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December 24, 2005
Anne Jensen - Dec 24th
Christmas Eve 2005
We have finally arrived at the loveliest night of the year. We all love stories, and there has never been a more beautiful nor a more hopeful story than the one told by St. Luke in the passage we have just heard. How many times have you heard this story? Have you memorized it? I find myself anticipating the words, just as I anticipate a favorite piece of music. And when I hear it I am thrilled to the center of my being. Does it work this way for you?
This year perhaps more than any other time in the last 30 years, we long to put our trust in God whose titles include “wonderful counselor, mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.” The invitation for this night is simple: come and worship.
We adults approach this night with trepidation. Children don’t have to worry. They still feel the thrill of it. Grown ups, however, do worry.
--Am I going to be disappointed if I don’t feel the wonder I felt when I was a child?
--Is this Christmas Eve going to pass me by if I don’t feel it? Please God, let me feel something again, don’t let this night leave me indifferent; or worse, don’t let it leave me worrying about dinner tomorrow, about whether family members will get along with one another, or about the anxiety of gift-giving.
LEAVE ALL THAT WORRY AND ANXIETY AT THE DOOR…. By now we have done about as much as we can do. It’s time to change gears. It’s time to stop engineering the perfect Christmas. Gather around with those we love and cherish; welcome the stranger and praise God whose glory is beyond comprehension.
Tonight we remember the night when everything changed. Everything is either before or after this night. This is the night when heaven and earth were brought close to each other. This is the night when God became human. This is the night when the archangel spoke to the shepherds, and said, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And then, just to underline the importance of this announcement, the heavens were filled with angels who were praising God and offering a benediction of peace. In a burst of light and energy, everything changed.
And yet, no one knew that at the time. All this happened in the midst of ordinariness; people go back to their home towns, people have babies, shepherds watch their sheep; the government levies taxes. Only the angels knew about the change. We are celebrating a moment when God enters history and nothing is ever the same after that.
What a contrast to what we think of as Christmas—a set of traditions to be preserved: hearing the same story, which is properly read from the King James Version; Christmas decorations that have been passed down through the generations; a vision of family gathered at the hearth, a special dinner—all things that take us back to our childhoods: whether our childhood Christmases were really like this or we only pretended they were. We want to hold on to the Christmas we know and hope for.
Yet an irony of our faith is that on the very feast of the nativity of Christ Jesus, when we so much want nothing to ever change, we are, in fact, celebrating the great moment of change in human history. In Jesus God becomes human…God Incarnate, God in the flesh.
Bishop Steve Charleston says, “Incarnation means change. It means God coming into our time and into our space and into our lives and into our comfort zone and shaking things up.” God is creating and recreating in us a new way of being and challenging us to take seriously the changes that surround us and to be co-creators with God in the world around us.
Here at Trinity we are in the midst of change. Change is always a challenge because we don’t know what the future is going to look like. The message of the angel is that we are not to be afraid. God is with us.
What change is God working in you?
Because of the incarnation all of life becomes an arena of God's extraordinary saving activity, even here in Menlo Park. Recognizing this, suggests Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, is the secret to living the entire year with a sense of God's presence. This is the change that comes with the Nativity. God is not just “out there;” God is in the middle of our lives. The Archbishop puts it this way: "Here we are daily, not necessarily attractive and saintly people, along with other not very attractive and saintly people, managing the plain prose of our everyday service, deciding daily to recognize the prose of ourselves and each other as material for something unimaginably greater—the Kingdom of God, the glory of the saints, reconciliation and wonder." (Where God Happens, 2005).
We are the raw material for the Kingdom of God, for becoming saints, for being agents of reconciliation and for being people of wonder, whose eyes have a special lens for seeing the presence of God in everyday moments, everyday lives, and everyday situations.
Really!
In Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, God dwells in us and we in him. Through him we can be changed and we can be agents of change and reconciliation.
St. Paul captures this so well in his second letter to the Corinthians. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”
In this broken and hurting world we have been commissioned to find pathways for reconciliation. Hear the angel say, “Do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid to hold a vision of peace and work for it, among each other, within our families, within our congregation, within our communities, and within our world. On this night, when we are blessed by the mystery of God coming among us as an infant, a baby to love and admire, can we allow our egos to slip away so that our true selves can be renewed and shaped by this most wonderful love?
If we can do this, our lives will be changed. Our changed lives make it possible for other lives to change when we love the infant Jesus, and when we care for all children—when we care that they have safe drinking water and enough food; when we care that they have an education instead of having a gun thrust in their hands and forced to join some ragtag army; and when we care that they can have medical attention.
Again it’s ironic that this holiday that we always want to be the same is the same celebration that creates change. It is a celebration year after year after year that no year is ever the same and that our lives are never the same and that every year we are older and hopefully wiser but still engaged with our God. The God of history is always making things happen. Change is not something that we as Christians should fear. Change is the nature of life. It is the nature of the church.
We must not fear the new but be active agents of bringing the new as God brings the new into the world every day, every week, every month, every year, and, yes, every Christmas. When we bring ourselves to the Christ child in the manger and offer Him all our hopes and fears we make room in our hearts for change…a change of heart that leads to reconciliation, a change that gives voice to justice, a change that enlarges our mercy and compassion. We are changed and we effect change—just as the flapping of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil can affect the weather in California.
So how shall we celebrate this festival of change? First I would say let us approach the manger with wonder and love. Do you know the power of a baby to change a hardened heart? Of course you do; it is not just sentimentality. We are hard-wired to love babies and to respond to their vulnerability. At an even deeper level we are made to seek God. St. Augustine wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” With an open and loving heart let us turn to each other and to the world to seek reconciliation and peace.
Tomorrow we shall rest in the traditions of Christmas, in the warmth of our families and friends, wrapping them around us like swaddling clothes. Let it be familiar and warm and loving. But the next day, we shall step out into the world changed and renewed. We shall be ambassadors for Christ, using the gifts God gave us to give glory to God.
We shall step out in our own incarnation and once again pick up our gifts and go to work with God to face change and make change for the glory of God's name.
This evening let us rest in the peace that is holy and in a time where time itself seems to stand still and the winds and tides of change are held back with the sounds of angelic voices drifting through a starry, cold night.
Let us pray:
Almighty God of change, God of what is new and what is coming to be, we want to be your partners in the world around us. But on this Christmas Eve we want to rest with you in that timeless moment of your nativity-- in the mystery of your incarnation. Let your Spirit so comfort us this night, so wrap us up in the swaddling clothes of your truth and compassion and mercy that we rest gently in your arms as a baby lying in a manger and know that there is time enough tomorrow for us to join you in changing the world. Amen.
Fred Heard - Dec. 24-25
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Sermon 2005
Holy Trinity, Menlo Park
Father Fred Heard
I was at a holiday luncheon this week and one of those present asked us what our favorite Christmas present was of all time. One person said, “Oh that is really hard.” Others mentioned a bicycle or a special toy. It is funny that a particular incident will mark our memory and tag a gift as our all time favorite or a particular Christmas will bring memories back like, “Oh that was the Christmas that ---- someone died or that was the Christmas that someone was born or two people were married or engaged. Consensus was that probably the “all time favorite gift” would be something from childhood…unless perhaps someone can remember an engagement ring or something of that caliber. I was drawn back to the sixth grade when my folks had placed all the presents under the tree and when they weren’t around I opened every single one of them and re-wrapped them. Needless to say, I learned that part of Christmas is the mystery. On Christmas, I had to fake surprise—about every single present. Strange, though I remember almost every present to this day. When I was in government, I used to tell my staff that I wanted to know what was going on and that I only liked surprises at Christmas or on my birthday.
Christmas is a really big deal. I was reminded of that as I did chapel with our wee ones at Trinity school. I tried to talk about Advent and asked if they knew what season we were in. Several excitedly raised their hands and told me it was Christmas. I then talked about the seasons of the year and soon we would be in winter and then I told them the church had seasons and that Advent was the first season of the church year. I even covered the altar with a purple cloth. We talked about the colors of the church. We talked about gifts and that Jesus Christ was the great gift that God gives to each of us…and that Christmas awaits us after we plan and prepare during Advent. Last week, I went back and one little child remembered that it was Advent. I told them that this would be their last chapel before Christmas vacation and that we could now talk about Christmas. I suggested we sing “Away in a Manger.” We did that well and then they—by consensus—wanted to sing “Jingle Bells” and so we did. Then the head teacher suggested we close with “This Little Light of Mine.” The children told me they made gifts out of recycled materials and then they sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” to me and then, one by one, they came up and wished me a Merry Christmas. That was a very special 2005 Christmas gift. Another came when I saw a little boy that morning walking across campus on his way to school. He was holding his Dad’s hand and he quite spontaneously reached up and took my hand too and we walked to the front door—the three of us—hand in hand …and then in chapel he made sure he sat next to me and our knees touched. That was special
I have a lot of very special Christmas memories as I know you do. I also think after living for more than 60 years—that I have reached a perspective about Christmas. There was a time when Christmas meant everything to me and there was always that awful let down after all the excitement and then nothing but the prospect of a very long and cold January. Well certainly, the birth of a son on December 30 and our daughters on January 14 and now a son-in-law on January 8 and the addition of Martin Luther King’s Birthday weekend have helped change my thoughts about January. But not far behind Christmas and our Epiphany season, comes Lent and Easter. And so you see, I have come to believe that the birth of our Savior is a beginning of a life that will lead to resurrection and God’s great gift to us of eternal life. That is really what Christmas is all about…and yet this is the most dangerous time of the year for suicides and domestic violence. And still we read on the greeting cards: “Peace on earth and good will to all.” There is war, there is sexual violence, there is hunger, there are homeless people, and there is corruption. Peace on earth? The story of Jesus’ birth is beautiful and it is sweet. It is also very simple and plain—no royal purple, no palace. In fact, taxes have displaced a family from their home. A poor family has to take shelter in a barn because there is no room in the inn. Common people have a great celebration. There is a murder plot to protect power. A family flees to protect their child. Many children are murdered. Gifts are offered by people who don’t know each other but they bring gifts because of a shared sense of hope. This is Christmas. This is Christmas in the real world. This is also the story of Jesus’ birth and it is how God chose to come to earth. God chose to anchor with humans as a human…without pomp.
This Christmas, let us remember that Jesus searched for peace by becoming a part of a world without peace. The headlines we read in 2005 are the same headlines Jesus lived. Our Christmas music is truly beautiful and often sentimental. Christmas however, is more than a sentimental journey. It is a reminder that God came with human skin to face human challenge so we might find peace in him.
God sent his son. He gave us scripture. He does not want us to tear ourselves apart over his teachings. God wants us to respect the value of other faiths. I believe God wants us to serve the poor and protect our environment. Scripture belongs to all and it must not be ceded to one over another…and what is important this Christmas is not whether one store says Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas but what is truly in your heart.
God’s blessing to his troubled children is “Peace on earth, goodwill to all.” Don’t just look for God’s grace in the twinkling lights and the sweet smiles of the children at Christmas. December 26 is coming…and so are March 1 and July 16 and October 20. Hear the bad news of the headlines and be reminded of His grace because he has lived with those same headlines…so that we will not be bound to them.
And so my brothers and sisters—what is the greatest gift of all? God has graciously accepted us as living members of his Son our Savior Jesus Christ…and that is the gift for all seasons and all ages. The Messiah has come! Merry Christmas.
December 18, 2005
Bill Schooler - Dec. 18, 2005
Trinity Parish 12-18-05
Rev. Bill Schooler
Luke 1:26-38
“Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ ” Mary said, “Yes,” to God.
More than 2,150 men and women said, “Yes,” to their country to serve in the Armed Forces, knowing that they might be killed in Iraq, and they were. More than 16,520 men and women said, “Yes,” to their country to serve in the Armed Forces, knowing that they might be severely wounded, and they were. Thousands of men and women say, “Yes,” to their local governments to serve as Law Enforcement Officers and Firefighters, knowing that they might be killed or severely injured, and they were.
So why is it so hard to say, “Yes,” to God who does not want us to die or be wounded? God is calling us to life. In Deuteronomy, God says, more or less, “I set before you this day life and death. Choose life.” Jesus offers us life and offers it to us so that we may have it abundantly. The glory of Christmas is the willingness of ordinary people to recognize and obey God’s claim on their lives, and to say, “Yes,” to God.
Men and women who say, “Yes,” to their country and to their local governments do so, I believe, because underneath their outwardly stated motivations, they want to be a part of those communities. They have a sense of “the other” of connecting to something, someone outside themselves. When they choose to belong, they all undergo some sort of common training that is rigorous, demanding and requires some sacrifice. It is this common sacrifice and often a sense of common suffering that creates a bond between all who enter these communities. This sense of belonging is found in team sports, fraternities, sororities, and other kinds of communal associations. Each one fills a need that is intrinsic to human beings—community.
We are not born to be alone, isolated and disconnected from others. We are born as children of God, into God’s family to belong to each other. Advent is a time in the church year to examine who we belong to—God, the world, our families, our friends, or only ourselves.
If men and women can say, “Yes,” and give their lives and bodies for their country and local governments, why is it so hard to say, “Yes,” to God who wants nothing more for us than life?
Community binds us together and also binds us to God. There is no such thing as a private Christian faith. It is a community of faith. To say we are unworthy to stand before God is true, but it doesn’t matter. We cannot hide behind our own sinfulness and shortcomings as a way of avoiding God’s call to us. God calls us anyway to serve as who we are and with what we have.
Think about it. Mary, who was God’s favored, gave birth to a child out of wedlock who later was executed as a criminal. God enters human life with all its depravity, violence, and corruption. Consequently, the Annunciation ultimately is an announcement of hope for humankind, but only if we say, “Yes,” to God, only if we choose life. God has not abandoned us to the consequences of our own sinfulness. Instead, God sent Jesus as our deliverer.
Being part of a community is not always easy. Communities often contain people we don’t like, especially the ones who don’t agree with us. Like the men and women of our Armed Forces, Law Enforcement, and Fire Departments, being part of community requires training; initial training and continuous training; training in skills, training in how to communicate with each other and the community as a whole.
The church, too, has similar training requirements. After the initial training of Baptism and Confirmation, continuous training in prayer, worship, and participation in the faith community are necessary to grow in our relationship with God.
Advent marks a time in the church year that is critical to our training. God announces to us that God is giving us God’s son. Do we say,”YES,” to that gift, or do we also reject that child and participate in executing him as a common criminal?
What if men and women said “No” to their country and their local governments? What would happen? I don’t believe we can honorably live in a country and say, “No,” when it calls us. I don’t believe we can honorably live in a city or town and say, “No,” when it calls us.
This “yes” business is serious business. We cannot truly become who we are until we say, “Yes,” to God. It is in the “yes” that we open ourselves to accept the obligations and the joys of being part of a community, a community that offers us life and life abundantly.
What if Mary had said, “No?” Would God have looked elsewhere? What happens when you say “No” to God? In my own life I find it increasingly hard to live outside the “Yes” to God. With all the depravity, violence and corruption that is part of human life, I find that only “Yes” to God helps me make sense of it all and offers me a way through it.
I believe a relationship with God is essential to life. For a Christian, that relationship also requires commitment to living in community. Often that is hard to do, but we must do the things we need to do for ourselves to be part of a faith community.
As you know, I serve as a Chaplain at the Veterans Affairs Hospitals in Palo Alto and Menlo Park. In my work with combat vets I am convinced that men and women do not die for God and their country. They do not die for God and their local government. They die for each other. The bonds forged in community are what bind them together.
I believe it is so for us Christians. Our Baptismal vows require us to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves. For me, this means that in order for me to have a strong and growing relationship with God, I must be part of a faith community. It is this church. It is this community that forges my relationship with God and helps me to hear God speak to me in my life.
Albert Einstein wrote of “A Circle of Compassion,” in which he said this.
“A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. And yet we experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical illusion of our consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.”
We can learn to do this as part of a faith community. Such membership teaches us how to love one another. The Christ Child showed us how. “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Each year Christmas comes. The Christ Child is born. New life has once again arrived. Christ has come. Do we say, “yes,” to this child and embrace him? How will you respond? Will you invite this child into your lives? Will you say, “Yes,” to God and to God’s Son and all that implies and be a member of a faith community?
December 11, 2005
Anne Jensen - Dec. 11, 2005
Advent 3 B 1Thes.5:12-28
“When is the Lord coming? Why haven’t we heard something?”
I can just imagine the members of the young church at Thessalonica asking St. Paul these questions. The disciples themselves asked Jesus when he would appear again. Jesus’ answer included a description of a time of overwhelming violence, yet he continues with this warning, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father.”
No one knows; Jesus didn’t know and Paul didn’t know.
Paul wrote this letter in 50 AD about 20 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Scholars generally believe that this is the earliest of the letters in the New Testament. Thessalonica was a free city in Greece with a significant Jewish population living among the people who worshiped many different gods. The congregation was made up of both Jews and gentiles and included women. Paul preached in the synagogues three times and then under pressure left for Athens. The Christian community faced persecution from both the city officials and the Jews. Once Paul was in Athens, and again when he was in Corinth, he wrote for Timothy and Silas to come visit him. We believe that this letter is in response to the report that Timothy gave to Paul in Corinth. Paul obviously has great affection for this young church.
Very early in its history the church had to deal with the delay of the paroursia, the Greek word for the “arrival” or “coming” of the Son of Man. When is this coming of the Lord? How long must we wait?
We are still asking the same questions, especially when things are not going well. I can tell when I am under stress because when I get to that part of the Eucharistic Prayer that goes “And at the last day bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom,” I pray with special fervor. We have a longing for the Kingdom and for the restoration of shalom, God’s peace.
The problem St. Paul addresses in his letter to the church in Thessalonica is the same problem we face. How are we to live in the “in-between times?” While the Thessalonians were struggling under persecution, we are struggling in an environment that is often hostile to faith, especially if it is critical of the materialism and self-centered individualism of the culture at large.
This morning we heard his exhortation to the community, giving them the basics for how to live in community. He is giving instructions and encouragement to the church SO THAT THEY WILL BE READY FOR THE COMING OF THE LORD.
Paul encourages the people to love and care for one another and for all people, and he prays that God will strengthen their hearts. The good people of the church in Thessalonica have embraced the gospel and are filled with the Holy Spirit, so he is not criticizing them; he’s encouraging them and giving them advice.
BE AT PEACE AMONG YOURSELVES. Living and working with others is hard; we are willful people. Peace here means more than absence of violence, both physical and emotional; it means establishing right relationships with each other, and that often means first getting in right relationship with God and ourselves, so that we can see ourselves honestly. Christ’s purpose on earth is reconciliation: with God, with our neighbors and within ourselves.
I witnessed a poignant moment of reconciliation between two women; I don’t remember the cause of the breach, if I ever knew. Their friendship was strained, and they didn’t know what to say to each other, so they avoided one another for about a month. One Sunday morning at the end of the service, during the last hymn Nancy went up to her friend, not knowing what to say, and just gently touched her arm. She said, “Kate.” Kate turned toward her, saw who it was, and with a great wave of relief, said, “Nancy!” and threw her arms around her.
Usually when there is brokenness between people, there is hurt on both sides, and that brokenness affects the whole community because we do not live in isolation. We have a need for reconciliation here at Trinity.. The events of the last several years have caused strains in the fabric of our lives. The listening meetings are a part of the process of coming together. You as individuals know better than I do where there are strains. Advent is a good time to begin our reconciliation because we are particularly aware of Christ’s coming again in glory? Are we ready?
Paul is very direct. He counsels patience. He also says, “See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always pursue the good for one another.” That’s a fairly straight-forward lesson in ethics. It’s the next part that hangs over us, or at least hangs over me. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” How am I going to do that? That’s quite a prescription! But what if Paul is really describing how it is to “live in Christ,” his language for the new and transformed life one experiences through the grace of God?
REJOICE ALWAYS. This requires stepping back and imagining life without knowing God through Jesus, estranged and burdened with guilt. My spiritual director more than 20 years ago asked me to imagine just such a condition when I was having trouble connecting to Jesus, so I tried to. The sense of loss was awful. Sometimes we don’t know what we have until we don’t have it anymore, or we imagine we don’t have it. By comparison, everyday annoyances are just that, and I have to remind myself of that. The gift of new life in Christ and the movement of the Holy Spirit are so great, that we are drawn to joy, at least in the larger scheme of things.
PRAY ALWAYS. No, this doesn’t mean constantly muttering memorized prayers when we are trying to live our lives. The Outline of Faith, which you can find in the back of the prayer book, says “Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.”
In prayer God really wants a relationship with our true selves, the selves we are in our hearts. One minister writes, “On our own we really don’t have much wholeness to present to God on a daily basis. Instead we are invited to lay the pieces of our life on the altar, assured that God will accept us. But that daily offering must include our entire selves. Our incompleteness. Our scattered-ness. Our impetuous-ness. Our humanity. Our failures.” In this kind of prayer we get stirred up; we open ourselves to receive God’s word for us, which can be a word to change, along with God’s love, grace and mercy, which strengthen us and renew us to prayer-full actions.
Another way to imagine this piece of instruction is to think of “praying always” as living in a way in which you are always in relationship to God; that your words and your deeds are grounded in that relationship, whether or not you are conscious of it, because it is your customary way of being.
There are many books written on prayer and how to pray, and there are many ways to pray. Jesus always went away to pray before the major moments of his ministry. If you do not have a practice of prayer, then now is a good time to begin, even with just a short prayer in the morning or evening. Many people pray in the shower, others while they are walking the dog. Maybe it has been years since you have said bed-time prayers, but now is a good time to restart them. Just listening for God is a kind of prayer. Advent is a time to pray…we await the coming of Christ in power and glory. Are we ready?
GIVE THANKS IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. This is closely related to rejoice always. It’s a stretch to pray, “I thank you for all the difficult people and situations in my life,” but in reality, we grow through the hard times. Our character and our spirit expand as we face our true selves in the midst of trouble and turn to God. In true humility we can see that we need God and each other. We can and do receive help, and give thanks. And we can become more the people God wants us to be. Even when life is bleak, we can give thanks for the birth of Jesus, for God becoming human and dwelling among us, and for making a new kind of life possible for us, not just as individuals, but for us as a community, and for the world. We look for his coming again in great glory. Are we ready?
And Paul says: DO NOT QUENCH THE SPIRIT. Stay open; listen, think; stay away from what is evil. Let the Spirit live and move within you, personally and collectively. Be ready!
St. Paul closes his letter with a benediction that is as is as comforting and supportive today as it was the day he wrote it. Eugene Peterson in The Message says it this way, “May the God [of Peace] who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our savior Jesus Christ.”
There is one who is to come. Our waiting is not passive. It IS something. It is mixed up with preparing, with being stirred up and opened up. Our waiting is highly significant, because people tend to be shaped by whatever it is they are waiting for.
December 04, 2005
Fred Heard - Dec 4, 2005
Sermon—Mark 1:1-8
December 4, 2005
Father Fred Heard - Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
The Lord Jesus Christ is coming and John the Baptist tells us so this morning. He is coming. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Probably very few people understood what John was saying. Fewer understood, “I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
The Lord Jesus Christ is coming and John is the perfect voice for Advent and alerts us of his coming to earth to bridge the relationship between God and ourselves. John’s message was the beginning of the Good News for the world. The old Chinese proverb tells us that “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” and it is this first step that John points to today. You see today’s lesson is the first step for all those who want to follow Jesus. The wilderness is so lonely and so forsaken and John tells us what must be done to embrace the love and the comfort and the life and the spirit of Jesus Christ. John points the way for all who want to walk out of the wilderness to the promised land. My brothers and sisters, a highway out of the wilderness can offer much comfort—but what John proposes is through baptism we can build a highway into our hearts. This is a direction and the all important step we must take to get ready for Christ’s coming.
There is a Zen story about a university professor who went to visit the great master, Nan-In. “Master,” he said, “teach me what I need to know to have a happy life. I have studied the sacred scriptures, I have visited the greatest teachers in the land, but I have not found the answer, please - teach me the way.” At this point Nan-In served tea to his guest. He poured his visitor's cup full and then kept on pouring and pouring so that the tea began to run over the rim of the cup and across the table, and still he poured, until tea was falling upon the floor. The professor watched this until he could no longer restrain himself. “Its overfull, stop, no more will go in” he cried out. “Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “You are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you the way unless you first empty your cup?”
And so, you see, that is how we must welcome Christ. We must make room for him in our hearts. During this Advent we can prepare for his coming…it is possible to do so. It would have been relatively simple for John the Baptist to build a highway out of the wilderness—but his task was much more difficult. John was driven to prepare the hearts of the people. He believed it was necessary to take action in order to meet the Messiah and to walk with him. John called on the folks to repent. Sometimes the word “repent” is one of those gooshie words that make Episcopalians uncomfortable. But what does repent mean? Quite simply it is to turn around or change direction or to leave the old way behind.
We can create our own wilderness by turning away from God…and that wilderness is so profound that it robs us of hope and when hope is gone—all is lost. Sometimes, when counseling people, I have suggested that things are so much worse when we wake up in the middle of the night and think about our problems…sometimes even, our hearts are so filled with sadness or worry there is no room for Christ—that my Brothers and Sisters is our choice because Christ will be with us always if we but open our hearts to him. We create our own wilderness and we keep it closest to us and that is in our hearts. Just like the professor in the Zen story, we must empty our hearts if we are to truly turn to Jesus Christ.
Sometimes during these days of the year it seems that everyone else is so merry and happy and all we feel is total despair. It is during these days of Advent when we can prepare if we will only do so to receive the Christ child once more. Our lives during these barren times do not have to lack hope and they do not have to be unfruitful. Just as there are plenty of reminders about the joy of the season—there are tools, if you will, that can not just get us through the holidays—but can move us along with substantial satisfaction. Unprepared, the Christmas season, can remind us of what we lack and more vividly paint our need for God or for anything that will ease our burdens. This can be lonely. But we must remember that loneliness is not just the lot of those who are by themselves because we can be lonely in crowds of 500…and we can be filled with a sense of community or togetherness by ourselves. It can be lonely for those who think they will find what they are missing at the office Christmas party, or in having the perfect Christmas tree, or by giving or receiving the perfect Christmas gift, or in having the most spectacular Christmas decorations in the neighborhood. We can also feel together and happy by sitting and reading a good book or by watching a good movie by ourselves.
But also remember, my Brothers and Sisters that even those who value the good news of Jesus Christ might feel a sense of unrest during this time of the year because perhaps we are looking for a new way of doing old things. There may be something we need to forgive or forget. Perhaps we need to empty our cups or simply switch to another brand of tea or fill our cups with the water of life.
It is not un-Christian to feel spiritually empty or dry or disconnected from time to time. What is wrong is to leave it there. We leave it there by trying to fill that emptiness with shopping or more parties or more noise and sometimes we try to drown out the silence with noise. Silence is not our enemy. Silence is really the natural state of the world and we have tried to overcome it and eventually, it all goes back to silence. The music can’t keep playing, the voices can’t keep talking, and the cars can’t keep chugging along. Eventually, there is silence…and this is when, if you listen, you will hear God. God, during this Advent, is not pressuring you to be happy and full of good cheer. God is not telling you to “shop until you drop.” God does not want you to remember the birth of his son with exhaustion or panic or questions of self worth because you didn’t do thus and so. God is not telling you to mark Christmas by spending more than you should. Working too hard and long, exhaustion, short tempers, lack of organization, charging beyond means—none of these things bring joy and happiness to our family and friends. This is a wilderness and it is one we have created—it truly is not from God.
My dear friends—march to your own drummer. Build an Advent that includes rest and hope for you and time for love for family and friends, and joy and peace for all. This is where God is. Remember John in this morning’s gospel and prepare your way during Advent. December is a good time to enjoy the cold days, to turn to family and friends, and your church community. It is really a time to do less—much less. It is a time to relax. Accept invitations that you really want and don’t resent when the day arrives. Spend time trying that Christmas punch or cookie or bread recipe. Write letters to friends and family. Call a person who has dropped out of your life. Sing those beautiful songs of the season. Be sensitive to those around you. Read the beautiful scriptures and pray during this time. If you don’t pray, you can always begin with “Thank you God.” Pray for your church and the world. Spend some time alone. Walk the labyrinth. Take a walk in the cold air.
Those of us who are here today know more about the world than those who listened to John the Baptist 2000 years ago. We know the King of Kings is coming. We know Jesus Christ will die for us and will be resurrected from the dead and with that life will triumph over death. We know that. John’s words, spoken so long ago call us to that life that Jesus revealed. John asked us to plan and look ahead. He asked us to change direction. Those words do not seem out of date on this day. Indeed John is talking to us on this Advent day, 2005…John invites us to the light and leads us out of the darkness. AMEN
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