the childhood of Jesus. Luke’s Gospel. from which we draw the texts for Sunday worship this church year, includes Jesus being circumcised, Anna and Simeon praising , the return to Nazareth and then it jumps to our text today, Jesus in the temple at age 12.  He is not quite an adult, no longer a child, what we call a youth. 

         Luke does not include the wise men, the slaughter of the innocents, the flight to Egypt.  We will have to wait until next year and the Gospel of Matthew to delve into those stories.  So why does doctor Luke include this story of Jesus in the Temple?  What is God trying to tell us today?  I would like to propose to you that this scene is a fore-shadow of what was to become formalized as a rite of passage, the bar mitzvah of Jewish boys.  Even as I at age 12 was making decisions about the direction of my life, we see in our reading today an important moment in the life of Christ and actually an important moment in our lives. Likewise we stand at the end of one calendar year and face into our futures and are making decisions.  The world will celebrate January 1 and the ball will drop in New York city.

         Rites of passage are ceremonies that involve mentoring, that officially recognize a status change in culture and signal a change in responsibilities.  Usually they are public and testify to the community. Baptism is probably our earliest experience.  In Kenya a baby was called “a little monkey” until about a year when a goat was killed and the child officially named and welcomed into community.  At baptism we welcome our children into Christian community and we ask sponsors to stand with the parents and we as a congregation pledge to pray and care for the child.  Pastors meet with the families before and explain the responsibilities associated.  Lutherans confirm their youth.  Kenyans circumcise boys at age 14.  Marriage, divorce, age 21, retirement and death are other ceremonies when we gather and walk with friends as they change status, life titles, and identities.

         I looked up “bar mitzvah” on line and learned that from about the Middle Ages, Jewish boys age 13 and Jewish girls age 12 go through this ceremony.  The child becomes a full-fledged member of the Jewish community, morally responsible for his or her actions, and the father is no longer held accountable.  Boys are counted as an adult for a prayer quorum and allowed to read from the Torah, own property and marry.  Luke tells us that Jesus is age 12 and this unique event in his childhood occurred.  Let’s look at what is going on.

Mentoring

⁴⁶After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions

         Joseph and Mary take Jesus to Jerusalem yearly for Passover.  This is no small deal.  They traveled from the Galilee area in northern Israel to Jerusalem in southern Israel.  Jesus’ parents were spiritually responsible, exposing Jesus to the training of his faith, even though he had been circumcised and was “part of the Jewish flock,” and a special child.  There is no hint that Jesus is suffering from being “an illegitimate” child conceived out of wedlock.  It would appear that he has been incorporated into community and that his parents were not necessarily handling him with kid gloves because he was the son of God.  Joseph and Mary left Jerusalem traveling for a day, assuming Jesus was with his friends.  So our scene is one day of travel, one day of return, and three days of searching.  That is a total of five days of growing anxiety. It took days to retrace their steps with family and friends, racking their brains for where Jesus might have gone missing.  As a parent, I can feel the growing knot in their stomachs.

         “After three days they found him in the temple.”  Jesus has started the rite of passage.  He has secluded himself with the elders and teachers.  He was asking them questions and they were listening to him.  He is no longer a child being oooh-ed over, eliciting praises as with Simeon and Anna.  Jesus has now become someone with whom the teachers are interacting.  He is entering a new phase we know little about.

         So? I hear you asking, or I hope you’re asking.  How does that apply to me?  Can we let this text today speak to us and challenge us about how we identify with our church membership?  Are we like the child Jesus going to Jerusalem, going to church every Sunday for us, expecting the pastor to feed us an interesting sermon and the choir to thrill us with their songs, and  offering our financial gifts or are we interactional in our faith? I certainly understand the limitations of age and the restraints of family life and children but this passage confronts me as Jesus chooses not to travel home with the gang but starts to differentiate himself and define himself.  We are coming to the end of 2021 and possibly setting new year goals and so pondering where we are going to choose to sit this next year and who we would like to learn from and what our questions are.  Will we go with “the gang” or will we search out those opportunities to grow our faith?

         The scene also points to a Jesus who was listening.  I do not think he entered the temple like a cocky youth, setting his elders straight, but there is a sense of humbleness even at this early age.  Jesus was listening and interacting. I find great comfort that the God of the universe is listening and speaking into my human condition even if I have trouble grasping what he is saying.  Jesus is building a relationship with the teachers. It says he listened and they were amazed at his understanding of them!  What do you think that exchange was about over those days?  I wonder what it would have been like to be a fly on that wall!

         This is not a picture of an angry judge growing in his intolerance of sin but of the development of a Good Shepherd, who sat and learned from the elders.  Jesus is beginning to go through the rite of passage of becoming an adult.  He allows himself to be mentored and to learn. This tells us something about our God. I pray we may follow his example in the coming year, actively listening and actively seeking to go deeper in our faith.

Change of Status

Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

The parents don’t get it.  Their nerves are frazzled and they are exhausted with anxiety.  They are focused on the moment and not the big picture.  At times like that our mouths open and words come out, even in-front of the teachers of the temple, and often we sound a bit self centered.  Mary pulls the parent card that implied Jesus was being inconsiderate of his parents. Jesus responds with a rite of passage declaration.  “I must be in my Father’s house.”  This is a huge statement recorded by Luke.

         Jesus is stepping from childhood to adulthood.  Jesus is now acknowledging Joseph as his adopted father but God as his real father.  He is differentiating from birth family and owning responsibility for his actions.  It is the essence of bar mitzvah, of confirmation, of adult baptism, of marriage, of ordination.  In a rite of passage we change status.  We do not necessarily deny our previous status but we add a new layer to our identity.  In marriage I do not deny being the daughter or son of my parents but I publicly declare my new identity and allegiance to my spouse.  Jesus is not denying Joseph but is publically announcing and owning the truth of his identity.

         The passage is clear that Jesus did go home with Joseph and Mary and did obey them as a dutiful son.  But for those who would like to think that somehow the baptism of Jesus years later as an adult when the Holy Spirit descended on him was when he really took over the role as Christ, the text today would say that even as a child Jesus knew who he was and lived in the tension of being true God and true man.

         In our world today it is sometimes hard to figure out how to be transparent about our faith.  The United States has a veneer of Christian history and claims to be a Christian nation but mostly we are materialistic.  Tolerance is a value that is touted and we would certainly not want to be taken as judgmental and confused with some person yelling from street corners about “end times.”  How does our faith differentiate us from the secular world around us?    As we look into 2022, how will we go about our Father’s business and be in his house?  Are we living into our baptismal and confirmation identity?

         Some of us may spend three days … or three months… looking for Jesus this year but Jesus looks at us and says, “Do you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  If we are looking, we will find Jesus in the Word, in worship, in sacrament, in prayer, in hymns, in places where God reaches out obviously and then perhaps in untypical places like nature, friendship and even the hard places of life – the nurse who is kind to us, the checker who is patient as we fumble for our credit card, and the AAA mechanic who rescues us when our car battery is dead.  Jesus, in this passage is claiming his status as Son of God.  We are challenged daily to claim our status as Christian, follower of Jesus.

Responsibility

⁵²And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

         Jesus has gone to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover with his family. He has sat with the teachers of his faith, asked questions and learned. He is no longer a child but becoming an adult.  Jesus has declared this transition, this change of status, when he openly calls God his father. The rite of passage he is going through does not release him from former responsibilities as he returns with his parents in obedience but something has changed.  I think we no longer hear about the role of Joseph in his life but the gospels continue to insert scenarios involving Mary.  Even on the cross Jesus is aware of his responsibilities to his mother.  But our text today ends with Mary pondering in her heart and Jesus increasing in wisdom and favor. 

         For those of us who feel like God is distant and functions more like a judge or rule book, this last sentence is amazingly interactional and compassionate.  It challenges us to wonder how Jesus might “increase.”  What responsibilities is he adding?  The Bible does not explain but when put in the context of a rite of passage, it might imply how a marriage relationship grows (we hope) after the initial ceremony, or how we grow in getting to know and understand our children after Baptism, or the youth who is confirmed and joins the ushering team or reads Scripture on Sunday.  We are increasing not from ignorance but through a broadening of opportunities of service.  I learned this week that my first granddaughter got her drivers license.  For sure her father had been teaching her as well as driver’s ed and she studied the manual but in the first four days, she drove independently three times.  We as parents may have sweaty palms but she has “increased” her responsibilities.

         In the same way “wisdom” is the ability to apply what we know to real life situations and as Jesus grows he will meet more and more adult challenges and problems to which he will be given the opportunity to interact with as an adult.  His involvement with God and people begins to grow in new ways.  He is not in public ministry yet but he is becoming, growing, experiencing and developing skills. 

         It is hard for us to think of God as increasing.  We like to think of God as answering our prayers, a source of power and insight, more stable than growing but relationships don’t work that way.  Relationships grow and deepen and go through phases with our life challenges.  Even so Jesus, no longer a child, but living in obedience to his parents and to God, “increases in wisdom and favor before God and man.”  A rite of passage is just that, a passage from one phase of life to another.  We learn new skills from those who have gone before as we answer to new voices and step into new responsibilities.  Jesus grew.

         Are we growing as we step into 2022?  This is our last Sunday together for this calendar year.  I would challenge us as we reflect on our journey of faith this last year and now in the New Year, to ponder who we are learning from, who do we claim as our Father, and what business is he calling us to be involved with this year.  We at Bethany have been greatly blessed.  We grieve those who have passed this year but we also rejoice at the many challenges God has helped us face.  As we step into 2022 may we, like Jesus, “increase in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”

The people of God said “AMEN!”

First Reading: Micah 5:2-5a

 ²But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
  who are one of the little clans of Judah,
 from you shall come forth for me
  one who is to rule in Israel,
 whose origin is from of old,
  from ancient days.
 ³Therefore he shall give them up until the time
  when she who is in labor has brought forth;
 then the rest of his kindred shall return
  to the people of Israel.
 ⁴And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
  in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
 And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
  to the ends of the earth;
 ^5aand he shall be the one of peace.

Psalm: Luke 1:46b-55

 ^46bMy soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
  ⁴⁷my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
 ⁴⁸for you, Lord, have looked with favor on your lowly servant.
  From this day all generations will call me blessed:
 ⁴⁹you, the Almighty, have done great things for me
  and holy  is your name.
 ⁵⁰You have mercy on those who fear you,
  from generation to generation. 
 ⁵¹You have shown strength with your arm
  and scattered the proud in their conceit,
 ⁵²casting down the mighty from their thrones
  and lifting up the lowly.
 ⁵³You have filled the hungry with good things
  and sent the rich away empty.
 ⁵⁴You have come to the aid of your servant Israel,
  to remember the promise of mercy,
 ⁵⁵the promise made to our forebears,
  to Abraham and his children forever.

Second Reading: Hebrews 10:5-10

⁵Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
 “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
  but a body you have prepared for me;
 ⁶in burnt offerings and sin offerings
  you have taken no pleasure.
 ⁷Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will, O God’
  (in the scroll of the book it is written of me).”
⁸When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), ⁹then he added, “See, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Gospel: Luke 1:39-45 [46-55]

³⁹In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴²and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” [
  ⁴⁶And Mary said,
 “My soul magnifies the Lord,
  ⁴⁷and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
 ⁴⁸for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
  Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
 ⁴⁹for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
  and holy is his name.
 ⁵⁰His mercy is for those who fear him
  from generation to generation.
 ⁵¹He has shown strength with his arm;
  he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
 ⁵²He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
  and lifted up the lowly;
 ⁵³he has filled the hungry with good things,
  and sent the rich away empty.
 ⁵⁴He has helped his servant Israel,
  in remembrance of his mercy,
 ⁵⁵according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
  to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  Let’s take a moment and share various goodbye blessings we know from whatever language to wish someone a safe journey. (Bon voyage, Kwa Heri, Vaya con Dios, Ta Ta, Stay safe – is common today)  

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

SERMON

Today’s readings focus on different aspects of the Christmas story.  I know it is still Advent and our theme for today is “love” but I also know that we will not get to Luke 2, the actual Christmas narrative until Christmas Eve.  Many women will be home cooking and will not be able to attend services around the dinner hour.  Travelers will be arriving.  Young hearts will be focused on presents under the tree.  So much is going on this week.  And there is so much to unpack in the Christmas story!  Lord, HELP!

         I have chosen this old familiar Irish travelers’ blessing to focus our sermon today.  In Advent Mary and Joseph were traveling to Bethlehem.  We are traveling to Christmas.  Our world is traveling to the Lord’s return.

Let us pray:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,

may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

As I read about this blessing, the writer said that

• “the wind be always at your back” refers to the Holy Spirit nudging us forward and guiding us. 
• “The sun shine warm on your face” is the warmth of God’s mercy that blesses us daily.
•  “The rains fall soft upon your fields” refers to God’s provisions that sustain our life as nothing grows without rain. 

Wind, sun, and rain are the blessings from God and which we find in Advent and the Christmas story.  Guidance, mercy and strength are needed by us all.   We see in these in our passages and I pray them for each of you as we finish the Advent season and enter Christmas.  This week our candle is “Love.”  Let’s dig in.

“May the wind be always at your back,”

Our Old Testament, or first reading for this morning comes from Micah and possibly sounds very familiar.  The wise men, who have not even entered our narrative yet and will not be talked about until Epiphany, have probably started their journey from the East.  When they arrive at Herod’s palace the priests quote Micah that says that the “new king” will be born in Bethlehem.  Centuries before, Micah not only names the town of Bethlehem but also uses the motif of Jesus as the “Good Shepherd.”  “(v.6) And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord.”  Jesus does not just pop onto the stage of history to die on the cross because of some convergence of events but he is the appearance of a loving God who has been preparing history for then and for now.  God, the Holy Spirit, is the loving wind at our backs directing the flow of our lives.

         Our Psalm reading and our Gospel reading tell of Mary, filled with the Holy Spirit, bursting forth singing the Magnificat praises. God sees his people, the mighty and the humble.  God does not just see from his heavens above but is involved like the wind we cannot see, directing our paths and guiding our ways and the events of life.  Maybe our personal life is not foretold specifically in the Bible as are all the prophecies alluding to Jesus but we know our names are written in the book of life and on the palms of his hands.  Mary praises a God who loves her, not in abstract, but in the messy details of her life that is about to unfold.  She is pregnant, facing possible stoning, having to explain to a fiancée how this is all possible AND she is a powerless, poor, female.  Her credentials could join any of our causes today and any of the “woe is me” moments we wallow in. But Mary sees the wind of the Holy Spirit at her back and chooses to praise and love a God who walks with her into the mess of this world.

         The New Testament reading understands Jesus as coming “to do God’s will.”  He is not an independent entity, one of the three-musketeer-team, but united, driven by the Holy Spirit doing God’s will – the Trinity.

         So how are we doing today?  Are we caught in a hurricane or a tornado like Mary?  Perhaps we are just wondering if we can get the meal on the table, all warm and tasty.  Then again we might be grieving the empty seats at the table or the scattering of families that can’t join for Christmas. Sigh, there are many things that would like to distract us from love and praise as we head into Week 4 of Advent.  Taking time this week to read Luke 2 and pondering the lives of those people helps focus our hearts on the wind of the Holy Spirit gently blowing us from behind and always guiding us forward.  “May the wind always be at your back!”

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

The warmth of the sunshine reminds me of feeling the sun on my face on a snowy morning or while through the windshield while sitting in the car.  As a young adult, newly married, I had a last “fling” with my single friends and went skiing in the Los Angeles foothills.  Skiing automatically conjures up snow, heavy jackets, and warm underwear.  I came home with third degree sunburns on my face.  The juvenile delinquents I was working with were not kind in their exclamations.  I share this to point out the truth that feeling the warmth of the sun is not dependent on the condition of the environment around us.  We can be at the beach or on a snowy slope.  We can be at the equator of Africa or at one of the poles. God’s mercy and love bless our lives, not because of our goodness, but because he is loving all the time.

         I also note that the shinning of the sun is totally beyond our control.  It is true that gas emissions from our cars corrupts the atmosphere and contort the sunshine but it is also true that our sins and the focus of our attention distorts and contorts our ability to appreciate the daily blessings of God’s love and mercy.  The sun is not diminished by smog, only our perception of it.  God unfolds the Christmas story in a very “environmentally challenged” situation.

         In Luke we read that God prepared the way by allowing old Zechariah and his barren wife Elizabeth to become pregnant with a son who would become known as John the Baptist.  God sends an angel to Mary and explains to her what is going to happen and tells her about Elizabeth with whom she can find comradery.  God sends an angel to Joseph so he does not need to worry about taking Mary as his wife.  God sends angels to the shepherd so the poor are included in the story.  A compassionate innkeeper allows the couple to use his stable.  In a chaotic world mixed up with foreign rulers and a census, God lovingly directs the Christmas narrative.  His sunshine warms on their faces and ours.

         I also note that the shining of the sun does not negate the reality of nighttime when we navigate by the reflection of the sun onto the moon.  The nighttime does not mean there is no sun but only that God is working in our lives in different ways.  It was at night that the angels came to the shepherds with the good news of the birth.  It was the political disruption of a census that drove Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem and fulfilled prophecy.  Traveling by donkey, nine months pregnant, was probably a challenge.  It was in the social upheaval of the census that limited housing also challenged the young couple that night.  Having a first child is hard enough without doing it in a strange place with a man Mary was only growing to know and away from the comforts of family.  We do not know Mary and Joseph’s feelings that night but we know that despite of everything God’s love was shining warm on their faces, carrying them.  God was smiling.  Angels went to shepherds.  They visited to worship and confirm God’s presence.  Anna and Simeon in the Temple shone God’s love warm on the young couple and their baby.  An angel warned Joseph of impending danger and to flee to Egypt.  The Christmas story is a story of God’s sunshine in the midst of a cloudy world.

         So I am challenged to ask us how we are focusing today.  Are we looking at the clouds, the fog, the smog, the problems that make life difficult or can we focus on the God who is blowing the wind of the Holy Spirit to carry us and smiling on us with mercies every day?  In the midst of the complications of our daily lives this Christmas, the warmth of God’s love is shining into our lives as we turn our faces toward him  May we join Mary ins singing praises of the Magnificaat.  “May the sun shine warm on your face” this Christmas as you experience God’s presence.

 May the rains fall soft upon your fields…

This Irish blessing and our texts today remind us that God works in real times and places. God works in our fields.  Without rain, there is no growth.

Without trials and challenges we would not grow.  If we continued carrying our babies until they become adults and did not allow them to learn to walk for fear they might fall, then we would have done them a disservice.  So the key word here is “soft.”  I suspect we often do not realize how much God cushions the bumps in the road that rises before us.  Yes there are pothole, “no room in the inn,” and yes there are rainy days, “everyone must go and be enrolled in their home town,” and we may even doubt we have enough money for the journey but God is walking with us.  The Magnificat reminds us that God advocates for the humble, the poor, the hungry, the lowly, the fearful, and keeps his promises to generations. It does not deny the existence of the proud and the unfair, the fields in which we labor.  The Christmas story reminds us of that.  God allowed the rain in Joseph and Mary’s lives but he protected them so it rained softly.

         I sat in the Wal-Mart parking lot this week with a dead car battery as I had walked all over the store looking for a lighter to light my Advent candles while my husband listened to the radio with the engine turned off.  It drained the battery and my cell phone!  What to do?  The rain was actually misting.  We decided to call AAA and they would come.  They traced my number to Indianapolis, expired card.  I found a different card that said I was in Florida and paid up.  As we waited, the driver of the car nose to us came and offered to help.  Then the guy on our right came and he was a mechanic with tools in his car and offered to help.  Minutes later AAA came and jumped us in about 5 minutes.  It did rain but I would like to think it rained softly.  God had plan A, plan B, and plan C working and did not abandon us.

         So as we go through the Christmas story this week and with Mary in the Magnificat focus on just how deeply God loves us in the midst of the challenges of our sin contorted world.  May we focus on the Holy Spirit guiding us like the wind at our back, the warmth of God’s love shining on our faces in daily mercies, and on the softness of the rain as God protects us in our daily challenges.

and until we meet again,

may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

First Reading: Zephaniah 3:14-20

 ¹⁴Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
  shout, O Israel!
 Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
  O daughter Jerusalem!
 ¹⁵The Lord has taken away the judgments against you,
  he has turned away your enemies.
 The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
  you shall fear disaster no more.
 ¹⁶On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
 Do not fear, O Zion;
  do not let your hands grow weak.
 ¹⁷The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
  a warrior who gives victory;
 he will rejoice over you with gladness,
  he will renew you in his love;
 he will exult over you with loud singing
  ¹⁸as on a day of festival.
 I will remove disaster from you,
  so that you will not bear reproach for it.
 ¹⁹I will deal with all your oppressors
  at that time.
 And I will save the lame
  and gather the outcast,
 and I will change their shame into praise
  and renown in all the earth.
 ²⁰At that time I will bring you home,
  at the time when I gather you;
 for I will make you renowned and praised
  among all the peoples of the earth,
 when I restore your fortunes
  before your eyes, says the Lord.

Psalm: Isaiah 12:2-6 ²Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid,
  for the Lord God is my strength and my might, and has become my salvation.
 ³With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. 
 ⁴And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the Lord, call on God’s name; make known the deeds of the Lord among the nations;      proclaim that this name is exalted.
 ⁵Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;
  let this be known in all the earth.
 ⁶Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion,
  for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Second Reading: Philippians 4:4-7

⁴Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. ⁵Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Gospel: Luke 3:7-18

⁷John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ⁹Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
  ¹⁰And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” ¹¹In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” ¹²Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” ¹³He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” ¹⁴Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
  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.”
  ¹⁸So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  Let us join our voices and sing a Christmas song I’m sure we are all familiar with:  Santa Clause is Coming to Town:

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He’s making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who’s naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!
O! You better watch out!
You better not cry
Better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
Santa Claus is coming to town.

Let’s pray:  May the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.  Thank you for hope, for peace, and now we look to you for joy.

SERMON

 “Santa Clause is Coming to Town” was first recorded in 1934 and became famous when sung by Eddie Cantor at the height of the Great Depression.  Originally there were more verses encouraging listeners to be charitable and help the less fortunate at Christmas.  The version we know was an instant hit.  Orders for 500,000 copies of the sheet music and more than 30,000 records sold within 24 hours – according to Wipedia. Over 200 artists have recorded this song!  I think that would be considered a success and popular even by today’s standards. Today we hear this song played at Christmas time.

“You better watch out!”

         Our text today tells of another instant success story almost identical to this song.  The Prophet John the Baptist stands in the River Jordan and proclaims, “You better watch out!”  He was a little bit more crass in his speech.  He was not wearing a jolly red suit but equally unique in his camel skin clothes, and eating locust.  Our text says that he addressed his crowd as a “brood of vipers.”  He is not crooning the arrival of Santa Claus but announcing the arrival of the long anticipated Messiah.

         Our song goes on to share warnings of unacceptable behavior.  “You better not cry, you better not pout.”  John the Baptist equally warns, ⁸Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”  As we prepare for the return of the Messiah, what might be some unacceptable behaviors John is eluding to that might block our relationship with God today?

“You better not cry, you better not pout.”

         John first starts by warning the Jews of a false dependence on their Jewish heritage. “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’.”    Even we Lutherans have strong “patriarchal families” and roots going back to Norway, Sweden, Germany or perhaps Ethiopia and Tanzania today.  We do not flaunt our testimonials of conversion experiences with high emotions and dramatic changes and God interventions in our sinful lifestyles.  No, we are a confessional church reciting creeds that go back to the Middle Ages.  We say the Nicene Creed on High Church Sundays.  We baptize our babies and send our youth to confirmation.  These are strong family traditions.  For many, Bethany is the place where they married, raised their children, saw their children married and are now escorting and supporting each other on that final leg of the journey. I am not saying that is wrong.  John is saying that church attendance is not our passport to heaven or to relationship with the coming Messiah.  Our social history is not our spiritual identity!  At worst it makes it hard for new people to feel welcome and at best it is false security.  Claiming the rewards of Abraham without the faith of Abraham, claiming the rewards of Martin Luther without the faith of Martin Luther… we better watch out!

         Next John reminds us that God can change stones, hearts cold as rocks, into believers.  Like the Grinch whose heart grew three sizes the day he encountered the Who’s in Whoville, God can change hearts.  We look at how Christianity is struggling in the Western world but in many other places in the world Christianity is growing under severe persecution.  Our comfortable lifestyle may be deceiving us about the condition of our souls. To use a colloquial saying, “Are we on fire for the Lord?” or are we a bit luke-warm today in our devotion?  Perhaps faith has become a habit more than an active force in our life.  The song and John the Baptist encourage us to check the condition of our hearts today.

“What then should we do?”

Americans loved this song and recognized a truth in it.  We do not want a lump of coal on Christmas Day but we want a stocking full of goodies.  We want to live “happy ever after.”  Deep inside we believe we must “be good,” “not cry,” “not pout” or be beautiful or talented or young.  In spiritual terms  we believe somehow that living a good Christian life earns God’s favor.  And so we strive to be faithful and like the crowds ask John, “What then should we do?”   

         John focuses on our behavior also – beyond crying and pouting.  Advent, preparing for the coming Messiah, is not about getting but about giving.  John tells the crowds to share.  The song was written during the Great Depression.  Remember, John is standing in the Wilderness, faith lived in the hard places of life, in the middle of the pandemic, in the middle of refugee flights, wars and environmental challenges.  We are not to be pondering what we get but what we can give.  I note he does not say we are to give away all but we are to be generous.  We are to be generous not just to our family and friends but also to those in need.  John is warning us of greed, collecting “more than prescribed” for tax collectors.  There is a difference between “wants” and “needs!”  John warns of tit-for-tat thinking, for the soldier not to use their job to threaten or bully.  We are to “be satisfied” to be at peace with what we receive.  We are called to live out faith in the midst of our life, not flee to a “more holy” place.

         The song continues to describe Santa Claus’ character.  “He sees us when we’re sleeping.  He knows when we’re awake.  He knows if we’ve been bad or good…. So be good for goodness sake.”   Sounds a bit like God doesn’t it!  God knows and sees. 

         Here though we must insert the Gospel that brings joy at Christmas.  God knows that we are broken people living in a broken world and need a savior, the gift of the Messiah.  We can never by our own power live good enough lives to deserve a stocking brimming with gifts on Christmas morning.  Being good is never going to be good enough.

         This week in our Facebook devotions we looked at Mary singing the Magnificat as she arrives at her cousin Elizabeth’s home.  Both women are miraculously pregnant though Elizabeth is a good six months ahead of Mary.  The Holy Spirit fills Mary and she bursts into song, “My soul glorifies the Lord..” because

• God sees and cares about the humble and poor,
• God’s mercy ripples to the next generation,
• God scatters and defeats the proud, including proud rulers,
• God feeds the hungry,
•  And God keeps his promises through the ages.

All three readings this morning Zephaniah, Psalms, and Philippians overflow with joy and praise, not because we have controlled our crying and pouting in the face of pandemics and threats of war, poverty and financial crisis but because we depend not on ourselves but on a God who sees, has mercy, power, and brings justice, keeping his promises through generations.

 …the people were filled with expectation…

         The crowds when called a brood of vipers and told that they must reform before the Messiah arrived, The text says that the crowds were filled with expectation.  American children when crooned to that they better watch out cause Santa Claus is coming are delighted.  We know there is something wrong with our world and we need to reform.  We, or at least the other guy, needs to change.  John baptized crowds of people with water as they responded to his message but he pointed to “one who is more powerful than I” who was coming.  The Messiah will make things right.  Perhaps even as people at Jesus’ time thought that meant the overthrow of the Roman Empire, we today have visions of full stockings and sugar plum farriers in our dreams.  If we just believe and have faith then the Messiah will bless us with health, wealth and prosperity. And so we return to the chorus of the song, “You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town.” 

         We know the hollowness of stockings filled with candy that makes us sick to our stomach, shirts that wear out, technical toys that will be outdated in six months.  If we are honest with ourselves we know the materialism of Christmas only points to a God who blesses us, not because we are good but because he is good and he is love.  In Advent we are able to praise in the midst of life’s trials and challenges.  We find hope as prophecy is fulfilled.  We are at peace knowing God walks with us.  And we are filled with joy like Mary in “The Magnificat” because we know that God cares for the humble and poor, God is merciful, he is the source of blessings down through generations, he feeds the hungry heart and God is faithful to his promises.  That is true joy.  Santa Claus will visit at Christmas and then disappear till next year but the Messiah came, comes and will come.  He is active all year, and will return to take us to our eternal rewards. 

The people of God said, “AMEN!”

  

First Reading: Malachi 3:1-4

¹See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. ²But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
  For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; ³he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. ⁴Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Psalm: Luke 1:68-79

 ⁶⁸Blessed are you, Lord, the God of Israel,
  you have come to your people and set them free.
 ⁶⁹You have raised up for us a mighty Savior,
  born of the house of your servant David. 
 ⁷⁰Through your holy prophets, you promised of old to save us ^|from our enemies, ⁷¹from the hands of all who hate us,
 ⁷²to show mercy to our forebears,
  and to remember your holy covenant.
 ⁷³This was the oath you swore to our father Abraham:
  ⁷⁴to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
 free to worship you without fear,
  ⁷⁵holy and righteous before you, all the days of our life. 
 ⁷⁶And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High,
  for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way,
 ⁷⁷to give God’s people knowledge of salvation
  by the forgiveness of their sins.
 ⁷⁸In the tender compassion  of our God
  the dawn from on high shall  break upon us,
 ⁷⁹to shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of   death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. 

Second Reading: Philippians 1:3-11

³I thank my God every time I remember you, ⁴constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, ⁵because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. ⁶I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. ⁷It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. ⁸For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. ⁹And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight ¹⁰to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, ¹¹having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Gospel: Luke 3:1-6

¹In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, ²during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. ³He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, ⁴as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
 “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
 ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
  make his paths straight.
 ⁵Every valley shall be filled,
  and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
 and the crooked shall be made straight,
  and the rough ways made smooth;
 ⁶and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

CHILDREN’S SERMON

Turn to your neighbor and describe one of your favorite Christmas traditions.

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

SERMON

Today’s text opens Week 2 of Advent.  In Advent we celebrate that Christ will come, that he does come every day and that he did come at Christmas.  Last week was the global overview, sitting above time as we experience it.  Prophecy of Christ’s return gives us a glimpse about the future but future promises are so hard to tie down, just exactly when what is predicted will happen.  We know Christ will return and so we open Advent singing “O Come, O Come Immanuel.” Immanuel means God with us! That welcomes HOPE.  We hung the banner HOPE.

         Today we hang the banner PEACE and our text goes from the global perspective to the glocal (that is a combination of global and local therefore glocal in modern day lingo). Our text grounds us in historical reality.

“…the word of the Lord came…”

Advent is not a “once upon a time” story.  It is not an Aesop’s Fable to teach us a moral about life. It is not about the journey of some unknown fourth wise man.  The journey we are walking in Advent is reported through the eyes of doctor Luke and is grounded in reality and is researchable.  What Luke tells us today has not only global significance but has local, historical facts.  He names Roman leaders, Emperor Tiberius, Jewish leaders, Herod, and includes geographical locations.  Luke also grounds what is unfolding in religious reality naming leaders.  Perhaps we would say today that while Joe Biden was President of the United States and Rev. Eaton was Bishop of the ELCA, God’s word caught our attention.

         Luke also gives John, who becomes known as “John the Baptist,” a DNA genealogy affirmation.  He is “John son of Zechariah.”  John comes from a priestly line on both his mother and his father’s side.  He’s a blue blood.  John is the “miracle child” born after an encounter Priest Zechariah had with an angel when he and his wife Elizabeth were old and beyond childbearing year.  Luke has connected us to Luke 1, the beginning of his “orderly account” to his friend Theophilus whom he wants to “know the certainty of the things you have been taught (Luke 1:4).”  Luke is connecting us with prophecy fulfilled and prophecy that touches our lives today where we are located!  Today we focus on peace.

         But perhaps more interestingly, the word of the Lord came to this promised child, John, now grown, living “in the wilderness.”  Luke sets the text with reference to all the heavy weights of the time, political and religious, plus gives us the lineage of John but amazingly an important message does not appear in those venues.  This is not a news broadcast by CNN from Washington DC.  The word came while John was in the wilderness.  “Wilderness” transports us to the past when God worked with his people leaving Egypt, traveling through the wilderness to the Promised Land.  That was a time of vulnerability, uncertainty and danger but God was there.  In the wilderness they learned dependence on God.  We know that Jesus is going to go into the “wilderness” after his baptism by John and Jesus will be tested.  Jesus will overcome by leaning on the Word of God.  God often comes to us in our wilderness times and we are challenged.

         Today many of us are living in a “wilderness” brought on by the pandemic, brought on by age, or perhaps brought on by disastrous decisions we have made that force us to regroup our lives.  God’s word comes into the wildernesses of our life assuring us of his work and presence so that not only do we see our problems with eyes of hope for tomorrow but also with a peace in our hearts knowing these barren places are not places of abandonment, for God is with us working. May I repeat that:  wilderness places are not places of abandonment and we can have peace in the chaos of the wilderness! Today we hang the banner of PEACE because God is with us in our wildernesses, past, present and future.  It is in these wildernesses that we learn to depend on God and his Word.  “The word of the Lord that came to John” tied the Old Testament prophet Isaiah’s prophecy with John’s present reality and speaks not only to Isaiah and Luke but also to us today.

Prepare the way …

         I guess we can identify with that word!  If retail shops had their way, we would be preparing for Christmas at least starting at Reformation, ok Halloween.  Isaiah was calling his people to prepare the way of the Lord.  Somehow I do not think he is talking about “making a list and checking it twice.”  Let’s just stop for a moment today and think about how we prepare to meet God.

         For some it is indeed a flurry of activity or perhaps good deeds because we somehow think that our “good life” will make it easier for God to welcome us as he comes near.   For others it is the decoration of homes putting up lights.  Perhaps that is like the way we think we might be serving God through big programs that glitter and attract people.  This week we had “Giving Tuesday” when money is doubled by investing in good causes.  None of these are bad in and of themselves.  The question is whether we think our “goodness” earns God’s favor, kind of like indulgences, or are these actions the overflow of a loving heart?  John does not preach actions but a baptism of repentance.  In the wilderness we are lost and need to be transformed to meet Jesus.

         I love the Christmas story of Papa Panov by Leo Tolstoy.   An old widower, shoemaker in a small village in Russian, sat Christmas Eve reading the Nativity story.  If Jesus had come to his house, he would have given him his bed and would have covered him with his special quilt.  His eyes wandered to the small box on the shelf that contained a tiny, perfect pair of shoes he had made for a child.  He would have given those to baby Jesus as his gift!  As he sat by the fire he dozed and dreamt.  He dreamt Jesus stood before him.  Jesus said he would visit Papa Panov Christmas Day but would not identify himself.  Papa Panov awoke excited.  Christmas morning he put on a special pot of coffee.  He opened his front door and saw the bedraggled street sweeper in the cold.  He invited him in and gave him a cup of coffee.  At midday he made a pot of cabbage soup. Again he looked outside and saw a poor young mother with small baby, creeping along the street, making her way to the next town for work.  Papa Panov invited her in, fed the baby milk, and decided to give the baby the pair of shoes.  All afternoon he handed out bowls of soup to the needy.  But he pondered when that special guest would come?  As darkness fell, he decided he had only dreamt.  He would have to wait to meet Jesus. He sat by his fireplace.  Suddenly he was aware he was not alone.  Jesus was present.  Jesus said it was he who came as the sweeper, as the young mother, and as the needy to Papa Panov’s door.  Tolstoy ends the story, “then all was quiet and still. Only the sound of the big clock ticking.  A great PEACE and happiness seemed to fill the room, overflowing Papa Panov’s heart until he wanted to burst out singing and laughing and dancing with joy.”

         Papa Panov did not recognize Jesus working in his life.  Each encounter challenged him.  Each encounter changed him.  As he realized the wilderness was actually a place of meeting with Jesus a great peace filled his heart.  John preaches a baptism of repentance, a change of how we understand life.  He speaks of repentance as a process of transformation and an equalization in preparation for the Messiah. 

Repentance as transformation

“and the crooked shall be made straight,

and the rough ways made smooth”

Preparation is not just dusting off our shelves or hiding our clutter or putting forth our “special treasures” to decorate for Christmas.  It is more than a beautiful tree.  Isaiah spoke of making straight the crooked, the broken places in our life. There is something about “making a list and checking it twice” that brings to light dark shadows in our life, some of the crooked places.  I know the questions that rattle in my mind now.  How do I treat all the kids fairly?  Must I give a present to that person I am frustrated with or even worse carry a grudge against?  Roots of bitterness, of broken relationships that call to be healed, and of lost connections that need to be repaired, surface in my plans.  As I decorate and compare myself to the dazzle of shops and ponder my “impression,” I am convicted of the game of comparisonitis I play in my mind and the insecurities of my heart.  “Am I good enough?” is a question I try to push to the back of my mind.  Perhaps the crooked way is the temptation of maxing out a credit card, borrowing from tomorrow to meet my wants of today.  Perhaps the spiritual disciplines of the season just feel heavy because of the weight of life these days, so pausing to do my personal Advent wreath and light two candles feels somehow hollow.  We have created Blue Christmas services to connect God to people laden by grief of loss, to make straight those crooked paths in a wilderness where they feel alone.  There are so many crooked paths that do not lead directly to God during this season.  Papa Panov felt a deep peace when he realized he was meeting Jesus in those “rough places that became smooth” as he helped someone carry their burden – if only a cup of coffee or a cup of cabbage soup.

         How will we practice repentance this season and put ourselves in a place where we experience the God who wants to give us peace?  For Papa Panov it meant doing kindly and generously the task that presented itself in the moment as he waited.  For us it might mean lighting that candle and sitting in prayer five minutes before bed.  It might mean reading a devotional.  Perhaps a phone calls to apologize and reestablish relationship.  Writing a check to include God in your gift giving was a true delight as we returned to the States and there was more wiggle room in the budget.  It’s a blessing to give, to restore, and to build in a world that is so divided and struggling these days. 

Repentance as equalization!

^“5Every valley shall be filled,
  and every mountain and hill shall be made low,”

This seems to speak of a leveling experience.  Repentance takes my mind off others whom I judge to be higher or lower and focuses me on my walk with God.  What are the valleys and mountains in our lives about which we need to repent?  The most obvious for me is the pit in the stomach I try to fill with food rather than trust in God.  The friend lost weight last week and woe-is-me, I gained.  They are at the top of the mountain and I am in the valley of self-pity.  Perhaps when I look at life through eyes that place others up and me down, or me up and them down, then I need to repent.  My eyes have turned from God to self.  When I am crippled by fear about the future because of finances, health, or relationships then I have created mountains and valleys.  The God of Advent comes as an equalizer.  God did not just send his Word in the past at the time of Isaiah, at the time of John, in the Incarnation of Jesus, or about the future with the Apostle John.  The God who parted the Red Sea, who gave the Ten Commandments, who helped Esther facing Hammon, who closed the mouth of lions for Daniel and quenched the flames for the three men in the fiery furnace, also raised Jesus from the grave and is here today.  He is with the rich and the poor.  He is with the happy and the sad.  He is with the challenged and the gifted.  He is with our grandkids and our aging spouses.  He is with our weird neighbors and with us.  That, my brothers and sisters, can give us peace as we focus on God’s presence, recognized and unrecognized today.

“…the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness…”

 Papa Panov’s dream gave him hope that he would meet Jesus on that Christmas day.  Papa’s Panov’s experience of Jesus at the end of Christmas day with the realization that he had met Jesus in the events of his life that challenged him to trust, brought him great peace.  May we go into this week realizing that God goes with us, beside us, before us, and he has our back…in all that happens.  For sure I can relax and be at peace knowing that.  He is Immanuel, God with us!

         The people of God said, “AMEN!”

First Reading: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14

 ⁹As I watched,
 thrones were set in place,
  and an Ancient One took his throne,
 his clothing was white as snow,
  and the hair of his head like pure wool;
 his throne was fiery flames,
  and its wheels were burning fire.
 ¹⁰A stream of fire issued
  and flowed out from his presence.
 A thousand thousands served him,
  and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.
 The court sat in judgment,
  and the books were opened.
¹³As I watched in the night visions,
 I saw one like a human being
  coming with the clouds of heaven.
 And he came to the Ancient One
  and was presented before him.
 ¹⁴To him was given dominion
  and glory and kingship,
 that all peoples, nations, and languages
  should serve him.
 His dominion is an everlasting dominion
  that shall not pass away,
 and his kingship is one
  that shall never be destroyed.

Psalm: Psalm 93

 ¹The Lord is king, robed in majesty; the Lord is robed in majesty    and armed with strength.
  The Lord has made the world so sure that it cannot be moved.
 ²Ever since the world began, your throne has been established;
  you are from everlasting. 
 ³The waters have lifted up, O Lord, the waters have lifted up their voice;
  the waters have lifted up their pounding waves.
 ⁴Mightier than the sound of many waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea, mightier is the Lord who dwells on high.
 ⁵Your testimonies are very sure,
  and holiness befits your house, O Lord, forever and forevermore.

Second Reading: Revelation 1:4b-8

^4bGrace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, ⁵and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
  To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, ⁶and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
 ⁷Look! He is coming with the clouds;
  every eye will see him,
 even those who pierced him;
  and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen.
  ⁸“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

Gospel: John 18:33-37

³³Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” ³⁴Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” ³⁵Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” ³⁶Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” ³⁷Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON: 

Queen Elizabeth 1 famously said, “I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.”  Turn to your neighbor and share how you would describe a king.

PRAYER: Lord, May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

We have come to the end of the liturgical church year.  Next week we start Advent and tell our faith story looking through the eyes of Luke.  But today we stand in Pilot’s palace and listen to the trial of that babe in Bethlehem who has grown to be a man and is being brought to trial.  Who is Jesus and what has he done?  Is he a king?  We say today is “Christ the King” Sunday but what does that mean?

          Somehow this trial feels a bit similar to cases being described blow by blow on our news today.  Is Steve Bannon guilty of defiance of a congressional summons and hiding information pertinent to January 6?  The trial of Kyle Ritttenhouse is having closing arguments as I write this sermon.  Did he act in self-defense or did he entice the victim into the confrontation?  Then there is the continuing debate about who is guilty for global pollution and what should be the penalty?  My head spins listening to the news each night and listening to the cases being tried in the court of public opinion. I suspect Pilot might have had similar feelings.  The Jews have come to Pilate wanting him to crucify Jesus, that is to say they are accusing Jesus of treason, a capital offense deserving death.  We know the Jews can kill Jesus because later they stone Stephen.  There are many things in their laws that can result in death by stoning.  But John specifically says that prophecy is being fulfilled. The Messiah will die a horrible death. The Jews must have claimed Jesus was calling himself King of the Jews.  The Jews don’t want just death.  They want death on the cross by the Romans.  Crucifixion is a public death by public law for public offense.  Pilate turns and confronts Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Are you the King of the Jews?

         Jesus turns the question back to Pilate and suddenly roles are reversed.  Jesus is questioning Pilate.  “Who says so?”  Who actually called Jesus King of the Jews?  Who is accusing? 

         I looked up where Jesus was first called “King of the Jews.”  Do you remember who first called Jesus “King of the Jews”?  Jesus did not use that title for himself.  It was the wise men who passed through Jerusalem those decades before and asked Herod in Matthew 2:2, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?  We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”  Did you catch that?  Kingship and worship are connected.  Herod did not call his politicians to answer the wise men but called his priests.  Herod called his priests and teachers of the religious law and asked where the Messiah, the Christ, was to be born.  They quoted Old Testament Micah 5:2, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

         Who says Jesus is King?  Prophecy and prophecy known by the wise men.  Prophecy predicted Jesus’ birth as a King.  Isaiah 9:6 also predicted the birth and a whole list of titles.  In fact, many believe going back to creation and the entrance of sin that the arrival of Jesus would crush the head of the serpent even as the serpent would bite his foot.  Foreigners, the wise men, called Jesus “King of the Jews” and now the Jews have claimed he called himself a king.  Our psalm today declares that from eternity “the Lord is king” and nature rises up like waves of the sea to acknowledge him.  Our religious history is full of clues to this claim.

         But ultimately it does not matter “WHO called Jesus King of the Jews.” It matters what you call Jesus.  What do you call Jesus today?  This is Christ the King Sunday and we are all accountable for whether we acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, and the Sent One from God, our Savior, and Our Lord or do we see him as one of the great Gurus like Buddha or Mohamed or Confuses.  Who is Jesus to you today?  Is he your king?  We have journeyed through a liturgical year welcoming Jesus during Advent as the prophesied one who will come again, whose life we studied during Epiphany, with whom we walked to the cross during Lent, and whom we celebrated as resurrected and ascended during Easter season.  During Pentecost we focused on how he changes lives even today.  So now we come to Christ the King Sunday and we bow.  Who says Jesus is King of the Jews?  Christians confess Jesus was not only “King of the Jews” but he is also our King, the Son of God, who rules our everyday actions and who will rule our lives for eternity.  “Who says so?”  We say so!

         Pilate now responds with a question for Jesus.  “What have you done?”  Has Jesus done something that has brought about the legal accusation and has he thus lost the right to claim self-defense. Is he a victim of “the system?”  Is he a victim of a mob or is he guilty as charged?   What set this process in play?  We know his death was prophesized, though “lamb of God” was not so understood by the disciples.  That may not make Jesus, himself, the prophesized one, though.  The disciples were excited about a Messiah to overthrow Rome, but maybe they were wrong.  The Passover feast, the snake raised on the pole by Moses, the scapegoat  killed for sin all pointed to a death but sometimes it is not easy to draw a line from A to B.  Do his actions convict him?  As we traveled through the Liturgical year we could have predicted a confrontation as spies were sent to listen to Jesus teach.  Others were engaging Jesus in trick scenarios.  If a woman were married to seven brothers, to whom would she be married to in eternity.  Really???  They asked about paying taxes?  All these encounters built up tension but his actions of teaching and healing do not necessarily point to kingship. John shares the beginning of the plot to kill Jesus in John 11 when Jesus raised Lazarus from death. 

         “Then, the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the     Sanhedrin.  ‘What are we accomplishing?’ They asked. ‘Here is this      man performing many signs.  If we let him go on like this, everyone    will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away        both our temple and our nation. (John 11:47,48)’”

         What did Jesus do?  He threatened the security of the religious system.  What does Jesus do today?  Jesus threatens the rule of culture in our lives and threatens those structures in which we place our trust.  If we acknowledge Jesus as “Christ the King” today we face a new political and spiritual authority in our life!  Ouch.  We do not jump to our feet and say “AMEN!” to that. 

         Do we really want to live forgiving that guy who cuts us off in traffic?  Do we want to live sharing our wealth with the church? Or the government? We do not want to give up sleeping in on Sunday morning to listen to a possibly boring sermon.  We do not want to share the truth of our lives, those personal spiritual moments, with others who might laugh at us and reject us.  The temples of our lives will be threatened.  Health, wealth, and prosperity may be false idols that faith does not guarantee.  In fact, we might have to experience persecution, torture and death.  We don’t mind youth programs and fun events and great praise music for our faith but when it comes to living by the rules of the kingdom Jesus is King of, we begin to feel a rub.  

         Jesus assures Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world.  It is in eternity that we will truly see Jesus ruling as THE King.  Jesus returns to prophecy and his mission statement.  “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”  The truth is that Jesus is the Messiah that God and Scripture prophesized.  God says so.  What has he done?  He has preached, healed, freed, and resurrected those needy people who came to him.  We know he has died to demonstrate that he is the King who will walk with us through death that has no eternal power over us.  What has Jesus done?  He has acted as God and threatened the Romes of our lives.

         Jesus closes our text today with the identification card of those who live in the Kingdom he, the Christ, reigns over.  “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  Now that is a mouthful.  Jesus is not claiming to be “King of the Jews.”  He is claiming to be king of “everyone.”  That is you and me, not just the Jews.  It includes people from all tribes and nations who come to him. Jesus is bigger than the U. S. American government,  the U.N., and the global summits we hear about today.  I also feel a tear coming to my eyes for it does not say he is king of the perfect, the good guys, those who do good for he was the king of the thief on the cross who pleaded, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  Jesus said, “TODAY you will be with me in Paradise.”  Our deeds do not qualify us because it all depends on what Christ did on the cross.  It depends on his actions…for “everyone who belongs to the truth.” And what did Jesus say?  “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

         “Listens.”  This is an active, present verb!  Salvation is not like our drivers license that we keep in our wallet.  It is not a decision we made at camp in our youth.  It is a relationship.  Listening is different that hearing.  Listening implies to me a two-way conversation that I am actively involved in.  I think it is more than putting in our prayer requests as if we were at McDonalds, our Christmas gift wish for what we would like God to do.  If I am truly listening, I am willing to submit my will to the other.  It does not mean I always obey making the other a dictator but it does imply I am open to the other’s wisdom for issues in my life.  I open my heart to Christ’s kingship in my life.

         “My voice.”  To me that implies it goes beyond obedience to the commandments.  Just loving my neighbor and doing good to others is not the same as listening to Christ’s voice in my life.  Going to church can be like going regularly to Thanksgiving family feasts but we know that meal does not guarantee relationship or love of family as many families have deep issues and conflicts but gather for events.  Listening implies an openness and relationship.

            I go back to the quote by Queen Elizabeth the 1^st,  “I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.”    Jesus stood before Pilate as a humble human being, not at all looking like a king.  Jesus did not embody anything our world would consider kingly.

         But he had “the heart and stomach of a king.”  God proclaimed that Jesus was the embodiment of all it meant to be God.  He had the heart, the love of his creation and would even walk through death for it.  He had the stomach, the guts to do that which was so contrary to human thinking and admiration.  He would walk through death for “everyone..”  And unlike Elizabeth, he would not just be “King of the Jews” but would be the Christ, the King of everyone who belongs to the truth and listens to his voice.

         WHO SAYS SO?   We do!

         WHAT HAS HE DONE?  Saved us broken people in a broken world.

         We need a savior and a King.  We listen to his voice as truth. 

Christ is our King!  AMEN!

First Reading: Daniel 12:1-3

¹“At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. ²Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. ³Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”

Psalm: Psalm 16

 ¹Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you;
  I have said to the Lord, “You are my Lord, my good above all other.”
 ²All my delight is in the godly that are in the land,
  upon those who are noble among the people.
 ³But those who run after other gods
  shall have their troubles multiplied.
 ⁴I will not pour out drink offerings to such gods,
  never take their names upon my lips. 
 ⁵O Lord, you are my portion ^| and my cup;
  it is you who uphold my lot.
 ⁶My boundaries enclose a pleasant land;
  indeed, I have a rich inheritance.
 ⁷I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
  my heart teaches me night after night.
 ⁸I have set the Lord always before me;
  because God is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. 
 ⁹My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices;
  my body also shall rest in hope.
 ¹⁰For you will not abandon me to the grave,
  nor let your holy one see the pit.
 ¹¹You will show me the path of life;
  in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are     pleasures forevermore.

Second Reading: Hebrews 10:11-14 [15-18] 19-25

¹¹Every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. ¹²But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God,” ¹³and since then has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” ¹⁴For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. [¹⁵And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
 ¹⁶“This is the covenant that I will make with them
  after those days, says the Lord:
 I will put my laws in their hearts,
  and I will write them on their minds,”
¹⁷he also adds,
 “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
¹⁸Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.]

  ¹⁹Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), ²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²²let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. ²³Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. ²⁴And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, ²⁵not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Gospel: Mark 13:1-8

¹As [Jesus] came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” ²Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
  ³When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ⁴“Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” ⁵Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. ⁶Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. ⁷When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. ⁸For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON

Turn to your neighbor and see if you can describe a railroad crossing sign..

What color is it?

Is it round, square, rectangular, circular?

Are there letters on it?

There might be words.  What words do you associate with a railroad crossing sign?

According to the Internet, the sign is rectangular, or round.  It is yellow with a black line around the edge.  There is a circle center to the sign. There is a black crisscross .  There are two big Rs in left and right quadrants.

Under the circle may be the words: STOP AND LOOK BEFORE CROSSING,

“STOP, LOOK both ways, LISTEN” are words our parents taught us when crossing a street and words that help us look at our text today.

LET US PRAY:  Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight for you are my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

Stop!  Look! Listen!  We are coming to railroad crossing!  Next Sunday, November 21^st is Christ the King Sunday and that ends the Pentecost season and year B in the liturgical calendar.  We will change from looking at our faith through the eyes of Mark to looking through the eyes of Luke.  November 28^th is the first Sunday of Advent. As we come to the end of the church year, we looked last week at death and resurrection in the raising of Lazarus.  Today’s text attempts to look into the future. The text is called the “Little Apocalypse” because it talks about end times.  Yup, we better Stop, Look, and Listen.  There may be a train coming!

According to the Internet  an anonymous engineer thought about immigrants who did not speak English well and needed a warning at railroad crossings.  Crossbars were put in the shape of an X and the words “stop, look, listen” were posted. Today we have electronic gates and signals to warn us but even as a child I remember being told to take a parent’s hands, stop, look both ways and listen before crossing a street.

         Where are we in this text?  It is the last week of Jesus’ life.  He and the disciples are in Jerusalem and are leaving the Temple. They stop to gaze at the Temple.  It is not the magnificent Temple of Solomon that was destroyed.  This is the temple that was rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah.

Simillarly, our world is not the garden of Eden and life as God planned but we love it. To the disciples the temple they were gazing on was magnificent!  They stopped to admire.  Interestingly Jesus admonishes them because like our parents, he knew the events that were to unfold and the disciples’ misplaced trust.

Why stop?

         We stop before potentially dangerous situations to ponder our options and to assess our situation. We need to learn caution.  Caution does not come naturally.  As children we do not know the safe from the dangerous.  Children chase balls into the street.  Children race to catch the school bus, and may well run in front of a car.  The story is told of the secretary of Winston Churchill, thinking about her roommate she had just left in the ER with a severe asthma attack and due to the deep fog that had settled on London. walked right in front of a bus.  She was distracted. She didn’t stop and look both ways.  Like our sly Fox from last week, we need to learn to sit in front of the cave and proceed with caution.  We hear the stories of youth who like to play chicken with the approaching train and challenge death only to have the car stall or a foot get caught in the tracks. Some actions can have very serious consequences.

         How do we stop?  I would suggest prayer slows us down.

   Perhaps seeking peer advice slows our roll.  We are told we need to learn to distinguish between the urgent and the necessary.  The decisions that must be made right now, now, now are seldom wise.  The salesman who tried to sell us new windows to our house finally said, “This super, duper deal ends if I walk out the door!”  We let him walk.

         So what stops you and calls you to reflect?  The railroad tracks are only one situation that holds potential dangers. For Bethany, it may be the storm clouds gathering and drop of temperature that tells us that winter is coming and it is time to close down the growing season.  Perhaps it is a visit to the doctor and that unwanted diagnosis that is given. Perhaps it is a drop in the stock market.  Maybe Covid.  We learn to STOP because we see railroad tracks ahead, potential danger.

We stop to admire.

         In our text the disciples did not stop because they perceived danger but because they were admiring the Temple.  That which dazzles their eyes, calls to their ears and to their appetites distracts the disciples. Jesus knew the disciples were placing their trust in that which would not last.  The temple would be destroyed. Our culture dazzles us with beauty, health, wealth and fame and we tend to trust these things to guarantee a future.  My teenage son was convinced that if we could buy him Nike tennis shoes, he would be a better basketball player and he would be more noticed!  Judging from all the different types of insurance policies for almost any contingency, we too know that these dazzling aspects of life are valued but also can be wiped out in a moment and fade with time.  Not all that glitters is gold. Jesus responds, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”  Jesus knows the fall of Jerusalem is coming.  Jesus knows that at some point in time he will return and there will be an accounting.  He knows that all people must walk into the cave of death the lion guards, hopefully with him, and nothing this world offers can change that journey.
 

The disciple engages Jesus, “LOOK. Teacher!”  The group stops to admire the Temple.   I am wondering what Bethany would like Jesus to stop and look at today with them?  Do we want him to look at our accomplishments?  Do we want him to look at our problems?  Perhaps we would like him to fix our environment or stop Covid.  For many seeking refuge, they can only worry about getting across the railroad tracks for they know the train of starvation, of homelessness, of addiction, of abuse is barreling down on them. 

         Perhaps looking at the point of pride, the point of pain, the focus of culture is putting our attention in the wrong direction.  We are not seeing the big picture.  Jesus calls the disciples back to the reality that the things of this world will pass away.  That is very hard to say “AMEN” to.  Empires come and go.  Wealth comes and goes.  Health also.  Children come and grow up.  In the end, what is left?

         “Look both ways” is the advise of parents at the railroad tracks.  We do not know if the train is coming to our town or leaving.  So perhaps the advice to look both directions could be interpreted to mean that when we come to points of reflection, when we stop, we need to look to the past and to the future, both directions.  As the Jews look to the past they continually retell the story of the flight from Egypt and God’s faithfulness in the midst of struggle.  As we look to our past, can we identify God’s hand of deliverance in difficult times?  As we look to the future we can anticipate similar presence.  We look to God’s promises. Reading the Bible tells stories of God’s faithfulness and testimonies tell of how God meets us. We read, listen to others and share because it gives us courage to face the future.

         The disciples ask the next question, “When?”  When will all this take place?  Not only which direction is the train coming from but how far down the tracks is the train?  Maybe we can sneak across or circle around the barrier.  I know I have thought about it.  Jesus does not tell the disciples to listen but he does tell them that there will be many voices to listen to.  Many people will come in God’s name with sermons that can lead us astray.  Many will come claiming to be Jesus or at least speaking in his name.  We are not to be deceived.  We will hear rumors of wars.  There will be national conflicts, environmental problems, and famines.  Hhhmmmm.  Sounds like the evening news minus any mention of God.  Like every generation before us we wonder if the social, environmental, economic, psychological and whatever else problems mean we are in end times.  This was popular talk in the 60s and 70s and is out of vogue now but the signs are still there.  We are broken people living in a broken world that needs a savior.  I should hear a loud “AMEN” to that one!  We are broken people in a broken world!

         Jesus speaks:  DO NOT BE DECEIVED and DO NOT BE ALARMED!

         As we come to discussions of end times our text encourages us not to trust in the things of this world like the Temples built with hands, do not trust that people are truly going to do what only God can do, and we must keep our eyes on him.  He knows the times.  He knows the hours. He knows us.  When difficulties come, we must STOP and take his hand.  Seek his advice.  We must LOOK at his faithfulness in the past and his promises to hold the future.  And we must LISTEN to his word – do not be deceived and do not be alarmed.  This is only the beginning of the birth pangs and he will see us through the delivery to a whole new world where God reigns.  That is a beautiful thought.

First Reading: Isaiah 25:6-9

 ⁶On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
  a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
  of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
 ⁷And he will destroy on this mountain
  the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
  the sheet that is spread over all nations;
  ⁸he will swallow up death forever.
 Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
  and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
  for the Lord has spoken.
 ⁹It will be said on that day,
  Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
  This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
  let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

Psalm: Psalm 24

 ¹The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
  the world and those who dwell therein.
 ²For the Lord has founded it upon the seas
  and established it upon the rivers.
 ³Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord,
  and who may stand in God’s holy place?
 ⁴Those of innocent hands and purity of heart,
  who do not swear on God’s being, nor do they pledge by what is       false.
 ⁵They shall receive blessing from the Lord
  and righteousness from the God of their salvation.
 ⁶Such is the generation of those who seek you, O Lord,
  of those who seek your face, O God of Jacob.
 ⁷Lift up your heads, O gates; and be lifted up, O everlasting doors,
  that the King of glory may come in.
 ⁸Who is this King of glory?
  The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle!
 ⁹Lift up your heads, O gates; and be lifted up, O everlasting doors,
  that the King of glory may come in.
 ¹⁰Who is this King of glory?
  Truly, the Lord of hosts is the King of glory.

Second Reading: Revelation 21:1-6a

¹I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ²And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
 “See, the home of God is among mortals.
 He will dwell with them;
 they will be his peoples,
 and God himself will be with them;
 ⁴he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
 Death will be no more;
 mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
 for the first things have passed away.”
  ⁵And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” ^6aThen he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

Gospel: John 11:32-44

³²When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵Jesus began to weep. ³⁶So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

  ³⁸Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON

Allow me to share another Aesop Fable that perhaps will speak to our text today.

The Old Lion & the Fox

An old Lion, whose teeth and claws were so worn that it was not so easy for him to get food as in his younger days, pretended that he was sick. He took care to let all his neighbors know about it, and then lay down in his cave to wait for visitors. And when they came to offer him their sympathy, he ate them up one by one.

The Fox came too, but he was very cautious about it. Standing at a safe distance from the cave, he inquired politely after the Lion’s health. The Lion replied that he was very ill indeed, and asked the Fox to step in for a moment. But Master Fox very wisely stayed outside, thanking the Lion very kindly for the invitation.

“I should be glad to do as you ask,” he added, “but I have noticed that there are many footprints leading into your cave and none coming out. Pray tell me, how do your visitors find their way out again?”

Let us pray:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

Today’s text for All Saints Sunday has a cave in it.  Did you notice?  It is the cave of death that holds Lazarus.  The story is familiar to most of us.  Two sisters, Mary and Martha, were good friends of Jesus and their brother, Lazarus, who became sick so they sent for Jesus.  Jesus delayed and did not arrive until Lazarus had been dead four days!  What kind of love is that???  Jesus arrives at the wake with his 12 disciples and is first met by Martha,  “If only you had been here….”  Jesus tells Martha his famous statement, “I am the resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in  me will never die. (John 11:25)”  That promise precedes our text for today.  Our text picks up as Mary and mourning Jews join Jesus and Martha and again we hear, “If only you had been here…”  The Fox stands at the front of the lion’s cave and realizes footprints go into the cave but none come out.  He may well have wailed, “If only Jesus had been here!” 

         This Sunday Bethany remembers thirteen saints who have gone into the cave of death this year and we have not seen any footprints coming out.  We join with the Jews who came to Mary and Martha to grieve, to be a presence in the face of loss, and to lament. We stand today and remember the lives of those who meant so much to us.  Most of them I knew briefly or visited and they changed my life.  They left footprints in my life.  But we do not stand hopeless for we know something the sly Fox did not!

         When we think of saints, we often think of people like Mother Teresa who worked with the poor in Calcutta.  We think of St. Francis of Assisi. We often think of people who have entered the cave of death and have been canonized officially by the Catholic church.  This is not the Lutheran understanding of saints.  Lutherans would understand all Christians in heaven and on earth to be regarded as saints. Let me say that again, all Christians living in heaven and living on earth are saints.

         Today, we honor the cloud of saints who have gone before, modeling for us the life of faith with its challenges and rewards but we must not forget the crowd of saints that surrounds us, the living saints.  Living Christians we understand to be saints.  God considers us saints because of Christ’s death on the cross.  Let us read:

• Psalm 31:23 “Love the Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts haughtily.”
• Romans 1:7  “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
• Romans 8:27  “And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

All these verses refers to people alive now.  So as we stand here today, we are aware of the clouds of saints who have gone before, the crowd of saints that surround us on our earthly journey, and the children, the saints to be who follow in our footsteps. 

         Standing in the shadow of the Reformation last Sunday, as Lutherans we do not believe the saints mediate between us and God for redemption. We claim, Christ alone!  I would assert that those who have gone before us into the cave of death, have exited by the back door into eternity and eternal life with God.  Our Old Testament reading in Isaiah affirms that there is a day coming when we will all be united and we will  rejoice with those who have gone before:

         “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save         us.  This is the Lord for whom we have waited;  let us be glad and    rejoice in his salvation. (Isaiah 25:9)

Like the Fox, we do not see footprints of saints leaving the cave of death because the cave is a transition to be with God.  Revelation affirms our belief that God is not like that old lion, our enemy the devil who prowls around seeking whom he can devour and who seejs to destroy us but God is the Alpha and Omega making us all new.  The footprints of saints enter the cave of death but only to travel through and exit to the other side.  God goes through the cave protecting them.

         We do not see footprints exiting, but does that mean there are no footprints.  I have been suggesting this week that the cloud of saints who have passed through death have left footprints, perhaps not on the ground but in our lives, as we see pictures that capture memories of them and remind us who we are and how they are part of our lives.  The memorabilia that sits around our homes reminds us of them.  The songs we enjoyed together, when played, bring back memories.  All these footprints that lie within our hearts speak to the eternity that waits when we will be welcomed into their presence.

         Mary and Martha lamented, “IF you had been here…”  Our world agrees with the Jews who say, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”  Perhaps like the Fox who refuses to enter the cave, we believe we can avoid death and trials if only Jesus were present.  The evil one tries to convince us that if we only have enough faith then life would be happy and we could delay death. If we have problems then we suspect God does not love us.  If we have trialss then for sure we believe God has abandoned us.  But I would present the idea this morning that Jesus is present in the “crowd of saints,”  He is present today in you, the people of God.  You walk with each other on the journey of life and you are present during the hard times.  Jesus is not absent but is present in the saints – the Christians- people who are saved by grace and live around us. 

         Ooops, now we face the problem.  The cloud of saints with God are in glory but the crowd of saints that surrounds us is a bit of a motley crew.  God sees us as saints because of Christ but we are still sinners in this world. We are in process.  We are being sanctified and often we fall short.  Our human nature that is being made new, often fails.  We start our service confessing that we have not loved God with our whole heart and we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves.  We are saints in process with warts and irregularities that challenge each other.  We should all wear signs, “BE patient, God is not finished with me yet!!!”

         We honor the cloud of saints today who have gone before and who have blessed our life.  We seek to live with the crowd of saints who surround us and who are in process.  I mention a third group, the children of saints.  That makes three “c’s” and we all know three points makes a good sermon, right!  I would be less than honest if I did not mention that not all people are saints.  Not all people have become Christians.  Now this is a bit of a touchy subject but as we look at our world and as we remember the dark places in our lives, we know this is true.  I am not talking about the “Oops, sorry I hurt your feelings” mistakes, but the real evil experienced in abuse, in war, in experiences underlying mental illness and the evil that so terribly scars so many lives. 

         We come to an amazing truth in Christianity.  Life starts with death!  I suspect not too many “amens” on that one.  We read in Romans 6:4, “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”  In our baptism, we identify with Christ and with his death, and that opens the door to life.  As my husband would say, “That’s deep!”  That’s a verse we should underline in our Bible so it jumps out an reminds us when we get discouraged.

         As Lutherans, we believe that all people have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23.  We bring our babies and new believers to be baptized because we believe baptism is a sacrament, a sacred act, whereby through our faith and testimony or through the faith of the parents, we are marked with the cross on our brow and on our breast.  We commit ourselves and our children to Christ believing he walks through that cave of death with us.  He is the one faithful to that covenant formed, not us.  He went to the cross and rose again proving he has conquered death.  No saint, as wonderful as they may have been in life, has resurrected and can promise eternal life.  No living saint, as wonderful as their testimony may be and as godly as their life may be, can offer to go through death with us.  It is only as we identify with the resurrected Christ that we can be sure the cave of death has a back door to eternity.

         Unlike Aesop’s Fables that capture part of the great truths of life, we believe there is a greater truth that Christ revealed through his life.  Jesus came as the incarnate God, the Redeemer, and sends his Holy Spirit.  It is a truth we share with others.  We can walk up to that sly Fox sitting before the Lion in his cave and we can agre with the Fox that footprints go in but do not come out but we can share the good news that those people we honor today did walk into the cave but walked with someone greater than the lion and walked out the back door. 

         They were met by Jesus who said, “Unbind him, and let him go.”  We will meet our friends again in eternity.  The footprints they left in our lives comfort us as we grieve.  The crowd of saints around us, walks with us towards that cave.  The Holy Spirit walks with us. But as we enter the cave, we will hear the voice of our Savior welcoming us into eternity and he will say, “Unbind”.  Wow!!! 

The people of God said, “AMEN! Praise be to God!”

.

First Reading: Jeremiah 31:7-9

 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.

Psalm: Psalm 126

 ¹When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
  then were we like ^| those who dream.
 ²Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.
  Then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” 
 ³The Lord has done great things for us,
  and we are glad indeed.
 ⁴Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
  like the watercourses of the Negeb.
 ⁵Those who sowed with tears
  will reap with songs of joy.
 ⁶Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed,
  will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.

Second Reading: Hebrews 7:23-28

²³The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; ²⁴but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. ²⁵Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
  ²⁶For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. ²⁷Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself. ²⁸For the law appoints as high priests those who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

Gospel: Mark 10:46-52

⁴⁶As [Jesus] and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. ⁴⁷When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁸Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁹Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” ⁵⁰So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. ⁵¹Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” ⁵²Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  Turn to your neighbor and share about your last “fast food” ordering experience. If you are not into “fast foods” then reflect on your last restaurant experience.

PRAYER:  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

How many of you have heard of the sandwich principle?  One version goes like this, if you are going to give a criticism, always sandwich it between complements: complement or point to a strength, critique, then compliment and affirm relationship.  Our text today is an interesting Burger King Super Whopper.  Lots of meat between two buns with lots of condiments.  Let’s see if we can bite into it.  Theologians have titled this whopper story, “Blind Bartimaeus.”  We are going to look at three “Rs”:  Road, Reason and Robe.  I think we pray before we eat so let’s us say a quick prayer in this drive thru.  “Lord, for the food we are about to receive, may we be thankful.  May it strengthen our bodies, minds and souls to serve you. Amen.”

ROAD

Jesus and disciples have been on a journey to Jerusalem.  If we go back to chapter 8 of Mark, we find Jesus healing a blind man at the beginning of  the journey and today we have a healing of a blind man, Bartimaeus, as we near the end of the journey.  Between these two miracles dealing with blindness, three times Jesus tries to tell the disciples what they are about to encounter when they reach Jerusalem.  Enroute we meet various people wanting to be part of the coming kingdom and their perception that Jesus is the coming Messiah, about to usher in this kingdom.  Last week we heard James and John quibbling about their positions in the kingdom they think is about to arrive.

         Jesus has been “on the way” but today’s text places the group leaving Jericho.  The road to Jericho should shake up our memories as we pick up the bun, the context of this episode.  Remember Joshua fighting the battle of Jericho?  Jericho was on the other side of the Jordon the Israelites crossed from wandering in the wilderness.  It was the entrance to the Promised Land.  Could we be coming to the Promised Land, the fulfillment of promise?  Jericho “was commonly known as the ‘oldest city in the world.’  It was called “The City of Palm Trees.”  Perhaps it is like arriving at Palm Springs when traveling to Los Angeles.  We are getting close but have not arrived.  We are all “on the way” with Jesus and drawing closer to the Promised Land.

         Leaving Jericho, we find a blind beggar sitting by the side of the road.  Jesus has used this road in a parable telling about the Good Samaritan who encountered a man beaten up by thieves and left to die.  In the parable, the “good guys” walk past this victim of life but the Good Samaritan stops and helps the person.  “Who is the neighbor?” Jesus asked.  Today we meet another man beaten up by life and left to beg for the leftovers of life from whomever might notice or hear his plea.  The crowds are trying to hush him and erase him, trying to walk by.  But Jesus notices and calls Bartimaeus forth.  By the end of the text, Bartimaeus is walking beside Jesus to enter Jerusalem.  This healing is sandwiched between being discarded by the side of the road and being on the road with Jesus, between blindness and sight.

         Before we hurry to the “meat” let us reflect a moment.  Where are we in this story?  Perhaps some of you today feel sidelined by life, by age, by illness, by language, by disabilities or even finances.  So many things push us to the side of the faith road, begging for help.  It seems like the “crowd” blocks us from accessing Jesus as he passes by and we cry out, “help.”  Perhaps we think Jesus only cares about those successful churches that attract the crowds and we are discouraged wondering if Jesus even notices the ministry and struggles of Bethany.  It is possible to feel that way some days.  You need a “Blind Bartimaeus” sandwich today!

REASON   

         We are about to reach the ordering box that speaks to us and asks what we want.  Blindness that has created a tremendous hunger within Bartimaeus, drives him to yell out when he hears Jesus is passing.  Our struggles drive us to cry out for “food.”  Unlike anyone else in the Gospel of Mark, including the disciples, Bartimaeus addresses Jesus as “Son of David.”  Note, we are not in Israel yet but crossing the border.  I think we must assume Bartimaeus is uneducated, not a priest or theologian, not the rich man who knew the law and had kept it from his youth, and certainly not a disciple worrying about out position in the new kingdom.  It is likely he was not an Israelite. Nope, this is someone living at the bottom of the social ladder, a blind man who sees with the eyes of his heart a  truth. Jesus is Son of David.  Bartimaeus calls to the compassion of a Messiah that is true humanity and understands his pain.  He calls to the heart of Jesus, over the crowd that is trying to hush him and erase him.  His hunger drives him to yell out and persist in seeking Jesus.

         Now we have several self-reflective questions.  Do I see myself as blind, pleading with Jesus for help, or am I one of the “blessed” coming to church as I was taught, looking for a good sermon, seeking to be with friends, a part of the faithful crowd of followers?  Ouch.  Perhaps the question to ponder is whom Bethany might be trying to hush and subtly blocking from accessing Jesus.  That is a painful and hard question.  The prayer is then – open our eyes Lord for we are blind to our faults.  The only other alternative is that we might be on the wrong road and not even see Jesus passing by.  Let’s hope no one is on the wrong road and that those of us on the right road will be willing to tell the lost where “the meat” is.

         Friends bring the blind man to Jesus in chapter 8 of Mark and Jesus spits and creates eyes that see.  At first the man only sees people like trees and so there is round two when Jesus touches him and he is healed.  Sometimes Jesus has to create the eyes to see.  This kind of blindness needs the touch of God and so prayers of faithful friends who care.  We carry the blind to Jesus because they cannot access him by themselves.  They cannot see.  Bartimaeus, though, is told to come to Jesus.  He is called forth from the sidelines to the center of the road.  This time, Jesus only speaks and his word is able to call Baritmaeus forth. The Word of God is able to call us forth from our blindness today to join him on the journey to the Promised Land.  We must never be discouraged at the reading of the Word.

         The crowd now stops hindering and hushing and calls Bartimaeus forth.  Ahhhh, even here is a lesson for often the church acts as an affirmation and identification of spiritual life within others, enabling our youth to claim their walk beside Jesus. Evangelism is not the only gift.  Pastors are needed but the crowd, ordinary Christians who faithfully pray, who faithfully escort “the other” to healing are also important.  Who are you encouraging to come to Jesus today?

         Now our quarter pounder becomes a free upgrade to a half-pounder sandwich.  The presenting  reason for crying out to Jesus opens the door for our real order.  No long is it hunger that is driving us.  Jesus asks Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?”  Now there is the million-dollar question.  What do we want Jesus to do for us?  Think carefully!  On Burger King’s menu there are many options.  Do we really know what we want from God today?

         Solomon asked for wisdom to govern God’s people.  His wisdom did not protect him from the harem.  Hezekiah asked for 15 more years of life but then got in trouble showing his wealth to the emissaries of the enemy.  Namaan wanted to be healed of leprosy but had to bath in the Jordon and had to be encouraged by his servants to humble himself.  We often say, “Be careful what you pray for!”  If we pray for patience, we may get trials that teach us patience!  Jesus asks and does not assume but asks Bartimaeus what he wants. What do we want?  Perhaps our song is

          “Open my eyes, Lord, I want to see Jesus.    

         Open my ears Lord that I might hear his voice. 

         Open my heart that I might feel his presence!”

Bartimaeus responds. “My teacher, let me see again.”   Prayer answered!

The man is not sent to the temple to satisfy the priests.  He is not told to not tell anyone.  He is not sent home to tell others.  He follows Jesus on the road to Jerusalem and the cross.

THE ROBE

There is one more interesting detail we can consider this morning in our text.   It’s not the meat to our sandwich but it might be the dressings.  The robe.  Nope we are not talking about Richard Douglas and the movie, “The Robe.”  Mark records for us that when Jesus calls Bartimaeus to come forth, Bartimaeus throws off his robe and jumps up to go to Jesus.  Unlike the young man two weeks ago who left Jesus sad because he, the man, had many possessions, this beggar throws away his possession. 

         The robe is somehow a status symbol.  Robes seem to be mentioned in several Biblical scenes:  at the cross the soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ robe, the woman with bleeding believed if only she could touch Jesus’ robe she would be healed, and people put the sick on the roads Jesus walked on so they could touch his robe and be healed.  The robe of Bartimaeus is cast off though.  In Kenya, handicapped were placed by the roads to beg.  The robe would have protected Bartimaeus from the sun.  It could have been used to nap on. Or it could have been laid out like his collection plate for people to throw their gifts on.  Bartimaeus threw away his security blanket and went to Jesus.  Bartimaeus was anticipating transformation.  Jesus confirms by saying, “Go, your faith has made you well.”

         With these words, Mark changes this story from just another healing of a blind person with a name, Bartimaeus, to a lesson about faith for disciples.  When Jesus finds us, we are sitting blind by the side of the road.  It does not matter if we are infants in the arms of our parents or wayward teens lost in modern culture, or little ole elders looking death in the eye.  We are blind and helpless, sitting by the side of the road of life.  We have no motion and we are dependent on the help of others to survive.  The crowds blur our access to Jesus.  We are next to the ROAD, not on the ROAD.

         We are all sinners and we all have a REASON to call out for help.  None of us is an island and we cannot make it through life by ourselves. But when we learn that Jesus is passing, we can cry out.  Jesus, son of David, God in the flesh with a heart of compassion and not far off in the clouds observing and judging – have mercy on us.  God feels your pain!

         When Jesus calls our name we will be burdened and ROBEd in many cares and concerns.  As we throw off those robes that surround us and approach Jesus, we hear the question, “What do you want me to do for you?”  What do we want Jesus to do for us today, for our family, for our community, for our church and for our world?  Jesus calls us into relationship and prayer.  Next week you will bow at the altar for communion and receive his body and his blood as symbols that he is in you, on the road with you, and giving you sight.  Wow. 

The people of God said, “AMEN!!”

First Reading: Isaiah 53:4-12

 ⁴Surely he has borne our infirmities
  and carried our diseases;
 yet we accounted him stricken,
  struck down by God, and afflicted.
 ⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions,
  crushed for our iniquities;
 upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
  and by his bruises we are healed.
 ⁶All we like sheep have gone astray;
  we have all turned to our own way,
 and the Lord has laid on him
  the iniquity of us all.

 ⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
  yet he did not open his mouth;
 like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
  and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
  so he did not open his mouth.
 ⁸By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
  Who could have imagined his future?
 For he was cut off from the land of the living,
  stricken for the transgression of my people.
 ⁹They made his grave with the wicked
  and his tomb with the rich,
 although he had done no violence,
  and there was no deceit in his mouth.

 ¹⁰Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
 When you make his life an offering for sin,
  he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
 through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.
  ¹¹Out of his anguish he shall see light;
 he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
  The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
  and he shall bear their iniquities.
 ¹²Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
  and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
 because he poured out himself to death,
  and was numbered with the transgressors;
 yet he bore the sin of many,
  and made intercession for the transgressors.

Psalm: Psalm 91:9-16

 ⁹Because you have made the Lord your refuge,
  and the Most High your habitation,
 ¹⁰no evil will befall you,
  nor shall affliction come near your dwelling.
 ¹¹For God will give the angels charge over you,
  to guard you in all your ways.
 ¹²Upon their hands they will bear you up,
  lest you strike your foot against a stone. 
 ¹³You will tread upon the lion cub and viper;
  you will trample down the lion and the serpent.
 ¹⁴I will deliver those who cling to me;
  I will uphold them, because they know my name.
 ¹⁵They will call me, and I will answer them;
  I will be with them in trouble; I will rescue and honor them.
 ¹⁶With long life will I satisfy them,
  and show them my salvation. 

Second Reading: Hebrews 5:1-10

¹Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. ²He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; ³and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. ⁴And one does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
  ⁵So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him,
 “You are my Son,
  today I have begotten you”;
⁶as he says also in another place,
 “You are a priest forever,
  according to the order of Melchizedek.”
  ⁷In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. ⁸Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; ⁹and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, ¹⁰having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Gospel: Mark 10:35-45

³⁵James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” ³⁶And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” ³⁷And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” ³⁸But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” ³⁹They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; ⁴⁰but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
  ⁴¹When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. ⁴²So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  A Sans story:  How the Zebra Got His Stripes

Long ago, when animals were still new in Africa, the weather was very hot, and what little water there was remained in a few pools and pans.  One of these remaining water pools was guarded by a boisterous baboon, who claimed that he was the ‘lord of the water’ and forbade anyone from drinking at his pool.

One fine day when a zebra came down to have a drink of water, the baboon, who was sitting by his fire next to the waterhole, jumped up and barked in a loud voice. ‘Go away, intruders. This is my pool and I am the lord of the water.’

‘The water is for everyone, not just for you?,’ The zebra shouted back.

‘If you want some of the water, you must fight for it,’ returned the and in a moment the two were locked in combat.  Back and forth they went fighting, raising a huge cloud of dust, until with a mighty kick, the zebra sent the baboon flying high up among the rocks of the cliff behind them. The baboon landed with a smack on his seat, taking all the hair clean off, and to this very day, he still carries the bare patch where he landed.

The tired and bruised young zebra, not looking where he was going, staggered back through the baboon’s fire, which scorched him, leaving black burn stripes across his white fur.  The shock of being burned, sent the zebra galloping away to the savannah plains, where he has stayed ever since.

The baboon and his family, however, remain high up among the rocks where they bark defiance at all strangers, and when they walk around, they still hold up their tails to ease the smarting rock-burn of their bald patched bottoms.

Let us pray:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

Today we are still on the road to Jerusalem and Jesus has just told the disciples for the third time what to expect – they are going to Jerusalem and he, Jesus, will be turned over to the chief priests, condemned, killed and will resurrect three days later.  The disciples heard, “We are going to Jerusalem…” and their ears turned off and their minds filled in the blanks.  Yes!  Jesus is going to do his thing.  He is going to become the long awaited Messiah and deliver the Jews from the Romans.  Israel’s days of glory are soon to be restored! 

         Will the disciples never have ears that hear?  Will we never be able to wait for Jesus to finish his sentence, to finish his work in our life?  We open our text today with James and John, speaking like two small boys, coming to a parent and making a request.  “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”  James and John boldly ask for blanket approval before requesting for positions of authority in the new kingdom they are sure is about to arrive. We are going to hear words about the kingdom but are our ears listening and more than the disciples did?

         How many of us can remember writing our wish list for Christmas?  Seldom did I receive what I wanted.  Instead of a car at college, my parents gave me a bicycle.  When I got married I was sure “happy ever after” was next..  But marriage is work.  I finally had the first grandchild and my parents were so pleased.  That baby cried all the time.  Life is a bit like that.  We have our dreams, expectations and wants that we bring to Jesus and probably much like James and John, we want approval before we ask. We want that healing we are praying for.  We want that spouse that seems so right.  Or perhaps a job that will take us places.  OK, we just want and for sure God answers prayer if we have enough faith.

          “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 

Let’s look at that request.  I suspect, hidden within this request is an unspoken request for love and affirmation.  If you love me, you will fulfill my request. We may not admit it but often we ask, believing that the other’s love will grant the request. If Jesus loves us, surely he will not want us to feel pain and so we ask for healing. We do not see the whole picture but jump to our heart’s desire, not what God is trying to impart to us.  Do what we ask, not what you know is best.

         Jesus redirects the two apostles.  You do not know what you are asking.  Did I hear an “AMEN!”  I suspect not.  Jesus tries to explain that their request for seats of honor and power has hidden trials and testing.  They will have to go through experiences, the baptism and cup of suffering like what Jesus is about to face.  James and John believe they can do it but I suspect that even as Peter denied that he would desert Jesus, the truth is that we are all weak and only succeed with the Spirit’s help.  The other ten realize this conversation is going on and they too want to be part of the ruling hierarchy in the new kingdom.  All the disciples want positions of influence. None are truly innocent.  None of them truly understand what is about to unfold.  None of us know what the future holds. 

         Jesus refuses to cement the future in place with promises that mean nothing.  He did not promise them and he does not promise us positions of power, or freedom from suffering, or even to give us wealth.  Jesus promises to be with us, to send the Spirit that guides and comforts us.  He promises to be a refuge we can run to when we are weary, a source of wisdom when we encounter trials, and so much more.  He does not promise his followers the goodies of this world.  The disciples have not listened closely and Jesus again turns their attention to the nature of his kingdom.

         God is building a kingdom that is not like the kingdoms of the Gentiles!  The kingdom of heaven will not be like the Romans or even like the American government.  There will not be leaders who are tyrants.  We certainly look at world leaders today and ponder the power they carry, whether we speculate on China displaying nuclear weapons this week, Russia and the reign of Putin or the USA where we throw back and forth comments on the leadership of Biden vs. Trump and where Mitch McConnell will land…oh my goodness. It is enough to give us a headache or heartache.  Jesus is saying that heaven will not be like leadership as we experience it in our world today.  Leadership is not about domination.

         The flip side of this coin for those who feel invisible to leadership, who feel oppressed and overlooked, there will be equal voice and justice.  They will not be taxed into poverty or beaten into subjection and certainly will not experience themselves as “the conquered” or “the slave” of a power that is foreign to them.  The kingdom of heaven will not be like our politics today with powerful leaders and refugees seeking a haven.  That is not the model we are to live as followers of Jesus.  Jesus victory will not be a military victory. It will not be a show of force. But I do suspect there will be a victory dance.

         Jesus continues, “but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant.”  We have coined the word “servant leadership.”  We hear these words but they are so counter-cultural that it is just hard to imagine. How do we understand what Jesus is saying?  For me, I look to the Gospels that describe the type of life Christ lived among us.  He healed the sick that often did not even make a profession of faith.  He associated with all levels of society and often was critiqued.  He enjoyed fellowship in homes of the rich and the poor.  No fancy chariot for Jesus but lots of walking and a donkey to enter Jerusalem.  I do not read of one power encounter with the Roman invaders subjugating the Jews.  Even in the Garden of Gethsemane he did not use power.  He had words for the religious hierarchy but he also met with them.  He taught whenever and wherever and not just on Sabbath nor just at the Temple.  He taught from a boat, on a mountain, by a well, and next to a bath.  Flexible and humble might be words we would use to describe how “servant” is lived out in the life of Christ.

         Tyrannical leadership will not characterize the kingdom of heaven.  Servant leadership will characterize the kingdom.  And, lastly the Apostle Mark says that Jesus came “to give his life a ransom for many.”  Jesus is not just an inspiring example of an innocent death by a holy person. Jesus is not an inspiration.  He is a redeemer. Mark indicates that Christ’s death will liberate us from a dominating power that has us enslaved and deceived.  By breaking the power of death, Jesus makes an ultimate statement of the difference between the kingdom of earth and the kingdom of heaven.  The kingdom of earth has tyrannical leaders, enslaves people and its followers end in death.  The kingdom of heaven has servant leadership, is characterized by fulfilled and meaningful lives, and ends in eternal relationship with God.

         The text today challenges us to ponder our concept of the kingdom and how we live it’s foreshadow in our lives today.  Are we looking for power and honor and goodies that prove to us that Jesus loves us?  Are we willing to be last and to serve?  I suspect for many, we see Christianity as seeking those seats of recognition like James and John.  Lord, open our ears that we may hear!

         So let us go back to the story of how the zebra got his stripes.  I like this story because like the zebra, Christians are a bit of a black and white affair.  We have our feet in two worlds, the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven.  I would like to think when we become Christians we are then white zebras scarred by the black soot from the trials with evil.  Some days we ask silly questions like James and John – give me what I want and prove you love me.  We fight with evil over the pool of goodies that we need to survive in this world.  But like that zebra we fight so that all animals can come and drink the living water that is meant for all.  The saying in Kenya is that you never see a think zebra.  They survive on the plains.  They are beautiful.  Christians too may face trials and battles with that ole baboon that likes to sit up in the rocks and bark at us and we may be scarred by the battles and be a bit stripped but ultimately we know we have been ransomed.  Christ cared and walked through death, conquering its power that we may live with him forever drinking the water of life.  Thank you Lord!  And the people of God said, “Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus!”