Flickers entrusted with His Light and Love . . .

     We have come to that wonderful time in the season we call Advent IV.  It’s that time when the world around us is full into Christmas mode.  Heck, who are we kidding, even the men among us have decided it’s almost, almost time to get serious about buying presents.  I learned this week from some colleagues in non-liturgical churches that this is actually Christmas Sunday.  Some churches celebrate Christmas today so that folks can spend time with family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  I know.  It seems to miss the point for me, too.  As a December child and the father of a December child, it smacks a bit of “hey, Jesus, here’s your combined birthday and Christmas gift.”  But it works for them.

     We, on the other hand, have one more opportunity, before the families descend or we travel, to remind ourselves of our calling as Adventers, before we dive full into the “remembering His coming among us in great humility.”  So what is going on?

      One of the chief takeaway’s we should have as a result of the season is that God is at work in the world around us making old things new, that He is using the common and ordinary to reach us, to instruct us, to woo us.  We argued a bit about this Thursday night at Wrestling with Faith.  Some think God should do more impressive miracles to catch our attention; others, of course, think we should get rid of the miracles in the Bible, a la Marcion, because God is bound by the systems He set up.  Among the various problems with that argument, of course, are the anecdotal experiences of those who have witnessed or been blessed by miracles but notice the world continues on without being destroyed.  But that is a sermon for another day.

     Today, we are focusing on our unique perspectives as Adventers.  Nothing is as it was, and nothing is as it’s going to be.  To use the language of Carola when she was your preacher and teacher, we are living in that tension between the already and the not yet.  I see some nods.  You remember her teaching!  I’ll tell her.  It might help her heal more quickly!  How do we know things have changed?  The Incarnation of our Lord Christ!  God came down as a fully human baby, born of a virgin in an outward province of the super power of the day.  He lived among us, taught among us, worked signs of power among us that testified to Who He was, He suffered and died among us, and gloriously He was raised among us.  Nothing is as it was before that magnificent and glorious event.

     And yet, we understand that the re-creation begun in the work and person of our Lord Christ is not yet completed.  We live in a world that is still not the way it will be.  Death still stalks us.  The consequence of sin still plays out in the world around us and in our lives.  Nature itself testifies to the collective sin and the weight of its guilt in the world around us.  Even as we gather to begin to turn our focus to the Incarnation, our brothers and sisters in Australia live in a modern Gehenna, of sorts, where wildfire rage and air quality is horrible, our brothers and sisters in California are bracing for a rainy season that will likely become mudslide season because of the burn scars from the late summer and early fall, droughts are still happening, tornados are still happening – pick your natural disaster.  In short, nothing is as it will be.

     But it falls to Christians, and especially to Adventers who are called to be looking back at the Incarnation even as they are looking forward to the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus, to see the impact of grace in the world around us.  You and I as Adventers, but as Christians in particular, are tasked with pointing out to the world how God is using the ordinary and everyday and re-purposing them for His glory.

     Our chief example this day, of course, is Joseph.  The story of Joseph is an amazing story, borderline heroic, yet he kind of fades from the story as a nondescript figure.  As we learn today, Joseph got the ultimate “dear John” “I think this will be better for us in the long run” confession from his betrothed.  Those of us who have had a spouse or prospective mate cheat on us understand all too well the emotional baggage that comes with such revelations.  John’s version is just a bit less common.  Uh, John, uh, this angel appeared to me and greeted me and asked if I was willing to bear God’s Son.  I said yes.  So, guess what.  I’m pregnant. 

     Those of us who have had to deal with cheating spouses and the corresponding implosions that come from such revelations understand all too well how this story should have played out.  Reality television and various blogs, as well as morning television shows, demonstrate to us the human response to such revelations all the time.  Matthew himself points out that Joseph, because he was a righteous man, determined to handle this quietly.  It would have been well within his rights to demand the trial of adultery as revealed in the torah and had young Mary stoned to death.  That we could all understand.  That is getting even with a cheater.  But Joseph determines to handle this quietly.

     It’s then that the angel appears to Joseph.  The angel appears to Joseph and tells him to believe Mary’s story.  Gentlemen, I want us to think about this for just a second.  Which would be more mind-blowing, finding out your fiancé had cheated on you and gotten pregnant or that you were going to be raising the Son of God?  I mean, on the one hand there is the emotional hurt and baggage that comes from betrayal, and on the other hand we get tasked with the ultimate responsibility of raising our Lord’s only begotten Son.  If ever there were a Scylla and Charybdis . . .

     Joseph, as we would expect of a righteous man, a man who depends upon God for teaching him how to live in right relationship with God through the torah, accepts the angel’s reassurance and honors the decision to marry and the responsibility to raise our Lord Jesus.

     In one sense, it’s an unremarkable story.  We have reality shows that speak to teen pregnancy and adulterers.  Heck, there’s a couple popular social media sites that make good money by showing how betrayed partners and spouses get even for the cheating.  This story, on the one hand, is rather trite, so far as the details are concerned.  Yet it was the Lord who used the common to begin to demonstrate His love of the world and all those in it, to tell a new story, to begin to remake those things that had grown old.

     So many of our biblical heroes have all kinds of fatal flaws.  Abraham and Sarah. Not to mention Adam and Eve, have some trust issues.  Jacob trusts a bit too much in his own conniving and strength.  David, well, among David’s faults is that he never met a woman he did not want “to know,” if you take my meaning.  Elijah is a bit to whiny to be considered heroic by most standards.  Peter takes us on a rollercoaster ride of faith, right?  Poor Thomas becomes the “doubter” when he was the one who encouraged the other Apostles and disciples to go with Jesus to Jerusalem to die with Jesus.  My list could go on and on.  No doubt you have your favorites.  Those stories exist to remind us, though, that God works through men and women and boys and girls just like us, flaws and weaknesses and other bits not to be esteemed or valued by others.  What makes them and us special is not something internal to them or to us.  What makes them and us special is that the Lord God chooses to work through us, that our Lord God calls us into relationship and then sends us out to point others to Him!  And it’s Him using us, Him dwelling in us, that gives us eyes to see and ears to ear how the old is being renewed and re-purposed.

     And because we know He has conquered the world, because we KNOW He was raised from the dead, we are fit heralds in a world whose cacophony seeks to drown out our voices, we little candles in a dark world pointing others to the Light who gives Life to the world!

     How does that play out in our lives?  There are as many different stories as there are Adventers in this congregation.  This week, I was reminded of two great stories.  One was from a woman we served through Body & Soul.  She lives in our neighborhood but lost her job.  Companies being companies and the compassionate places to work they are renowned to be, she did not get her last check.  Fortunately, she was overpaid for her work and had tons in savings, right?  Think about her plight for a second.  What if your employers ceased operations mid-December?  What would be its impact on you and yours?  Do you have enough saved to cover the mortgage?  To cover medical expenses?  To make you car and insurance payment?  To buy Christmas gifts for your loved one?  To pay your utilities?  To buy food?

     Fortunately, she heard about our work through my wife.  I know, crazy, isn’t it?  My wife, who is a huge introvert, heard her need and reached out.  The lady, of course, worried about whether she was in the right zip code, or needed an id to make sure she was not using us too much, or needed to be Episcopalian, or how she’d ever repay the help.  I heard the story, of course, from her perspective.  One of her rude discoveries is that people treat unemployment around here like a moral failing.  When asking for help, she felt judged.  Are you sure you really need this? Your car is only a couple years old.  Have you been here before and taken food?  She asked me why we don’t run our pantry like others?  I told her Hilary and Nancy and those most involved with it were trying to be intentional in mirroring or reflecting the grace that God had shown to us.  She asked if I was worried we’d get ripped off?  I told her not at all.  I lead people in the worship of the Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.  Everything is His; we are simply stewards.  What kind of God would I be following if I thought He could not provide something as simple as food?  She asked if there were people who abused our offer?  I told her I thought there were a few, but that I did not know the full story of those I thought might be abusing our pantry.  She asked how I justified that to my church.  And I told her that I did not need to.  We all knew ourselves to be sinners saved by grace and that we knew we had abused God’s grace in our own lives.  Make no mistake, I told her, I point out the spiritual danger of such attitudes toward cheap grace, but I was an equal opportunity teacher or offender or whatever she wanted to call me.

     Our conversation ended with her commenting that, if she were going to attend a church and worship God, this was that kind of church where she would want to go.  I smiled and apologized.  She asked why.  I told her that we were a terrible bunch of hypocrites, beginning with the pastor, and that if she strolled in here expecting us to be supermen or superwomen of faith, she was going to be sorely disappointed.  But if she wanted to join us on this faith journey, if she wanted to begin to plumb the depths of God’s love for her and those whom she loves in Christ’s work, we’d love for her to join us.  Y’all know she is not here as I am using her story.  SO much for humans lapping up God’s grace in a fairy tale way, huh?!

     My other illustration was far more grand and far more oppressive.  A colleague who left the Episcopal church and Anglican Communion and I were having a spirited discussion about politics.  Our discussion was about which party tries to be the party of God.  Now, I get that some liberals have no use for God and want no association with Christianity, I get it; but I also understand that there are many Christians drawn to some of the platform of the Democratic Party, or at least the platform that defined the Democratic Party two or three decades ago.  Living wages, accessible healthcare, a safety net for those on the margins – those are just a couple of easy touchstones to the Gospel, in my estimation.  But, some Democratic party leaders do try to blur political and religious theater to pander to voters.

      My colleague and I had a spirited discussion until one of the members of his congregation chimed in.  He decided to chastise me for being an apologist for Trump supporters and for comparing the sins of Democratic leaders with the sins of Republican leaders.  He was exceptional in his lecturing.  He knew who I was without needing to ask any questions.  I learned I was a stooge of the Republican party, which might amuse those Adventers who preferred Trump to Hilary in the last election, as they have wondered if I am a secret liberal.  I learned that it’s my job to judge the salvation of peoples’ souls based upon how they voted, and NOT leave that tough decision to the Man who died for all of us.  Heck, I even learned that calls to vote consciences, to really demand our Christian politicians govern as God would have them govern was naïve and stupid and part of the problem of letting so many people in small towns vote.

     In short, his lecturing testified to me and those in that thread that the Two-Party system had done precisely what it intended to do.  It had effectively divided a group of people called to testify to unity.  From many one used to be a description of America.  A melting pot.  Now we are effectively divided.  Here was a seemingly serious Christian publicly declaring that a priest was clearly not a good Christian because I dared to point out the moral flaws of those whom he followed.  When I reminded him later that God had reminded us repeatedly not to put our trust in other human beings, He was enraged.  What kind of moron claims we should trust God and think that things will improve?  It made folks uncomfortable on that thread.  The pm’s were illustrative of his temperament AND the sense of hopelessness some folks have about our divided state.

     But you and I have ultimate hope.  Which is harder, reforming a political system or raising someone from the dead?  If we believe He was raised from the dead, why should we not expect our politicians who claim the same faith to govern to live as if Jesus was serious about those things He taught, serious enough that He was willing to die for us and be raised, that we might know He was and is Who He claims to be!  That does not mean we agree on every jot and tittle of the laws passed to govern us, those are our creation and not God’s, after all.  But what if we allowed that people of the other parties, and yes there are more than two among us at Advent, were, indeed, making decisions based on their faith?  What if we allowed that countries had a right to protect their borders AND had an obligation to help those less fortunate than themselves?  What if we allowed that citizens were entitled to specific rights such as education, medical care, and living wages AND that people who made fortunes through hard work or great inventions or the luck of the lottery were not evil and entrusted to use their funds as they saw fit?

     And the benefit to public discourse?  Can you imagine?  I have a hard time watching what passes for news today.  I will listen to CNN yell about how stupid and evil Republicans are and to FOX yell about all the vast liberal conspiracies to empower deep state for about ten minutes before I have had too much.  How about the benefit to the Christian testimony to the world?  One of our Lord’s last prayers before His Passion and Death was that we would all be One even as He and the Father are One.  How are we doing living into that prayer of His?  How well are we modeling the relationship revealed in the Trinity?  And I’m not talking about the sycophants who claim the mantle of Christianity to be near the halls of power, I’m talking about our neighbors down the street, who attend whatever other normal Tennessee church and who should differ, really, only in the form of worship used.  How well do we relate with our Baptist neighbors, our Church of Christ neighbors, our Roman neighbors, or our Presbyterian neighbors?  How well do they relate with us?  The world watches and sees, even if we do not.

     The great news, the Gospel news, of course, is two-fold.  These injustices, these divisions—they are things about which God cares deeply.  He has revealed those cares and concerns to us over and over in His written word.  Better still, He demonstrated that care and concern in His work among us.  We do not have to guess what He thinks about the “other;” He has already told us!  And even when that other is an enemy, one truly committed to working against God and His purposes, we are instructed what?  That’s right, to pray for them and us.  That’s not exactly divisive activity, is it?  It’s not the ad hominem attack demanded by our current political discourse.  It’s an intentional conversation with God.  And if we use our two ears a bit more than our one mouth, we might learn something from God about our “enemy.”  We may learn that our enemy is not His enemy.

     The other fold in this Gospel reminder is that God did, indeed, raise Jesus from the dead.  We have that inescapable proof of God’s redeeming power in the Resurrection of our Lord.  If He can raise the dead, what can our Lord not do?  As messy as our systemic injustices are, their mess pales in comparison to the mess of death.  As divided as our politics are today, they pale in comparison between the division between life and death.  As breathtakingly unjust some of our systems are, their complexity pales in comparison to raising the dead to new life!   As hopeless as the idea is that we can be fit vessels for speaking God’s truth, acting as God’s feet or hands or whatever else is needed, as impotent as we are before all the evil and hopelessness in our own pathetic spheres of influence, even that pales when we confront the sin of the world or hopelessness we discover when we mistakenly think redemption is up to us.  God raised Jesus, in part, as a display of His power, that we might know He can do anything He purposes, even when it involves ordinary, plain old, flawed, and sinful us.  All He asks is that we trust and follow.  He will take care of the heavy lifting.  He will give us what we need to do His work in the world around us.

     Advent is a wonderful re-set in the Church year.  You and I are intentionally called to look back on God’s Incarnation and expectantly to His Second Coming.  Those events ought to encourage and compel us to do the work He has given us to do each and every time we leave this building.  How much does He love us and those whom we serve in His Name?  Enough to come down and dwell among us and, ultimately, to redeem us.  When we begin to buy into the myth of the Enemy that this is all that there is or that the problems are too complex for lil old us to make a difference, we forget our purpose as Christians and, especially as Adventers.  The world, my brothers and sisters, is dark.  It is incredibly dark and full of vitriol and hopelessness.  But you and I and all those who pay attention to the rhythm of the Church year realize that we are the ones sent out like candles into that world as heralds of His grace.  Were the candles or even the flickers of light our own, we would quickly be extinguished, and we, and the world, would be forced to stumble in darkness.  But God has given the privilege and the responsibility, fit for sons and daughters, to be His vessels of His redeeming love.  And we are called to carry those flickers of hope, of peace, of joy, and of love into that world around us, trusting that our flickers will point those around us to the Light that came into the world and to the Life that He calls each one of those whom He created!

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†

Heralds of joy and life!

     I was at AT&T Thursday, my third level of hell on earth for those of you who follow Dante’s circle—Comcast is the bottom circle, of course—paying a bill for a woman who keeps four survivors’ phones on her plan.  Y’all have met Christi with United Against Slavery.  Some of you have given money to help pay some bills and support her research work that we need finished to get the con-celebrated eucharist done in Nashville.  Yes, that Christi.  She has been injured and unable to work.  Unsurprising to most of us, her hours have been cut by her employer, Wal Mart.  She tore the tendons or ligaments in her foot again and is unable to do all the work she is supposed.  Good news is that the surgery will be next week.  This will be the second or third for the same injury.  If you know anything about Wal Mart, though, you know what a benevolent corporation it really is.  Wal Mart seeks that wonderful balance between great employee benefits and cheap prices for consumers to make themselves billions of dollars annually.  Why are y’all chuckling?

      Anyway, they’ve drastically cut Christi’s hours, and she’s not making enough to support herself.  Thankfully, y’all give enough in Discretionary that I can help in your name.  Thank you for those gifts and that trust.  So I went to AT&T to pay the monthly bill.  The lady helping me was a young lady, I’m guessing Sarah or Amanda’s age.  She was smaller than me, blond hair and covered in tattoos.  I gave her Christ’s number and she was working to pull up the account.  I was studying her tattoos.  She caught me squinting at one.  What can I say?  I’ve not done the eye doctor yet this year, and I could not read what it said.

     She saw and I did not want her to think I was that kind of creep.  So I told her I was trying to read her tattoo.  She held her arm up higher and closer.  It read, “I have a song in my heart.”  I commented that was an interesting choice.  She said something about her blossoming faith.  Then, Christi’s account pulled up.  “Whoa, why is this bill so high and why are you paying it if it is not yours?”  I explained I was a pastor, that Christi was injured, that the bill was for her and four survivors, and that I was using discretionary funds to pay the bill.  It kept the survivors in contact with support and work and family, where necessary, and it helped Christi.

     That got the young lady really excited.  She’d heard a lot about sex trafficking.  Nashville was the number two site in the United States behind Atlanta.  That was work she really though magnificent.  She wondered if Christi ever made it from Morristown to Nashville because it would be great to meet someone active in that work, to hear the really nitty gritty details.  She was opining this as she was fighting her system to take the discretionary account card.

     She asked how I’d met Christi, and I shared.  All of a sudden her focus was me and not the computer.  She lost that . . . for lack of a better word, spunkiness that she had had.  She commented on my cross and then invited me to go ahead when she realized I was a real priest.

     Folks, I am here to tell you the deflation was real.  Her shoulders slumped.  Joy went out of her eyes.  She was clearly ready for an attack.

     So, I asked, “go ahead with what?”

     “My tattoos,” she answered.

     “You mean they look painful or beautiful or what?”

     She looked at me like I had lost my mind.  She told me to tell her she was like a cow who had branded herself and was going to hell or to tell her that she had marked herself with the sign of the Devil and that God could not love her.  I think she had another couple examples, but I’d quit listening by then.

     “Do people really come into AT&T to tell you that?”

     She responded they did.  Several times a week.

     I told her I was stunned.  And sorry that was her experience.  I shared with her I like AT&T better than Comcast, but few other companies, and the last thing I wanted to do was to come into companies I hate and tell them they were beyond salvation, except maybe Comcast.  No, not really.  Hell, really, I want to get in and out as quickly as possible.

     She got back to work on Christ’s account, but she was clearly waiting for me to pick on her or judge her.  So I took a risk.

     “Look.  I’m willing to give you a bit of knowledge, but I need you to be super judicious in your use of it.  Can you promise me you will use this wisely?”

     I had her attention.  “About what?”

     “Tattoos.”

     I got that hopeful but distrusting “OK.”

     So I warned her.  “If you use this wrongly, assholes who would judge your salvation against our Lord’s direct command will likely yell at your manager to fire you.  It’s like that Spiderman warning: with great power comes great responsibility.  Do you understand what I am saying?”

     Recognition and humor flashed across her face.  “I got you, but can you say asshole?”

     “I just did.”  We laughed.

     What followed was the discussion about the marks of the dead.  In some cultures it was the practice to try and spiritually channel the deceased by having their name or likeness or whatever drawn on one’s body.  It was a form of channeling.  Maybe like a premodern séance, if that makes sense.  God forbid its practice in the torah.  It makes sense.  We cannot cross that chasm.  After discussing that teaching and the suggestions that she ask winsomely of their church does not use the Old Testament or other likely sputtering causing questions to start that conversation, I also needed top reassure her.  So, as long as her marks were not of the dead in her life, and she was not trying to channel their spirits, I did not think God was too upset with her.  Better still, if she was, all she needed to do was repent and stop.  Jesus had dies for those sins, too.

     Now, I will say her countenance was greatly improved.  She’d gone from service person to kind of shrinking expecting a religious judgment and now to a bit of feistiness in fifteen or twenty minutes.  She quickly reassured me that her tattoos were not channeling the dead.  In fact, she started showing me the ones on her arms.  All reflected her life.  She shared how, as a youth, she’d made some bad choices.  But, then, along the way, she’d met people who had introduced her to God and Jesus.  Make no mistake, she said she had done things of which she was not proud.  But, over time, she found her way to God and claimed Jesus as Lord.  She described some of her covered tattoos.  I have to say, I think, if I understood her correctly, the tats on this side of her body were more that black or greenish black ink, but the one ending on her forearm proclaiming her song was in all kinds of color.

     So, I stopped her and told her to forget that Bible Study lesson I had just given her.  I said her artwork was the very opposite of channeling the dead.  It recounted her salvation story.  So, it was a celebration of her being lost and found, of her choosing life and the Lord.  It’s the very opposite of channeling the dead.  She should point that out rather than my Bible Study lesson to them.

     She beamed.  “you think so?”

     “I know so.  It’s YOUR testimony to His faithfulness and love and mercy and grace.  He knows the intricacies of your tats that you would never be able to explain to me.  Why that curve there?  Why that tat in that spot?  Why the red ink there and the blue there?  He knows all your art’s significance.”

     “You’re like the passage that teaches He knows every head on body and every sparrow.”

     “Well, to be fair, that was His teaching.  You can’t blame a pastor for believing, right?”

     We finished up paying Christi’s bill and I turned to head out, back to Karen waiting in the car.

     “I’m glad you came in, pastor, and we got to speak.  Thank you, too, for giving me a couple ways to argue with the judgmental ah . . . difficult customers.  But can I ask you a real question?”

     I laughed and told her sure.

     “Why are so many Christians jerks?”

     I told her the easy answer was that they were not worshiping at Episcopal churches here in Tennessee.

     She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.  But I explained that it’s easy to get stuck in places when we don’t take the full counsel of Scripture.  We might like to focus on the hard work we think it takes to follow Jesus.  We might like to focus on the cross-bearing to which He calls each of us.  There is, to be sure, lots of serious work to be done.  But we liturgical churches get forced along the church season and through more of the Scripture.  My mind, as a result, is focused this week on Gaudete Sunday.

     “Gaudete Sunday?”

     It’s the Sunday in the somber season of Advent when we remind ourselves that we are commanded by the Lord to Rejoice!  She knew the psalm and laughed that being commanded to rejoice was like being commanded to eat your brussell sprouts and like them or eat or broccoli and enjoy it or listen to music you can’t stand and tap your toes.

     I laughed with her and told her I understood.  But I reminded her our primary act as Christian believers is to give joyful thanks to God for the saving work He has done for all of us, for us individually, and through His Son, Jesus, our Lord.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the hard, dark work, work that seems never-ending and un-impacting, but that command reminds us that He has already won and that our work, by virtue of His victory, always has meaning.

     She laughed again.  She confessed she got a little worried when I started talking about marks of the dead.  In her tattoos, apparently, are the names of some of those who first reached out to her, who first taught her that God loved her.  Some of them, she had no real way to thank other than to, you  know, remember their names all her life.  They’d given her way more than thank you’s would ever cover; some may assume they failed in her life.  Some might even be dead now; hence her fear about the marks of the dead.

     So, I reminded her that is why He commands us to rejoice.  We need to be reminded, over and over and over and over again that He has won and that nothing He gives us to do is without meaning.  We may not understand it.  Heck we may think we do but totally miss the real purpose of His.  But He is glorified in our faithfulness just as we will be in His.

     “Kinda like you paying the cell phone bill?”

     “What?”

     “You came in to pay the cell phone bill for those ladies, but you met a lady with tattoos.  You helped me with my fears and taught me how to deal with judgmental jerks.  You listened to my story and reminded be we are supposed to be a joyful people.  Heck, maybe one of these other customers or guys I worked with needed to hear our conversation, too!”

     I’d say she got it.

     Our Gospel lesson today focuses on the John the Baptist and us.  John is in prison.  Things have gone dramatically wrong from his perspective.  He baptized his cousin Jesus, saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus like a dove, and heard the voice of God proclaiming Jesus His Son.  He was the herald!  He was the prophet to whom it had been given to fulfill the words of Isaiah.  He was tasked with the glorious responsibility of announcing the coming of Messiah!  But he was in prison.  Life had not worked out the way he expected.  No glory comes in prison.  The powers that be do not tremble and bow before the authority of God.  So, he questions whether he was right.  Did I hear what I thought I heard?  Did I see what I thought I saw?  Did I understand my role, and His role, correctly?

     He sends his disciples to ask Jesus if He is the One.  In a move that infuriates modern theologians and commentators, Jesus does not give the simple yes or no answer.  Jesus tells John’s disciples to go and tell John what they see and hear.  Demons submit to His commands, signifying His power over the supernatural.  Storms submit to His commands, Fish and loaves multiply, diseases are cured, the blind see, the lame leap for joy, signifying His power over nature and what you and I call the natural order.  He heals on the Sabbath and in synagogues.  And He proclaims the arrival of God’s kingdom.  But John, like you and I, must decide who He is for ourselves.  The signs point the way, but we must decide their interpretation.  Could any but one sent from God heal on a Sabbath?  In a sacred place?  Could any but God Himself cast out demons with barely a “by your leave.”  And what of the healings?  Can we regenerate nerves 2000 years later?  Can our optometrists and ophthalmologists restore sight to the blind even today?  Can our nerve experts tell the lame to leap for joy?  And interspersed among all those miracles is His message of forgiveness and assurance that faith has made us well.  That we might know He has power to forgive, He demonstrates these signs of power and authority.

     John, of course, realizes this.  He is in a dark moment of his life, doubting himself, but he knows that what his disciples report are the signs of the messiah.  We know he finds solace in this answer because he instructs his disciples to begin following Jesus, even as he faces his looming death thanks to Salome’s dancing, alone.

     After John’s disciples leave, we might expect Jesus to fuss about John’s lack of faith.  I mean, John heard the stories from his mother and father.  How the angel silenced dad for his unbelief during work in the temple.  How mom felt him leap for the first time at the voice of Cousin Mary.  All his life was dedicated for being a fit vessel to proclaim the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promises. 

     Outside the family, of course, he has heard the stories.  God has been silent for generations, since the time of the prophet Micah.  Now, God is speaking through the voice of John.  They recognize him as a prophet of old.  And Jesus points this out to them!  What did you go to see?  A guy in fancy robes in a palace?  The ordinary?  The everyday?  No!  They recognize John is a prophet of the Lord God.  His teaching is compelling.  He is filled with the Holy Spirit and teaching people, instructing people, calling people to repent and to return to the Lord!  Better still, Jesus affirms John’s place in God’s plan of salvation.  John IS the one about whom Isaiah wrote who would proclaim Messiah!  And among those born of women, none is greater than John.

     A new age, of course, is upon them.  Some in the audience will understand the implications of Jesus’ teachings and of His miracles.  If John is the messenger ahead of the Messiah, Whom must Jesus be?  That’s right!  The Messiah!  The Savior.  His works testify to that truth, as does the teaching and preaching of John and, even the teaching and preaching of the entirety of what we call the Old Testament!  It is a time to rejoice!  Messiah has come among us!  Generations longed to see this day, and those there that day had the confirmation they needed, just as you and I today!

     And here’s the better news: all of us who belong to the kingdom of heaven, every one of us who proclaims Christ as Lord and lives as if we believe that to be true, are greater than John!  You and I have the testimony of the Empty Tomb and Ascension!  We can point people in our own lives to Jesus, the Messiah!  And just when we think we should be bursting with great news, we are reminded of the mercy and love and understanding of our Lord!

     Though some “experts” might want to condemn John for his seeming lack of faith, Jesus is uninterested in condemning him.  True, He makes John’s disciples report and testify and leaves the decision up to John, but He understands life does not go the way we want or expect.  When you and I leave the relative safety of this sanctuary to go back out into the world, sin and darkness are waging a terrible war against us and the Light we proclaim.  We may feel little better than apes on a treadmill, ministering and ministering and ministering in our plots where God has planted us, with little or nothing to show for it.  We may be impacted by the sins of our past.  We may feel the consequences of the sins of others.  We will be given tons of reason to doubt.  And Jesus accepts the doubt, understands the doubt, and gives us precisely what we need to combat the doubt.  What have you seen?  What have you heard?

     We gather as a congregation to hear the big stories of salvation and my exposition of them, but we also gather as a community of faith to share the little stories of salvation.  As cool as my illustration was from Thursday at AT&T, many of you have your own witness to share this week.  You have your own story of God’s faithfulness in your life, of God’s redemptive power in your life, and to others of us here gathered, it’s far more important than that of a stranger.  We know your struggles.  We know your faith.  We value your input or witness far more than that of a stranger.

     And what is the result?  You and I are part of a community that is not only called to rejoice, commanded to rejoice, but should be inspired to rejoice!  We are a people who experience God’s healing, God’s provision, and God’s care!  And when we feel the weight of the world, when we feel our work is worthless or nutty or not glorious, we have brothers and sisters in Christ to remind us of those things we have seen, those things we have heard, those things we have experienced.  And, if the absolute worst from the world’s perspective, death, happens to us or our loved one who loves Christ, we have the glorious remind of the Empty Tomb and Jesus’ promise that they and we will be with Him to end of the ages.  We can stare at our own graves or the graves of another and say that Alleluia like we mean it!  Like John in his prison, we get to evaluate those experiences and lessons in our lives and in the loves of those with whom we go to church and decide again for ourselves who He is, and recommit ourselves to the work He has given us to do, perhaps re-shoulder the cross He has given us to bear, and remind ourselves of a heralds job, that we proclaim His coming with heartfelt joy and wonder!  And on His behalf, and on His dime, we invite others to that Marriage Feast.  That is our job!  That is our privilege!

     As we speed past the halfway point of our patronal season and are commanded to rejoice, we have a great opportunity to self-respect.  Are we a rejoicing people?  Am I a rejoicing person?  Put in easier language, do I live and speak as if I believe Jesus was and is Messiah, as if He lived and died for the sins of all those in the world, and as if God raised Him on that glorious third morning to demonstrate to us and the world the truth of His identity and the truth of His words?  Make no mistake, it is a self-reflection that all Christians should undertake, but rejoicing is part of our identity as liturgical Adventers.  Yes, it is a somber season.  Yes, there are other lessons to be found in the readings during each three-year cycle.  But every year, God reminds us that we are to rejoice!  We are, as much as we are called to be heralds of His grace or heralds of His mercy or heralds of His first coming or heralds of His second Coming, called to be heralds of joy!  Heralds who know themselves to have been redeemed at ultimate cost!  Heralds who can truly and loving and all those other adverbs thank God for the saving work He has done, not only in their own lives, but in the lives of all those around them!  Like the lady’s tattoo whom I referenced at the beginning of this sermon, we should be heralds whose hearts and faces and minds are exploding with song, the joyful song of the redeemed!

In His Peace,

Brian†