Luke 3:1-6

1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of the Galilee, and Herod’s brother, Philip, ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And John went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

 “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

 ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

  make direct the paths of the Lord.

 5 Every valley shall be filled,

  and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

 and the crooked shall be made direct,

  and the rough ways made smooth;

 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of peace,

You are making your home among us

And calling us to be attentive to what you are doing.

Embolden us to join in this work with you.

Give us courage to help lay a foundation of peace

In which all are truly welcomed, truly valued, and truly affirmed.

Amen.

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We put up our Christmas tree and most of our indoor Christmas decorations last week after worship. We put up our outside lights a couple of weeks ago before Thanksgiving, but things are really starting to look like Christmas around the Michaelis home.

And honestly, I know it’s a little out of order…I mean, yes, I am a liturgical purist and I know that Advent is a season of preparation and I know that Christmas doesn’t begin until December 24, but honestly…after the past couple of years, I’m not going to begrudge anyone for getting a head start on spreading a little holiday cheer. Plus, Christmas stuff is a lot of fun with a 2-year old running around. That, and truthfully, waiting to do Christmas stuff until actual liturgical Christmas just wouldn’t fly at my house. Look, I don’t make the rules, I just abide by them…

I’m especially grateful for our home this year. Like I mentioned last week, even after a lengthy 20 months in which I’ve become intimately familiar with every single square inch of our home…I’m deeply grateful for our place. Perhaps you can relate.

Our Advent series from the creative women at A Sanctified Art is called Close to Home. We’re exploring what makes a home feel like a home, how do we know when we’re close to home or far from it, and what does it mean that God has made God’s home here with us in the person of Jesus—Emmanuel—God with us. We’re plumbing the depths of our longing after God and our collective longing for our home, for our world, to be made whole, be made right, and be made well. With deep longing, we watch and wait for God. This is the patient and expectant anticipation of Advent.

Last week we focused on that feeling of homesickness. That kind of nagging feeling you get when you know something’s just not quite right, that longing after a hoped-for world in which things are as they should be, a world as God intends it. Last week, we named the reality that the fullness of God’s dream and God’s vision for our world is not yet where we are, but that we are on the way. We are working to build God’s promised future here and now in our midst.

This week we start getting to work on that building. And like every good building project, you start with the foundation.

Every so often, I’ll look out the windows in our living room and down into the side yard part of our backyard. Almost every single time, without fail, I’ll be immediately drawn to August 27 of 2017 and watching the rain continue to pour down and the river of water rushing down our side yard making its way to the street and watching the water level of those tiny rivers rise and rise and rise and come close, but ultimately, never get up to our house. And I remember that we were some of the lucky ones.

Watching rushing water creep its way closer and closer to the foundation of your house is an extremely anxious thing. Certainly not peaceful. Maybe you can relate. There’s this kind of feeling of dread, but also a sense of resignation, because at the end of the day, what are you going to do? You can’t, like, stop it from raining…

I was reminded of the importance of foundations during Harvey. And I continue to be reminded that a solid and sturdy foundation is critical to a long-lasting, healthy, and continually useful structure.

John the baptizer shows up in the wilderness making the way ready for Jesus. The author of Luke situates John very historically—“in the reign of Emperor Tiberias…Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea…Herod, ruler of the Galilee”—but also situates John very much in the lineage of the prophets; in fact, the author of Luke compares John to the prophet that Isaiah talks about, “the one calling out in the wilderness and preparing the way of the Lord.”

Both the gospel of Luke and Isaiah understand and point out that the prophet is not the main event, the prophet is someone who comes before, who makes ready. The prophet in the wilderness is a forerunner, one who lays the foundation. The prophet is someone who doesn’t direct people to themselves, but instead points outward, away from themselves, pointing toward something or someone else.

In this case, John the baptizer is proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin to all those who were coming out to him in the Judean countryside, but John is calling people beyond that and pointing them to Jesus. And in this season of Advent, when we wait and prepare with anticipation and expectation, how are you pointing people to Christ, church? How are you reflecting Christ in your words, actions, and thoughts? How are your neighbors seeing Christ through you?

The prophet is the one who goes ahead, who points to the one coming after them. The prophet prepares the way. The prophet lays the foundation for what’s to come.

Throughout our Advent series Close to Home there’s a movement…from a place of feeling lost, of not knowing where or what “home” is to a recognition and a realization that God is our home, and specifically our home is found in Christ…God made flesh, a tiny infant born to an unwed teenage mother, not in a gilded palace far removed from everyday folks, but instead born among livestock, born into impoverished conditions so that you would know that this God is intimately familiar with—knows—the most impoverished parts of yourself…the parts you prefer to keep hidden, the parts you try and cover up and gloss over, and the parts you don’t let very many others see.

This series is about both recognizing where our home is, and about the steps, we take to build that kind of home here and now in this place. When we pray earnestly, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven,” it isn’t for some far off future…it means here…and now. And if we’re going to join God in making a home here, we’ve gotta start with a foundation.

Last week, we began with recognizing that deep longing inside ourselves for home—homesickness was the word we used. If we recognize that where we are is not where we want to be, we’re going to have to do what we can to join God in building that reality here. If we’re going to build a home where truly all are and feel welcomed, we’ve got to start with a solid and sturdy foundation.

It’s not enough to say “All are welcome”, we have to show it, church, prove it with our actions. Show me that truly all are welcome by the kind of foundation you put in place. Show me the solid and sturdy ground you stand on, and I’ll tell you if everyone’s welcome or not. Don’t just tell me I’m safe and beloved and affirmed…show me, demonstrate it to me.

You might think that the foundation of the home we’re building would be love, and normally, I’d agree with you, but then we wouldn’t be following the order of the weeks of Advent, so in this case, the foundation of the home we’re building is peace… But I don’t disagree with the foundation of this home being peace, either… Because peace can be a good place to start. Peace recognizes that we aren’t all the same, there are a diversity of views, but peace stands in the middle of that and says that the thing that draws us together is far greater than everything else that seeks to drive us apart. Peace is solid. Peace is hard, friends. Peace requires conversation and dialogue and a humble recognition that I may not always be right…but the thing that joins us together is greater than the things that seek to divide and separate us. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said this about peace: “True peace is not the absence of tension. True peace is the presence of justice.”

Peace is a hard thing to come by. But we don’t make peace all by ourselves.

We pray for God to bring God’s peace into the world, and we look for ways to participate in the work God is already doing. We look for ways to join in God’s work of building God’s home here.

Yes, we are preparing the way for the coming Savior, for the inbreaking of God into the world, but in the process of making ready, we’re also being attentive to the ways our own hearts and lives are being made ready, being attentive to the ways your own foundations are being shaped and formed. Church, it’s your own wayward paths that are being aligned, your own rough places that are being smoothed out.

It’s your own wilderness that God is transforming.

Peace is breaking into the world.

And like the buds on a tree branch last week, the signs are small, but they’re everywhere.

It’s our call to be attentive to them.

To notice them.

To use them as the foundation for the home we are joining God in building here in our midst.

Come, Emmanuel.

​​Luke 21:25-36

[Jesus said:] 25“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26 People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 Then they will see ‘the Son of humanity coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

  29 Then Jesus told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. 31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the reign of God is near. 32 Very truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

  34 “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, 35 like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of humanity.”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

God for whom we wait,

We trust in your word of hope.

We wait with anticipation for your promised future.

And we recognize that we are not there yet.

We are not yet home.

Walk with us on our journey homeward.

Amen.

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Home means a great many different things to a great many different people.

Is home a place, or is home a person? Does home have a physical address, or is home more of an emotion? What does home look like? What does home feel like? How do we know if we are home, or if we’re far from home?

This Advent, we’re returning to a series from the formidably creative women of A Sanctified Art, called Close to Home. In their words, during this season “we journey through scriptures and rituals that are tender, heavy with emotion, and vulnerable. We carry the memories and truths of this season close to our hearts.” We honor the tension that God’s promised day is not yet fully realized among us, and yet God has already made God’s home among us in the person of Jesus—Emmanuel, God with us. In the familiar scriptures of this season, “home is both physical and metaphorical, something we seek and something we are called to build. Ultimately, God is our home and resting place. God draws near and makes a home on earth—sacred ground is all around us.”

This first Sunday of Advent, with God’s promise to God’s people through the prophet Jeremiah and apocalyptic warnings of Jesus in the gospel of Luke, we are poignantly reminded of how far from home we are. Signs in the heavens and distress upon the earth. Raging of the waters and quaking of the powers. Something is coming and it doesn’t look good. This first week of Advent stirs up a sense of homesickness in us…a sense that the world is not as it should be, and in some ways, we feel far from a recognizable sense of home. “Many have lost their physical homes, many feel alone, and many are isolated. Many feel as if we are wandering with no clear way forward.” This first week speaks to our deep collective longing—for our home to be made whole, made right, and made well. With deep longing, we watch and wait for God.

And with a fervent and tested hope, we trust that God has and does come among us to make God’s home with us. Our hope trusts that God has and does enter our homesick world.

It’s been a long 20 months…amen, church? None of us thought we’d be in this place, where we are now, back in March of 2020. And yet, we persist. We hope, and we trust, that this, too, shall pass. That where we are now is not where we will remain. And we continue striving forward to do what we can for our neighbor in need and the vulnerable among us. I have to say, I think this whole pandemic has been an exercise in hope. And it certainly hasn’t been easy.

Home can be a complicated thing. Raising a young one over the past 20 months has been wild. More of his life has been lived within a global pandemic than out of one. We intentionally kept our pandemic circle small and compact, we avoided unnecessary outings, we ordered out and cooked in, we kept things tight. And we spent a lot of time at home. Trying to keep a toddler entertained, I am intimately familiar with all eighteen-hundred-some-odd square feet of our home.

So yeah, home is complicated.

This week we got to spend a really good bit of time with my parents and my grandmother and my sister’s family. It was a balm for my soul. And it was a complete 180* from Thanksgiving last year. Last year, you’ll remember, before vaccines were available, and when things had started surging before Thanksgiving. So this year, I have a lot that I’m personally thankful for. Last year it felt like a sense of home was taken from me, in some ways. After Christmas, still under last year’s winter surge, mind you, my parents were coming down to spend a few days and do the whole Christmas thing with us, and on their way down, just as they had gotten through College Station, my parents got a call from my sister, the ER nurse, letting them know that she had just lost her sense of smell. Her sense of taste would follow the next day or so. But the kicker was, my parents had just been out at my sister’s house the week before doing the Christmas thing with their family, so there was a real question about transmissibility and incubation periods, and we just didn’t know.

My parents continued the trip from College Station to Sugar Land, and I’ll never forget standing in our garage with our masks on, and watching my parents and grandmother get out of their car with their masks on, and feeling so upset about what was happening. Of course, we knew we were doing what was best and safest for all of us, but it was heart-wrenching.

My sense of home was shattered in that moment.

Surely this is not the kind of world God dreams for us.

My sister and her family all ended up being fine. She had received her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine earlier that week which likely spared her some of the worse effects and from passing it on to her family, but the contrast between last year and this year couldn’t be starker.

And that feeling is something that has stayed with me…that feeling of having home ripped from my hands. That moment feels so hopeless.

The lesson of Advent is one of waiting. It’s one of watching. It’s one of patience. And it’s one of paying attention.

Be attentive to the small, often barely discernible signs of life, Jesus says. Like the fig tree just starting to produce buds on its branches, you can know that new life is beginning to break forth. Even amidst all the other warning signs, all the things that stir up fear in us—distress among nations, shaken powers, and roaring oceans—you can trust…you can have faith…that something new is about to break forth.

And right there, that’s the key…it’s not about faith over fear, or fear rather than faith…faith or fear is a false dichotomy, church…it’s about faith in the midst of fear.

Jesus doesn’t deny that these fearful things will happen. In fact, you can expect them. “When these things take place, stand up and raise your heads. Know that redemption is drawing near.”

Advent is about a fervent hope…a tested, tried, and proved hope…hope is rugged, it’s gritty…hope is well-worn. A fervent hope holds fast to the promise that God has saved God’s people before and promises to do so again. Hope persists in the face of fear because of faith.

Our Advent journey is one of longing for a world that is as God intends it to be. A world in which there is no doubt that God has made God’s home here. A world that is no longer homesick for an imagined future that could be, because as God’s people, we are living in such a way that brings God’s promised future here, and now, to bear on our present.

Be attentive to the tiny, often barely discernible signs of new life and new growth breaking forth.

Stand up. And raise your heads.

Redemption is arriving.

Come, Emmanuel.

Luke 24:36b-48

36b Jesus himself stood among the disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37 They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38 And Jesus said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when Jesus had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 While in their joy they were unbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate in their presence.
  44 Then Jesus said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sin is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

Healing God,

Amidst all the stories of hurt and pain,

Death, despair, and hopelessness

We hear all around,

You step into our midst and speak a word of peace.

Give us courage to speak that peace, too.

Give us words to say and hope to share.

Help us witness to your new life and your resurrection

In our lives, and in our world.

Amen.

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I preached my first sermon when I was 13 years old.

I know, I know…overachiever.

But it went like this: I was in 8th grade, it was the summer, and I was at summer camp with my Confirmation class. It was our group’s day to lead worship and as we were planning it out the day before they asked if any of the campers wanted to give the message. I was not particularly interested in speaking in front of the entire camp, but our counselors pushed us a bit, “You know, usually it’s the counselors who give the messages at worship, but we think it’d be really cool if one of y’all campers were to give the message. Who’s up for it?” There was a lot of looking around, a lot of avoiding eye contact and suggestive eyebrow raises…stupidly, I mistakenly caught one of our counselor’s eyes…“Chris…how ‘bout it…?”

“I mean…I have zero idea what I’m doing…”

“Yeah, but, you enjoy this stuff, right? You’re good at it…”

“I don’t know…but I guess… What the heck, I’ll give it a shot…”

I’ve preached before about how I’m one of the weird ones who enjoyed Confirmation, right? Like, it was very interesting to me, I found a passion for a lot of the things that had been running around in my head, and I really enjoyed learning a whole bunch of new stuff that I didn’t know before. I’m still not sure if I would say I was “good” at Confirmation, but I was certainly passionate about it. So this was an interesting opportunity.

But I still had no idea how to preach. I still had no clue how to give a message.

I was talking about it after our planning session with my counselor. “I mean, what do I even say? How do you even give a message?”

“Well, where do you see God?” he asked me.

“I don’t know…everywhere, I guess…”

“Ok…good start…but like, where specifically have you been encouraged by God? Where have you struggled, and what’s helped you to see God through that? What’s something that has brought you comfort? What’s something that has helped guide you during tough times, and how might that something be God at work?”

So I told him about earlier that day, how we were at the archery range for our rotation, and I was getting frustrated because I just couldn’t seem to get the arrow on target, and that was even more frustrating for me because I’m a Boy Scout and like, I’m supposed to be good at things like that. And then I told my counselor how in the middle of all of this he had us all sit down and we talked about focus, and where do we focus in our lives, and do we keep ourselves focused on God and what God is asking of us, or are we focused elsewhere, on any number of things that demand our attention. And I told him how his talk with us was super helpful for me because when it got to be my turn again, I was able to find the target more easily with focus. And how maybe that felt like God a little bit…

“Well, sounds like you’ve got a sermon,” he said. “Why don’t you preach on that?”

And so I did.

And it went great.

And I was really proud of myself.

And that was my first sermon.

All sermons are, are just us preachers, standing up here, waving our arms, talking about where we think we’ve seen God show up in our lives, in the lives of you, our parishioners, and in the life of the world.

That’s it.

Where have you seen God? How has God shown up?

Which is also the overarching theme of all of our Easter season readings. How does Jesus continue to show up after the resurrection?

Whether in a bodily presence to the disciples in our Gospel readings, to how do the first Christ-believing communities reflect what they learned from Jesus long after the Ascension, all of our post-resurrection readings point to where God shows up. And asks the question of us—we, who call ourselves followers of this Christ—how does the world see a different view of the resurrected Jesus through us…through our words, through our actions, through the ways we treat others.

How does Jesus show up? 

Behind locked doors. In the midst of frightened followers. In community. Eating. Healing. Speaking words of peace.

All things I think we can pretty easily identify with these days, right?

Our Gospel lesson from Luke picks up right after a familiar post-resurrection story of 2 disciples on the road to Emmaus, where Jesus walks alongside them, opens the scriptures to them, and they don’t recognize him at first, but Jesus is finally made known to them in the breaking of the bread. Then this morning, Jesus comes and stands behind locked doors again, speaks a word of peace, and eats fish with the disciples. Jesus, again, is made known in a meal. And Jesus goes on to explain the scriptures to these disciples and ends with a kind of urging, or encouragement, and says, “You are witnesses of these things.”

It’s this witnessing and testifying—this command to evangelism—that you’ll hear in each of the 4 gospels as some of Jesus’ last words to the disciples. So for Jesus, the most important thing for the disciples to do after the resurrection and after Jesus is ascended to God, the most important thing for them to do…is to witness…is to testify…is to tell the story.

To tell the story of their encounter with Jesus.

To testify to where and how they experienced Jesus.

What will you say about these times we’re living through, church? What will your witness be?

Will you tell a story of having to shut your doors, of being driven apart though invited to worship online? Or will you tell a different narrative of innovation and adaptation, of a church learning how to bring the Gospel message even over the airwaves, of being invited to share in a sacred meal together virtually, having no idea how or why Jesus continues to show up in that meal, yet continuing to trust that Christ is still present?

Will you tell a story of being forced to keep distance, sanitizing everything and wearing gloves to prevent exposure? Or will you tell a different narrative of a church that continued to show up for those in need, donating time and money and energy to feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, mentoring elementary students, and caring for the caretakers?

Will you tell a story of scrolling through your newsfeeds and watching catastrophe after disaster repeat in worn-out patterns on your TV screen? Or will you tell a different narrative of a people who refused to stay silent when people have their lives taken from them by those who took an oath to serve and protect them? Will you tell a narrative of a church that continues to affirm the belovedness and sacredness of God’s children, regardless of their skin color…a church that cries out for justice, that weeps with those who are weeping, struggles with those who are struggling, and fights with those who are fighting for God’s vision to finally be made manifest and real in this place?

The story is yours to tell, church.

People—your neighbors…our neighbors—are starving for good news… How will you feed them?

Your testimony can make real, tangible differences in and for our community. Your words have the power to heal…like Peter and John.

You witness can bring things that seem dead from hopelessness and despair back to life.

Your words have that power.

What sermon will you preach, church?

What witness will you give?

What story of new life and restoration—what story of resurrection—is jumping out of you?

Sounds like you’ve got your sermon to preach right there…

Luke 2:1-20

1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

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Please pray with me tonight, church:

Holy God,

Through the birth of a child,

You show us what Love looks like.

Let that Love be born in us again tonight,

So that we might be Love for the world.

Amen.

—————

A Christmas unlike any other…

We’ve read and heard that line countless times through the years in advertisements and commercials, and you’ve probably not paid it any mind, right? I mean, you’ve probably read and heard that line this year and thought nothing of it or didn’t even notice it…

But think about the ways that’s really true this year…

A Christmas unlike any other…

Back in January and February this year, you might have already started planning your holiday vacations. The thought that Christmas 2020 would be anything other than perfectly and completely normal didn’t even enter your mind. And even back in March and April, we were talking about a very temporary pinch…shut down for a couple of weeks, this thing goes away, we postpone our Easter celebration by a month or so, but we’re back to business as usual by Memorial Day.

No one…no one……thought that we’d still be doing this 9 months later.

But, here we are…

A Christmas unlike any other…

Much smaller affairs. You’re gathering with your immediate household rather than your whole extended family. Following the guidance of the national and local health officials and infectious disease experts, we’re all FaceTime-ing or Zoom-ing Christmas dinner and unwrapping presents, instead of gathering together all under the same roof this year.

It’s why we’re doing this…(*gesture back and forth to camera*)…virtually this year instead of in-person. Setting the example since our county threat level is at the highest “Red” level right now.

And it just makes me wonder if the imbalance and how off-kilter all of this feels doesn’t help us to understand just a bit more deeply how utterly unusual, and truly, how completely backward and upside-down the Nativity story is.

I wonder if the strangeness and the confusion of everything we’re experiencing in 2020 doesn’t actually help to see a little bit more clearly the whole point of this story that’s so familiar to us and that we hear every year.

Because the truth about this story lies in how unremarkable it all is. This story that we all know so well, is a story about God’s preference for the unassuming, the nobodies, the least, and the ones on the margins. And in that way, this familiar story of the birth of Jesus is just like every other gospel story we know so well.

Cod chooses to be found in an infant, not in royalty. In a back alleyway, not a palace. Visited by animals and their caretakers, not by dignitaries. Born to an unwed teenage mom and tradesperson dad, not the king and queen of some province. Heralded by angels and celestial bodies, not by trumpeting and royal decrees.

This story is about God choosing the completely unexpected to reveal God’s self to a world in desperate need of saving.

And in this way, maybe 2020 is precisely the year to help us understand this.

Maybe this is the year for us to finally understand that giving is so much more rewarding than receiving.

Maybe this is the year for us to finally understand that the least, the lost, the downtrodden, the outcast, the looked-down-upon, and the ones of no account are the ones we should be listening most closely to if we want to know about God’s incredible love.

Maybe this is the year for us to finally understand that the child, God’s gift of love, that draws us together, holds us so much more tightly than all the hatred, vitriol, division, and rhetoric that seeks to drive us further apart.

Maybe this is the year for us to finally understand that how we show up with God’s love speaks so much more loudly than what or who we say God’s love is for.

Maybe this is the year for us to finally understand that the world is indeed weary…full of hopes and fears…and that by showing up as the hands and feet of Christ to serve and love those whom the world seems to have left behind or forgotten is what God hopes for us this year.

Love is born, once again, this night, into a world desperate to receive it. Our job is to not leave that gift lying in the manger, but to carry it and share it with reckless abandon and extravagant abundance. The same abandon and abundance with which God has loved you, o dear child.

There is no more perfect year to share this gift of love.

Our hearts are breaking for it.

Our spirits are longing for it.

Our very souls are aching for it.

This year, more than any other, is when your showing up with love will have monumental effects.

This year, more than any other, is when your showing up with love will have incalculable consequences.

The Light has come once again to illumine the dark places.

This year, more than any other, you carry with you the Light of the World.

And by sharing your light with those around you…those you meet throughout your week, or month, or year…by bringing light to dark places…by caring for others who need to be cared for and loving others who need to be loved…God’s love and God’s dream for the world will grow and become more brilliant than ever.

The light will shine in the darkness.

And the darkness will not overcome it.

Merry Christmas, church.

A Christmas unlike any other…

Luke 1:26-38

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a young woman engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The young woman’s name was Mary. 28 And the angel came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29 But she was much perplexed by the angel’s words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his dominion there will be no end.” 34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am only a young woman?” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.

36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of Love,

Stir up your power,

And break in to our world.

Help us to be vessels of your love.

Loving and caring for this world

With the same love you have shown to us.

Amen.

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How do you show love?

What does love feel like to you?

How do you know when you’ve been the recipient of love?

There are lots of things that I love.

I love a good beer, especially the darker ones around this time of year. I love baked goods, which is usually a good thing around this time of year.

Unfortunately, neither of those things is particularly helpful on my diet, so I just don’t get to tell beer and baked goods how much I love them quite as often this year.

I love traveling…not doing much of that this year…

I love to cook for people…lots of cooking, not so much the other people part this year…

I love watching my kid learn something new…lots of that this year…

We use “love” as a pretty encompassing term in English. We use it often for things that we really, really, really like, or things that, you know, give us pleasure. We use “love” when we talk about people. But I wonder if the word “love” isn’t just a little watered down for us given that we use it in so many different scenarios.

The Greeks had 4 words for “love”, each describing a different kind of relationship.

The Spanish language has like 5 different ways of expressing love…there’s an attraction, a desire, a strong desire, a conditional liking, a way for saying that something pleases you, plus 1 or 2 others…

So what do we mean when we talk about love?

On the 4th Sunday of Advent, we typically talk about love. If you’ve been keeping score at home, we’ve gone through hope, peace, and joy, and now we’ve arrived at love. There’s a sense that as the days and weeks of Advent have gone on and built up, there’s a kind of pressure that building. When you stack anticipation and expectation one on top of another and add to it and stretch it out over 4 weeks, it builds and it builds and it builds…The waiting becomes less patient. The expectation becomes more pressing. The anticipation is more frenetic.

What might have started as a rather innocuous refrain of “Come, Lord Jesus” now becomes more impassioned, more pleading. Our cries to God have become more urgent as we’re now begging God to do the very thing that the prophet cried in the 1st week of Advent, “Rend the heavens and come down, O God”—rip open the very fabric between the earthly and the divine. Gentle choruses of “Comfort, my people” turn to earnest imploring of God “O Come, Emmanuel”—and do it quickly.

This is the rhythm of Advent.

This is what Advent does.

It’s a season of building anticipation.

But church, it’s not as if we don’t know what’s coming on Thursday night.

The urgent building of Advent doesn’t seek to deny that Christ is already born. In fact, I think Advent serves to reinforce that reminder. We’re forgetful people, and so we can get caught up in living as if God hasn’t already done the thing that we’re begging to do. In all our pleading with God, we forget that God has already ripped apart the veil between the earthly and the divine, come among us as an infant, already arrived…we forget that God has already done that, and charged us with living as if that’s true.

Because if we really believed that’s true, I have to believe…that we would live very differently.

God has already made God’s home among us.

Yet we look to the heavens for signs of God’s presence, instead of out…to our neighbors…to our friends…to our families…to the members of our communities…

In our reading we heard from 2 Samuel, God says to the king David, through the prophet Nathan, “Why do you want to build me a house? Why do you want to build a temple for God?” God had been traveling with the Israelites through the wilderness in a tent and a tabernacle. This was a God on the move. Why would you want to plant God in a box?

Besides, God says, I, the Lord, am going to make you a house—a family…a people—you and your house…the line and the family of David…will be established forever.

This God is not one to be boxed in.

And in our Gospel from Luke, Gabriel tells the young woman, Mary, that the child she will give birth to is to be called “child of God”, and this is the one to reign over the house of Jacob—the house of Israel—and of this kingdom there will be no end. In the child, Jesus, God has made God’s dwelling among God’s people. God’s holy habitation is in, with, and among God’s people. God’s house is the people of God.

This God is not one to be boxed in.

This is a deeply helpful reminder for me as I stand here and preach to an empty Sanctuary. I posted on my Facebook page a couple of weeks ago a wide shot of the Sanctuary with Danny standing behind the camera with the caption: “The real behind-the-scenes of New Hope Lutheran Church.” and I commented under that that I used to love the stillness and quietness of an empty Sanctuary, but that I had grown to resent it over the past 9 months.

An empty Sanctuary used to be a place for me to calm my racing thoughts and a space that I could be in quiet conversation with God. Now it just reminds me of how much I long to see it full again.

Friends, I don’t need to tell you about all this pandemic has taken away from us. I grieve with you…truly, I do. This is not the kind of thing we study in seminary. There’s no course for surviving a pandemic. Mostly, we’re just making it up as we go along. Which sometimes is the best any of us can hope to do.

But reading these scriptures this week has renewed some spirit within me. I’m reminded that this building…these walls…have never been where God dwells.

These seats will be full again…in time. We will gather for worship again…once our sound system and live streaming cameras are finally installed and new COVID-19 case counts have come down from their astronomic levels. We will gather back here again…soon…but it won’t be because God is here.

It will simply again be the place that the people of God happen to gather.

The building is staying closed for now, but we are still worshiping.

The building is staying closed for now, but God is still being praised.

God’s dwelling place…where God resides…is among you.

You are the body of Christ.

So where do you see God in your neighbors…your friends…your families…the members of your communities…?

God is found in acts of love between people. Through ELCA Good Gifts providing a lifeline for folks in developing countries. Through Project SMILE making Christmas a reality for those who need an extra hand this holiday. Through our many projects with Armstrong Elementary, literally serving our neighbors, to inspire them to continue showing up for school, whether virtual or in-person, every day. Through the scholarships for the students at our sister congregation El Buen Pastor in El Salvador. Through a kind word, simply saying thanks, smiling with your eyes behind your mask…to those who are serving you through this pandemic…whether at the drive-thru or the grocery store, or the doctor’s office. Through sending thank you cards to our healthcare workers at Sugar Land Methodist or St. Luke’s or Hermann.

What other ways can you show God’s love?

What other ways can New Hope show God’s love in our neighborhood?

This isn’t rhetorical, I really want to know. If you have an idea for how we can be the hands and feet of Christ in our community if you have an idea of how we can show God’s love even more, would you let me know? Would you email me at pastor@newhopelc.org and tell me your idea.

I’d love to hear it.

Because that’s where God is found.

In the love shown and shared between people.