Where Nobody Was Looking--December 24, 2025

Where Nobody Was Looking--December 24, 2025

"In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. 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. he went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 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 in the guest room." (Luke 2:1-7)

God does a clever bit of turning the tables here, in these opening words of the Nativity story, which many of us will hear read in worship this Christmas Eve.  Just when you think you know where the action is taking place and who the real movers and shakers are, Luke practically gives us whiplash pointing us in the opposite direction to see God moving, not among the Big Deals in the centers of power, but in a Podunk town in the backwaters of the empire, in a house so modest it didn't have a spare guest room. And it turns out the Lord of the universe chooses to come, not to the Imperial Capital among the powerful and the well-heeled, but among the anonymous nobodies of Bethlehem and their borrowed food trough from the barn.

That's at least part of why Luke our narrator begins the story of Jesus' birth this way. It's a bit of clever misdirection, like in a classic whodunnit or the latest Knives Out movie.  Luke points us at first to the Emperor in Rome, Caesar Augustus, who thinks he is the savior of the world.  Literally--Augustus had official proclamations issued throughout the Empire making his birthday a special holiday and decreeing that his birth was "good news for the whole world" and that he was both "god" and "savior." Augustus had the Senate rename a month of the year in his honor, and quite a number of cities and towns across the empire were renamed "Caesarea" to bring him glory, too.  Talk about a gigantically over-inflated ego, right? It would be funny if it also weren't so pathetic--and if Caesar Augustus also didn't casually wield Rome's military might like a petulant child to attack and invade whomever he wanted.  Everybody in Luke's audience hearing this story knew that Augustus thought he was the most important person in the world, and that he was the head of the most important empire in the world, ruling from its capital city. The regional oversight in the less-fashionable parts of the Empire fell to local Roman-appointed governors, like Quirinius whom Luke mentions, too.  But Luke doesn't ultimately leave his movie camera on the province of Syria, either.  

Neither the Empire's capital or the local seat of power are the important places for the real and living God.  This will be the last mention of Caesar Augustus or of Quirinius in the rest of Luke's story.  They are introduced in the opening sentences, as if Luke is saying, "Yes, I'm well aware that these arrogant bozos were around, and we ALL know that they thought they were the ones calling the shots in the world.  But they have no more to do with our story than just issuing the order for the census. They are self-important bureaucrats at best, and deluded egomaniacs at worst."  Luke tells us that Augustus is the one ruling in Rome when Jesus is born, and then promptly turns our attention elsewhere--to a laborer named Joseph and his fiancée Mary, who are nobodies in the eyes of the Empire.

They go along with Caesar's self-important census (tyrants always want to claim they are the Most Important by counting how big their "numbers" are, regardless of how irrelevant those statistics may be to their actual governance), and they make the journey from up in Galilee down to Bethlehem because that's where Joseph's family is from.  And yet, there, in whatever room they could find as the town was crowded with people coming home for the census, the promised child is born.  Mary had been told by the angel that this was the long-awaited Chosen One of God--the "Messiah" or "Christ" for whom the people of God had been hoping for centuries.  She had practically burst into song about this child when she was visiting her cousin Elizabeth, declaring that in him, God would fill the hungry with good things, lift up the lowly, and pull down the tyrants from their thrones and take the over-inflated egos of the powerful down a few pegs.  And now the child is born--laid, not in a palace or a room decorated with gold trim, but in a borrowed manger in a house that doesn't belong to him. It is precisely the opposite of Caesar Augustus and his self-important bullying reign.

The contrast Luke is making as the director of this movie is obvious: the Big Deals of the world think they run the world with their threats of invading army and gold-plated opulence, barking orders and intimidating their subjects into complying with their every whim.  But meanwhile, the real Lord of all comes into the world as a helpless infant in a backwater town.  The child's cries from the manger practically call out, "The emperor is wearing no clothes."  Caesar can tell himself he is the Savior of the world, but he's fooling himself.  He can claim to be bringing "peace" to the world, but the angels will declare otherwise.  God's way of saving the world will require no invading armies or flexing of imperial muscle; even the whole heavenly host will only be called upon to sing to some shepherds rather than going into battle.  God's way of saving the world comes where nobody was looking--because that is just the way God operates. 

And that's just what we need.

Lord God, come and visit this world in your unexpected and yet perfectly fitting way--away from the typical places of power and domination, and among the lowly and forgotten.

How Big Is Us?--December 23, 2025

How Big Is Us?--December 23, 2025

[The angel said to Joseph about Mary:] "She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
 “Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son,
  and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” (Matthew 1:21-23)

It's always in the plural--did you notice that?

The great salvation story and the announcement of the birth of the Savior--it's always told as God's action for "us," rather than for just "me." Even when the scene is a heaven-sent angel speaking in a personalized dream custom addressed to Joseph about his precarious engagement to Mary, the message isn't merely singular--it is in the plural.  The child Mary is carrying won't only save Joseph, but a whole "people" from their sins.  And the callback to the scene from the book of Isaiah about a young woman who will name her son "Emmanuel" drives toward a conclusion that this name means, "God is with us," rather than "God is only with ME."  It's always in the plural--God's action is always for US, and never my private possession.

I suppose that also means that from the beginning of the Christian story, the news of Jesus has always also been news of belonging to a community--the people of Jesus.  It's not an exclusive clique or elite country club, but it is a community.  We belong to the people of Jesus--to the family made up of those who have been claimed and rescued by Jesus.  That may be all that we have in common, honestly--all of us, from a host of different backgrounds, coming from different languages and cultures, with different experiences and identities, we belong to the people of Jesus. We are the "us" that God has promised to be with.  It just turns out that this particular "us" is an awfully large group.

How big, really, is that "us"?  Who is it that God has come to be "with" in this "God-is-with-us" Emmanuel child?  Well, in a very real sense, with ALL of us.  The incarnation--the notion that God fully dwelled in Jesus' humanity--means that God has chosen to share something in common with ALL humanity.  Jesus brings us the fullness of God taking on the fullness of humanity and standing in solidarity with the entire lot of us. There's no fine print or exceptions by which God says, "I'm willing to enter into humanity... but NOT for anybody with RED hair!" or "I've taken on human existence in Jesus... but that DOESN'T include left-handed people!"  God has taken on the heart of our common human experience in Jesus, and that doesn't leave anybody out.  The "us" in Emmanuel's "God-is-with-us" is as big and wide as the whole of humanity!

The other implication of all this is that none of us gets to push the people we don't like outside of the "us" either.  When Matthew quotes that passage of Isaiah's about the child Emmanuel's name meaning "God-Is-With-Us," there is no implied "Them" who are outside of the presence of God.  The point of this coming Emmanuel figure, whom Matthew identifies with Mary's baby, to be called Jesus, is not to set up a contest between "Us-Who-Have-God-On-Our-Side" and "Them-Who-Are-Without-God," but rather to say, "God has chosen to come among ALL of us."  God has chosen to be with the whole of humanity.  It's you, but it's not just you.  It's your neighbors, both the ones you get along with and the ones who always forget to take their trash cans in. It's the people who dress, speak, vote, and think like you... and the people whose clothing, language, worldview, and choices are different from yours.  It's the ones who worship beside you in church, and the ones who have never darkened the door of a church in their lives.  It's the people you find it easy to be kind to, and the ones whose demeanor is as rough as a corn cob.  The "us" is just that big.  The angel said so from the beginning of this story, even before Jesus was born.

As we prepare in the very near future to celebrate again the birth of this Jesus, it's worth remembering that the Christ-child comes as a gift, but not addressed to me alone.  Christ is given as God's gift to the whole world. God chooses to dwell with "us" rather than only with you.  The "people" whom Jesus has come to save is not limited to my narrow "Me and My Group First" interests, but instead is as large a group as the whole human family.  It includes grubby low-class night-shift shepherds and traveling foreigners who practiced astrology. And it includes you and me.  That's just how big the "us" really is.

Lord God, come among us and gather us all to yourself in Christ.

The First Duty of Love--December 22, 2025

The First Duty of Love--December 22, 2025

"When [Jesus'] mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But when he had resolved do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit...." [Matthew 1:18-20]

It amazes me, now that I think of it, how much the whole divine plan to save humanity hangs on two people being patient enough to listen.

Mary, of course, is one of them. And when the angel comes to her with an outlandish notion that she bear the long-awaited savior, she is befuddled at how it will happen. She knows enough about where babies come from to know that she shouldn't be able to be pregnant yet... but she listens. And even though some part of her has to be increasingly worried about "what the neighbors will say" and how it will affect her reputation to be expecting a baby before the wedding invitations have been sent out, she is careful and thoughtful enough to consider everything the angel says. And after listening, thinking, and pondering the choice to trust God even when she can't see how it will all work out, Mary says "Yes." We're so quick to jump ahead to the scene with the manger and the shepherds that we often forget the power of that momentous conversation beforehand where Mary is clearly thinking things out and resisting the urge to panic by patiently letting herself soak in the words of the heavenly messenger. She isn't rash. She doesn't blurt out that it's impossible. And she doesn't rush to answer with her initial gut-reaction that she can't be the mother of the Messiah... because she knows she can't be a mother at all, yet. There is a deliberate pace, a slowness to respond, that makes all the difference. And if you think about it, it's exactly because Mary is willing to mull this whole thing over that the plan unfolds as God intends. It's because Mary thinks it over, listens to the angel's answers, and then says, "Yes," that the birth of the child proceeds the way it does. Her patience allows the breathing space for the Christ-child to be born.

But as this passage from Matthew's gospel, which many of us heard in worship this Sunday, reminds us, Joseph, too, plays his role in the great salvation story by being willing to be slow enough to listen, rather than rashly shutting everything down. Matthew tells us that when Joseph first finds out that Mary is expecting, he draws the only logical conclusion there is--Mary has been involved with another man. And whether out of feelings of betrayal at what he assumes is unfaithfulness, or because he doesn't want to keep her from someone else she might truly love, or all of the above, Joseph's initial plan is just to break everything off. He doesn't want to make a big public spectacle of things, although a stickler for the Mosaic law could insist that there be a public trial and a stoning. He just wants to break things off quietly and move on with his life. But again--Joseph is willing to consider things over. He is willing to be patient enough to listen when the angel comes to him in a dream.

And when the angel tells him it is OK to marry his betrothed, and that the child isn't the result of anybody being unfaithful to anybody, but rather of Mary being faithful to God and God being faithful to the ancient covenant promises, he is willing to let that new information change his mind and his plan of action. This really is an amazing turn in the story, if you think about it. Joseph had a plan, once which was decently thought out and reasonable given the circumstances and the data available to him, but he remains open enough to consider new information... and patient enough not to rush to judgment without listening to it. This isn't a story of a dramatic 180-degree turn from wicked or foolish choices toward wise and noble choices; it's not a matter of needing to "repent" from a sinful course toward a virtuous one, either. It's simply a matter of having enough openness and composure not to react rashly in a shoot-from-the-hip kind of way. Joseph is thoughtful, reasonable, and open to a fuller picture than what he had before going to bed the night before. And that willingness to listen--the humility to consider that maybe there was more to the story that needed to be factored in when someone presented it to him--is what leads Joseph to be the one to raise Jesus as his adoptive father.

I have to be honest here: people of faith are not always known for their ability to sit down and calmly listen to new information. We are not known in the wider culture for being open to hearing more to the story and letting it change our course of action. We are not often known for being patient enough to listen or humble enough to admit we didn't have all the facts. Rather, a lot of times we Respectable Religious People have made Certainty into an idol, as though any openness to consider new information is a damnable sign of moral relativism and a perilously slippery slope to sin. A lot of the loud voices of pop religion in our day can only see things their own way and to even allow the possibility that there might be more to consider feels to them like they are losing a battle to the side of evil. Ours is a time when many think that the surest posture of faith is to dig your heels in and clench your first, rather than to sit with open ears and an open mind to new information. But Joseph offers us an example of the power of patient listening, and he shows us that sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is to stop and say, "Maybe I don't have all the facts yet--let me consider what this other voice has to say."

Of course, to take Joseph's approach means choosing not to let ourselves be rushed through life or forced to make hasty decisions. It means that certainty is not always a sign of true faith, nor of being correct. And it means nurturing that uncomfortable virtue of humility--of admitting none of us have all the answers, and being open to being corrected, redirected, or given more information. Since so many people have only experienced Christians as "people who are always shouting their answers" rather than "people who are willing to share tough questions together," it is indeed a hard path to walk by following after Joseph's way. But my goodness, his story shows us just how much difference it can make to be patient enough to listen. As theologian Paul Tillich put it, "the first duty of love is to listen."

So today, perhaps our calling is to be like Joseph in that way, and to learn how to love more deeply by slowing ourselves down enough to listen to others first before telling them whatever it is we have burning inside of us to say. Perhaps especially for us who name the name of Jesus--and who are so easily tempted to tell the world, "I have all the answers!"--it is all the more important for us to hold off on rushing to certainty or heel-digging or fist-clenching. And perhaps the way we are called to grow in love is to take the time to listen to someone else today, yes, even at the risk of letting what they share with you change the way you think, speak, or act in the world. That might not be a sign of weakness or wobbly faith, after all, but rather of love and faith that are sturdy enough to grow in new directions.

Today, may we practice like Joseph the first duty of love--to listen, even when it seems risky.

Lord God, whether you are sending angels our way or the life story of someone else whose experience is different from our own, give us the courageous ears to listen, and the patient love to take the time to hear them out.

For Fools Like Us--December 19, 2025

For Fools Like Us--December 19, 2025

"A highway shall be there,
  and it shall be called the Holy Way;
 the unclean shall not travel on it,
  but it shall be for God’s people;
  no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
 No lion shall be there,
  nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
 they shall not be found there,
  but the redeemed shall walk there.
 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
  and come to Zion with singing;
 everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
  they shall obtain joy and gladness,
  and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (Isaiah 35:8-10)

Every time I come across these words, it makes me smile. I see myself in that line of fools, walking along God's pathway.

I caught myself smiling in self-recognition again this past Sunday when these words were read, too.  

This scene from the prophet Isaiah's book gives us a glimpse of the utter certainty of God's saving grace.  It is, quite literally, a fool-proof sort of salvation.  The prophet here is offering a vision of hope for people who felt stuck in exile in Babylon and couldn't imagine how they would ever make it back home to their own lands and their own lives.  The Babylonian armies had captured and deported countless people of Judea by brute force, and they now languished in limbo in Babylonian territory, hundreds of miles away from their homelands but without the means, power, or ability to go back to the only places they had ever lived.  Even if they could escape the watchful eyes of the Babylonians and leave, they didn't know how to get back home, and it was a dangerous and difficult journey through unknown wilderness to get there.  It seemed hopeless--there were a million ways it could all go wrong, you know?

So here comes, Isaiah, envisioning that God will make a way--nothing short of a highway to stretch across that vast wilderness, which will bring them all the way home.  You can almost hear Isaiah anticipating the worries and questions of the exiles and getting his responses ready to assuage them:  

"But how will we know how to get home?"  And the prophet answers, "God is building the road to go directly to Jerusalem, so all you have to do is just follow the pathway laid out for you."

"But what if there are dangerous Babylonians on the road following us, or what if people with leprosy who sometimes have to go live out in the wilderness come up to us and we're afraid of getting sick?"  Isaiah pre-emptively answers, "Nothing unclean will be on the road, so you don't have to worry about getting contaminated by anybody or captured by a Babylonian."

"Okay, but what if there are lions or other predators along the way? They live in the wilderness, and we would be defenseless against them if we went out there!"  So Isaiah says, like a parent calming a child who is afraid of monsters under the bed, "There will no lions, or any other kind of ravenous beast there--I promise!"

And as if to remove any other unspoken fears, the prophet also adds this beautiful, humbling detail: "No traveler, not even fools, will go astray."  What an absolutely stunning promise.  Even when our own stupidity would have gotten us lost, God's kind of pathway keeps us on the right road.  Even when our own blockheadedness would have led us into a ditch or gotten confused about the exit signs, God insists we will not end up in the middle of nowhere.  Even when our own fear might spur us to turn tail and go back to the now-familiar misery of exile in Babylon, God's road will get us all the way home.  God's saving grace is literally fool-proof: even we cannot mess it up with our own foolishness.

I am convinced that this notion from Isaiah 35 is not an exception: it is the Standard Operating Procedure for God in the world.   God's way of saving us doesn't leave loopholes that our own stubbornness or stupidity can get through.  God's kind of rescue doesn't leave open the possibility that we will mess it up by our foolishness, orneriness, doubt, or even our sins.  God's way of saving the world is utterly foolproof--which is to say, even fools like us cannot undo it.

So often at this time of year, when we tell the story of Jesus' birth, we take notice of how precarious and fragile the whole story seems. We ask questions, maybe like the exiles who heard from Isaiah did, naming all of our what-ifs:  what if Mary had said no? What if Joseph had broken off the engagement? What if Mary's parents didn't believe her story about a divine pregnancy and had her stoned to death? What if the shepherds didn't believe the angels' message?  What if mean ol' bully King Herod had successfully tricked the Magi into giving away the location of the child they found? What if they hadn't understood the meaning of the star? There are a million ways it could have all gone wrong, you know?

And yet, the assurance of the Scriptures is that even for all the ways God's movement in the world seems fallible and fragile, God's gracious saving is ultimately foolproof.  God has already figured our foolishness, our fearfulness, and our sinfulness into the recipe, and God's commitment to redeem and restore are unthwartable all the same.  Perhaps God has decided already that all salvation has to be foolproof, because all of us in need of saving are fools.  But just as the prophet said to those people despondent in exile centuries ago, so God says to us as well: "No matter what, my love will make a way.  No matter how big the fears are and no matter how small your confidence is, I will bring you home."

That is news that is worth holding onto today, tomorrow, throughout this Christmas season, and always: God's way of saving and bringing us home really is foolproof--even for fools like us.

Lord God, despite our fears and worries about what could go wrong along the way, bring us home and bring us to you.

The Divine Agenda--December 18, 2025

The Divine Agenda--December 18, 2025

"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
  and the ears of the deaf shall be opened;
  then the lame shall leap like a deer,
  and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
 For waters shall break forth in the wilderness
  and streams in the desert;
  the burning sand shall become a pool
  and the thirsty ground springs of water;
 the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp;
  the grass shall become reeds and rushes." (Isaiah 35:5-7)

As it turns out, God has an agenda. In fact, God is up front about it and just lays it out there for everyone to hear.  God is committed to healing and bringing things to life.

This passage from the book of the prophet Isaiah, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, almost hits my ears like a press conference, where God (through the prophet, playing the role of press secretary) announces a new set of priorities and plans.  And as Isaiah tells it, it is the policy of the Yahweh Administration (or, as we sometimes call it, the kingdom of heaven or the Reign of God) to help the hurting, to mend our wounds, and to fill our empty and barren desert spaces with signs of life.  This, the prophet says, is what God is up to.  These, Isaiah tells us, are the sort of things that matter to God.  This is the divine agenda: not destruction and warfare, not violence and bloodshed, and not conquest and domination, but relief of suffering and restoration of creation.

Over the course of my four-and-half decades of life on this planet, I've lived through plenty of televised press conferences, official statements, and presidential addresses.  You have, too, I'm sure. We've seen our share of Important-Looking People standing at podiums or sitting at ponderous desks, and we know their routines. We have seen their faces heavy with looks of gravitas, and we have heard the opening salutation, intoned almost like a liturgy: "My fellow... (Ohioans... or Citizens... or Americans...)." And we know what it is like to listen to the Official Agenda of the Day being set for us. We have heard the announcement of new wars... and the breaking of terrible and tragic news... and the warning of belt-tightening budget measures... or, in particularly rotten times, the scapegoating of new folks to be identified as "enemies" or "threats" for us to focus our hatred on and take the scrutiny off of the one behind the desk.  We have lived through plenty of those times to know the whole routine.  

And I suspect Isaiah had lived through plenty of that, too. Of course, for him, it was the official pronouncements of kings rather than presidents or governors, but he had seen more than his share of Official Agendas being pronounced for the people to hear. He had heard press releases announcing new taxes being levied to shore up Judah's armies in case the Assyrians came knocking. He had seen palace propaganda about how the new king would make everybody prosperous and restore the old glory days of King David and Solomon... only to be another disappointment. He had lived through declarations of war, denunciations of enemies, and promises from podiums about smiting their opponents and bringing back the "good ol' days".  And in response, Isaiah speaks a different word.  Isaiah reports on God's agenda, and even though at first blush it might sound like a list of policy positions and action items the same as any Official National Address he had heard before from the palace, on the prophet's lips, it is a whole new story.  God's agenda is about bringing forth life rather than doling out death.  God's agenda is about abundance out of dry desert ground, rather than the announcement of turning other people's homes into bomb-strewn wastelands in war.  God's agenda is about healing the wounds of those who suffer, not about labeling a new cohort of villains to scapegoat. Isaiah is giving us the policy priorities of the Reign of God.

It is worth noting, too, that Jesus takes these images and descriptions as hallmarks of his own ministry and calling in the Gospels.  Back on Sunday, and then in this past Monday's devotion, we heard the story of John the Baptizer sending messengers to ask Jesus if he really was the one they were waiting for.  And we heard Jesus' reply, as well, which should sound familiar now that we've been looking at Isaiah 35. Jesus tells the messengers, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them" (Matthew 11:4-5).  The restoration of life to those who are looking for healing.  The freedom to move for those who had been constrained and constricted.  To those who seek healing for their ears, their ears, their limbs, and their bodies, Jesus gives it freely. To those who were thirsty for good news like the desert waits for the rain, Jesus speaks it freely. Jesus sees himself as the embodiment of the press-release announcement of the prophet Isaiah, and so he points to those examples as evidence that he is bringing about the agenda of the Yahweh Administration.

We should note, too, as we hinted back on Monday, that John the Baptizer had had a rather different set of expectations of God's anointed one, the Messiah.  He had been advertising fire and fury, wrath and destruction on God's enemies and the unrighteous.  John had pictured something closer to the standard "Big Speech" from a demagogue at a desk: calling down condemnation on the ones labeled "enemies" and declaring God's vengeful war against the wicked, that sort of thing.  Jesus, however, deliberately avoids that kind of imagery. He points instead to the ways that he brings life, because he is convinced that these are ultimately God's agenda in the world.

I wonder: when people hear and see us in the world, what impression do they get of God's agenda in the world?  From what they see in us, do other people assume that God is embarking on a culture war, zapping the not-good-enough, and rounding up new "enemies "to be destroyed and new "threats" to be eliminated?  Or do they see signs of God bringing the world to life? Do they see healing and wholeness, and the restoration of creation to bring forth abundance? Whether we like it or not, and whether we realize it or not, we are all walking spokespersons and press secretaries for God, too, like the prophet Isaiah.  And what people hear and see from us they will presume points to the priorities and vision of God in the world.  What sort of messages do you think we have been sending?

And, with Isaiah's vision guiding us now, what kind of message do we want to send today? What would it look like to do that... now?

Lord God, allow us to reflection your priorities in the world today for the watching eyes and listening ears around us.

For the Days When It Hurts--December 17, 2025

For the Days When It Hurts--December 17, 2025

"Strengthen the weak hands,
     and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
'     Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
     He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
     He will come and save you'." [Isaiah 35:3-4]

There's not a day that it doesn't hurt.

Somewhere, in some way, all of us are carrying hurts and wearing scars from what we've been through. All of us bear the aches in our bodies or our hears, or both, and some days it is just a relief to be able to say so, rather than thinking the "religious thing to do" is to push it down and fake a smile.

But some days, we just can't. Our hands are weak, our knees are feeble, and our hearts are trembling with fear or tiredness or grieving or all of the above. And some days we don't know what to do with all of that.

It can be especially tough to be wearing those wounds in December--not just because the cold can add one more layer of "blah," but because the songs on the radio and the lights in the yards all insist that it's "the most wonderful time of the year." And sometimes, it's all we can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

So, what do we do about it? What do we do with the sadness we cannot shake, or the disappointment and disgust that bubbles up when we turn on the news, or the smallness we feel at the size and scope of troubles that threaten to overpower us? And while we're asking things, is the answer from our faith only that "one day in the distant future it will be better in heaven?" Because, to be really honest, sometimes that's what it sounds like from a lot of Respectable Religious folk: sometimes the only hope they have to offer is a sales pitch that goes like this: "Everything will be terrible in this life, and there's nothing you can do about it to make the world any brighter now, but one day in heaven, it will all be sunshine and rainbows. So suck it up and get back to work making widgets!" And to tell the truth, that is not much comfort.

Well, there's good news--that's not really how the biblical writers see things, either. Voices like Isaiah's here don't just describe heaven and hope that visions of pearly gates or golden streets will goad us into working another day. To be sure, there is the Big Hope of the God who saves in the end. That much is certain, from the declaration, "Here is your God... he will come and save you." But Isaiah doesn't only have the hope of some distant future, or as Marty Haugen's famous hymn lyric goes, "not in some heaven light-years away." Isaiah speaks a concrete word of hope for us who are just limping along through our days, and he speaks encouragement for the present as well as the future.

Isaiah calls on the beloved community to strengthen each other. He tells us to build one another up and to lend our strength and stability to each other, so that we can endure the most difficult days. We are given not just End-Times-Afterlife-Big-Picture-Resurrection-Hope, but Present-Moment-Daily-Life-Immediate-Situation hope as well. You know, little resurrections within the found family of God's people. Small renewals that make it possible for us to endure the difficult days by having each other's backs. Ordinary miracles of healing that let our wounds become scars, and our scars become strength. Isaiah's word here is, "Until the day when all is put right and all our tears are wiped away by God's own hand, well, then, YOU be the ones God raises up to wipe each other's tears away!"

In other words, YOU be the ones to strengthen each other and steady each other, until the moment when God's hand touches us all to wellness. Until the day when "all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be made well" as Julian of Norwich wrote, well then, YOU be the ones who make it at least bearable for each other. Lift each other up. Carry each other when you have to. Let yourself be carried. Let down your guard, and drop your fake smiles. Be present for one another, and there in your midst, God will be present through your love for one another, until the day when you see God face to face in glory.

That gives us a plan for facing the day, while holding out our Big-Picture Hope, too. Instead of just being told to tough it out until the afterlife, we are given the invitation and the calling to strengthen one another, and to encourage one another--and in turn, to be strengthened and encouraged by the promise that God will not let the hurt, or even death, get the last word. In fact, we are told to encourage each other, not simply with the promise "God is coming to save the day...someday," but that God is already present, right here and right now. "Here is your God," the prophet tells us to remind each other. Not merely, "Off there in the distance is your God."

So what do we do with the pain we are all bearing? We carry each other. We honor one another's hurts and let them be named. We offer our strength to one another, and we let others' strength be a gift to us when we need it, too. And we keep pointing, so that each of us will see when things are unclear, "Here is your God."

There's not a day that it doesn't hurt. But neither is there a day when God is not here in the hurt with us, sending people to us, and sending us to others as well.

Strengthen our weak hands and feeble knees, O Lord, and remind us that you are here with us.

God's Grand Restoration Project--December 16, 2025

God's Grand Restoration Project--December 16, 2025

 "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
  the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
 like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly
  and rejoice with joy and shouting.
 The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
  the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
 They shall see the glory of the Lord,
  the majesty of our God." (Isaiah 35:1-2)

Apparently, God's intention isn't just to get people into heaven; God intends to bring all of creation fully to life.

That vision certainly includes our hope of life beyond death, or as our sloppy shorthand might put it, "going to heaven when we die," but it is also much bigger.  When God moves in the world, it is not merely to collect up the human beings in order to whisk them away off to float on the clouds somewhere--it is to bring the whole world to life, turning even dry and barren waste lands into blossoming gardens. God isn't interested in plucking us up and taking us somewhere "better" while the world burns; rather, God is engaged in renewing the earth completely.  The news of God's coming is good news for the crocuses, too.

This passage from the book of Isaiah, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, reminds us of just how widely God's concern reaches.  As the prophet pictures God acting in the world, and what it will be like when God's Chosen Anointed One (or "Messiah") comes, he doesn't limit his description to human terms.  We don't hear things like "You'll know the Messiah is coming because the markets will all be up," but rather the prophet says, "When God passes through, you'll see the crocus blooming in the desert." We human beings are a part of God's grand restoration project, but we are not the only ones.  We are a part of the vast and varied family of God, absolutely; but we are not the only members of that family.   God cares about the stream beds in the wilderness, the flowers waiting for the rain so they can burst into bloom, as well as the wolves and lambs we heard about last week, who are waiting a new and peaceable kingdom where old enemies can be reconciled and no one has to be afraid of being hunted by anybody.  All of it belongs. All of it is a part of the community--the commonwealth, so to speak--of God's Reign.

When we forget that, we end up shrinking our Advent hope into merely afterlife insurance.  We end up caricaturing God into the bearded fellow from the cartoons who lives up on a cloud and only cares about snatching up a handful of well-behaved saints to live in the sky while everything "below" crumbles.  And we end up missing out on just how big a family God has brought us into.  We have a place beside our cousins the crocuses and cats, our uncles the mountains, our aunts the butterflies, and all of our human sisters and brothers as well.  God intends to make it all new, not merely to settle for a segment of us and giving up on the rest of creation.

Hold onto that truth today--and throughout the rest of this season.  The One we are waiting for isn't merely recruiting for members of an elite social club; the coming Christ is intent on renewing all of creation.  The child in the manger isn't born just for the sake of getting a few souls onto the Good List; he has come to bring everything and everyone more fully to life. And we are longing for more than just a record close for the stock market--we are waiting for the restoration of all things.

Come, Lord Jesus, and make all things new.