The Spirit of Christmas

The scriptures referred to are Galatians 4:4-7.

There is an interesting phenomena that existed before the internet but which, as usual, the worldwide web has exacerbated. It is taking a really good, pithy, insightful quote and misattributing it to someone famous. As one meme puts it, “Don't believe everything you read on the internet just because there's a picture with a quote next to it.” And it is attributed to Abraham Lincoln complete with his picture. For some reason people cannot believe an obscure person made a succinct or witty observation that is universal. It must have been said by someone well known. Consequently, there are large sections on the Wikiquote pages of Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and C.S. Lewis listing things they supposedly said that are disputed or mistakenly attributed to them. There is even a Facebook page called Confirming C.S. Lewis Quotations.

Fortunately one of my favorite theological quotes was in fact written by C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity. He wrote, “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” Even so Lewis, who was extremely well-read, was probably paraphrasing Irenaeus of Lyon, a second century Greek bishop, who put it this way, “He who was the Son of God became the the Son of Man, that man...might become the son of God.” I think Lewis said it better. But both may have been thinking of a verse in today's passage from Galatians: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”

Often we get so caught up in the idea that God became a human being that we forget that there was a reason for it and it wasn't merely to die on a cross. It wasn't merely to change our destination in the afterlife. It was ultimately to change us into children of God.

There is an idea out there that all people are automatically children of God. But that's not strictly true. We are his creations. Yes, we were created in his image but you have to admit that if you look hard at people the most you can say is that we are a caricature of God. We means we can appreciate Hamlet's monologue where he says, “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.” The gap between what people are capable of and how they actually behave is astonishing and not in a good way.

Every good thing humans have invented has also been used for evil. The Athenians came up with democracy but then excluded women and slaves and restricted it to adult male citizens, perhaps 30% of the adult population. And in the US we did the same, adding that the males had to be white and own land. We have expanded the franchise but there are always those who fight to limit the political power of the average person. 

Inventors have come up with innumerable labor saving devices...and torture devices. Thomas Edison, in order to discredit his competitors who used alternating current rather than his direct current, invented the electric chair using alternating current! Science has made great breakthroughs that have extended lives and it also has been used to justify racism and eugenics. After World War 2 we acquired a lot of valuable data on human endurance...obtained by Nazi scientists like Joseph Mengele who experimented on Jews and disabled people. 

And of course we ended that world war by developing atomic weapons which are so horrific we have never used them again. Except in experiments in the Marshall Islands that have left the Bikini Atoll more radioactive than Chernobyl and Fukushima 60 years after the event. Oh, and the 100 above ground tests held in the Nevada desert a mere 65 miles from Las Vegas which the CDC says resulted in 11,000 cancer deaths. C.S. Lewis said, “Actually it seems to me that one can hardly say anything either bad enough or good enough about life.” The same goes for human beings.

And it is the gap between what we aspire to be and what we actually are that has turned many people off to the church and to God. There was actually a group called Fundamentalists Anonymous in the 1980s and 90s that was set up to help people leaving religious groups that are rigid and controlling. Worse, I just read a article in The Times that said, “Nuns running a children's home in Germany prostituted boys in their care to priests, local politicians and businessmen in the 1960s and 1970s, according to a victim who won a court fight for compensation.” This is the same church that builds and runs hospitals, homeless shelters, food pantries and aids and resettles refugees.

How does this happen? Because we cannot be what God created us to be if we try to do it on our own. Let's go back to the beginning. In Genesis it says, “...the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” As in Greek, the Hebrew word for breath and wind also means spirit. We become living beings created in the image of God, thanks to the Spirit of life God gives us. As C.S. Lewis points out, God makes us the way a human being makes a car. And just as the car is designed to run on gasoline, we are designed to run on God. Try to fuel your life with something other than God, even good intentions, and your life won't run very well or go very far. Most of humanity and sadly, some Christians are running on empty.

That's what I meant about us not automatically being children of God, but creatures. Lewis compares it to the difference between a toy soldier and a real one. And if he lived today, he might talk of the marvelous toys and robots we have now that are able to mimic human beings to an amazing degree, thanks to computers and electronics. But have you noticed that the more they look like humans, the creepier they are? Because they aren't actually human. They lack real humanity.

And when people do awful things, like abuse children, we say such things are inhuman. Except that they aren't. Humans do such things. But part of us knows that is not how humans should act. Somewhere inside us, we remember that we were meant to be like God, as Hamlet says. We have the potential. Why do we fall short? (And by the way, that is literally what the Greek word for sin means: to fall short, to miss the mark.)

We need God's Spirit. When we turn to God and accept his offer of grace, we become not merely creatures who vaguely resemble God in some ways but his children. Paul says, “And because you are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying 'Abba! Father!'” The Spirit that empowered Jesus in his ministry empowers those who trust Jesus to follow him and to be like him.

Christmas does not end with the baby lying in the manger, just as Christianity doesn't end with Jesus ascending into heaven. It's just the beginning of what God is doing in us. Jesus shows us how to live and then passes the baton on to us, so to speak, by sending his Spirit to us. The Son of God became a human being to enable human beings to become children of God. He did it not just by dying for us but by giving his life, his Spirit, to us. If we are God's children, the resemblance should be so strong that people will see what we do and say, “That's His kid, alright!”

There is a meme I saw and shared on the internet that has become wildly popular, especially on the Episcopalians on Facebook and ELCA Clergy pages. It shows Jesus sitting and talking to a little girl. He says, “Love, compassion, forgiveness, healing, understanding and renewal. These are the tenets of Christmas...” And she says, “Shouldn't that be year round?”

Indeed. 

All We Want for Christmas

The scriptures referred to are Luke 2:1-20.

There was no Christmas tree on the first Christmas. There were no presents. (The wise men came much later.) There were no candles. (They used little clay oil lamps.) There was no singing. (In a distant field angels praised God and, we are told, spoke to some shepherds.) There was no church service. There was no drummer boy.

There was excitement but it wasn't in anticipation of a party. It was the anxiety caused by a woman suddenly going into labor. Contrary to the traditional picture of the family being consigned to a stable, due to a mistranslation and a misunderstanding of the layout a first century house, Mary probably gave birth in the main room of a house belonging to one of Joseph's relatives. After all, he came from Bethlehem and must have had property there he had to register for taxation. So he probably had family there, however distant. And the rule of Middle Eastern hospitality would mean they would take him and his pregnant fiancée in. They had no room in the guest room (that's what Luke wrote, not “inn”) so they would have invited them into the one room where the family did all their living. It was on two levels. At night the family would bring their animals in to stay on the lower level, separated from the raised family room by a feeding trough, the manger they hastily laid the unexpected newborn in for want of a better place.

So rather than the tranquil, reverent scene we imagine, there was a frantic improvised air to what happened. It started when Mary's water broke and she started having contractions. Someone, perhaps a child, a young cousin of Jesus, would be sent for the village's midwife. What little furniture they had would be moved out of the way. Mary would be laid in the middle of the room, writhing and crying in pain. There would be amniotic fluid to be mopped up. Joseph and the menfolk and the animals would be shooed out of the house while his sister or sister-in-law or cousin and any other women present, perhaps even a older girl child, would make preparations. The midwife would arrive and take charge. She and the other women would raise Mary up and put her on the birthing stool and encourage her at the right time to push. Joseph would be outside, hearing Mary's cries, feeling useless and helpless. His brother or cousin would be trying to calm him down, cracking lame jokes or, worse, telling him horror stories of his wife's previous labors. There were no cigarettes to smoke, no coffee to drink. Joseph could only wait. And pray.

Inside all the women would be focused on Mary. Her pains would be getting stronger and closer together. It would have gone on for hours. Periodically between contractions the midwife would firmly but gently try to ascertain the position of the baby. And then it was time and the women would urge Mary to push and she would grit her teeth and push, in spite of the pain. And finally the top of the baby's head would appear and then the whole head and the midwife would ease the shoulders out and the rest of the slippery baby would come out into her hands. The midwife would take it and clean out its nose and mouth with her finger. And it would grimace and sneeze and start to cry. And the midwife would tell Mary it was a boy, tie and cut the cord and hand it off to the other women to clean. They would wash it and rub its skin with salt and wrap it tightly in bands of cloth. And just as Mary relaxed the midwife would tell her she wasn't done yet. She still had to deliver the placenta.

When all was done the men would be readmitted as well as any of the older children who had not been sent to stay with the neighbors for the night. And Joseph would see their son for the first time. He might be a little disconcerted that, in order to clean up Mary and the room, they had laid the baby in the feeding trough. The animals being brought in would be looking at it with varying degrees of curiosity or not. Some might be trying to eat the straw around the baby only to be shooed away by one of the women.

Then there would be a knock at the door. Joseph's relative would answer it only to find a bunch of shepherd boys, babbling about angels and the Messiah and wanting to see the baby. And Joseph's relative look at Joseph and Joseph would look blankly back at him. Then Joseph would look at Mary who would look back, exhausted as if to say, “You handle this.” And then with a shrug, Joseph would indicate they be let in. And the boys would come in and ooo! and ahh! at the child and the baby's cousins would show him off proudly, as if they had had something to do with it.

And then it would be time for Mary to nurse the baby and everyone would be ushered out again.

Mary's parents would not be their to see the birth of their grandchild. Nor could she call them or text them or Facetime them or put everybody on a Zoom call. Her parents, and likely Joseph's, would not know what happened for a long time.

Nor would the days to come be without anxiety. Infant and child mortality was high. 50% of all children did not make it to the age of 5. There were no vaccinations, no germ theory, nothing we would call proper medical knowledge or care. Mothers, too, died of complications or infections after giving birth. Many people knew the heartbreak of death following shortly after what should have been a joyous occasion, a new birth. Parents mourned their dead children. Husbands mourned their dead wives. Grandparents mourned daughters and grandchildren. So everyone would be watching Mary and Jesus for any signs of ill health. The midwife would make regular visits to make sure they were fine.

And that is how Jesus came into the world. There were none of the trappings of what we call Christmas these days. There were just people, anxious, in pain, separated, lonely, confused, feeling useless and helpless, in a place they hadn't anticipated being, coming together in a crisis, trying to make everything come out all right for everyone. Kinda like today.

God did not come into a world where everything was fine, where people were well off and had everything they needed and wanted. He came into a world where there were problems. He came into a world where people had needs. They needed love. They needed peace. They needed courage. They needed faithfulness. They needed healing. They needed hope. They needed God. Kinda like today.

And God came. And he came in the same messy, painful way we all come into this world. He came not as a king. He came not as a superhero. He came not as a warrior. He came as Jesus. In him we find love, we find peace, we find courage, we find faithfulness, we find healing, we find hope.

For a good Christmas we don't need all the things we have come to think we do. We need Jesus. In him we find all that we need...and more than we could ever want.

Peace

The scriptures referred to are all noted in the sermon.

The deadliest war the US has ever fought is not the second World War, not the Vietnam war, not even our longest war, the still ongoing war in Afghanistan. It was the Civil War. According to a recent study by historian J. David Hacker the previously accepted number of 620,000 dead was an undercount. Using statistical software and the US census records to see what men of military age were alive in 1860 but not in 1870 and checking it against the normal survival rates from 10 years before the war and 10 years after, he calculated the excess death toll to be 21% higher than previous estimates. He says around 750,000 people died in the war. As a percentage of the US population, it would be the equivalent of 7 and a half million deaths today. Our worst war was with ourselves.

In addition, according to the Civil War Trust, 476,000 were wounded. An estimated 1 out of every 13 Civil War veterans went home missing 1 or more limbs.

The casualties were so great that it showed what the army and the nation were lacking. There were no national cemeteries, no burial details and no formalized process to notify families of their loss. These were remedied. It also led to the reorganization of the Marine Hospital Fund into the Marine Hospital Service. Eventually this became the Public Health Service. What our bloodiest war did not do is convince the country to think twice before getting into more wars. The US has been fighting wars for more than half the time it's existed. As of 2019 we have 750 military bases around the world and troops in 140 different countries.

Peace in the Bible or shalom includes the cessation of conflict, of course. Peace between people is something that God puts a high priority on, especially between his people. Psalm 133 says, “See how good and how pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity.” (Psalm 133:1) That is why Jesus says the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as you do yourself. (Mark 12:31) But Jesus' definition of neighbor is more expansive than just the people who live near you. It is whomever you encounter, especially if they are in need. (Luke 10:25-37) And, of course, Jesus goes even beyond that.

Almost every religion has some version of the “golden rule”: “treat others as you would like to be treated.” (Matthew 7:12) But none has the equivalent of Jesus' most revolutionary commandment: “Love your enemies.” (Matthew 5:44) But it makes sense if all human beings are created in the image of God, (Genesis 1:27) and if God truly loves everyone (John 3:16) and wants to save everyone (2 Peter 3:9). Which is why Paul said, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (Romans 12:18)

This is elementary Christian ethics. What it is not is natural. Peace is not the natural order for animals. Conflict, strife and competition are. Peace for prey is the interval between being hunted by predators. Peace for predators is the aftermath of killing and eating prey. Within a troop of baboons peace is being one of the alphas who keep their place by beating down those lower in the hierarchy. Peace for those at the bottom are the moments of grooming a higher up or getting to eat the scraps left over after the others eat. There is no real lasting peace for animals in nature. They are eaters or the eaten, beaters or the beaten.

We are created in the image of the God who is love and so we are capable of cooperation across kinship lines, which scientists are recognizing is what is truly unique about humans. Other animals think, count, communicate, make and use tools, albeit with a lot less complexity. But it is rare to see the higher animals cooperate in the ways we have to build cities and nations. Meerkats and chimps and ants have wars. But they do not conclude peace treaties or trade agreements. Peace is not merely a human ideal; we have made great strides in achieving it.

But we still have wars. Currently there are 4 major wars going on, resulting in 10,000 deaths in the current or last year, as well as 14 smaller wars, resulting in more than 1000 but less than 10,000 deaths, and 22 armed conflicts resulting in less than 1000 deaths, plus numerous skirmishes and clashes. Some wars are fairly straightforward attempts to acquire land or resources or achieve other economic aims. Other warring powers pursue more intangible goals, like enhanced reputation or ideology. And yet ultimately all wars end with both parties sitting down and talking about the conditions of peace. Which makes you wonder why they don't just start with that and save all the death, disease and destruction of their respective countries.

James says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it? You kill and you covet but you cannot have what you want...” (James 4:1-2) The image of God that is in us and that seeks peace is at war with our desires that drive us to fulfill them however we can. Thus we seek power in order to do so and we seek control, even over others, and that leads to conflict. As long as human beings can't control their desires and impulses, we will not know peace.

To truly achieve peace among us, we need peace within us. And that peace comes only from God. And that peace with God comes through Jesus. We were all of us at war with God, wanting to do things our way. Even those who say they are trying to follow God often try to do it on their own terms. We are to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. Instead we try to hold back parts of our life that we want to be in charge of and that we don't want God poking his nose into. And they may be things that in fact we put before God, little household gods like money, or power, or sex, that, when faced with a moral dilemma, we will stick with rather than God. Remember the rich young man who wanted eternal life and was following almost all the commandments? Jesus, perceiving there was one area of his life he did not trust to God, told him, “One thing you lack. Go sell everything you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” And we are told, “At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had many possessions.” (Mark 10:17-31) Or should we say, he was possessed by many things that he valued more than God.

Or it may be the second great commandment that we want exemptions from. Jesus told us to love both our neighbors and our enemies. And we say, “Yes,” but in our hearts we still reserve the right to exclude from that command people we just can't stomach: people we think are poor because they are lazy, people who take drugs, people who love people of the same sex as they, people who are trying to enter this country illegally, people who think our political party is evil or stupid or both. But Jesus didn't say, “Love everyone except _______.” He didn't say, “Love those people who deserve your love.” Because he didn't do that with us. Paul says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us....For if while we were enemies we were reconciled through the death of his son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life?” (Romans 5:8, 10) God loves his enemies, which included at one time us. And Jesus said, “A new command I give you; Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34) And he said this knowing he would die for us the very next day. God loves us all, no exceptions. We must love all, no exceptions.

When we lay down our reservations and accept God's unconditional love for us and respond by loving him back and loving other people without conditions, we find peace within us. (Romans 5:1) That peace comes from God's Spirit which now dwells in those who trust in him. Paul writes, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Romans 15:13) One aspect of the fruit of the Spirit is peace. (Galatians 5:22)

In an X-Files episode Mulder encounters a genie and wishes for world peace. He finds that the genie has eliminated all other people in the world. And, yeah, without other people, there is no war or fighting. It's not really what Mulder wants and his next wish is to reverse it. But that is the peace nations at war, as well as bigots and extremists, somehow hope to achieve: peace by killing all their enemies. But that never happens. And never will. Because in killing people's sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends, they make new enemies of their remaining loved ones. Violence begets more violence. Violence cannot give any peace except the peace of the grave.

And here we come to the other meaning of peace. The peace from God is not merely the absence of conflict but wholeness, complete wellbeing. That's why Jesus was not a warrior but a healer. God's peace leads to people working together in harmony because they have him and they recognize that he is what they really desire and that desire has been fulfilled by him. The gift of Christmas is Jesus, the God who is love, coming to earth, becoming one of us, ending our internal conflicts that we might find peace and end our external conflicts. That is why he is called the Prince of Peace.

Charles Williams pointed out that because we are commanded not to covet anything of our neighbor's, and since God is everywhere and therefore our neighbor, and everything is God's and so we cannot covet anything of his, the only thing that we can covet is God! Real peace comes from realizing that Jesus is our desire. He loves us in spite of our flaws and our sins and our failures and our doubts. He loves us enough to die for us. And he will never leave us or forsake us. Nobody loves us more than he does. And isn't that what we desire above all else: someone who loves us that much and will always love us? And wouldn't being wrapped in his love be all the peace we could ever desire?

Joy

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 61:1-4, Psalm 126, and 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24.

You see the videos online: an unsuspecting child is approached from behind by a parent in military uniform. Once they turn and see them they run to them, jump into their arms and often cry. But they are obviously tears of joy. It is evident that the soldier is returning from deployment and they haven't see their spouse and kids for a while. But the kids are much more emotional because the time their parent was gone is a much bigger portion of their short life. Who knows how young they were when they last saw their mother or father? Dogs are even more demonstrative, jumping up, trying to lick their faces, wagging their tails and positively vibrating with joy. Which brings to mind another set of videos that show kids being unexpectedly given puppies as pets. In these the children do not jump or squeal but their faces distort into what, in another context, might seem to be the mask of great grief and they cry copiously. They are, however, overcome with joy in reaction to their fondest desire being fulfilled at last.

Usually we think of happiness as consisting of having all your desires granted. But happiness can be merely having your basic needs met. Happiness can come from simply having food, shelter, a good job and a loving family. Joy tends to be more intense, a response to a deep desire you have longed for being met. But sometimes joy is, as C. S. Lewis put it, an “unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” Examples would be the sweet longing to see your boyfriend or girlfriend when you are apart or the joyful anticipation when you are a kid counting down the days to Christmas. So it's appropriate that this Sunday in Advent we focus on joy.

Joy is a major part of our faith, though you would never know it from some sourpusses. Forms of the words “joy” and “rejoice” appear over 400 times in the Bible, and especially in the Psalms and the gospels. And as pointed out in the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, to which this sermon owes a large debt, while the Bible sometimes references joy brought about earthly things, like a victory or a harvest, “its overwhelming context is spiritual.”

Joy ultimately comes from being in God's presence. As it says in Psalm 16, “In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forever.” (Psalm 16:11) It can also come from God's presence in us. In Acts we are told, “And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 13:52) In fact, the experience of joy feels like that of being filled. (Romans 15:13) Or one's heart being filled to the point where it overflows. And it often overflows into shouting or singing with joy. In Psalm 5, it says, “But let all who take shelter in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy, because you spread protection over them; and let those who love your name exult in you.” (Psalm 5:11) Paul says, “And do not get drunk with wine, which is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your hearts to the Lord...” (Ephesians 5:18-19)

But joy can be quiet and gentle. Have you ever seen or experienced an act so good, so noble that you were moved to silent tears of joy? Or have you seen something so beautiful that your heart swelled with joy? That is how a close encounter with God affects us. We respond to God with joy because his goodness is overwhelming.

People often feel this joy when they have gone through a terrible experience only to find God's grace there. This can be bad behavior on their part as we see in Psalm 32: “When I refused to confess my sin, my whole body wasted away, while I groaned in pain all day long. For day and night you tormented me; you tried to destroy me in the intense heat of summer. Then I confessed my sin; I no longer covered up my wrongdoing. I said, 'I will confess my rebellious acts to the Lord.' And then you forgave my sins. For this reason every one of your faithful followers should pray to you while there is a window of opportunity. Certainly when the surging water rises, it will not reach them. You are my hiding place; you protect me from distress. You surround me with shouts of joy from those celebrating deliverance.” (Psalm 32:3-7)

Or the experience can be an illness or a disaster. Today's psalm is talking about the return of the captives from 70 years of exile in Babylon. They describe coming back as being in a dream-like state. It feels too good to be true. But it is true and they giggle and laugh and shout and sing with joy. Their reversal is so extreme the psalmist says, “Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.”

But once back, they had the hard task of rebuilding their devastated land. That's what Isaiah is addressing in today's lectionary passage. He is giving encouragement. And Jesus begins his ministry by reading the first couple of sentences of this prophesy. It is his mission statement. He too is building his kingdom. And he does it by focusing on the people whose needs have to be addressed. Thus to the oppressed he brings good news. And what can that news be other than the end of their oppression? This is a theme that runs through Scripture, right back to the Torah where the Israelites were told not to oppress their fellow citizens (Leviticus 25:17) nor their slaves, nor resident foreigners. (Deuteronomy 24:14) For those who are relatively powerless the end of their oppression is definitely something to be joyful about.

The next bit of good news is that God through Jesus will bind up the brokenhearted. The Hebrew word for “bind up” essentially means “to bandage or heal.” Those whose spirits were broken by misfortune or malicious actions against them receive the news that God will put them back together and heal them as something to be joyful about.

Next we are told that God through Christ is proclaiming liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners. The original audience saw themselves as captives to the Babylonians. The word translated “prisoners” literally means “those who are bound or tied up.” The word translated “release” is literally “opening” meaning opening the prison doors. And the word rendered “liberty” literally means “running free.” When Jesus read this passage, he meant not repatriation of exiles but the release of those captive to sin. Jesus said, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34) And indeed we all find ourselves bound to keep repeating the same destructive and self-destructive actions. To be released from this painful cycle of always doing the wrong thing is something to rejoice over.

Finally, we are told that the Anointed is proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor. We should take the word “proclaim” as a royal proclamation and the image is that of the Jubilee year. (Leviticus 25) Twice each century land in Israel sold in the intervening 49 years reverted back to the original family or tribe. Those who sold themselves into slavery to pay off debts were also freed. (Of course, they could always be bought back from slavery by a relative, who is called a redeemer.) So the year of the Lord's favor or goodwill was a a year of restoration of things to how they should be and therefore a joyous one.

Jesus stops reading at this point, not mentioning “the day of vengeance for our God,” because that is not his mission this time. He is not delivering judgment but offering grace. The day will come to settle accounts and bring justice but this is not that day. This is a day of celebration and joy.

Of all of our readings this week, only the gospel doesn't explicitly mention joy. However this Sunday does have an alternate reading we could use in place of our psalm: the Magnificat, the song of Mary. We usually think of this as a joyful song, and it is, but think of the circumstances preceding it. Mary is pledged to be married to Joseph but is not actually wed to him yet. She gets pregnant despite the fact she and Joseph haven't slept together. Matthew tells us Joseph planned to divorce her albeit quietly. Luke doesn't mention Joseph's thoughts, yet immediately after reporting that Gabriel told Mary that she would bear God's son, he writes, "At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth." An unwed girl with a mysterious pregnancy suddenly leaves town and goes to live with a relative? It sounds like Mary's family was sending her away to hide what they thought of as a scandal. Perhaps they didn't believe her. Certainly Joseph didn't believe her...until an angel reveals the truth to him in a dream. But in the meantime, Mary is facing life as a poor single mother in an honor/shame culture. So she must have been very down. Perhaps she was even doubting that God was behind all this. Why would he let this happen to her?

And then Elizabeth tells her, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished." And that affirmation from her relative, who also has a miraculous pregnancy, is just the thing Mary needs at that time. Elizabeth's words trigger a sudden swing from despair to joy and Mary sings, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed; the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.”

Notice she sings of the same themes of restoration we were looking at, with those who are powerless and oppressed receiving justice from our gracious Lord.

Mary's joy is sustained when Joseph tells her he believes her and takes her as his wife. Even though townspeople probably gossiped about Jesus' paternity his whole life, Mary remembers the joy of this moment and the words the Spirit gave her and she tells them to Luke when he researches his gospel. Being able to find joy in what God is doing even in the midst of adversity is a lesson we can all learn from Mary.

Therefore Paul tells us to “rejoice always.” In Advent we highlight Jesus' first arrival on earth as well as his second coming, and the mood is one of expectation. But as we are told throughout the New Testament, he could come at time, not just in this season of the year. So we should live with that fact always in the back of our mind and always as a factor in how we conduct our lives. If a loved one was expected to come home at any moment you would not slack off and not have things prepared for his or her arrival. Their room would be ready, their favorite foods in the pantry, their gifts would be wrapped, and you would be ready to drop anything at a moment's notice and greet them. And the fact that the time they would appear was getting closer would keep you in a state of joyful anticipation. You would be humming the tunes that reminded you of them and savoring the moment when you will hear their car pull up, or hear their knock. And you would run to them, jump into their arms, kiss and hug them, and you would not be ashamed to cry or to grin and giggle like an idiot. And that's how we should look forward to Jesus' return. The gray days will be over. The daily grind of our lives will grind to a halt at last. All our problems will be dealt with, all our mourning will cease and every tear will be wiped away by his hands, bearing the scars of his love. I can't wait.

Comfort

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, 2 Peter 3:8-15a and Mark 1:1-8.

It is said that prophets have 2 jobs: to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Last week all of the selections in our lectionary were uncomfortable to hear. They were about times of judgment on God's people and about our staying alert for when Jesus returns to judge the world. They were about how people's sins become their own punishments, which, quite frankly, people need to be reminded of. During the early days of the AIDS crisis, gay activist Larry Kramer was not popular for pointing out to his own community that this disease was spread by promiscuity and unsafe sex. Yet sometimes people have to hear the disturbing truth. Look at the changes that came about when women in Hollywood and in corporations shared their uncomfortable stories in the #Me,Too movement. The video of George Floyd being suffocated over an excruciating 9 minutes got white people to take seriously the stories African Americans have been telling for centuries. And let me tell you, receiving an uncomfortable or even upsetting diagnosis is better than walking around with a vague sense that something is wrong.

Today we get some comfort. The diagnosis might be hard to hear but the prognosis is not hopeless. The Great Physician has a plan of treatment, which, while not always pleasant, leads to a cure. In Isaiah this takes the form of preparing the way of the Lord. He is speaking to the exiles in Babylon. The metaphor he is using is what people would do if a king were coming to visit. They would stake out, level and smooth the rough terrain along the highway he was going to take. So Isaiah is saying “As you would do for an earthly monarch, remove all the obstacles that come between you and God.” Of course, the obstacles in this case are moral and spiritual. In the very first chapter of Isaiah, God lists what the problems are. “Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong! Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” (Isaiah 1:13-17) There is a through-line between how we treat God and how we treat those created in his image. The people's worship of the God of justice and compassion was meaningless because it did not carry through to their lives and relationships with others. Their unjust and pitiless nation was easy pickings for the Babylonians. Now, after 70 years, the prophet tells the people that Judah “has served her term, that her penalty is paid, she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.”

So God is restoring the nation to its homeland and expects the people to get rid of the obstacles to his work in rebuilding the kingdom. The results will be appealing. “See the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him and his recompense before him.” The image is that of a conquering hero, returning with bounty to share with his people. And then the prophet switches from a military image to a pastoral one. “He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”

The idyllic picture continues in Psalm 85. “Mercy and truth have met together.” Another translation goes, “Steadfast love and faithfulness have met together.” Both are possible for the Hebrew words have different shades of meaning depending on the context. Behind the word “mercy” is the Hebrew word “khesed.” It is frequently used of God's lovingkindness towards his people, expressed in his redemption of them from their enemies and their troubles, as well as from their sins, his saving them from death and his keeping of his covenants with Abraham, Moses and David. Similarly the word “emeth” means both “faithfulness” and “truth.” The underlying sense is one of reliability and stability, which both truth and faithfulness have. We can count on God's truth and kindness to never change.

The second part of that couplet goes “righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” The word “tsedek” means both righteousness and justice. The interesting thing about justice kissing peace or “shalom” is that sometimes there is a conflict between the two. Strict adherence to righteous justice can disturb the peace of a community because maintaining the peace means showing mercy at times. In Monroe County deputies have some discretion when deciding to arrest someone, taking into account the seriousness of the offense and whether it would endanger the person to be arrested or other people in the vicinity. An example would be a kid seen committing a minor offense, where it might be better to speak to his or her parents than to haul him to jail. God is just but merciful. As the psalmist says, “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?” (Psalm 130:1) Another Psalm says, “He does not deal with us as our sins deserve; he does not repay us as our misdeeds deserve....As far as the eastern horizon is from the west, so he removes the guilt of our rebellious actions from us.” (Psalm 103:10, 12)

Only God can give us the perfect balance of righteousness and mercy, of justice tempered by love that leads to peace. Our part is repentance, turning from our sinful ways and returning to God. That's what John the Baptizer preached. Mark in his fast moving account doesn't give us much of John's message. Matthew shows how he afflicted the comfortable. “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them, 'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.'” (Matthew 3:7-8) And his audience was in so much discomfort that they realized they must radically change their lives. They, Jews, so felt the need to repent that they were willing to be baptized, a rite for Gentiles converting to Judaism. They felt they must act as if they were coming to the faith for the first time.

John, however, realizes that he is just the herald of the king. The Messiah is coming and he is greater and more powerful than John. John realized that his baptism was not sufficient to really change who people were. “I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” In the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit was reserved for people with special roles: prophets, priests, and kings. But the one who inaugurates and establishes the New Covenant will immerse all his people in God's Holy Spirit.

Because unchanged people cannot participate in the kingdom of God. You cannot have a community with a proper balance of justice and mercy and righteousness and peace and faithfulness and truth and love if the people in the community do not produce those fruits. As it is, those things develop at different rates and to different degrees in different people. How often have we seen people who had one virtuous quality or more in abundance but was lacking in certain other virtues? Most of our Founding Fathers were champions of liberty but not for African Americans or Native Americans. General Ulysses S. Grant was anti-slavery even before the Civil War and yet he issued a General Order to expel Jews from the portions of Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi under his control. That order was quickly countermanded by President Lincoln. Lincoln himself, while against slavery, did not think African Americans were the equals of Whites. Martin Luther King Jr. was a great civil rights leader and an adulterer. Albert Einstein was both brilliant and prodigiously unfaithful to his wives. We have the world we do in large part because even good people have bad behaviors and that destroys both peace and justice in our communities.

And, of course, we see this kind of moral contradiction in the church. And it goes back all the way to the beginning. Peter is the first to say that Jesus is the Messiah. But then he immediately contradicts God's Anointed by saying Jesus is wrong about being rejected and executed. (Mark 8:27-33) And he denies Jesus 3 times on the night of his trial. (Mark 14:66-72) This tendency doesn't disappear after the second chapter of Acts. Peter resists the three-fold vision of eating unclean animals that is preparing him to preach the gospel to Gentiles. (Acts 10) And at Antioch, Peter flipflops on whether he should eat with Gentile Christians and Paul calls him out on it. (Galatians 2:11-16) 

For his part, Paul has a hot temper. In the controversy over circumcision, he suggests that his opponents just go all the way and castrate themselves! (Galatians 5:12) He also falls out with his missionary partner Barnabas over his nephew John Mark, who leaves them mid-trip. (Acts 13:13) Paul will not take Mark on their next journey and so he and Barnabas never work together again. (Acts 15:36-40) Paul, who is grateful to God for forgiving his earlier opposition to Jesus, nevertheless will not give young Mark, who made a one-time mistake, a second chance. And yet later it seems that he and Mark do make up because in his second letter to Timothy he tells him to “Take Mark and bring him with you, because he is a great help to me in ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:11) The Spirit worked on Paul and helped him put his ministry of reconciliation into practice in his personal life.

Nobody in the church is a plaster saint, picture perfect. And yet God can use them and help them change into the people he created them to be. And that is a comfort to those of us who feel inadequate at times to serve God perfectly. If we let God's Spirit work in us, we will get ever closer to the person he wants us to become.

And our passage in 2 Peter gives us further comfort in that regard. At times it seems like God has forgotten about this world. It seems to be getting worse and worse and we start to wonder why God is not intervening in a major way, or at least sending his Son to wrap things up and set things right. After pointing out that the eternal God does not look at time as we do nor operate on our schedule, we are told, “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” He's giving us the time we need to change. The early Christians seemed to think that Jesus was returning in the first century, though he said the gospel must first be preached to the whole world and to all nations. (Matthew 24:14) The first Christians can be forgiven for not realizing how big the world is and how many nations and tribes and people there were even then. God is making sure that on the last day no one has the excuse that they didn't hear the good news about Jesus. Everyone will get a fair shot at responding to God's grace.

One side effect of this pandemic is that we have been worshiping and reading the Bible online, which can be seen worldwide. In fact on Facebook Live we get more views than we would normally have people in pews at this time of year. This allows our little church to help fulfill the Great Commission in a way not possible even 40 years ago, let alone 2000 years ago.

And it looks like we are going to have a fairly stripped-down Christmas this year. There won't be as many families gathering from the 4 corners of this country. There won't be office parties. We won't be singing Christmas carols in church. Our services will be small and socially distanced if not online altogether. And maybe, not being buried under all the usual trappings that have come to be mistaken for its meaning, the real message of Christmas will be heard more clearly.

And that message is ultimately our comfort. When everything God warned us about we did anyway and it all went wrong, God came as one of us, Jesus. He came not to punish us, but to heal, and to instruct us about God and his kingdom, and to give us the Spirit that would enable us to live in that kingdom. If you think about it, abstractions can't really meet together or kiss. People can: just and merciful and faithful and truthful people. Filled with God's Holy Spirit, such people can meet and kiss and live together in God's kingdom and know true peace.