The Presentation of our Lord

"This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel" (Luke 2:25)

In case you haven't noticed, Forty is a big number in the Bible. It rained for forty days and forty nights while Noah was in the Ark. Moses was on Mt. Sinai for forty days before he received the Ten Commandments. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years between Egypt and the Promised Land they would eventually settle. Jesus fasted in the desert for forty days, and was seen on this earth for forty days after his crucifixion. And lesser known, it is forty days from December 25th to February 2nd. It is on that day when the Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus in the Temple at Jerusalem, which all Israelite parents were required to do forty days after the birth of their child.

It is one of the very few weekday feasts of the Church which can be transferred to a Sunday. For many Christians throughout the world, this feast is marked by processions of candles. For it is on this day that the Christmas season finally ends. It is on this day that we turn, from the innocence and hope bound up in the baby, to the grown man who will preach, who will heal, and who will argue his way to the Cross.

What ties together all the "Forties" in the Bible is not really the exact number of days or years. These periods are always times of testing, of trial, perhaps even chastisement, but never a final judgment. For at the end of the Forty days, or months, or years, comes restoration, renewal, new hope, and new life. The Forty days, or months, or years, are a time of anticipation, of waiting. We don't know how many years ago Simeon was promised that he would not die before seeing the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed. But he has been in his own Forty days, or months, or years. Sometimes, he has looked forward to this vision. Other times, he has simply waited for, hoped for, or doubted that this vision would come.

The Greek word translated as "looking forward," can also be translated as "waiting for." One word, with related, but two very different meanings. There is a big difference between saying that you're "looking forward" to something, or that you're "waiting for" something to happen. In the first, your heart is warmed by your reasonable and holy hope. In the second, it is all you can do to get up, go to the window and look outside for that something for which you've waited a long, long time.

Since we can't read Simeon's mind we don't know whether, on this fortieth day, Simeon was looking forward to the Messiah, or waiting for the Messiah. But this is the day. What did he see in this poor family bringing their child and the two birds, not a lamb, but two birds, the most that they could afford to offer? Given his warning to Mary, Simeon understood that no good news comes without someone trying to muck it up. He understood that the coming of Israel's anointed liberator would not be good news for those with a vested interest in the status quo, who already possessed the power and privileges which the world had given them. Perhaps he knew to look for Israel's messiah in the unexpected, the unassuming. With the eyes of his heart properly adjusted, he could see the light of the world shining from this mother and her most holy son.

And that was enough. Simeon was ready to be "dismissed," as we heard in today's reading, a nice euphemism for "die." To see this baby had to be enough for a lot of people. It would be another 30 years or so before the grown man would begin his public ministry. To see this baby probably had to be enough for Joseph, who is never mentioned after Jesus's childhood and was probably dead during his ministry. To see this baby had to be enough for the shepherds, at least the older ones. To see this baby had to be enough for the wise men. To see the hope and promise bound up in this baby was enough for Simeon to be "dismissed," to die looking forward to the consolation of Israel and all the nations.

Is it enough for us? But don't we know the rest of the story? Yes, but it's clear from Simeon's prediction to Mary that he was clued in on this infant's destiny. He knew the basic story already. And while Simeon wasn't a direct witness of the Resurrection; guess what, neither are we. We live and die on the hope and promise bound up in this baby just as much as Simeon did. Sometimes we are looking forward to the new life of Resurrection; and in that joy we have the enthusiasm to reach out to others, to share the hope beating strong within us. Other times, we're waiting, and waiting, for some glimpse of that new life, for some reason to keep hoping. Then, we are the ones who need reaching out to.

To borrow the euphemism from today's Gospel, I have been present at six "dismissals" in the past year. What constitutes "enough" for those who are grieving? There are as many answers as there are those who are grieving? And I would be insulting those who mourn to declare what is "enough" for them to look forward to their consolation. But we have also seen two "presentations" in the past year, have we not. And today, we all have the same image before us: The parents full of hope and fear, the old man and woman full of hope and weariness. And before them and us is the baby, who has grown up, who has died, and who has risen. May that be enough for us to keep reaching out, to keep looking forward, to the consolation of Israel's children.

Friday Preview

Courtesy of wordle.net

Requiem for John Leigh

"He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son." (Revelation 21:7)

The last time I spoke to John Leigh was last Thursday, on the phone. He was short of breath, but very much looking forward to getting home. I left him with the hope that his recovery would continue in greater comfort than it had in the hospital. And then he said to me, "I love you," and I said, "I love you too." I shall always treasure John's blessing to me, the truthful expression of love, as his last word to me. I shall keep that foremost in my memories of him, not the shock with which I received the news of his physical death Saturday morning. I pray that we all can keep the memories of the love between us and John first and foremost in our memories.

Yes, we all were shocked on Saturday to hear this terrible news. Here at Church on Sunday, everyone I spoke to asked the same questions: What happened? Hadn't he just gotten home from the hospital? Why didn't the doctors catch this? All valid questions that deserve an answer. But I also think that we were dealing with the suddenness of John's collapse by trying to find the cause. And once the cause was known, then responsibility could be fixed as well. Who was responsible? Human beings? God?

I was 17 when my mother died very suddenly. And I asked all those questions and others as well. Was it "her time" for God to take her? Absolutely not. Nor was it "John's time." God does not inflict death upon us. God hates death. Death is the enemy of God. We were not created for death, and death is not our final destination. It is a mystery through which we all must pass sooner or later. God has created a world of freedom. We have the freedom to choose good or evil. And the world around us is free to operate by the laws of nature. God does not cause earthquakes. God does not cause tornados. Nor does God cause the various illnesses that eventually bring about the death of our physical bodies.

If that is the case, if death just happens to us, then how can we affirm the God we worship in this Church as all-powerful and worthy of our trust? We can indeed, profess our belief in God, "the Father almighty." But God is not almighty because he is untouched by death. Death is a mystery which God has also passed through, in his son Jesus Christ. God has taken the worst that this world can do. Jesus died on the cross, and was raised to life on the third day. And as Jesus has been bodily resurrected, so shall John, and so shall we all.

For now, John is with the communion of saints, the holy men and women who have gone before us. And I have no doubt that his family, and this church he loved so much, will always be supported by his prayers. For John is truly one of the conquering sons of God, and God will hear the prayers of his sons. As John valiantly fought the cancer in his esophagus over these past several months, that conquest was clear for all to see. I saw that conquest at least twice.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the hospital in Birmingham to see John. He was set to have his feeding tube surgically inserted. I hoped to get there either before or after the surgery. But I wasn't sure I would be able to see him. I thought I remembered his room number, but I wasn't sure. So, I stopped at the reception desk and asked for John's location. The receptionist said, "He's in waiting room 6." I knew that wasn't his regular room. But off I went toward waiting room 6. When I got there, I saw families anxiously waiting for word of their loved ones. But I went to the reception desk there, and just said, "I'm here to see John Leigh," and the receptionist pushed the button behind her desk. The doors opened, in I went, and the first person I saw was John. He had been waiting there for several hours. We held hands, and spoke of his fear, and his hope. At this point, a nurse came by and informed me that I was not supposed to be there. So, I laid my hands on John, anointed him for healing, and went my way.

The nurse thought I wasn't supposed to be there, and according to hospital rules, I suppose I wasn't. But God knew I was supposed to be there. And that day, God conquered the forces of loneliness by opening the door that needed to be opened so that John could be reassured that he would never be alone.

As John's battle against the cancer progressed throughout the fall of last year, I could also see him conquering in those three simple words, "I love you." It seemed that every conversation we had always ended with that exchange of love. Of course, John was always a loving man. He loved and served his country in the United States Marine Corps. He loved and served his family. He loved and served his church. But it wasn't until he began his life-or-death battle against cancer that he began to express his love to me as readily as he did. As John Denver once sang:

"Ashes to ashes, dust into dust
Buildings will crumble, bridges will rust
Mountains will disappear, rivers will dry up
And so it goes with everything but love."

We all will die someday. But far worse than physical death is that living death of isolation and loneliness. In his heartfelt expressions of love, John Leigh conquered the forces of death, of isolation and loneliness. And today, John is a son of God, and always shall be, world without end. Amen.

Sermon, 3rd Sunday of Epiphany

Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me...to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."

About the only time I can recall using the word "favor" is in the shopworn phrase, "Could you do me a favor?" Could you do me a favor and pick up some milk on your way home? If you're going out anyway, could you do me a favor and drop this in the mailbox? Now I do remember one time in college when I begged a professor to do me a huge favor by letting me turn in a paper past the due date. That's a bigger deal than picking up some milk. But is Jesus saying that the Lord is going to do us a "favor?" Is that what we get out of today's Gospel reading? And what does Jesus mean by a "year of the Lord's favor": a year of picking up milk on the way home: A year of accepting papers a day late? Clearly, the word, "favor" has lost something of its original meaning.

But as Jesus unrolled the scroll, and read from the prophet Isaiah, his fellow Jews knew what he meant by "year of the Lord's favor." And it shocked them to the core. The year of the Lord's favor was the year of Jubilee. The children of Israel knew about the year of Jubilee. They knew about it from the book of Leviticus. Every 50 years was to be a year of Jubilee. If a family had had to sell their ancestral land because of bad luck or even mismanagement, they were to be given back the land that God had originally given them. If a son of Israel had had to sell himself into slavery because of his debts, he was to be freed from his bondage. All debts were to be forgiven.

No wonder that those who heard Jesus were amazed at the gracious words coming from his mouth. Was he really proclaiming a year of Jubilee: a year of freedom: a year of forgiveness: a year of all debts wiped out of every ledger? Who was he, the local boy, the son of Joseph, to be making such grand pronouncements? Who was going to listen to him: the Roman governor Pontius Pilate: the High Priest in Jerusalem: The Roman Emperor Tiberius? The fact is that there is no historical evidence that such a year of Jubilee was ever actually observed in Israel. It is a great ideal. But is that all it is?

No. Jesus was not crucified for an ideal. This wasn't pie in the sky. Jesus proclaimed the year of the Lord's favor. And when the people of his hometown rejected him, he left and went on to other towns, where he would find people ready to embrace his vision. And these people would form his church. And they were to live as though every day is the time of the Lord's favor. The rules of this world don't change, and we who live in this world must play by those rules. But in this church, in every place where Jesus's disciples gather together, we are to do favors for each other, to forgive each other, to comfort each other, to love each other.

Of course, it has been some 2,000 years since Jesus spoke those gracious words in the synagogue at Nazareth. The years have come and gone. The world spins madly on. People are born and they die. The rules of the world don't appear to have changed. But Jesus of Nazareth did not die for an ideal. He has suffered all that we suffer, and has passed through the darkness of death out into the light of resurrection and life. In his death, all our debts have been forgiven. And as Jesus shares in our death, so we will share in his resurrection.

Jesus has changed the rules of this world. Every day of our lives is one that we live in the year of the Lord's favor. In that never-ending year, let us comfort each other. Let us forgive each other. Let us love each other.

Where was God in Haiti?

In the days since the terrible earthquake in Haiti, I have thought of the age-old question, "Why?" Why does such destruction and suffering occur? And how can we, as Christians, continue to speak of a loving God in the midst of his creatures terrible suffering. The best answer I have read comes from Craig Uffman, which I'm reposting here.

I'm particularly struck by the idea that God saves us from "optimism" and gives us hope instead. The truth is that things don't always "work out." Sometimes, the worst that can happen does happen. In those moments, optimism is a thin sheet of ice, through which our souls will drown. Hope that endures the crosses of life, though; on that our faith can rest.

Where Was God in the Earthquake?

I write with heavy heart, my mind assaulted by the images of devastation wrought by the cataclysmic earthquake that struck Haiti yesterday.

As my heart and mind struggle to make sense of the suffering we see now and know to anticipate in the coming weeks and months, I can't help but think of my fellow sisters and brothers in Christ of St. Anne's Church and, especially, our children. What are we to say to one another? What are we to say to our children whom we have pledged to teach to walk in the ways of the Lord? For, at such times, from the very depths of caring souls arises a groan, too deep for words, and, eventually, a haunting question: where was God in the earthquake?

There are those who speak at such times of the omnipotence of God. Some will see this and all such natural disasters as evidence against the God in whom we trust. They will portray the earthquake as 'Exhibit A' in their case against our claims of a good and loving God.

Others will feel it necessary to defend the righteousness of God. Well-meaning Christians will rise to declare this disaster to be God's majestic will, a will wholly impenetrable to us, and they will cite our story of Job to warn us against efforts to comprehend it. And, sadly, other Christians also will rise to declare this disaster to be God's will, but, forgetting Job and distorting our story tragically, they will tell us precisely which group among us brought about the earthquake as punishment for their unforgivable sins.

Each of these do us a service, for they force us to give an account of our faith in God and to remember carefully the truths about God we actually claim. For the same question that moves these groups haunts us, too, as we see the tears of anguished, hungry, and orphaned girls and boys reaching their hands out to us: where was God in the earthquake?

Theologian David Bentley Hart offers the best answer I know in his book The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? He wrote it upon reflecting on the great tsunami that struck Asia in 2004. Hart reminds us that "we are to be guided by the full character of what is revealed of God in Christ. For, after all, if it is from Christ that we are to learn how God relates himself to sin, suffering, evil, and death, it would seem that he provides us little evidence of anything other than a regal, relentless, and miraculous enmity: sin he forgives, suffering he heals, evil he casts out, and death he conquers. And absolutely nowhere does Christ act as if any of these things are part of the eternal work or purposes of God."

As we participate vicariously in the tormented tears of young girls, lost and alone in the Haitian darkness, as our hearts pour out tears for the thousands of sons and daughters and mothers and fathers who have died so suddenly and shockingly, and as we turn to our task of being the loving and living hands of Christ in response to this tragedy, let us never forget the urgent truth about God that it is our vocation to proclaim: God does not will our sickness or our death; God does not will that evil be done; God has conquered evil and death through the Cross. This is the meaning of the empty tomb. This is our Easter faith. As Hart says so well, "Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation. Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin, the emptiness and waste of death, the forces - whether calculating malevolence or imbecile chance - that shatter living souls; and so we are permitted to hate these things with perfect hatred."

Where, then, is God in the earthquake? Hart puts it well: "As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but the face of his enemy.... for [ours] is a faith that set us free from optimism long ago and taught us hope instead....rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, [God] will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes - and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and he that sits upon the throne will say, 'Behold, I make all things new.'"

God's richest blessings,

Craig

Original Post

Sermon, 2nd Sunday of Epiphany

It was a year ago that I stood before you all on the 2nd Sunday of Epiphany and basically said, come and see whom is Jesus is calling us to be. We were invited to join Nathanael to and his brother Philip to come and see Jesus and this new community he was forming. We heard Jesus showing Nathanael that He had always seen this Jews with no deceit, and had always been in relationship with him. And we heard Jesus promise that we would see amazing things.

It has been 365 days for us in our coming and seeing. But for Jesus, Andrew and Peter, Philip and Nathanael, only one day has passed. Today they are at a wedding. In that part of the world then, couples didn't get married then drive to a nice bed and breakfast by the lake. Instead weddings were a seven day party at the groom's home. A new home was being created in a small village. So weddings were not isolated affairs. They marked a permanent change in the community and therefore the whole community had to rejoice in this new relationship.

The groom has done his best, out of his meager resources, to provide the best hospitality he could for the never ending stream of guests. But he is about to suffer a huge embarrassment. They have run out of wine. The party and the joy will have to be called off prematurely. And so Jesus's mother says to him, we have a crisis on our hands. They have no wine. Jesus's first response is to point out that from his viewpoint this isn't really a crisis. The crisis is still to come. "It is not yet my hour," to be lifted up on the cross for the salvation of the world.

Still, Jesus did bring himself and four out-of-town guests to crash this wedding. And maybe, he might be able to make a bigger point here. In John's Gospel, Jesus doesn't go around doing miracles wily nily. In fact there are only seven miracles described in John's Gospel. And each one is called a "sign." Each of the seven miracles in this Gospel point to a meaning other than, look what Jesus can do. Of course, let's look at what Jesus does here. Six stone jars of water become six stone jars full of the best wine that has ever been tasted. At 20-30 gallons a jar, that's 150 gallons of wine, enough to keep this wedding party going on forever.

Just to be clear, this sign of 150 gallons of wine is not pointing to a never ending orgy of drunkenness. There is a thin line between that intoxication which makes you feel more alive and that drunkenness that is just leading you to a hangover. But in this wedding, where a community of villagers joyfully made room for a new family and joyfully renewed their relationships each other, Jesus glimpsed the community of joy that he was forming. He wanted his first disciples to see the joy He had in store for them, and so he gave them a glimpse of that joy, symbolized by the wine and the party.

Has it been a yearlong party? Even the party in Cana could only last seven days at a time. But I assure you that God has shown us many occasions for joy in the past year. And I have no doubt whatsoever that this party is still going on. Thanks be to God.

The Baptism of Jesus: 1st Sunday of Epiphany

When all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized (Luke 3:21)

As the pace of change in our world has sped up so much, it might seem to strange to some to call the now 30-year old Book of Common Prayer "new." After all, a whole generation has passed since its adoption in 1979. But there are still many who still remember fondly the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. There is no greater difference between the two versions than the baptismal services. And that difference can be boiled down to one word: "regenerate." More than once the priest prays that through the baptismal waters, the person to be baptized will be regenerated. A strong sense of our moral depravity runs through the "old" baptism, even of infants. From that deep sense of inbred sin, comes the need for a complete "regeneration" of the person being baptized. It is as if we need to be conceived, gestated and born all over again.

Neither the word, nor the concept, of regeneration is found in the "new" Prayer Book. But the new Prayer Book is very clear on our need to be "born again." The concept of sin is not missing from the new baptismal rite. Our sin, our alienation from God, is so much a part of us that only by being born again can we be saved from that never-ending loneliness. But it's just as Biblical to say that we are made in God's image. And God's purpose cannot be to abort his mistake in making us to begin with. God's purpose for us is to redeem us, to restore us to the value we had at our creation. The remedy for our sin is not to be completely reconceived, because that would imply that absolutely nothing about us is any good. If that is the case, then how could we have been made in God's image to begin with? The purpose of baptism is not reconception, but redemption. In our rebellion against God, we are alienated from God. To be saved from our sin is to be saved from our alienation from God, and from each other.

There is another complication arising from an emphasis on sin to the exclusion of all else. It is the question that inevitably arises this time every year, the first Sunday of the Epiphany season. We read this story from the Gospels and wonder: Why did Jesus need to be baptized? He couldn't have needed to be regenerated or reconceived or born again because of his sin, right? When it comes to sin, we are indeed alienated from the Son of God. How can Jesus fulfill his purpose to save us from our sin if he himself is lost in the same alienation? In Luke's version of this story, we don't hear John himself say, "I should be baptized by you" as Matthew reports. But each of us can say the same thing to Jesus: "Who are we that you would share the same dirty water in which our sins have been washed away?"

Which is exactly Luke's point. "Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized." Only Luke emphasizes that Jesus was not alone in his baptism. He was in solidarity with his people. His people were oppressed from the outside and the inside. They were ruled by a man who lived 1,400 miles away, on the other side of the world, but who held absolute sway over their lives and the fortunes. They were also oppressed by a sense of their own sin, a sense that they were alienated from God, a sense that they didn't deserve the promises they read in Holy Scripture. But by his baptism with "all the people," Jesus showed that he would share their journey of sin and sadness, of promise and hope. Jesus's baptism was the beginning of his own journey, his own purpose. The word "purpose" originally meant, "to set forth" – to begin a journey. To have a purpose is to be on a journey. And it was at his baptism, "with all the people," that Jesus began his journey to fulfill his purpose, to end the alienation between God and humanity, to bridge himself and the human race.

Two thousand years of steps later, that journey continues. Each of us has been baptized and anointed by the Holy Spirit. Sharing Jesus's baptism, we now share His purpose. Today, we will reaffirm our Baptismal Covenant, with God and with each other. Unlike the time of the 1928 Prayer Book, we mostly do not baptize on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon with only the relatives in attendance. We baptize people into the Christian community when the community is present on Sunday morning. We affirm our baptismal covenant together. Journeying on together, we reaffirm our purpose: to be the outward and visible sign of Christ that we have affirmed as our reason for existence. In his Baptism, Jesus the Christ bridged the chasm that sin had opened between us and God. The journey that he began is the one that we continue today, to bridge Christ and community.

The Baptism of Our Lord: The Rough Draft

Courtesy of wordle.net

Holy Interruptions and Epiphanies

First day back in the office after nearly two weeks out of the office. And I have the "Sand Mountain Crud." And I have to get ready for the Epiphany service tonight. So the emails start flying; to the Diocese about Bishop Parsley's visit; to outgoing vestry members about nominations; to the Budget committee about Pledges and budgets. Then home for some chicken soup. Back in the office, and I have just enough time to write a sermon for tonight.

Then cometh the interruption, the thing I hadn't planned on squeezing into my overcrowded day. "Father David, I have an 18-year old boy in my apartment right now, and he needs someplace to sleep tonight."

"Why," I sigh.

"He got a ride from Decatur with some friends to visit some other friends in Albertville. But those friends have moved. And the friends he came with have left him. His name is Charlie. I found him outside our dumpster, trying to get some sun."

So, I call the Kings Inn. The Albertville Minister's Fellowship has a "Good Samaritan" fund . Patty graciously agrees to come back to the office and type up the letter confirming that the Fellowship will pay for a night's stay. Russ comes by with 18-year-old "Charlie" to get the letter. He's called the Downtown Rescue Mission, and they will get Charlie to Huntsville tomorrow.

From there, his family might get him from Decatur. Or he might get plugged into the assistance network in Huntsville. We have done what we could. In the words of the Southern catholic novelist Walker Percy, we've listened to Charlie as best we could, and handed him along a ways in his dark journey. But today, at least, we saved Charlie from freezing to death.

Tonight is "Twelfth Night," the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the visit of the Wise Men to the Christ Child. "Epiphany" is a Greek word meaning "manifestation." On the Feast of the Epiphany, we celebrate the manifestation of the Son of God to all the peoples, represented by these Wise Men from the East. In that Holy Interruption, my epiphany has already come.

Sermon, 2nd Sunday of Christmas

Well, another Christmas has almost passed through. The dried-out Christmas trees have served their purpose and are waiting on the sidewalks to be picked up by the trash collectors passing by. Many have already packed up the lights and manger scenes and ornaments, and passed them back into storage until next December. There are still a few bowl games left. But the great December festival of new hope has just about passed through for the year.

Those brothers and sisters of ours, who come to worship with us twice a year, have renewed their hope for another six months until we see them again at Easter. Even those who don't make it to Church need this time, to see the world around them bright with lights, bright with new hope and new resolution. But it takes a lot of work to conjure up the light and hope in the darkest nights of the year. So after a month, we're all tired, ready for Christmas to pass through.

One of my favorite "modern" Christmas songs is by a folk group of sisters called the Roches. As they themselves sang, that's R-o-c-h-e. On their Christmas album is a song they composed called "Christmas Passing Through."

What's the time? Christmastime
I love Christmastime
Look at that Christmas tree
Shining brightly over
Peace on earth, peace on earth…

Doesn't that first night of Christmas feel so peaceful? Few cars disturb the quiet of the night with their engines. We're all happily stuffed, enjoying our new-found treasures with those we love. Does not that Christmas tree in your living room shine brightly over peace in your house? If only that peace could last. But of course, it doesn't, which is why the sisters end their song, not with peace, but with hope.

Here's a gift wrapped up tight
Open up this hope tonight
Love for all, not just a few
Another Christmas passing through
Peace on earth, peace on earth.

To be honest, the Roche sisters sound hopeful, but also a little weary as they sing of yet another Christmas just passing through. The Christmases come and the Christmases go. And we who are weary at the beginning of January wonder: Is the hope any closer than it was last year? Or the year before?

If it's any consolation, then know from today's reading that this hope seemed to be just passing through for that baby king with no crown, along with his mother and father. There has been barely enough time for Mary to recover from childbirth; barely enough time for Joseph and Mary to take in the shepherds and the wise men. But much too soon after the joy, and trauma, of this newborn life comes the angelic warning: Get up! Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, for Herod is searching for this child to destroy him.

They too were weary. They too were forced to come back to "real life" too soon. They too found themselves facing unexpected resistance and opposition, even cruelty; but to a newborn child?! For some, power is about the crown, the security that comes from everybody knowing not to mess with you. That was Herod's idea of power; the assumption that there are two kinds of people in the world – those who do and those who are done to. That power might be used for service, for giving, is beyond his comprehension.

The hope endures. The child survives, although the rest of the boys of Bethlehem do not. But the opposition does not end. Matthew has already foreshadowed that. We heard in today's Good News that Herod sought to "destroy" the child. Much later in the story, we hear that the chief priests "persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus." From the beginning of the story, from the innocent babe to the innocent man, there are those who seek to "destroy" the hope he brings to this weary world. And up on Calvary Hill, they would seem to have succeeded.

But of course, we know that the story does not end there; but continues to that incredible Sunday morning and the empty tomb. It is that hope that brings back the people here with us at Christmas for Easter. But we who are here today on this second Sunday of Christmas know from today's "Good News" that this hope must endure conflict, resistance and opposition. And we who are here as another Christmas passes through; we are called to keep that light of hope burning through the messiness of life together in the Church.

You don't need me to tell you those things that would disillusion us and cause us to give up on this thing called "church." But we are not disillusioned. We know the reality, the reality of the risen Christ who feeds us in His Word, His Body and His Blood. Another Christmas is passing through. The hope of that king with no crown, crucified and risen, never passes away.

Christmas 2: The Rough Draft

Courtesy of wordle.net