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During the 60’s, with the Vietnam protests and its racial upheaval, with marches & riots and even students shot by the National Guard the United States seemed hopelessly divided. I had one Anti-Vietnam War church member spit on by another parishioner who was Pro-War, as he held a sign at the Memorial Day Parade down Main St. Some wondered if America could ever again unite and deal with our problems, or rise to the occasion as we had in WWII, and be able to respond as ‘one people’ to threats that might arise in the world. By the end of the mid 70’s the question was raised; “Were we so dominated by our national angst and our seeming self-loathing that a uniting vision could ever bring us together in patriotic unity and purpose again?”
We were still languishing in the aftereffects of that morass when 9/11 happened there was an immediate surge of patriotism and young men and women rushed to the sign up for military duty. There was a surge in our identity as Americans. Churches even had a brief rise in attendance. All that was needed, it seemed, was some clear discernable threat that united us again and stirred a call on our sense of faith and duty. Of course, all that unity, has dissolved in the last 20 years and some of the same old questions are being asked about our democracy again as were asked in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
My point in talking about our chaotic last 60 years is simply to point to the sense of call and duty on the part of the disciples, and in the early church, in response to Jesus. What held the church together as it expanded out into the Roman Empire? What made the disciples so suddenly commit themselves to Jesus as they listened along the lake shore? What made the disciples respond so totally as they did? -They gave up family duties and committed themselves wholeheartedly the rest of their lives.
Rationally, one might say, patriotism may have been a small part. The frustration over Rome’s control over Israel served to strengthen Jewish identity and increased the longing for the Messiah the Prophets had forecast. –But certainly, the thrust of their fervor was brought by their sense that God was doing something new in the world, and that Jesus was a part of that action. Jesus’ message struck a chord of faith and hope that gave them a sense of commitment to God and to each other. God, and God’s hope for the world, became the cause which brought them to use their lives in a way that no one could have predicted, in spite of persecution and even death.
Fast forward just 20 years from Matthew’s calling story, and Paul is writing to the church at Corinth about unity in Christ. They had become divided in their loyalties. They were splintered over small issues of theology and faith, and even over differences in background and status. It was a diverse congregation. Cliques had developed. Some were wealthy some were not. Some came from Jewish backgrounds, some from Gentile. Some were highly educated some were not. Some even were slaves. Paul was adamant, -none of that matters, we are to see each other through the eyes of Christ, and in commitment to Christ. Paul’s theology included a radical sense of Christian identity, an inclusiveness, with which churches have long struggled. It has been noted, you know, that Sunday morning is still one of the most segregated times in American life. Slaves in America, of course, if they were allowed in church, were relegated to the balcony. They then developed their own churches. -It is a part of our history like it or not. And who can forget that September 15, of this year it will mark just 60 years since white racists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young African American girls who were attending Sunday School.
Martin Luther King’s charged eulogy for these small children spoke of them as martyrs for the cause of justice, Dr. King said that “These girls have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism…. they have something to say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution.” While all of us today would decry the deaths of those Sunday School girls, and many more since, churches still struggle over the implications of racism and how to address it and remedy it. It remains a part of the divisions of our nation. While all of us here might decry racism, the seeds of racial bitterness linger in the hearts of many, even those who claim faith in Jesus. A faith that should unite us over basic human rights has failed to overcome old prejudices and bring us where we ought and need to be,
More recently, churches have come to stress and struggle over issues around sexuality. Issues such as Gay marriage and transgender issues have brought many churches to the brink of division. Back in 2007, the United Methodist pastor, Rev. Frank Schaefer, was stripped of his credentials for presiding over the marriage of his gay son. The divide has only grown since. A whole group of churches in the south have officially severed their tie with the United Methodist denomination over the issue. The divisions move along the lines of the Civil War divisions over slavery. And did you see that the Church of England presiding Bishops voted just this month not to allow gay marriage in the church. On the Catholic side, Pope Francis has tried to ever so slightly move the Catholic Church towards a more accepting position on Gay rights, but the forces of resistance within the church are strong and the orthodoxy of the past holds sway. –It might seem incredible to many of us, but that is the state of division in the church. It mirrors divisions in our society as a whole. -Thankfully, I can say I think we are on the right side of faith, and the right side of history. But the Church Universal cannot speak with one voice.
I suppose one might ask, if the Christian church can’t even come to a united position on moral issues based on love and acceptance of all people how can we expect a whole nation to reach sustainable consensus?
What I think Paul would tell us in the church, in this 21st century, is that faith in God and Jesus should trump everything else. It should surpass the nationalism that claims so much loyalty in the modern age, as well as the racial and ethnic loyalties that continue to ferment in the background in our time. These are not distinctions that matter if we believe God sent Jesus to redeem the world. And for those who wish to make Jesus’ teachings a part of society, it needs to begin with love and acceptance of those who are different from the majority.
Paul grounds the Corinthians’ unity in the power of the cross of Christ (1:17). Jesus was put to death at the hands of Empire; sacrificially suffering for the sin and failure of humanity to live humanely. All traditions and accepted orthodoxies were called into question by Paul and laid at the feet of Jesus’ love and forgiveness. –That was the gist of Paul’s rejection of things like circumcision. Everything had to be seen in the light of Christ’s self-giving. The Crucified Christ had power to transform a broken and factionalized little church into a community that had a shared, transformative purpose.
I think Paul would set that agenda before our church today, and before the church at large. He would call us to the commitment that dares to move towards God’s future. That is what made the disciples calling so special. They said “Yes” not knowing how far it would take them but believing God had a destiny in mind.
Rev. Michael Scott
When I read this morning’s Gospel lesson from John, where Jesus renames Simon, I couldn’t help but remember a classic old Monty Python routine. It takes place at the “Bruces Club” in Australia. Every member is named Bruce. They all greet each other: “’Ow are you, Bruce? G’day Bruce! Bruce. Hello Bruce. Bruce. How are you, Bruce? G’day Bruce.” Then one of the members walks in with a friend and says, “ Gentleman, I’d like to introduce a man from Pommeyland . . . Michael Baldwin, Bruce. Michael Baldwin, Bruce. Michael Baldwin, Bruce.” One of the Bruces says, “ Is your name not Bruce?” He says, “ No, it’s Michael. That’s going to cause a little confusion. Mind if we call you ‘Bruce’?”
I know someday I’m going to be struck by lightening for the things that go through my head, but I couldn’t help picturing Jesus when he’s introduced to Simon saying, “So your name is Simon. Mind if I call you Cephas, then?”
It’s pretty bold of Jesus, you must admit, when upon meeting a man, his first words are, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas.” So here’s the question on which my sermon hangs: why bother to so abruptly to rename someone – what’s in a name? After all, as Shakespeare offered, on the lips of Juliet,
“. . . that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as
sweet.”
But even as he objects to placing such value on a mere name, the bard betrays his recognition of the power of naming. Romeo’s next line, not so often remembered, is:
“I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I’ll be new
baptized;
Henceforth I never will be
Romeo.”
And indeed, henceforth, Romeo is “but love.” The man is not so much renamed as is the name renamed. Love becomes him; love consumes him. The legacy outlives him, as well as his creator. We still today refer to a great lover as a “Romeo.”
Here’s the first thing I want to say: there’s power in a name. When Jesus changed Simon’s name to Cephas, he wasn’t (all my silliness aside) just fooling around. We get a sense of his intention by examining the curious history of the text itself. Cephas (or, as it was pronounced in the original language, KAY-fas) is the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic word אפכ (“Kay-fah”) The word means “rock.” So, the Greek transcriber of the text in which we find this passage first transliterated it as Cephas, then parenthetically translated it into Greek as Petros (the Greek word for “rock). It is from that Greek word Petros that we get the English transliteration and the name becomes Peter. But it still just means “Rock.”
Think about that for a moment. You are introduced to a holy man who looks you in the eye and says, “From now on you will be called ‘Rock.’” That’s the sort of thing that could change your life. It obviously changed Simon’s life. He became a leader among the disciples and among the apostles who founded and shaped the early church. Indeed, he became in many ways the rock on which the church was built.
The ancient Israelites knew about this awesome power of a name. They knew the connection between a person’s outward identity and inner being. That’s why they never uttered the divine name that we have come to know as “Yahweh.” Whenever the consonants of that name appeared in a sacred text, they added no vowels to it for pronunciation. Instead, they uttered the word Adonai, which means “Lord.” To speak the personal sacred name of God, was to presume to grasp knowledge of God’s being. No one was allowed to hold that kind of power.
They knew the truth; there’s power in a name.
There’s power in your name. All you have to do is find it. That happened to my wife, Dadgie, at a critical moment in her life. She was an active layperson in her church, and had decided to take a course at the seminary because it might be interesting. She walked into the classroom, and the professor, the late man of insight and power, Dr. James Ashbrook, saw her and introduced himself. He didn’t simply say, “Ah, you must be Dadgie.” He looked her in the eye and said, “You MUST . . . BE . . . DADGIE!” From that moment her life was changed. Over the course of the coming months and years, she discovered in so many ways that, yes, she MUST BE DADGIE! And as one who came to know her, I can testify: what a Dadgie she became!
To discover the power that resides in your name, you must find what it is that you are intended to be. How do you discern that? It’s tricky. I have only a couple of thoughts to guide you. One comes from Jesus’ encounter with Simon. Jesus looked deep into the heart of Simon’s being in that instant of meeting him, and called forth something that he knew was there, something buried, but solid, dependable, enduring. He was a rock, and he needed to own that.
The Divine intention for you is, I believe, something buried deeply in your soul. It’s not something that comes to you from outside of your being like ET landing in your back yard. It is knit into your DNA and etched on the slate of your life experience. What is needed is for you to dive deeply enough into your own heart that you can hear the echoes of Christ speaking to you, naming you.
Your experience of self-discovery may not be as dramatic as what happened to a little boy named Michael eighty-eight years ago, but it could be as profound and as life-changing.
Michael King was born to a Baptist minister and his wife, Michael, Sr. and Alberta. When he was only five years old his father went on a trip abroad and came to Germany. Michael King, Sr. became absorbed in the powerful and world-changing history of the Protestant Reformation spawned from the Castle Church in Wittenberg. He was drawn to the complex, passionate, and charismatic monk who tacked his list of ninety-five complaints against the Roman church to the door of that cathedral and sparked a massive wave of revolt. Rev. King was so consumed by the spirit of the leader of that Reformation movement, Martin Luther, and, I believe, so aware already of the latent gifts of his little boy, that he made a radical decision. He changed his name; and he changed the name of his young son at the same time. He would no longer be Michael King, and his son would no longer be Michael King, Jr. Now they were Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King, Jr. That little boy, a boy so full of promise, so full of gifts, was given the name of one of the most powerful shakers of the foundations of institutional power in recorded history. Tomorrow our nation will stop spinning its wheels for a day to celebrate the birth, the life, and the profound impact of that little boy who became Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
O, there’s power in a name: power enough to transform a child of promise into a man of vision, power enough to transform an idea into movement, power enough to transform a nation into a more perfect union.
The second observation I have to make is that being renamed doesn’t necessarily mean changing your name. It may mean that your name is transformed. It may simply mean finding the power hidden in your name – the truth about what you are intended to be and do. It may be a little like Dadgie’s experience of learning what it is to be her truest self.
Just a little over seven years ago, a TV series started airing in Ukraine titled Servant of the People, in which a comedian named Volodymyr Zelenskyy played the comic role of the Ukrainian president. The series aired for four years and was immensely popular. Zelenskyy’s name became well known for making a joke of the presidency. In 2016, he left off being a comedian and ran for the presidency for real.
We all know the outcome. During the first two years of his administration, Zelenskyy oversaw the lifting of legal immunity for members of parliament; he had to face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an economic recession. It was only a little less than a year ago that Russia invaded Ukraine. That’s an awful lot to throw at a new president whose resume consisted of being a comedian. What the world and Vladimir Putin threw at him drew out of him what Eternity had intended him to be. He became an example of strength, resolve, and courage. The name Zelenskyy was transformed from that of a jokester into a powerfully inspirational leader with a spine of steel and one held in highest respect around the world. The name Zelenskyy is now considered on a par with the name Churchill.
O, there’s power in what a name can become.
I’d like to ask you to join me in a little exercise. I want you to close your eyes . . . and purge from your mind all the distractions, the worries and issues of your life. And I want you to imagine Jesus standing before you, gazing intently into your eyes. He sees what lies unspoken, untouched, undiscovered in the depths of your being, and he calls it forth, calling you by name, and making clear what is intended for you.
What does he say?
As I mentioned last Sunday, Epiphany was this past Friday, January 6. It celebrates the Magi coming to visit the infant Jesus and is the Orthodox Christmas. Today we jump ahead in the story around 30 years as the adult Jesus comes to hear John the Baptist and is subsequently baptized by him. There just isn’t much we know about the intervening years. Luke gives us that one little story of Jesus at age 12 coming to Jerusalem at Passover with his parents and staying behind to talk with the Rabbis. Other than that, there is nothing about his childhood in the New Testament. There were some Pseudo-Gospels written in the second century that purported to tell of him performing miracles as a child, but they were so clearly fabulized stories that the early church rejected them from the start.
Tradition says that Joseph died sometime before Jesus reached adulthood and that as the eldest son Jesus had to stay home and help his mother keep the family afloat until around this time. Perhaps he had heard about John’s preaching all the way up in Nazareth, or, as Luke suggests, he was John’s cousin and knew of John long before this. -There is no clear answer on that. Or maybe Jesus came down to Jerusalem for one of the holy days and heard of John’s preaching while there.
In any case, Jesus came to where John was preaching and baptizing down near where the Jordon River empties into the Dead Sea. Though Matthew makes a point, as does Luke, to say that Jesus wasn’t coming as a disciple of John. And the Gospel of John, goes so far as omit John’s Baptism of Jesus. Instead, it has John witness to Jesus as having God‘s spirit in a unique and powerful way. Presumably John’s gospel is countering the idea that that Jesus represented a continuation of the Baptist’s movement as well as the questions raised because John’s baptism focused on repentance and turning from one’s sin.
For the three synoptics, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus’ baptism marks a moment of discernment and spiritual experience. It is highlighted by a mystical occurrence where God’s call on his life breaks through to him in a dramatic way. It becomes a ringing affirmation that he is embraced and claimed by God to a greater purpose. It becomes clear to him in a profound and powerful way that his life has a greater spiritual mission, and he is moved to embrace that calling.
‘There is nothing in Matthew’s description that makes this anything other than a personal spiritual experience. Jesus sees and hears with his soul’s awareness. It is the voice of God which speaks to his heart. No one else sees or hears anything.
It seems clear to me that Jesus’ baptism was an act of personal devotion where a number of things Jesus had been thinking about, perhaps even praying about, came together. It sparked a whole new sense of self.
Most people in the modern church are baptized as infants so it’s not an experience most remember. At best, you have a few pictures or maybe a story or two of about what happened that day -Like, you cried all through the baptism. I have had a few of those crying babies over the years. By and large an infant’s baptism doesn’t get more notice than their first birthday.
Of course, if you grew up in the Baptist church as I did, you might have been baptized as a young person. You either took a baptism class, much like Confirmation in our church, or you simply went forward at the end of the service and talked to the minister. Baptism may have had an emotional component, but I haven’t known anyone who experienced a spiritual awakening or calling in connection with their baptism. Getting dunked under water while the minister said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” may have created some anxiety, and is something you are not likely to forget as a young pre-teen or teen, but it may, or may not, have been spiritually significant for you.
For Jesus, as a 30 year old, his baptism seems to be one of those transformative moments when he felt the confirming sense of God’s call on his life. A sense of duty and purpose that directed the rest of his life.
Complicating it for us moderns is the fact that dramatic religious experience is tainted by the spectrum of psychiatric language and the reality of mental illness. However much we may believe Jesus heard the voice of God call, or Moses, or Elijah, or any of the saints of the church for that matter, heard God’s call on their life, it still leaves questions in our minds in this modern day.
But in truth there are still ‘God experiences’ that lead people to turn their lives around, or find a sense of calling and direction that gives greater purpose and meaning to their lives. I doubt many of us would say “The Heavens Opened” but God sometimes plants those remarkable seeds of new beginnings that we did not plan or expect.
I think probably all of us here are beyond 30, but you know, God doesn’t stop calling. 30 is not a cut off. The late Christian author and Army psychiatrist M. Scott Peck in his book, “A World Waiting to Be Born” said he believes “God calls each of us, whether we respond or not, sometimes to very specific tasks. It makes no difference, whether our calling is that of homemaker or nuclear physicist, farmer or politician”, adds, “If we are answering that call in our lives then our sense of direction is more compelling, and our satisfaction is more complete.”
Peck also suggests that we “Should not assume that God’s calling is a once and forever thing. –It may be that. But it may also be that we have a series of callings in our lives. The calling at 25 may not be the same at 50, or that at 50 the same as that at 75! An earlier calling may even be seen later as preparation for another later calling.”
The spiritual task of life is to be faithful to our present calling — to have the courage and the fortitude to follow where we hear that whispering leading us.
Our baptism is a sign and seal of that overall call of God, claiming us God’s children and embracing us with God’s Spirit.
This morning as we celebrate Christ’s baptism I would like to invite you to reaffirm your baptism. I will come down and hold the bowl of water and if you want to come forward put your hand in the water and do the form of a cross on your forehead as an act of devotion and asking God to be with you and guide you in this year ahead.
This coming Friday is Epiphany, which celebrates the coming of the Magi, or Wise Men. It was a much later tradition that had them as kings. We usually put them together at the manger with the shepherds, but that’s not really how it is in the bible. Only Luke tells of the manger. Matthew indicates Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem and the Magi come to their home. It happens -perhaps as much as two years after Jesus’ birth, since that’s how far back Herod goes in his attempt to kill this baby. Tradition simply merges Luke’s and Matthew’s two stories to make the traditional Christmas pageant.
In the part of the story the lectionary leaves out to today and includes on Epiphany this Friday, we are told these foreigners form the east brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. Traditionally we have assumed there were three men because there are three gifts, but Matthew doesn’t actually say how many men there were. Much later on in tradition they were even given names.
We must remember that Matthew and Luke were not trying to give us an objective historical picture of Jesus’ birth but a theological understanding of Jesus’ birth. Matthew sees parallels and connections to the Old Testament. For instance, Joseph has profound and important dreams, just like his name’s sake in the Old Testament. And, like the Joseph of old, he brings Jesus and Mary to Egypt just as that Joseph brought the rest of his tribal family there. And then Joseph brings Mary and Jesus out of Egypt just as Moses, the first great prophet, brought the People of Israel out of Egypt. These are not coincidences in Matthew, they are part of the connections he makes that say something about who Jesus is.. Jesus has these similarities to the great Hebrew icons of the past. Likewise, Herod the Great ordering the killing babies, like the Pharaoh did at the time of Moses, seems to reinforce the connection to Moses. It must be noted, there is no other historical record of Herod’s doing this but most scholars concede it could have happened. Herod was ruthless in protecting his power and killed several members of his own family when he thought they might be conspiring to gain power.
The Magi themselves make a statement by their presence. They signify that Jesus is recognized, even by non-Jews, at least those who discern the mysteries of the heavens, as a special gift from God. This is a messiah who comes to the world
Even the gifts the Magi bring for Jesus are to serve a purpose in his story. They are certainly not practical gifts for a newborn -or a two year old, unless you assume Mary and Joseph used them to finance their trip to Egypt or gave them to Jesus to finance the beginning of his ministry. But, there is no indication of that in Matthew, or elsewhere.
The Gold is a gift for a king, reinforcing the idea that Jesus is born a king. Frankincense was a fragrance used by a priest at the temple altar. Jesus becomes the High Priest who reconciles us with God. And of course, Myrrh was used to embalm the dead and this child was destined to end his life on the cross. It all tells us something about who Jesus was. Matthew’s main interest is to paint a picture of who Jesus is and what his life means from beginning to end.
The real question for us today though, is not what did Matthew think of Jesus’ birth and life, but what do we think? What meaning, what significance does Jesus have for us. Or perhaps, like the Christmas carol, “What Can I give him?” the Magi story stirs us to devotional wonder. How do we respond to this story of God’s love come to us? -What can we give in return? The answer is, of course, only ourselves. All we can do, and all God wants, is what we are. Matthew says the Magi came to the house where Jesus was, entered, saw Mary and Jesus, knelt in adoration, and presented him with their gifts. They recognized that God had gifted the world with this baby and their response was to give what they had in devotion as their response.
Today we come to the communion table in recognition of the gift God has given. Jesus has come offering us himself, as an expression of God’s love and forgiveness. What will you give in response? How can you say thanks to God in this year ahead?
Perhaps you can give a gift of hope even when the world seems hopeless. Perhaps you can give a gift of striving for love and justice, -even when it seems there is nothing you can do that really makes a difference. Perhaps you can give a gift of caring, even when caring seems out of fashion.
We bring our gifts to the manger today, in who we are and how we live. God accepts us as we are and offers us the gift of himself. –This is my body. This is my blood – this is my Spirit and my Presence, My Grace and my Forgiveness. In devotion and thankfulness come to the table, receive what Christ has given. Christ’ presence is here. Let your own devotion be your gift.
Fredrick Brown wrote one of those science fiction computer stories a number of years ago where a group of scientists create an electronic super brain. The first question they put to the computer is, “Is there a God?” the computer answers back: “There is now!”
The bible, on the other hand, says simply, “In the beginning, God.” It is a simple yet profound affirmation, the Mind, the Love, the Presence that was and is the beginning, that is God.
-Of course, the bible goes on to build on that. God is not only creator; God is love personified and is always seeking to redeem and renew. God, the bible says, seeks to bless humanity. God continues to speak to us through saints and prophets as well as the whispering of the Holy Spirit. And we gather tonight affirming that God has come to us in the life of that baby born in Bethlehem Two thousand plus years ago. God came not with princely power and prestige, not with armies at his command, not seeking status as emperor to conquer and control, but as a peasant baby born in a backwater village. It was, economically and politically, a completely insignificant place.
This baby was unplanned by Mary and Joseph, an intrusion, a disruption in the family plans, and, like all babies, he was innocent, fragile, defenseless, and totally dependent on other’s love. That’s what the bible’s birth story tells us about how God chose to come to us.
It is a drama of vulnerability and hope. The poetry and mystery of God’s self-giving. It is the lived-out promise of God, -a God not distant and removed, not judgmental and resentful but God coming to where we are, how we are, in all the vulnerability of a baby. God comes to us as one of us, awakening us to what we might be. And in the end offering himself in total sacrifice for our failure to be as loving and caring as the creator has called us to be.
James Martin who used to write in the Upper Room devotional once told of a trip he took to the Holy Land. While he was there, he bought a nativity set carved out of olive wood. Later, as he checked through the security at the airport in Tel Aviv, He was surprised at how meticulous they were in checking things. He was surprised to see them take each piece of the Nativity set out of the box and run them through an x-ray machine one by one. The security officer explained they were checking for explosives packed in hidden hollowed out spaces.
It got him thinking, he said, –that for all intents and purposes, the Christmas scene has been one of the most explosive events in history. At the manger the stage is set, and events are put in motion, that change the world -and millions of lives.
But as Matthew and Luke tell the story there is a strange paradox: On the one hand, there is a multitude of Angels and some shepherds, and finally some Wise Men who are conscious of the event, -and undoubtedly a midwife or two. But most of Bethlehem and Jerusalem don’t even take notice. The town doesn’t flock to this birth scene, nor is there is story of the Inn Keeper rushing out to the barn to see what was going on.
Christmas has always come first and foremost to individuals who happen to catch something of its poetry and mystery for their own lives. –After it was over, the Wise Men returned to their own country, the shepherds went back to their flocks, albeit, Luke says, they went, “Praising God.” –No doubt even Mary went on with the regular tasks of being a wife and a new mother. I’m sure she soon sent Joseph out to the store to get some needed supplies.
Likewise come Jan. we all go back to business as usual, to school, to work, to the pressures and responsibilities that make up our lives. Like Mary, perhaps, we’ll catch a moment to wonder about what it all means. Or maybe, like the shepherds, there will be a lingering sense of joyous mystery that gives rise to praising God and puts a song in our hearts.
If Christmas has awakened us for a moment to the deeper realities of life and the mystery of God reaching out to us, if Christmas has made us sing with an inner voice of God’s goodness and grace, or simply moved us to give our Christmas gifts with truly thankful hearts, then Christmas has done its job! It has planted the seed, to bud in our lives and renew faith and hope, love and joy, in the midst of life’s busyness and life’s struggles. In some small way, We, like all those Christmas movie characters, from George Bailey, in It’s a Wonderful Life, to Dicken’s Scrouge, who found, in the Christmas miracle, an opening of their soul and a rekindling of the joy of life, we have been made new, been blessed with hope and grace.
I pray that seed blooms in your hearts this year.
Some have suggested that Joseph gets short shrift in the Christmas story but that’s quite so true not so much in Matthew’s version. Where Luke puts all the emphasis on Mary, and most of the general focus in our Christmas pageants is on everything from Magi to shepherds and angels to even the Inn Keeper and the manger. But Matthew, at least, makes Joseph a significant part of the story.
After all, if Mary and Joseph were living in Bethlehem, as Matthew suggests, or in Nazareth as Luke says, they were both small village where everyone knew everyone and where cultural codes were strictly enforced. It was a different time, a different set of mores. Young women simply d not get pregnant before they were officially married. And if they did there were severe consequences. Not only was there of hushed talk, the family shame made you something of an outcast. And if your fiancé got pregnant by someone else they called that adultery and a woman could get stoned to death for it.
You can imagine Joseph’s shock when Mary told him she was pregnant. Mathew says he was a “Righteous Man.” That would mean other things that he was steeped in the Judaism of his ancestors. He knew the Torah. He knew the codes and traditions of his people. The “Law” or Torah was something sacred to him.
So, what does this righteous man of the Law do when he finds out his fiancé has somehow turned up pregnant? He decides to quietly, and privately, break off the engagement. He does not want to make a spectacle of her or cause her unnecessary pain. He just wants to quietly and gracefully back out of the deal.
The picture we get here of Joseph is of a man who exemplifies the kind of righteousness that Jesus himself later talks about. -A righteousness based on compassion and grace. A righteousness that put people first.
Marcus Borg, the late new Testament scholar and author suggested in his book, “Meeting Jesus Again For the First Time,” says one of the foundational verses of Jesus’ teaching is found in Luke 6:36, “Be compassionate as God is compassionate” Some translations use the word merciful instead of compassionate. But, says Borg, compassionate is a better translation of the Greek.
The word “Compassion” in Hebrew is literally the plural for the word “Womb.” It suggests the quality of mothering. It is both a feeling and a way of being that flows out of that feeling. It is to feel with, to identify with, to understand as if a part of yourself were there.
You see the idea at work in Jesus’ life, as when the woman caught in adultery is about to be stoned and Jesus says, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Or, when he eats and drinks with those ritually unclean. Jesus says at several points “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
For Jesus true purity was something about the heart and soul of a person and genuine morality had to include that quality of compassion. Joseph, it seems, shows some of this compassionate dimension even before Jesus was born. His righteousness was not the stiff-necked goodness always looking to find fault, but rather it was the caring, generous love that showed itself in kindness and respect for others, including Mary.
It could not have been easy for a man of his day to accept this woman and this child with an open readiness to embrace and nurture them. Yes, in the end, we are told, God intervened, but only in the form of a dream where an angel offers solace and assurance that this is part of God’s plan.
To his credit and surely as part of the understanding of the day, Joseph didn’t assume that he had to many Matzo balls the day before and that this dream was just the sign of indigestion Rather he took the meaning to heart and went ahead with the wedding plans embracing Mary and this baby who will not be Joseph Jr. –
Matthew’s birth story has no shepherds with angels singing, no appearances of angels to Mary only this one angel in a dream. A kind of foggy uncertain affirmation to go on. But isn’t that how it is for most of us? Knowing God’s will is rarely all that clear. We are left with hints, inspirations, and maybe dreams. Not often do we have angels showing up in the middle of the day making things clear. No neon signs to mark the way.
Even in Matthew’s story Joseph doesn’t say a lot, he simply does what is right and caring. –Not a bad man to pick as the father of the Messiah.
You know what’s interesting about Matthew’s story also is that not only does he trace Jesus lineage to Abraham, the father of Israel, -back through Joseph no less,-he also mentions five women in his genealogy: the first is Tamar, a Canaanite woman who gets treated rather shabbily by her Hebrew in-laws after her husband dies. (Ge. 38) Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, who helps the Hebrews, (Josh. 2:1-3 & 6: 17-25). Ruth, another foreigner, who marries into Judaism (Book of Ruth). Bathsheba, who King David married after having her husband killed in battle, (IISam. 11 -12.) And finally, Mary, the wife of Joseph.
Quite a list! -There’s more woven in there than just trying to say that Jesus is a descendant of Abraham and King David, don’t you think? Foreign women, some pure, some not so pure, are integral to the background ancestry of Jesus! Certainly, that’s not a part of the story we talk much about at Christmas. But Matthew makes a point to put all this into the story, along with the Magi, who are also gentiles by the way, and would have been unclean by the strict interpretation of the Jewish law. Matthew is making a point to say that Jesus is a universal Messiah who exceeded all the old expectation and pre-conceptions.
Biblical scholar, the Rev. Dr. Fredrick Dale Bruner, in his two volume commentary on the gospel of Matthew notes that “Through the Joseph and Mary story Matthew says that from the moment this “Emmanuel was conceived he had a way of causing righteous people to rethink what was righteous. When the baby was born, all values were turned upside down, everything had to be reconsidered. For every righteous person like Simeon or Anna, Zechariah, or Elizabeth, for whom the baby Jesus was an answer to their prayer, a dream come true, and a cause for lots of singing, there had to be lots of people like Joseph for whom this was a nightmare, a tongue-tying embarrassment, a befuddling shock which required a quiet rethinking of everything upon which life is based, a challenge to come forward and commit; to allo0w God to work righteousness through us, and despite us, rather than to make righteousness an act of our own.”
Some 20 centuries later everywhere Joseph’s story is told, his foster child tends to have the same effect on people. It is a story, not only of beauty and pageantry and miracle, but a story that continues to challenge us to hear and live the way of God.
Joseph was more than just an anonymous “Good Joe” sidelight to the story. Joseph is integral to the message if we hear Matthew clearly.
So, here we are one more Sunday with John the focus of the lectionary. In part because his ministry is interlinked with that of Jesus. Jesus is baptized by John as most likely are some of his disciples. Certainly, several of them came to hear John preach before they followed Jesus. Even some of John’s words sound similar to those of Jesus and Luke says they were cousins. Some of John’s disciples almost certainly thought of John as the Messiah and after his death there seemed to be some competition between John’s disciples and those of Jesus. The gospel writers try to make clear the relationship between the two in part because John’s following was still so strong even into the mid to late first century.
John’s words today though, do not sound like an uncompromising prophet or dynamic leader. Last week what we heard from John was strident and clear. He was uncompromisingly certain in his message. But today we hear hesitancy, questioning. From his prison cell John sends word to Jesus, wanting to know if Jesus is the Messiah. It is the question, of course, of the first century, indeed, the question of the ages. Is Jesus the Messiah, the one anointed by God? The one sent to bring healing and hope, saving redemption for the world?
Apparently, John had never heard anything about shepherds and Wise Men coming and angels singing over Jesus’ birth. John’s only going by what he sees and hears about Jesus’ ministry and he’s not certain. You can’t blame John for questioning. He’s sitting there in prison, with a sword hanging over his head, so to speak, and nothing has changed in the world. Rome and Herod still hold all the cards. His fate is still up in the air, and he wonders, is a new world really coming? Is God really doing something? Some doubts in his own faith seem to be creeping in. Maybe he’s even a little depressed. The future doesn’t look that bright. Has his own life been wasted, his own ministry a mistake?
John is so like most of us. When things don’t go the way we’d expected, or planned, and it all starts to look bleak, we can’t help but wonder if God is really there. The world certainly wasn’t anything like the picture Isaiah paints of God’s messianic time. And it isn’t now. No doubt John is wondering if Jesus was going to do something more. I mean the Herods and Caesars of this world have held sway long enough. –Then, as now, the world was full of injustice and cruelty.
John must have been saying, we don’t seem to be there yet! Isaiah’s hope is still there in the background, but it doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction! What made Jesus and John, indeed first century Judaism, such a threat was that they held on to this prophetic promise, a promise that God had in mind a better world, a more just world, a world more equitable, a world more in harmony. Harmony between nations, harmony between mankind and nature. It was a vision of a more grace filled world than anything we have experienced. That dream was the ferment of a kind of revolutionary energy and longing that fueled unease and dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Sadly, there have also always been those who wanted to dominate and exploit, manage and manipulate both other people and nature. An attitude that is at the root of human sin and separation from God. With Isaiah, and other prophets we stand on tiptoes as it were and peek over the rim of history towards the world of God’s intention. A world where grace and caring overcome greed and power.
This is not some naïve hope that says, “If we just all hold hands and Joy to the World, our problems will go away.” It is a hope built on changed hearts and transformed, unselfish living. It is a hope based on God’s presence. The prophets knew that humanity is too caught in its old patterns and too ready to buy into cheap easy answers. The prophetic hope is an affirmation that God kneels over the cradle of history and weeps with us in the pain of our world and in our pain. God always seeking to move us towards the dream and make that redemptive hope more real in our world.
Are we there yet? – not in any final sense surely. But, some of us are touched by grace and lives are changed. Hope is made alive where despair had taken root. There are still voices that rally for justice and reach out in caring, still voices that seek to put an end to racism and violence. All the would-be tyrants have failed in their time and have been banished to the dustbin of history. Yes, still more will fall by the wayside -Putin included.
John is wondering this morning, wondering, is God doing anything yet? And the gospel story tells us, there was this peasant baby who became a refugee. There was the sound of angels reverberating through the universe at his birth. He grew into a man of passion and caring, faith and love. He upset the applecart of tradition and got a lot of powerful people mad at him. He became the expression of God’s own sacrifice. He stirred the hearts and hopes of a little band of believers who said not even death could silence him. They became so passionate in their faith that they ultimately changed the world. Even that great Roman Empire yielded to the affirmation of him.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Letters and Papers from Prison (page 361):
“To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself (a sinner, a penitent, or a saint) on the basis of some method or other, but to be a [human being] – not a type of [human being], but the [human being] that Christ creates in us. It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life. That is metanoia: not in the first place thinking about one’s own needs, problems, sins, and fears, but allowing oneself to be caught up into the way of Jesus Christ, into the messianic event….”
It was Anne Frank, a victim of the Nazis, who said, “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people really are good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death.”
Sometimes, you see, God gives us courage, even when the world seems its bleakest, to imagine a different future, a different world, and in the imagining we find the strength to move the needle, to make the impossible, possible. And enliven the prophetic hope for our time.
Big Bad John December 4, 2022 Isaiah 11:1-10 Matthew 3:1-12
Some of you remember, I’m sure the song, Big Bad John, by Jimmy Dean, yes, the same one who sells the sausage- it goes back to 1961 when I was in college. I won’t try and sing it but the opening words are:
Ev’ry mornin’ at the mine you could see him arrive
He stood six foot six and weighed two forty five
Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip
And everybody knew, ya didn’t give no lip to Big John,. Big Bad John.
Whenever I read this picture of John the Baptist in Matthew I can’t help but think of that song. – The picture of the Baptist just seems like someone not to be messed with.
John certainly is the curmudgeon of Christmas almost as much as Dickins’ Scrooge, in the Christmas Carol. We can’t imagine him saying, “Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas” or singing Jingle Bells. He comes on the scene with a slightly grumpy demeanor. –He and his camel hair clothes and diet of locusts and wild honey. He didn’t mind a few bee stings I guess.–Don’t plan that for your Christmas dinner.
Of course, these are symbols that authenticate him as a prophet. Prophets were always people who relied on God and were not beholden to the powers that be. They stood outside the mainstream. Prophets were not fortune tellers so much as truth tellers. They spoke words of judgement to the nation for its lack of justice and mercy, for its mistreatment of the poor and powerless and the failure to maintain allegiance to the God who had brought them out of their bondage in Egypt.
So, we are not at the manger today. Instead of hearing from Magi and shepherds we hear John calling for repentance in the wilderness. The wilderness is that lonely desolate place. A place of wild beasts and hard survival, a place where one easily loses one’s way. It can be seen as a metaphor for all the places of alienation, fear and struggle that we face in life, the places of lostness and despair. Ironically, it’s the same place Jesus is goes to be tempted as he sorts out the meaning of his baptism and call. It is also the place of our lostness, our brokenness. And the place of the hopeless state of the world as it careens on towards the precipice of its own destruction. That’s what John sees in his day, and why his cry is so shrill and penetrating.
John comes to us this Advent 2022, saying Prepare, God is coming. –Prepare your lives, prepare your world. Prepare with justice and right living. John’s words have a sharpness and a hard edge because they must break through our defenses and rationalizations. He is harkening back to Isaiah’s words and reinterpreting them to put an emphasis on making our society ready our lives ready, our hearts ready to receive a God of justice and love, mercy and hope. The path that must be straight and the way that must be smooth is the way we are with each other. The way we hope and love and care. The way we envision the future and our connection to each other. To truly receive the gift of “God with us”, we must repent and change the focus of our lives John wants us to know. We must repent the shoddy callous way of the world and envision a new way of being.
So, his words come to us each Advent in all their strident glory to remind us what Christmas is all about, God is coming! –Get your heart and your lives ready!
Did John talk about Jesus born in a manger, or even envision a Messiah saying, “Father forgive them” from a cross? -Probably not, that was the mystery of God’s grace revealing itself uniquely in Jesus. But John did know that that God was doing something, and that the only appropriate response was repentance to ready one’s heart for God’s presence. God, he said, stood at the door of history, knocking. And he asks if we would dare to let God in. –It was not just about what happened in the first century AD. It is about that “Eternal Now” moment when God stands at our door beckoning to see our truer purposes and to hear God’s calling.
Every Advent as we prepare for Christmas we are asked again, “Are we prepared to let God into our lives, into our world?”
What John is telling us today is that that baby born in Bethlehem, whose birth we celebrate in three weeks, came with the presence of God. –Will you be ready to receive him? And the communion we celebrate today dramatizes the grace that was lived out in Jesus. A Jesus crucified and risen.
John comes to us this December reminding us that in all the frenzied activity leading up to Christmas, the shopping, the decorating the parties and socializing, God is waiting…waiting for us to find the reason for the season. God is waiting for us to do that internal preparation, that we might receive the gifts of grace and peace.
Today we invite you to this supper as the sacrament of his continuing presence and gift of God’s grace. Here the door is open to God. Here the past is redeemed, the present made new, and the future is filled with hope.
“The Return” November 27, 2022 Isaiah 2:1-5 Matthew 24:36-44
It is quite clear the early church expected Jesus to return. Initially, at least, it seems they expected it to be in the first century. The delay caused both anxiety and longing, as well as a need to readdress the issue in their theology. -Luke’s story of the early church in Acts tells of the disciples asking Jesus just before his ascension, “Are you going to restore the Kingdom of Israel now?” To which Jesus replies very bluntly, “It’s not for you to know God’s plans or seasons.” And here in our Matthew passage this morning, Jesus says, “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,[a] but only the Father.”
The gospel writers, who were themselves having to re-think their expectations about Christ’s return, were making clear that Jesus rejected any actual dating of a time God might intervene in history in some new and dramatic way.
What Jesus said in the gospels of course, has never kept people from assuming they have unlocked the mystery of all this symbolic talk in the bible. It’s no secret there have been lots of folks who have predicted the end of the world since the first century. There was, Montanus, who predicted it in the second century, and people like Johnnes Stoeffler and Michael Stifel who predicted it for the 1500’s. There was even a pope, Innocent III, who set the date of 1284 for Christ’s return. Many more down through history to folks like TV evangelist Pat Robertson who said in 1980, “I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be judgement on the world.” And Harold Camping, one of the most recent who set the date for 2011 for Christ’s triumphant return.
One of the most prominent and influential predictors was from New England. William Miller was born just down the road a bit in Pittsfield in 1782. He was one of 16 children. His father fought in the revolutionary war and afterwards bought some farmland just across the state line in NY. His father was a pretty stern and hardworking, practical man who focused on duty and honor. His mother was the daughter of a Baptist minister and leaned towards religion. William had an energetic mind but there was little time for schooling. It is said that there were only three books in the Miller house, a bible, a prayer book, and a song book.
After his own service in the war of 1812 where he survived a battle when several around him were killed by an incoming shell he began studying the bible on his own. He was particularly fascinated with the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation. Like most people in the mid 1800’s he took the bible as a divinely written book to be taken at face value in a literal historical and scientific way. He poured over it, cross referencing every word.
In 1832 he began to preach after several years of self-study, saying that he had unlocked the biblical prophecies in Daniel & Revelation and was certain he had found God’s timetable for the end of the world. He was sure it would be sometime between March 1843 -44.
He was a strong speaker and over the next dozen years he attracted a sizeable following who called themselves “Millerites” including a prominent Baptist minister in Boston. They produced a bundle of pamphlets and booklets outlining his arguments. Some of his followers pushed for a more definite date; finally he set the date for March of 1844. Excitement grew and Miller gave as many as 300 lectures in the six months leading up to March 1844. It was a kind of Trumpian crusade with an exclusively religious theme, or more like a Billy Graham crusade, if you remember him. There were around 50,000 who joined his movement and many more who followed less ardently.
At the appointed day in 1844 he gathered with a large group of his followers, many of whom had sold their homes and farms in anticipation of the end of history. They were waiting for something Miller called the “Rapture.”
They waited most of the day and into the night. When it didn’t happen, Miller went back to his books and recalculated the date and came up with Sept. 1844. Again, a group waited with him. When it didn’t happen again his followers splintered into factions, the largest group eventually became the 7th Day Adventist movement. Miller himself died 5 years later in 1849, a discredited and somewhat broken man at age 67.
The Adventist movement gained new momentum when WWI broke out and Charles Russell, another, more or less self-taught, bible student became convinced he had figured things out. He began to preach that Christ had in fact returned to earth in 1874 in invisible form and a new age had already begun and God had rejected all churches of the day as corrupt. Russell proclaimed that a small group of right believers would be the true church soon to reign with Christ. –They became known as Jehovah’s Witnesses –after their insistence on the use of the term Jehovah for God.
Both of these men and many others like them tried to reduce the great poetic images of the bible into concrete formula. It has been true right on down to more recent years when we have seen movements like the Branch Davidians –who were off-shoots of the 7 Day Adventists. You may remember them from the news in the Clinton administration.
Of course there are many others on the conservative side of Christianity who are eagerly are awaiting literal “Return of Christ” in the sky sometime soon, and have made popular books like “Left Behind” series and “The Late Great Planet Earth” which, have made millions for their authors, but are discredited by main line scholars. I remember clearly hearing my grandfather’s minister say he didn’t expect to die back in the mid 50’s. -He was around 60 years old then. I’m sure he is long since dead.
As NT Greek scholar Mark Davis notes in one of his blogs on this Matthew text, even the Greek is little ambiguous here about exactly what these sayings in Matthew indicate. It’s not clear, for instance, in the Greek, if being the one left behind is to be avoided or preferred! – as in, you may have been “taken” or “swept away” by Noah’s flood in the story, and “left behind” in Noah’s boat to start civilization over again. Likewise if Jesus comes as a “thief in the night” maybe that means he comes unrecognized or even undetected. Davis titles his blog, “Left Behind and Loving It,” which gives a little indication of how he’s thinking.
The Question for us these 20 centuries after Jesus is not when, or if, Jesus will come back, but how we can live towards the radical understanding of God’s love for all humanity that Jesus exemplified and proclaimed.
The writers of books like Revelation and Daniel and even Isaiah today were caught up in the suffering of the faithful and the injustice in the world during their time and wrote out of a longing for God’s redemption and an ecstatic affirmation of God’s saving grace. It was a type of imagery intended to give hope and courage to the beleaguered faithful, not to be taken as a road map of how God was about to act but a great affirmation of God’s love and involvement with the world!
Advent is an anticipation, a longing, where hope is in the air and one’s heart lingers on the possibility of what the world might be, if humanity really tuned in to God and let the songs of angels fill our hearts. Advent is to give us a reminder that the Jesus of the cradle and the Jesus of the cross are both gifts of God’s hope for us.
Today is Christ the King Sunday – It is relatively new in the liturgical calendar. It was first instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925. He did so amidst the rising nationalism of the day to remind people and nations where ultimate loyalties should lie and to affirm that churches should not be under the control of governments but free to express and practice the faith. It was originally set for the last Sunday of Oct. but was later changed to the last Sunday of the lectionary year, the Sunday before the beginning of Advent. It has since been adopted by most protestant denominations but is sometimes called Reign of Christ Sunday.
I chose the two readings from Luke one from the first chapter and one from the next to last chapter today because they seemed to round out Luke’s gospel and this ends the lectionary focus on Luke for the next two years. The first reading sets the stage for the coming of Jesus with this dramatic prophecy of Zechariah, couched in all the Jewish prophetic expectation. And the second is both an appalling and wondrous picture of the Crucified Savior messiah, coming with divine grace, a ‘king’ ridiculed and denounced, and given a tortuous death.
The two pictures are both complimentary and oppositional. The one has all the expectant language of a longed-for mighty hero coming with divine power and authority, fulfilling ancient dreams. —The other pictures a sacrificial lamb who has become the scapegoat for those who actually are in power. –But of course, we know ‘the rest of the story’, to borrow one of the late Paul Harvey’s tag lines. –God was in that suffering dying one. Those who knew and loved him best experienced his presence and felt his power even after his gruesome death. What seemed like a painful lost cause, was, it turned out, the turning point in millions of lives down through history. What they saw in that act of non-violent self-giving and forgiveness was the action of God giving hope to humankind. Self-giving love is God’s answer to the problem of human evil.
Imagine, the king that God sent, in answer to the centuries old prophetic longing, was a king not of conquest or power, not of mighty armies or political agendas but a pheasant hobnobbing with the poor and the outcasts and calling fishermen to be his version of avant-garde servant-leaders.
I can’t help but wonder what old Zachariah thought as he saw his son’s life and Jesus’ life unfold. –John beheaded, in his early 30’s and Jesus Crucified. –Both executed by the state for what was perceived to be anti-government agitation. It couldn’t have been what Zechariah was expecting. Jesus’ and John’s lives were hardly like his prophesy in any literal way.
There had been three different people claiming messianic credentials around the time Jesus was born, right after Herod the Great died. They tried to raise armies and foment revolt against the Romans. All three were killed in short order. None left any disciples or caused any discussion of life after death. Interestingly the revolt that finally did take place in 66AD lacked any central leader. A couple of bands of Zealots had some initial success and overran a Roman garrison massacring the Roman soldiers and stealing weapons and gathering more supporters. Nero responded by sending more of his Legions under the generalship of Tacitus, who later became emperor himself. They were determined to squash this revolt and they did. The Romans knew something about power and how to use it. Interestingly, the Jewish historian Josephus thought that the Roman general Tacitus who became emperor was possibly the messiah the prophets had in mind. He had the pomp and the power.
As we read the prophesy of Zechariah, one can’t help but feel he was expecting something a little more Roman-like. –But that was not what God had in mind. The God that Jesus revealed by his life and words was a God who seemed to be saying that humanity could only be saved by sacrificial love. -Not the kind of king anyone imagined.
Paul, who writes from prison to the church at Colossae, a little over 60 years after Zechariah, articulates a new vision of Christ as supreme with language that is echoed in the opening of John’s gospel.
15 He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, 16 for in[e] him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in[f] him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God[g] was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Paul writes this in 62 AD, -two years later, he was beheaded by Nero and an earthquake destroyed both the church and the town of Colossae. Neither was ever rebuilt.
I think Paul came to this great poetic affirmation about Christ, not from some grand theological insight, or even revelation, but from his own dramatic and unexplainable encounter with the Resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus. That experience gave him the strength and courage to face his own death and the calamities of his time with a deep and abiding faith that God was with him and involved in the future of the world. –You don’t get that kind of faith simply by reciting Paul’s theology or memorizing the Nicene Creed; it only comes with your own encounter with Christ.
One of the stories I stuck in my files several years ago was of a couple named Frank and Elizabeth. I am sorry to say I did not write down their last name. But they had an only child, Ted, who was killed by a drunk driver at age 18 just before his graduation from high school. He was the apple of their eye full of promise and plans. The other driver was also a young man, just a couple of years older than their son. He was one of those kids who had been in constant trouble.
Frank & Elizabeth were so devastated and angry over the death of their son they could only think of making sure this other boy got his punishment. They wanted him put away immediately -and for a long time.
Of course, it didn’t happen as they hoped. The trial was delayed, and postponed, then continued; all the while he was out on bail.
Frank and Elizabeth kept track of everywhere the boy went in the intervening months. Finally, the trial came, and they expected to get their vengeance. But in the end the boy received 5 years’ probation, with the stipulation that he spend every other weekend in jail and alternate weekends as a volunteer in the hospital emergency room and attend AA meetings. It was part of that attempt at “creative sentencing.”
Frank and Elizabeth were beside themselves with hurt and anger. They followed the young man even more closely, actually coming to the hospital and the jail to make sure his sentence was being carried out.
Finally, this young man, Tommy, was caught by his probation officer driving under the influence. He was given a 10 year jail term.
Frank & Elizabeth were so involved with him now that they began to visit him in jail. Over a period of about a year of this their feelings about him began to change. They got permission to have him released into their custody two nights a week. They took him to church on Sunday. It was a little awkward at first, but it gradually got easier. He finally broke down and begged their forgiveness. When the probation hearing came up they spoke for him and promised to help him rebuild his life.
It took a while, but for them, the presence of the Living Christ had been a part of their healing. Grief and anger had almost sent over the edge and torn them apart. Faith in Christ had been the one thing that held them together and helped them overcome the great tragedy in their lives and allowed them to love again. Christ had become king in their lives. The one crucified & resurrected. It made a difference. That is the Christ Paul knew. That is the Messiah Zechariah unknowingly proclaimed. That’s the king that makes a difference in human life.
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