Emmanuel, God Finding Us

 12-26-21

Grace to you and peace to God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen. 

Have you ever noticed that the rest of the world seems to forget about Christmas by about… 6 pm yesterday? How many of your neighbors are taking down their decorations today? How many trees have you already seen at the curb this morning? And depressingly, the Valentine’s day candy AND EASTER candy are already out in the stores! 

It’s December 26th, and we want to put Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the sheep, and even baby Jesus in the manger back in the box to wait for next year. The ironic thing is though, the wise men technically haven’t even arrived yet - THEY don’t show up until Epiphany - NEXT Sunday!

I mean, what IS time right now anyway? Jesus has gone from being a baby to 12 years old in a matter of hours! Not quite a child but not yet grown up – and definitely too young to be wandering off by himself (though definitely old enough to be vaccinated). 

Can you imagine what Mary and Joseph must have been feeling when they realized that they had left their son behind in Jerusalem? Jerusalem is a huge city to get lost in – Mary and Joseph spent three whole days searching for him, probably panicking the whole time. Remember, this is before text messaging, GPS, or the Amber Alert. To them, Jesus was truly lost, maybe even forever. 

When they found him in the temple, imagine the relief that flooded through them as they realized that he was safe. Joy - and some exasperation mixed together filled Mary as she admonished her son – “How dare you do that to us?!? We were so worried!” 

But Jesus’ answer blew them all away. No apology or guilt from him. Instead he asked “Why were you searching for me?” “Didn’t you know that I would be in my Father’s [house]?” Who would have thought that our tween Lord and Savior would sass off to his parents. 

And this is only a foretaste of the feast to come - at 12 he sneaks away from his parents. As an adult, he continues to cause trouble.  He evades being categorized. He talks in circles. He’s hard to pin down. It seems as though we constantly have to “find” him - like when impeccably dressed proselytizers knock on your door and ask you “Have you found Jesus?” as if Jesus is Waldo. 

This begs the question - Can Jesus be trusted when he wanders off, and always seems to be in need of being “found”? Even worse, it seems like when we need Jesus the most, when we desperately need comfort and hope, that’s when he seems the farthest away. Where WAS Jesus during a year like 2020 and 2021, especially when the turn of this year looks pretty dicy, not to mention during all the regular times our hearts get broken? Where IS Jesus when life gets tough? 

Jesus doesn’t alway do what we expect him to do, and stay where we expect him to stay. And that actually can be a good thing. He was born a king on Christmas, but he did not grow up to be the king that others expected him to be. Instead of wearing fine robes and dining in palaces, he broke bread with poor people and hung out with fishermen, tax collectors, and women. Instead of wielding a sword, he used his words to teach and to heal and bring peace. Instead of being venerated as king of his people, he was honored and recognized by wise men from another country. 

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the hope arriving in our lives. He isn’t hiding, like in a game of hide-and-seek, behind the couch with the dust bunnies. He didn’t jump out the tomb that first Easter morning and ride into the sunset, never to be seen again. He WANTS us to find him. That is the exact reason why Jesus clothed himself in love so that we would recognize him, by becoming one of us. 

How better to show us God’s love than to become one of us and to tell us face to face? How better to show us that we are children of God than to FIND US where we are at, in all our smiles and tears, in our joys and sadness, in our hopes and fears. There was no better way to wrap us up in love than to come as a present, wrapped like one of us.  This love has been in front of us the whole time, wrapped in the form of a baby, almost completely unnoticed by everyone except for Mary, Joseph, some angels and some shepherds. 

This gift of love that he has given us, in coming as one of us, surprised humanity so much that we didn’t see it for what it was. God gave to us Jesus before we even knew that we needed him, and Jesus keeps showing up and surprising us, and not just at Christmas either. 

Last year during Vacation Bible School, do you remember that one of the songs was about Christmas? That’s right - in the middle of the heat and the onslaught of the cicadas (remember those?) all the kids were singing about Jesus as a little baby. They sang “It can feel like Christmas in the springtime or the fall. It can feel like Christmas through the hottest months of all…. Emmanuel, God is with us all year long.”  At the time, I though there was no way that these kids would be into this song in June… but I was wrong! They were really into it, and requested that song again and again. 

The second verse of that VBS song starts “I don’t need presents, I don’t even need a tree. Remembering that Jesus came is all it takes for me.” That’s easy to say in the heat of June, but it’s also true in December - While we are searching for hope amid the leftovers and the crumpled wrapping paper and the drying out tree  Jesus finds us and holds us tight. 

We are found, and become all wrapped up in the amazing and all-encompassing love of God, not just during the Christmas season, but on every day of our lives. Emmanuel, God is with us all year long, even on December 26th. Emmanuel, we don’t have to go looking for him. Emmanuel, who finds US when WE are lost. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

"Doing, Not Brooding"

12-12-21 

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

I just love the “Advent meme season.” It seems that every year, social media jokes about Advent get funnier and more numerous. Like the classic John the Baptist picture from a few years ago that is the perfect ideal visual for today, captioned by: “Happy Advent, you brood of vipers!” How’s that for a festive holiday message? 

In a month where it kind of feels like nothing is festive and everything is on fire, so to speak, it feels like John the Baptist is so fired up that he just wants to let ‘er rip at everyone and everything. And after month like this, between things like another tragic school shooting and the continued onslaught on reproductive health care, rising cases of both Delta and now Omicron, and some parts of the country still refusing to get vaccinated and travel in flux for the upcoming Christmas holiday, I don’t blame John one bit. 

Honestly, at the moment, it feels like we, in the concluding weeks of 2021, might deserve John’s harsh words. Maybe John is right, in a world where not much has changed - and in many ways, we feel as though we are going BACKWARDS even. One example is these texts came up in 2012, the Sunday after the Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre. And now, it’s only been a matter of days since the most recent deadly school shooting in Michigan. Maybe we are no better than children of snakes, as John says.

From this passage I imagine John as a gritty, towering man, thunderously pacing and preaching. He is dunking people left and right, admonishing the people in power for their selfish ways. Everything about this guy just seems larger than life, and his challenge to those with power and authority is exciting to the average person, powerless and under the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire. 

And so, they wonder - is this the one whom we have been waiting for? Is he the Messiah? Has he finally arrived to kick out their Roman oppressors? But John says to the people – you think what I’M doing is radical and life-changing? Just you wait! I’m only the messenger. Someone EVEN MORE potent is on his way!

John is laying the foundation and churning up the soil to make ready for the coming of Jesus and the beginning of his ministry. John is the warm-up act to Jesus the headliner; John is the trailer to the full-length film of the coming of God. He is the last of a very long line of prophets stretching back through the ages, and their messages were one and the same – the Lord WILL ARRIVE! And that can be both exciting and terrifying.

To us, John’s “good news” may not sound like “good news” … Or does it? At least the people listening to John weren’t completely turned off, because many were emboldened to ask in response “what then should we DO?” Two interesting groups are specifically mentioned to respond: Tax Collectors and Roman soldiers – not exactly the type of people we would expect to show up to John’s fiery preaching. 

The Roman soldiers were like the bouncers of the empire – to keep the oppressed populace in line. And yet, here they are – out there in the desert getting dunked and taking to heart all that John was saying. And similarly, the tax collectors did the Roman Empire’s dirty work, betraying their own people and skimming more than a little off the top for their own profit. Both these groups were moved, and asked “what shall WE do?” The empire should be very nervous at this point, and rightly so – their muscle and their money people are starting to show a change of heart. 

And if we’re doing Advent “right,” if we are asking questions and using this time to reflect and prepare for the arrival of Jesus amid the lure of free two-day shipping and the barrage of buy-one-get-one deals, the empires of power around us should be shaking in their boots, too. 

Because the answer to the question of what we do in response to John is shockingly easy, if we too listen to John. So, what CAN we do, as students, as accountants, as teachers and parents, as retirees, as homeowners, as teachers, CPAs, nurses, cashiers, business owners, real estate agents, siblings – what should WE DO in the face of the arrival of God’s kingdom here on earth?

Oh, nothing major – live within our resources, not to overstep, to minimize our footprint on creation, and not take advantage of the power and privilege that we do have. In fact, give away that power, and use the privilege for others. Don’t impose on the rights of other people, their right to not just to survive, but to thrive, because that is what we deserve too. 

This Advent season I’m going to try to do my small part in dismantling the empires of consumerism, white supremacy, apathy, the mirage of success, the cult of busyness. To help do this, I am going to make sure I reach out to the people I care about and make time to give them my presence over worrying about presents. I’m going to find joy in the small things, to focus on the important things, and remain open to the experiences and stories of others.

I’m going to remember to be kind to the strangers around me. I’m going to try to do small things to work for justice, like shopping fair trade when I can, and supporting small local businesses, or non-profits like ELCA Good Gifts, or other retailers that align with the justice issues I feel passionate about. I can get some coffee from the fair trade fair after worship today, or pick a star off the star tree. I can sign up to take part in serving the local Vienna unhoused community by signing up for Hypothermia week and attending today’s adult forum to get ready, or pay for a month of internet for our Afghan family. 

We do this, not because this is how get into heaven. Instead, this is a response to the gift of our baptisms in Jesus, that we are chosen to be God’s children, baptized into Jesus’ death, and raised up as new people to live in this new way. This is what John means by repent – not simply feeling sorry but showing that we are sorry by showing a different kind of behavior than before.  And what John here is saying, is taking responsibility for our actions and seeking to make it right when we can.

Jesus isn’t asking us for heroics. We don’t have to give up everything and go hang out in a desert on his behalf– John already did that. Jesus arrives to invite us to be more fully who we are – not children of snakes, not children of tradition, not children of the empire, but beloved children of God… children to get to see and participate in the arrival of the Kingdom of Jesus here on earth, in advent, and every single day. Thanks be to God. Amen.