Peace Be With You!

Sermon preached at Mission Bend UMC on April 24, 2022. Read John 20:19-31

One day an artist was commissioned by a wealthy patron to paint something that would depict “peace.” After a great deal of thought, the artist painted a beautiful beach scene. There was white sand and crystal-clear blue water. The waves felt like they were alive and the birds, the birds were flying with ease and majesty. It felt like you could walk right into the scene. The artist gave the picture to the patron but was met with a look of deep disappointment. "This isn’t a picture of true peace. It isn’t right. Go back. Try again.

The artist went back to the studio, thought for several hours about peace, then went to the canvas and began to paint again. When the artist stepped back from the canvas, there was a beautiful picture of a young mother, holding a sleeping baby in her arms, smiling lovingly at the child. Surely, this is true peace.  The artist hurried to give the painting to the wealthy patron. But again, the patron refused the painting and asked the artist to try again.

Returning once more to the studio, the artist was feeling an exceptional sense of rejection. Discouraged, tired, disappointed, and angry, the artist then prayed for divine inspiration to create an image of true peace. Suddenly an idea came. 

The artist rushed to the canvas and began to paint as never before. When the painting was finished, the artist hurried to bring it to the hard to please, patron.

The artist barely breathed as the wealthy patron stood staring into the image for what seemed like hours. With a pensive whisper, the patron said, "Now … this is an image of true peace." 

If you were to paint a picture of true peace, what would your painting look like?

This artist painted a stormy sea pounding against a cliff, the fury of the wind lashing out at enormous rain clouds, whipping back and forth against the dark and gloomy sky. Streaks of lightening zig-zagged across the image. The sea was roaring in turmoil and chaos, waves churning, the dark sky filled with the power of the furious thunderstorm.

And right there, in the middle of the picture, under a cliff, the artist had painted a small bird, safe and dry in her nest snuggled safely in the rocks. The bird was at peace right in the center of the storm that raged about her in sheer chaos. 

Stormy Chaos! Do you remember the time that Jesus was asleep in the middle of a raging storm, and the disciples cried out in fear? Jesus spoke into the chaos and said: “peace be still,” and the storm dissipated. 

In our reading today, it is a little different, isn’t it? Jesus does not take the storm away. Instead, he offers the disciples an ever-deepening “peace” while the storm still rages around them. They are gathered in community, together because of their shared grief. 

They are in hiding because they are afraid of what will happen to them because they are Jesus followers.  In truth and in time, early Christian history tells us that 10 of the 12 original disciples, and many other followers of Jesus, WERE martyred because of their faith in Jesus Christ. 

Have you ever felt the kind of “peace be with you” peace that Jesus is offering here? Peace that comes in the middle of your fear, your chaos, the storms of your life, the grief that comes from losing someone you love. Have you ever felt that kind of peace? 

The truth is that kind of peace, God’s peace, the peace that Jesus offers the disciples in that locked room, doesn’t depend on our circumstances but on our faith. 

The word that is translated “peace” in the New Testament is the Greek word “Eirene.” Jesus would actually have said Aramaic Hebrew, “Shalom.” 

Rabbi David Zaslow says Shalom comes from a Hebrew root-word that means “wholeness.” In the Hebraic way of thinking, wholeness is the joining together of opposites. That’s why “shalom” is offered both when we come AND when we go. 

Friends, as followers of Christ, we are wondrously linked together through the hidden connections of our comings and goings, our beings and doings, our inner lives and our outer lives, in our agreements and in our disagreements. In the Ubuntu theology of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, my humanity is bound together with your humanity. I am what I am because of what we all are together. When one suffers, we all suffer. And when one is made whole, we all experience a deeper wholeness. 

When we realize this relational truth, we begin to long for wholeness in our lives, in our communities, in our world. 

That deep longing for wholeness is the source of peace expressed as “shalom.” 

When my daughter, Katie, was very young, I asked her one day, “What is your favorite part of the worship service?” She was very thoughtful about her answer, I could almost see her going through the service in her mind, and finally she said, “the passing of the peace.” Now my daughter is a very quiet person, and she was shy in her younger years, so I was really surprised. I asked her to tell me what she experienced in the passing of the peace that made it her favorite part of the worship service. She said, “well, most of the time adults don’t pay any attention to me, it’s almost like I’m not there. But when we pass the peace, I feel like they really see me and when they look in my eyes and say, “peace be with you,” I feel loved. 

What Katie was experiencing in that community was shalom. 

Shalom is what Jesus offered the disciples.  The risen Christ walked into that locked room and saw them in all their chaos and fear and grief, and he loved them. When he showed them the scars on his hands and in his side, they felt the sacrificial love of God come alive! Can you imagine the joy of that? 

Shalom. Eirene. Peace … be with you. 

Jesus meets the disciples where they are, in all their fear and strengthens them with his presence as he calls them out. 

What I love the most about Jesus is that Jesus is always goin’ be Jesus!  Right after the JoyJoyJoy, he commissions them for their mission, empowers them with the Spirit, and encourages them to be faithful to their beliefs and to their mission. 

With each of the three “Peace be with you,” Jesus offers, he leads them, and us, deeper and deeper and deeper into true discipleship. 

And discipleship, my friends, is not for the faint of heart, but for the faithful!

Shalom. Eirene. Peace … be with you. 

The first peace is the peace of Easter Sunday. We have journeyed deep into the remembrance of Maundy Thursday, the Darkness of Good Friday and the Silence of Holy Saturday … only to wake up on Easter Sunday morning and celebrate! Christ the Lord is Risen, every year, year after year, without fail! Christ the Lord is Risen! Hallelujah! 

Amen? Amen!

When the risen Christ first appeared in that locked room and speaks, those disciples experienced a relief that against all odds, death had not won; after all of the blood, the nails, the thorns, the beating, and the cross …  Jesus IS alive! 

Shalom. Eirene. Peace … be with you. 

The second peace is the “not so fast” kind of peace, because Jesus didn’t show up just to make the disciple feel better. 

This is the peace that lasts beyond that initial rush of joy … this is the peace that holds us together when we remember that there are challenges that lie ahead.

When Jesus then speaks the second “Peace be with you” he says, God sent me, so I am sending you! Go into the world and share the Gospel with everyone you meet: God loves you so much that if you will just believe in Jesus, you won’t perish but you will have eternal life. And even better than that, God loves everyone in the world so much that anyone who believes in Jesus will not perish will have eternal life and not just any kind of life but life abundant!

There’s the challenge but here’s the gift: we are not alone: Jesus breathed on those disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” 

Do you believe in Jesus?  Then YOU have received the Holy Spirit to empower you to go into the world to share the love of God through your own witness. So, what’s your story and who can you share it with? 

Shalom. Eirene. Peace … be with you. 

So, the third peace, maybe it’s the “are you kidding me” peace. It’s a week later, after Jesus has commissioned and empowered those disciples with the Holy Spirit … and they are still locked away behind closed doors. It could be the “it’s not as easy as it sounds” peace, because it really isn’t easy at all. 

But it could also be the “communal reconciliation” peace. Thomas has basically said, “I’m not moving until I get what you got.” Congregations and Communities of Faith often do not do well with dissidents, direct challenges, and conflict. Sometimes we allow our conflicts to create doubts in one another.  Those conflicts then create an inward turn, one that keeps us from the mission we’ve been commissioned and empowered by the Holy Spirit to do.  

And so, we have who I call Thomas the Dissident. We often call him “doubting” Thomas but all he really asks for is to experience what the other disciples have experienced.  Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus until he calls her name. Even though she had told the disciples what she had seen, they weren’t so sure. They needed to see Jesus for themselves. So does Thomas. 

So, in order to bring peace to the community so they can get on with their mission, Jesus is more than willing to offer his wounds again. And I think that what he says next, “No more disbelief. Believe!” is an invitation for us to get on with our own mission, whatever that may be, to put our faith into action!

The Greek root of the word Jesus uses here, translated “believe” is pist. While overwhelmingly rendered as the noun faith or the verb believe, the deeper meaning in this Greek word is “trust.” Trust is highly relational and exists on a spectrum of growth. Belief is just the beginning and as our belief grows into trust, it is manifested as faith in action! 

When Jesus offers Shalom, Eirene, Peace, to the community of disciples, they have been immobilized by fear after Jesus’ crucifixion and paralyzed by conflict. Death is at their doorstep. 

For what Jesus is sending and empowering them to do — to put their faith into action by continuing his mission, spreading the good news of God’s grace and love for all, they must come to a place of deep trust, a place of Shalom, resting in the center of chaos that is now their life. 

Do you believe in Jesus?  Do you trust Jesus?  

We may not have death at our doorstep today, but we, too, are sent and empowered by the Spirit to walk right out that door and trusting God, to proclaim God’s love made known in Jesus Christ!

Shalom. Eirene. Peace … be with you. 

   Alleuia & Amen!

Upside-Down Spirituality

Now that I've retired, I hope to have more time to write but in the meantime, here is the message I offered at Mission Bend UMC in Houston, Texas on February 13, 2022. 

Read Luke 6:17-26

Not long after Rosa Espinoza and her husband, Eleazar, moved into their first home, they started wondering if they’d made a huge mistake. “Boys with baseball bats hung out on the corners, and they weren’t looking for a pick-up game,” recalls Eleazar. “After a drive-by shooting on our street, we started to really worry about the safety of our eight-year-old son. I thought, ‘What have we gotten our family into? What are we going to do now?’”

Rosa and Eleazar Espinosa initiated a neighborhood watch group, but the morning after the first meeting a clear message was spray-painted on their truck, ‘keep your mouth shut!” Rosa paused. She listened and she looked around her neighborhood. It’s like she took a shell, like this … it’s outer shell is brown and rough and tough and she turned it upside down and looked at the other side: delicate and beautiful and different. 

Then, Rosa decided to take a different approach to the bullies in her neighborhood. She transformed her two-car garage into a free after-school K-12 tutoring program. Rosa’s Garage, complete with computers, books, and banners for kids who made the honor roll, that was her way of looking beyond just her own problems to address some of the issues in her neighborhood. Rosa said, “We started by offering homework help and free lemonade. Sixteen kids showed up the very first day,” she remembers, and she started recruiting high school students with solid grades as tutors. “This was the first tutoring program in the neighborhood, and it was clear that these kids really did want to learn.”

Rosa’s Garage literally transformed the Espinoza’s neighborhood; within two years, academic scores went up and the crime rate went down. Rosa and Eleazar invested in their community and their community was transformed by their efforts. All because they were “upside down spirituality” kind of people. 

How would you “feel” if your car was spray painted, vandalized, for no good reason?  Angry? Confused? Fearful? Hurt?

When their car was spray painted, Rose and Eleazar could have gotten angry and demanded the kids who did it be caught and put in juvenile detention, or worse. But they turned their situation upside down to see it from a different perspective.

Jesus shows us upside-down spirituality with every encounter he has and with every story he tells. Just like Rosa and Eleazar, Jesus calls us to be upside-down spirituality kind of people, too! 

As we look at our scripture reading this morning, let’s see what we can learn from Jesus and the Prophets about being upside-down spirituality kind of people.

This passage may have seemed a little familiar. And that’s because it’s Luke’s version of Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” where Jesus offers us the “beatitudes.” Luke’s version is called “the Sermon on the Plain.” Wait! Is that a think? How many of you have ever heard of the Sermon on the Plain? Well, it is a thing!

It’s called the Sermon on the Plain because Jesus has just come down from the mountain where he had been praying. He has chosen his disciples.  He has engaged in healing Jewish people from Judea and Jerusalem and Gentile people from Tyre and Sidon. This was a large healing event. 

In the midst of all of this healing, Jesus turns to the disciples and to us. He gives us 4 blessings (or beatitudes) and 4 woes (warnings). 

The word "blessed" is translated from the Greek word, Makarios. It expresses the kind of happiness rich people would experience because they are free from care, they have nothing to worry about. It can also refer to a spiritual state of well-being that comes from prosperity. 

The word translated "woe" is from the Greek word ouai (oo y) which is "an interjection denoting pain or displeasure. It is also an expression of pity for those who stand under divine judgment. 

This literary mixing of blessings and woes in this way was quite common at the time. What sets these blessings and woes apart is that Jesus turned them upside down. They are 180 degrees contrary to human reason. You'd expect someone to say, "The rich are fortunate ... but the poor deserve what they get." Instead, Jesus says just the opposite. Take this couplet for example: 

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation

The other couplets are no more reasonable:

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

When we hear something like this, something that is so contrary to our human reason, we might spiritualize it to the point that it really has no meaning at all. I think that is a mistake, Jesus doesn’t just say things for no reason. 

We do tend to add to the poor, “in spirit” because Matthew does. But when we read them in these couplets, like Luke wrote them, it doesn’t really feel like Jesus intends us to spiritualize them, or he would have said so.  

The other thing we do is dismiss people who are poor or hungry because hey, they are going to get reward in heaven. That’s true, right?  It says so right there.  So why worry about them? At the same time, if we take these couplets literally like that’s a major WOE for rich people. We might even condemn people for having possessions. Or expect them to give everything away?  Should I seek to be poor and hungry and full of grief? After all, Jesus met a rich young ruler seeking eternal life and told him to give everything away to the poor. 

Let’s not forget that it is not money itself that is the root of all evil, but the love of money/possessions/power that is the root of all evil. 

Woe to all of us who do not have the desire and the ability to share what we have with those who don’t have anything. The reality is that we have enough food in this world to feed every person, but we don’t. because why?

This is hard isn’t it. If we can’t spiritualize these couplets and we can’t literalize them … Is there a balance here, is there anything in between?  Could the balance be found in upside-down spirituality?

What IS this upside-down spirituality that Jesus is calling us to anyway?

More than anything, I think that Jesus calls us to think, to take situations, turn them upside-down which is just maybe a catchy way to say, I think Jesus wants us to see things from a different perspective.  I think Jesus wants us to see people the way he sees people, as valuable human beings who deserve to be cared for simply because they exist, valuable even though they are different, valuable even if we don't think so, valuable even if they can't do anything for us. People are valuable. 

And I think he wants us to understand the things we have here on earth are fleeting, and they aren’t worth watching people suffer when we could help them. Whenever Jesus turns things upside down as he does in this passage and so many others, it is an invitation to seek the kingdom of God. 

Jesus told some of his best upside-down stories, we call them parables, to help us try to understand the Kingdom of God. Do you remember the parable about an employer who hires workers to harvest grapes in his vineyard? He hires members of the crew at various times of the day, so that at the end of the day, some have only worked an hour or a few hours while others have worked all day long. Oh my goodness, the anger when everyone is paid the same standard day’s wage, regardless of how long they worked. To add insult to injury, those who started last got paid first. You know I have heard more people complain about this parable than any other.

“It’s not fair!”

Maybe it isn't fair, that's true. But Jesus says this is what the Kingdom of God is like if you want an invitation. 

Here is the key for me to this passage: the Kingdom of God/Upside down spirituality of Jesus, as seen through the lens of Luke’s theology, is firmly rooted in the prophets.  And that is where we have to go to truly understand how this passage is relevant for us today. It’s no wonder that Jesus mentions the prophets in this passage in such a provocative way, mentioning the way they were treated by the ancestors.

True prophets were hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed because they preached an authentic truth that was hard to hear. Whereas false prophets were spoken well of because they told the people what they wanted to hear … It was really the prophets who started all of this upside-down spirituality. 

The 3-fold message of the prophetic books (followed in the New Testament by John the Baptist) is 

1) a call to repentance. 

2) Without repentance there will be consequences, judgment. 

3) Promise of a Messiah who would bring forth the Glorious Kingdom of God for the people of God!  

Our responsibility in this 3-fold message is repentance. The 2nd and 3rd part of their message, that’s God response. And they are not mutually exclusive. 

The prophets call for us to repent. Repentance comes from the Greek word metanoia. It means to “turn” from those things that damage our relationship with God. There are specifically three areas of sin that the prophets were concerned with.

1) A Call to Repentance from:

• Idolatry: "An idol is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, and anything that you seek to give you what only God can give."  Jesus repeatedly tells us that it is hard for rich people (and by this he means anyone who has money and possessions) to put their whole and complete trust in God. Money can easily be an idol. At the very least, I think we might not understand how much our trust in God relies on our circumstances. A couple of years ago I had a friend who was going through a terrible divorce. Her husband was rich and powerful, and he knew a lot of people. She wound up with nothing and lost her children to this man. She said to me, you know it is a lot easier to have faith when you have money. I look at people differently now that my life has been turned upside down. 

• Social Injustice: God demands that we care for the vulnerable and marginalized. I honestly don’t think that we have any idea just how seriously God takes social injustice, structures and institutions that thrive on systemic evil. God has always cared about widows and orphans. God has always cared about poor people, so much that in the ancient new east at harvest times, farmers were instructed to leave behind pods for the poor. When Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees because he and his disciples were taking grain from the fields on the Sabbath, his response was, “we were hungry.” The only time it was recorded that Jesus was angry. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers who were taking advantage of poor people. In the Jewish social system, although there is no evidence it ever happened, there was to be a Sabbath, or Jubilee, year. During this Year of Jubilee, the land was to rest (no sowing or reaping). Slaves, servants, and even captives were to be released. Property was to be returned to original owners. Outstanding debts were to be canceled. It was a year to re-set the communal imbalance between the rich & poor. When we look at Luke's couplets in our passage today, we can see jubilee.

• Empty Spiritual Practices/Rituals: God desires a intimate relationship with people and with communities, supported by spiritual practices and rituals, such as (in early time) sacrifice, prayers, worship. But these rituals (spiritual practices) are only a means to a relationship with God, they reveal your relationship with God. They are not an end in and of themselves. Rituals and spiritual practices are not THE relationship. Worship is NOT a relationship with God, it is a means to nurture the relationship. If you come to worship, and sing and lift your hands (or not) and pray fervently so that everyone talks about how faithful you are and then you go out that door and step over the homeless person lying on the ground in front of you, call your neighbor to gossip about how much weight the lady in Sunday school gained, make everyone in your orbit miserable with your negativity and never give another thought about God until the next Sunday you walk in the door, well the prophets have something to say to you and I say, may God be merciful to you. You need to check yourself and turn your life upside down for Jesus!

There are the three main responsibilities we have in our relationship with God according to the prophets and Jesus: 

• to put God first in our lives, 

• to care about marginalized persons, 

• to nurture our relationship with God thru spiritual practices.

The other 2 main concerns of the prophets are judgment and the promise of the Messiah, which are God’s responsibility, or God's response to sin. 

2) Divine Judgment 

When it comes to judgment, I think we should be very careful. For the most part I believe that there is an unfolding of natural consequences in life. Truly, what goes around comes around. I think it is never a good idea to pronounce that something bad that happens to someone or to a community is God’s punishment, for how would we know that? 

3) The Promise of a Messiah

Finally, the prophets gave the people hope through the promise of a Messiah. When we really think about it, Jesus himself is an upside-down Messiah! The Messiah was supposed to be a military and political leader who would rule as a king; a king who would bring everlasting peace to Israel. Even the disciples never understood what Jesus was about. Up until the very end, they just didn’t get it. There are commentators that believe Judas Iscariot's sole purpose in betraying Jesus was to force him to overthrow the Roman government and place himself on the throne as the true and rightful King of Israel, to rule the world I suppose. 

But that was not then, nor is it now the kind of Messiah that Jesus was. For God so loved the world, that God gave us Jesus, the Beloved with whom God was well pleased … as promised, so that we might not perish but have everlasting, eternal life. Why? Because we are valuable, every single one of us is valuable to God!  We should be valuable to one another, too!

While we cannot be sure about judgment, we have whole-heartedly embraced the promise of the Messiah because that is our story and our witness. As you live out your story and your witness, how is Jesus calling you to be an upside-down spirituality kind of person? 

Since it is Black History month, we close with a Prayer of Maya Angelou, an African-American poet, memoirist, civil rights activist, and (I dare say) an upside-down spirituality kind of person. 

Father, Mother, God

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days,

for then we can share that which we have 

with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days, 

for then we are able to celebrate you and our families and friends.

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out 

in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, 

we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, 

we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, 

we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most--Peace.

Jesus, Emmanuel

Scripture         Read Luke 2:1-21
Focus Verse    Matthew 1:23
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, (which means “God with us”)

Commentary:  Wow!  Amazing!  Mind-blowing!  Incredible!  Astounding!  Remarkable!

In the incarnation, God took on human form in the person of Jesus. God became one of us and experienced life, but not a privileged and powerful life.  Jesus lived a hard life.  It was a life lived in community, aligned with the powerless, yet one in which he experienced God in the midst of each moment. We rejoice because in Jesus, God walked among us ... ate, laughed, cried, slept, and felt tired, angry, happy. Whatever you feel, God in Christ has felt those same feelings.  It is a wonder that in Christ, God set aside glory for the journey to the cross, for us, so that we might have everlasting life. 

On this night, we celebrate the Messiah, who does not make his appearance in visible might, but in the form of a humble, vulnerable baby!  Emmanuel!  God with us!

Wow!  Amazing!  Mind-blowing!  Incredible!  Astounding!  Remarkable!  Amen!

Reflection: How do you experience “God with Us?”
    
Prayer Breathing in … Jesus Emmanuel  
Prayer Breathing out … God with Us!

If music is a spiritual pathway for you, Christmas Eve is the most wonderful day for traditional Christmas music!  I've pulled a couple of my favorites for you.  First, O Holy Night with HomeFree followed by Joy to the World by Celtic Woman.  

You are invited to worship with us as we gather online for our streaming services.  

You can join us live OR recorded.

Livestream Worship - 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm

Drive through Communion at the Church
22111 Morton Ranch Road, Katy, TX 77449
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm & 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
 
Go to https://www.hckaty.org/

 

Jesus, Image of the Invisible God

Scripture         Read John 1:1-5
Focus Verse    Colossians 1:15    
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. 

Commentary:  Is it possible to have a visual image of something that is invisible?  Beyond the imagination I mean.  Well ... in this case, Yes! Christ IS the image of the invisible God but Christ is more than just an image, Jesus is real.  In the human being Jesus, we meet God face-to-face; nothing less than the presence of our Creator, God “with” us. Jesus, the Son of God, not only reflects the image of God, Jesus IS God. As human beings, we are shaped in the image of God, but we are not God. I think we know that but we may need reminders occasionally.  

At the time Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians, the Roman Empire's Caesar was proclaimed to be a God. Therefore, Paul's words could be considered rebellious to the empire.  For if Jesus is God, then perhaps Caesar is not ... God. While none of us, Caesars and world leaders included, are not God, we are all called to allow God to be visible in the world through us. And it is up to each one of us to discern what God in Christ looks like, through us, in the world today ...

Reflection: What “names” of Jesus evoke the sense and presence of God for you?  Why?  What name or names stretch you beyond your comfort zone?  What is God's invitation in your discomfort?
    
Prayer Breathing in … Invisible God
Prayer Breathing out … Be visible in me

If music is a spiritual pathway for you, listen to "Angels from the Realms of Glory," via YouTube video, in a performance that set a Guinness World Record for the Largest Live Nativity World Record with 1039 people.  The Piano Guys, Peter Hollens, David Archuleta, and The Tabernacle Choir joined lots of kids, moms, dads and other people in this beautiful arrangement. 

Jesus, Beloved

Scripture         Read Mark 1:9-13
Focus Verse    Matthew 17:5
While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!”

Commentary:  The root of the word “beloved” in this passage comes from the Greek word agape, which is love in its highest form, the love God has for human beings.  

In the longer passage, we see that all three Persons of the Holy Trinity are present in this beautiful baptismal image: the Father is speaking, the Son is in the waters, and the Spirit is descending like a dove. The divine fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one in which each is eternally lovingly delighting in each other. Don’t we all want to feel completely loved and delighted in by God, as Jesus was in our baptismal image?  

It may be instructive for the understanding of our faith that Spirit immediately leads Jesus into the desert for his 40 day wilderness journey after his baptism. Whether we believe that God is testing us or that life has simply thrown us a curve ball, our faith is constantly stretched by our circumstances. In difficult times it may be hard to remember that we are the beloved of God but ... John 3:16.

Reflection: How do you experience yourself as God’s beloved?
    
Prayer Breathing in … Beloved One of God
Prayer Breathing out … Help me feel beloved

If music is a spiritual pathway for you, I invite you to pour yourself a cup of tea (or coffee) and listen to Corrinne May sing (my very favorite advent song) "In the Bleak Midwinter" via YouTube video live at Peets Coffee & Tea.  This song brings such a sweet image of Mary worshiping "the Beloved with a kiss."  And yet, it is the question "yet what can I give him: give him my heart" that touches me so profoundly, every year.  May, a Singaporean singer, hasn't recorded this song so I've been listening to the YouTube video for years, having never found a recorded performance that I like better than this young woman sitting at a piano, pouring her voice out for a small intimate audience sipping coffee and tea.  

Jesus, Jesus!

Scripture          Read Matthew 1:18-25
Focus Verse:    Matthew 1:21   
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

Commentary:  What's in a name?  These days not much really, at least not in the way it was in the Ancient Near East.  Many people today have a story to go with their name, but there isn't a communal story as it was for Jesus and his name.  Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Yeshua, or Joshua, which means “he saves.”  Reading deeper in the passage Matthew connects Jesus with a prophecy from Isaiah as he also gives Jesus the title Emmanuel, which means "God with us."  Jesus has always been a man with many titles ... but his name is Jesus, the one who saves.

Let us not lose sight of the importance of this title Emmanuel. Throughout Jewish history the Israelite community was devastated, almost annihilated many times over and thought to be beyond rescue. God saved them every time.  For this reason, people expected Jesus, if he was indeed the Messiah, to set them physically free from Roman oppression and to establish once again the "kingdom" of God on earth.  But Jesus had a bigger vision.  Jesus, Emmanuel, had a vision of God's presence in the world, a vision of cosmic proportions, a vision in which the Resurrected Jesus dwells among us in the power of the Spirit who lives with and within each follower of Jesus Christ.  What a vision!

Reflection: How do you live into Jesus’ vision?  How do you experience the presence of God?

Prayer Breathing in … Sweet Jesus
Prayer Breathing out … Be with me

If music is a spiritual pathway for you, listen to this beautiful duet by Travis Cottrell and his daughter Lily as they sing "What a Beautiful Name/Agnus Dei."  It is a familiar contemporary praise song. Although it isn't a Christmas song, I have no words for the beauty of these words in the last few days of our exploration of Emmanuel: The Names of God with Us! 

Jesus, Human One

Scripture         Read Mark 10:35-45 (CEB)
Focus Verse    Mark 10:45       
For even the Human One (Son of Man) did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. 

 

Commentary: Advent is our opportunity to explore not just the easy parts of the incarnation, but also the uncomfortable and challenging aspects of what it means that Jesus was fully human, that God took on flesh and in so doing limited himself. Not only did Jesus have a fully human body, but also a fully human mind, heart, and will. It is a paradox that we believe Jesus both knows all things as God and doesn’t know all things as man. This is not really a contradiction, but it is considered a peculiar gift and glory.  

The Common English Bible uses the expression "Human One" in order to highlight the meaning of the Greek phrase, uios tou anthropou, what we usually see translated Son of Man. It is Jesus' favorite way of referring to himself, using the phrase 86 times in the NT. Many times we gloss over the expression Son of Man and fail to grasp the depth of meaning it holds.  In our reading it becomes just a title. And yet, that is the argument against the use of the title Human One.  Son of Man has become a title so well known that to change it would offend people.  But Human One does have an incredible depth of meaning, this phrase that underscores the humanity of Jesus.  It is often hard for people to internalize that God suffered, sometimes arguing that Jesus didn't really suffer at all, that he was just going through the motions or even that he didn't have a real body.  What do you think?  

Reflection: How do you understand the incarnation, Jesus as both human and God?

Prayer Breathing in … Jesus, Human One
Prayer Breathing out … Enliven my Humanity

If music is a spiritual pathway for you, today is a 2 for 1.  I invite you to listen to this mashup of Mary, did you Know? and Away in a Manger sung by Tiffany Alvord & Maddie Wilson.  It is a celebration of Jesus as a human being from the crib to the cross.  

Note: Mary, did you Know? has become a Christmas favorite in recordings and in churches these days. I was alerted by a friend recently to a word in this song that is offensive to the deaf community.  This one simple word makes a huge negative impact on persons who have lived their lives being called derogatory names and made to feel less than.  I invite you, as you listen, to simply imagine that the word "mute" is substituted for the word "dumb." It is a small change that makes a huge difference to people who are beloved of God.   

 We invite you to worship with us today as we celebrate with a special musical presention! 

 You can join us live OR recorded.

Livestream Worship - 11:00 AM
Go to https://www.hckaty.org/

Jesus, Redeemer

Scripture        Read Isaiah 43:1-13
Focus Verse    Galatians 3:13    
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—

Commentary: Biblical redemption centers on God. God is the ultimate Redeemer, rescuing the chosen people from sin, evil, trouble, bondage, and death, restoring broken lives. From the beginning of time, redemption has always been an act of God's grace and is a common thread woven throughout much of the biblical narrative.  And yet, much of the redemption story in Jewish history was negotiated through the rather complicated sacrificial system.

In ancient times, the Greek word agorazo, translated “redemption” carried the meaning of freeing someone from chains, prison, or slavery.  When Jesus gave his life, of his own accord, he became the perfect sacrifice. He redeemed humanity, saving and setting free any person who accepts his life, death, and resurrection on their behalf.   

Reflection: How have you experienced God’s grace?

Prayer Breathing in … Jesus my Redeemer
Prayer Breathing out … Thank you for freedom

If music is a spiritual pathway for you, I'm sharing an old Christmas hymn I had never heard before entitled "Come, Thou Redeemer of the Earth" via YouTube.  I chose this one because it included the lyrics, and that enabled me to see the theology unfold with the song.  This is the beautiful teaching gift of hymns.  I invite you to notice with me some of the expressions we've used during our advent study.  

Jesus, Man of Sorrows

Scripture          Read Isaiah 53
Focus Verse     Isaiah 53:3, Matthew 26:38
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief … “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”

Commentary:  We know Jesus more deeply and richly, when we read Isaiah, thanks to his poetic and transcendent sketch of the nameless suffering servant that he calls "Man of Sorrows."  The Hebrew word, translated sorrow, is mak'ob, meaning anguished or afflicted.  In other versions, it is also translated suffering or pains.  

Isaiah’s original audience, likely living in exile in Babylon, heard about the messiah as the one who carried, metaphorically, Israel’s suffering ... their suffering, the "suffering servant."  In a society that avoids pain at all costs, Jesus can be hard to understand because rather than run from suffering, sorrow and pain, he moved toward it, entered into it, in order to redeem it. In the garden of Gethsemane, we glimpse the mental anguish Jesus experienced as he contemplated his own suffering. 

Reflection: How have you experienced pain and sorrow in your Christian journey?  How has God redeemed your pain and sorrow through Jesus?

Prayer Breathing in … Jesus, Man of Sorrows
Prayer Breathing out … I share your pain

If music is a spiritual pathway for you, we reach the darkest point in our advent journey through the names of Jesus to Christmas Eve and our Emmanuel "God with us."  Listen to "Man of Sorrows," sung by Joelle Perez, David Quimba, Mark Rasmussen, via YouTube video.   Advent has traditionally been a time of preparation, penitence and reflection before the joy of Christmas eve ... and here we are. Let it immerse you for one day in the humanity of Jesus through his suffering.

Jesus, Anointed One

Scripture        Read Isaiah 61:1-11
Focus Verse    Luke 4:18a    
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me …

Commentary: Christians have always seen glimpses of Jesus in the writings of Isaiah and apparently Jesus saw himself there first as he quotes Isaiah in Luke's Gospel.  “Christ” is the Greek translation of the Hebrew term Messiah, which means “Anointed One.”  Anointing was a common practice in biblical times, and with this simple verse we can see how closely associated the power of the Spirit is with anointing.  The gift of the Spirit is not given specifically for individuals but for the community. The community celebrates a king or priest with anointing, signifying that individual has been set aside for service on behalf of the community, to work toward peace and prosperity for all people.

In the New Testament, we find that anointing is also used in prayer for those who are ill and as a blessing for the dying.  When we engage in the spiritual practice of anointing, we acknowledge that God is the One who is calling us, setting us aside, and blessing us with healing and wholeness so that we might serve the people of God, empowered by the Spirit, and in the name of Jesus.

Reflection: What ministry has God called and anointed you for?  How do you feel filled with God’s Spirit when you serve others?

Prayer Breathing in … Anointed Jesus
Prayer Breathing out … Set me aside for ministry

If music is a spiritual pathway for you, listen to "Hail to the Lord's Anointed," via YouTube, with its strong social justice themes, sung by Sandra McCracken.  This hymn was written by James Montgomery and first published in 1821 as a Christmas hymn but not one I hear often during the Christmas season these days.