DEUTERONOMY 18:15-20; 1 CORINTHIANS 8:1-13; MARK 1:21-28

In the texts for today, we have a Lutheran friendly options and a less- friendly option. In the letter to the Corinthians, Paul is building up to his big chapter on love in community. He leads up to it with discussions about food and respecting those around. This is Lutheran-friendly. Be we German, Norwegian, Swede or some other Lutheran extraction, we know those who tout the spiritual dimensions of lutefisk and Jello salad and those who would rather avoid those foods. Lutherans know about food.

In the Deuteronomy text, God speaks through Moses to the Israelites one last time at the end of Moses’ life. God promises to raise up another prophet, an important promise for the Israelites and one that points us to the authority of the One who is to come. Certainly, this is a text that Lutherans can embrace.

But then we come to that Gospel passage and a section that causes some Lutheran nerves to jump. Is this an exorcism? The casting out of demons? That seems like it might involve some movement, some excitement, some touching. I honestly haven’t noticed this congregation as having a problem with any of those things, but until now I haven’t talked about exorcisms.

Let’s think about the context of today’s story. In Mark, Jesus appears suddenly, is baptized, is immediately driven into the wilderness to be tempted and comes out from that experience- calling disciples, healing and teaching all over the place. When he comes to the local synagogue in Capernaum, he goes in and starts teaching.

This wasn’t very unusual. There were many itinerant rabbis at the time who traveled around and who had specialized areas of knowledge. However, this particular rabbi did not sit down and begin speaking about what the Torah or the historical rabbis had to say about dietary laws or sacrifice. He sat down and started talking about what God had to say. About what God’s desires. About God’s expectations.

There wasn’t hemming and hawing. Here was clear authority and understanding of what the Creator expected of the created. Crowds were stunned and you can imagine them murmuring, “Who is this guy? How does he know this? How can he speak this way?”

But in the crowd, there are beings that know exactly why Jesus can speak with this authority. And it scares them. It terrifies them.

Why was the demon-possessed man in the crowd that day? Maybe his family had brought him to pray for healing. Maybe they could not leave him at home because he would hurt himself. Maybe he no longer had a home and wandered the streets of Capernaum, begging and struggling with his affliction. Whatever his circumstances, he appeared in that crowd and the demons within trembled at the name of Jesus.

So, why does the demon cry out and identify Jesus? If enough of a scene can be made, Jesus won’t have the chance to teach. He won’t be able to overcome the crowd’s offense at the idea that he is God. The people are only beginning to adjust to his new teaching style- the whys and wherefores may be beyond what they can grasp.

So Jesus silences the unclean spirit and commands it to release its parasitical hold on the man. Suddenly, in the midst of the crowd is the man they knew previously- their neighbor or brother, their father or their friend. He is recognizable and he recognizes him. They look at him and then they turn and look at Jesus in a new light. Something is a little different here. This rabbi is not the same as the others. And he’s not quite like the other faith healers or magicians. Something here is very, very different. This man’s power comes from somewhere, somewhere else.

What does this story mean for us? In our world today, some people believe demons to be the cause of autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, dementia or other illnesses. Each year people die because very well meaning family members and faithful church attendees try to cast the demons out of people with these and other various afflictions. And then there is additional pain because of the death of the child or adult and the possible legal ramifications that follow.

This brings us to some difficult questions. Does exorcism still have a place in Christian life? Are we called to do them? What would Jesus do- he would command the demons to leave? What can we do?

I’m going to put this out to you to consider. In the centuries since this story took place, our understanding of our bodies has increased in leaps and bounds. We know even more now about the miracles of our brains, our nervous system, our circulatory system, our skeletal system. We have come to understand even more that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And we have come to know, as well, the depth of mystery that remains within us about how some things happen and some things work.

As we have become more sophisticated in our knowledge, the forces that oppose God and try to tempt us from faith have to increase their efforts as well. In our day and time, it is not demons that cause illnesses, but demons that accompany illnesses.

At the edge of our diagnoses are despair, loneliness, fear, doubt, guilt, grief, and a host of other little pulls that steal our joy in life, our hope in Christ and our faith in the truth of the Word of God.

These are precisely the demons that we are called to exorcise. You are. I am. We exorcise them by saying their name and banishing them. Despair is sent to hell through encouragement. Loneliness, through companionship. Fear, through prayer and information. And so it goes. By fervently exercising our faith through caring for our neighbor, we can exorcise their demons and ours.

I haven’t ever seen the Exorcist and I don’t want or need to, but I do know the most famous line from that movie is the priest saying to the demon inside the young woman, “The love of Christ compels you”- a verse from 2 Corinthians.

And so it does. Christ’s love for the man in the crowd compelled the unclean spirit to flee his presence. Christ’s own love for us compels our own demons to leave us. However, it is also Christ’s love for us that compels us to help the people around us deal with the negativity, the pain and the unclean spirits that torment them.

When we take a casserole, when we help someone deal with a disability, we speaks someone’s name and they recognize us through their cloud of confusion… in all these situations and more, we can exorcise the demons that plague their souls.

Embrace your Lutheran heritage- the faith that you have been saved by God’s grace and are free to love all those around you. Embrace that freedom and use it for the good of God’s whole creation. Reach out and touch somebody because daily exorcising is necessary for healthy faith. Christ has given you the authority through your baptism to all these things and more. And besides that, the love of Christ compels you.

This article in Slate magazine caught my eye. The premise is deciding if you are a moderator or an abstainer, with regard to your personal habits and preferences. One section reads:

You’re a moderator if you

• find that occasional indulgence heightens your pleasure—and strengthens your resolve;
• get panicky at the thought of “never” getting or doing something.

You’re an abstainer if you

• have trouble stopping something once you’ve started;
• aren’t tempted by things that you’ve decided are off-limits.

On the other hand, sometimes instead of trying to give something up, we’re trying to push ourselves to embrace something. Go to the gym, eat vegetables, work on a disagreeable project.

How does this strike you? Having spent my weekend talking to 11-13 year-olds about sex and sexuality, I can say that I don’t think abstinence (or its companion, chastity) get enough airtime in our churches (or in our families) these days. When I talk to youth about abstinence, I try to emphasize that I nor the church catholic want to keep them from having fun or experiencing pleasure.

On the contrary, for them to know real joy is our own deepest desire. We don’t want to see them become calloused, or hardened, about some of the most meaningful experiences in life. We’re promoting the biblical virtue for the good of the soul and the body.

Of course, one can abstain from more than sex. There are all kind of actions that are harmful to the body and to the soul from which we should abstain. And there are plenty of other actions which we should whole-heartedly embrace- beyond moderation.

From my perspective, which is admittedly coming from within the church, the world is not divisible by moderators and abstainers. That sets up the dichotomy of “I can handle this… too bad you can’t”.

We would all do well to consider the virtues and demerits of both positions. There are some things that are best in moderation… for everyone. There are some things from which it is best to abstain… for everyone.

Happiness may well be found in getting what you want or being able to withstand the desire for it. However, joy is found in knowing that you have been given all you could ever need.

This is an interesting article from the New York Times about a connection between religious belief and self-control. The conclusion of the article is as follows:

Religious people, he said, are self-controlled not simply because they fear God’s wrath, but because they’ve absorbed the ideals of their religion into their own system of values, and have thereby given their personal goals an aura of sacredness. He suggested that nonbelievers try a secular version of that strategy.

“People can have sacred values that aren’t religious values,” he said. “Self-reliance might be a sacred value to you that’s relevant to saving money. Concern for others might be a sacred value that’s relevant to taking time to do volunteer work. You can spend time thinking about what values are sacred to you and making New Year’s resolutions that are consistent with them.”

Of course, it requires some self-control to carry out that exercise — and maybe more effort than it takes to go to church.

“Sacred values come prefabricated for religious believers,” Dr. McCullough said. “The belief that God has preferences for how you behave and the goals you set for yourself has to be the granddaddy of all psychological devices for encouraging people to follow through with their goals. That may help to explain why belief in God has been so persistent through the ages.”

My first frustration with this is the premise of the doctor involved that religion is inherently untrue, but does provide helpful personal and societal benefits. Our ability to see religion as mythological does not make it untrue. Granted, I might be biased in this arena, but I remain persuaded in the truth of my faith.

Secondly, the benefits of believing in God are not solely for the discipline of a God who remains with you (see Hebrews 12:1-12), but are also in the truth that you are not God, you do not have a cosmological vision or plan and that your salvation is not in your own hands.

The disciplines of religion are not so that one may attain salvation, but so that one may more greatly appreciate the joys of the salvation that has been achieved through Christ. I cannot say that I believe all Christians share this notion or even that I am able to espouse it every day of my life, but I believe this to be the crux of the biblical message.

Martin Luther’s understanding of the 10 Commandments was that God gave them to people, not out of a desire to creation strictures, but out of love. Loving rules create freedom. It’s a short list (10 things) of what one cannot do and a whole world full of possibilities for what can be done to worship God and help your neighbor.

What non-religious (and some non-Christian) people misperceive is that religion is all about the “should-nots” and that religious people live repressed, pent-up lives of worry and shame. Maybe they do. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Our discipline comes from the God who loves us enough to remain with us in promised and mysterious ways. The God who sends his Spirit to challenge, charge and comfort us. The God whose guidance is freeing and full of grace and truth. That might explain why belief in God has been persistent throughout the ages.

JEREMIAH 3:7-14; EPHESIANS 1:3-14; JOHN 1:1-18

How many of you made resolutions for this year? Even if you didn’t formally write anything down or share it with someone, maybe you thought about something you’d like to try a little harder to accomplish. Maybe you came up with a new goal to stretch yourself. Resolutions seem to be a main part of a new beginning and the turn from one year to another is one of the clearest new beginnings in our time. Though much in the circumstances of our life remains the same between December 31 and January 1, the turning of the calendar page is a new leaf that brings inspiration to us in a variety of ways.

The readings this week seem to point to resolutions as well. In Jeremiah, Ephesians and John, we read about God’s own resolve toward God’s people. We see God’s determination to reach out to all creation and the promises that He endeavors to keep. God’s resolutions are completely different from ours, since we are not God (no matter how we resolve to try to be or not), but God’s resolve is what helps us not only from day to day, but also from year to year, within our life of faith.

In the reading from Jeremiah, God says to the prophet, “I am going to bring the people back from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.”

Here God has resolved to no longer allow the people to languish in exile in Babylon, that’s the land to the north. Everyone shall return to the place of promises, grain, wine, oil and honey. They do not have to fear leaving behind those who might not be able to make the journey, but God resolves to create a homecoming so that all may come home. God has resolved not to abandon his people, despite their wanderings, their hard hearts, their doubts and fears. God will not leave them without hope, but offers, through Jeremiah, his resolution of reunion and blessing.

In Ephesians, we hear God making the same promises through the author of that book. “With all wisdom and insight, God has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Christ is God’s anointed, a Beloved part of God’s own self, come among us- so that we might have a deeper understanding of God’s nature and plans for all of creation and for us.

Here God’s resolve seems very much the same as it did in Jeremiah, that we should not feel abandoned. Rather than leaving believers to wonder about what God expected us to get out of Jesus’ life, God uses Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection to reveal himself to us in order for us to believe in God and to be saved. In Christ, we have the forgiveness of our sins, God’s own grace, so that we might not feel lost and hopeless, but so that we may know God’s own truth and, by that truth, be made free.

In John, we see this resolution even more clearly. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

God’s resolution here is deep and logical. Logos is the Greek word used in that opening line of John: “In the beginning was the logos…”, which does mean word, but is the root for other vocabulary terms we know including logic. God knows that the only way the stubborn human race and the desperate creation is going to grasp the true nature of a Creator/Created relationship is to experience the Creator in truth. Without intermediaries or prophets, but in person- a light piercing the darkness and revealing God’s glory.

God’s glory does not rest on being eternal, being praised, or even in being Three in One. God’s glory, as revealed through the Word made flesh, is in God’s mercy. It is this mercy that we only finally clearly receive through Jesus, “ to all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gives the power to become the children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, but of God.” Here we see most clearly the fulfilling of God’s resolution not to abandon his people, but to accompany them in their pain and on their journey in person. In Jesus, we see God’s resolve to bind himself to us, because we are a little slow and reluctant and, well, unable, to bind ourselves to Him.
So we find ourselves, through God’s glorious mercy, at the start of another year. For some of us, that’s exciting. For some of us, the thought makes us tired. Nevertheless, here we are. And here God is as well, still promising to be with us and not to abandon us.

So how can we resolve to respond? Perhaps our own resolve should be to not act as though we’ve been abandoned. We’re called to claim the joy of living in a God who is eternal, revealed and at hand. We’re called to bring the light of Christ to one another, just as it came to us, so that light might pierce the darkness of those who feel hopeless, those who do feel abandoned.

We well know that we may be unable to keep our own resolutions to the fullest extent we hope. But we also believe that God exceeds His own promises; that his resolve is to bring us abundant mercy and grace. God only resolves those things because God knows us, inside and out. It is from God’s own closeness to our hearts, the hearts of his people, that God resolves to bring us home, to forgive us and to reveal himself to us in our time of need.

Let us resolve together to embrace one another as children of God, so that we all might know we have not been abandoned. Let us resolve to look for Christ’s own light in our lives, whether He shines as a penlight or a spotlight. Let us resolve to abandon ourselves to the joy and will of the God who does not abandon us.

For God’s own resolve through the Bible shows us patience, forgiveness and an abiding presence. From day to day. From year to year. We have not been abandoned. Thanks be to God.

Amen.

2 SAMUEL 7:1-11, 16; LUKE 1:46B-55; ROMANS 16:25-27; LUKE 1:26-38

Do you ever think much about David and Mary having anything in common? David is that king of Israel, whose story we know so well, better than, say, Zerubbal and Jehosophat. Mary is the woman who bears the Son of God. Many years separate them and, technically, they are not related since Joseph is the descendant of David, not Mary.

But in today’s readings, chosen by the lectionary elves for this last Sunday before Christmas, are combined to highlight David and Mary together. The goal of the readings, however, isn’t to shine the light on these two as examples of faith. The goal is that the light of God’s promise of Christ and in Christ would shine through them, through them and onto us.

At the beginning of his life, David was a shepherd. He had, perhaps, an enviable life of watching sheep, fighting clear enemies and composing praise songs to God. Until Samuel appeared and anointed him, David’s life was ordinary, particularly for a youngest son at that time.

Then his life became filled with extraordinary circumstances. He killed a giant Philistine, he was named the successor of Israel’s first king, Saul, and he rescued the Ark of the Covenant. And David’s life also remained ordinary, almost painfully so. He loved and lost his best friend, Jonathan, he made decisions that were wise, marrying Abigail and he made decisions that were bad, lusting after Bathsheba.

Toward the end of his life, David has an ordinary desire born out of his extraordinary circumstances. He has a beautiful house and he wants to build one for the Lord as well. He would like to see God’s presence have a permanent home. However, through the prophet Nathan, David discovers that is not his call. God neither desires nor needs a house. His presence is not and cannot be tethered. However, the Lord comforts David by telling him that the Lord, that God, will build David’s house.

In Hebrew, the word “bayit” means house, as in dwelling, but it also means dynasty. God is telling David the building of a dynasty- the everlasting mark of David’s faith will be God’s work. And David will not get to see it. But God compels him to accept on faith the truth of his promise. David’s house will be built, for God and by God.

And what about Mary? At best, she’s in her mid-teens and engaged. This means she spending a year in her parents’ house, preparing for the day when Joseph, her betrothed, will come to get her. They will be married and she will move into the house of his family, the family of David. Their betrothal is significant because it means if he dies during the year, Mary will be considered a widow and will be offered the protections and treatment that go with that status.

So believing the death of her fiancé is probably the worst thing that can happen to her, here comes an angel. There was a folk story that was popular at the time about a jealous angel who visited brides on their wedding nights and killed the grooms. So Mary was probably more than a little intimidated, to say the least.

What the angel tells her, though, is almost worse. It’s certainly more scandalous. The angel isn’t there to take her husband. He is there to take her life, her life as she knows it. From normal Jewish girl to social pariah and family burden, Mary remained the ordinary girl she was, but suddenly she found herself in extraordinary circumstances. God’s favor does not look like anything we’d particularly like to court when we examine Mary’s story and what it must have done to her life. And yet she is able to utter the words, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

The Holy Spirit did come over and helped her to utter the words that she needed to say. Suddenly, she moves from passive bystander to actively moving in the stream of God’s justice and action. And we know from the gospels that the rest of her life, from that moment on, could not have been easy. However, she was able to pray the Magnificat to and with her cousin Elizabeth. Though the path wasn’t what she would have picked for herself, the grace of being chosen by God settled in her heart and created praise within her.

For David and for Mary, there is an understanding of obedience that comes with blessing. God’s blessing is extended, through them to Christ, to us as well. And we too are called to obedience within that blessing. Yet, like Mary and David, we cannot know God’s promises apart from the risks that a faithful response brings. When we want to go out and build, when we’re ready to act- it’s hard to wait and look both ways to see if it is God’s desire. When we want simplicity and no pain, it’s hard to say, “Let it be with me according to your Word.”

The king and the young woman probably looked at themselves in reflecting pools and said, “How did I get here?” And we’ve all asked that question. Teachers, carpenters, paint salesmen, lawyers, engineers, outdoorsmen, doctors, nurses, parents, single people, married people, widows and widowers, all of us have asked that question in our hearts and in the responding silence, we see the scope of grace in our lives. Grace that has been sufficient for all our needs. Grace that has carried us by inches and feet through darkness and light, through cold and warmth, through ordinary and extraordinary.

We know the foundation of the house of David, Jesus, the Son of Mary. Yet we know in that ordinary man, Jesus, there was an extraordinary God. A God who, through Christ, still comes to us in extraordinary ways.

That “bayit”- house is also said, “bet”, though we would say “beth”. And at Christmas we say it frequently, “beth- lehem”. Lehem means bread. The dynasty of David is fulfilled in the streets of the House of Bread. The Son of Mary comes into the world in the House of Bread. And the legacy of extraordinary encounters with God continues at this table with the Bread of Life who was born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread. Nothing more ordinary than bread. Nothing more extraordinary than the Body of Christ.

In our humanness, there is nothing more miraculous than being ordinary. God doesn’t need extraordinary. Mary wasn’t. David wasn’t. You aren’t. I’m not. But God is and God uses the ordinary for the extraordinary. We are called, by God, to respond obediently to the gift of favor and the gift of faith, to be like David and to be like Mary. To hunger for the Bread of Life and to share it with all those in our lives who also long for it.

May God give us all the grace to respond in patience and faithful obedience to His call to us. And, especially in this season, may our eyes be opened to see our extraordinary God in the most ordinary of places.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained accessto this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)

I’ve been thinking recently about Blue Christmas services. I wish I had early enough to have held on at my church- a service for people who want to, or need to, acknowledge the pain in their lives, losses they’ve experienced, their struggle to find or feel joy. A Blue Christmas service is one where the cross shines all the more brightly through the straw of the manger. A Blue Christmas service is a reminder, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that only the suffering God can help.

This leads me to this passage from Romans, one of my personal favorites. I have a sermon on suffering here, but there is something to be said here about the nature of suffering and the difference between optimism and hope.

Think of the oft mentioned story of the little boy digging his way through the pile of horse manure, certain that there’s a pony in there somewhere. That’s optimistic, true, but not realistic and not hopeful.

Hope is a different creature. Hope says this is a pile of horse manure. And it stinks. It doesn’t dress it up. It doesn’t say it is there for a reason. It acknowledges the presence of the horse manure. However, hope also looks ahead to a time when the horse manure may be gone or lessened in stench and to the continued possibility of a pony.

Christians are not called to ignore suffering in the world nor to rationalize it. We must speak the truth about suffering and about sin. They stink. They obscure joy. They are confusing and best and faith-destroying at worst. In the midst of infant deaths, accidents, abuse, theft and spiritual assault, we often find ourselves standing with someone (or standing alone) waist deep in horse manure, with nary a whinny within earshot.

Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us. I don’t know about you, but I would have been (and would be) glad to suffer a little less at the cost of being less of a character or having a little less character (however you read that sentence). Yet if that were so, I would not have the hope that I have now. That God does not abandon us in our hour of need. That we do not walk alone. That, though we may not now or ever understand why we are experiencing what is happening in our lives, there is a light shining in and on our darkness.

The point of a Blue Christmas service is not to wallow in misery, but to remember that bright and shiny does not cover real dull, numbing pain. In this season, of all seasons, we must remember that our suffering does not have any redemptive value. Not for us. Not for anyone. But Christ’s suffering does.

Sometimes we wade through the manure and find not a pony, but the cross. And that is the hope, the only hope, that does not disappoint us.

The Friday Five questions come from here.

1. What color are your beautiful eyes? Did you inherit them from or pass them on to anyone in your family?

Due to my maternal-side Eastern European heritage and a genetic tendency on my paternal side, I have abnormally dark brown eyes for my complexion. When I was an infant, people consistently asked my parents if I had been adopted [from Asia] because of my dark eyes. Because they are deep-set (another genetic trait), they aren’t as obvious now.

2. What color eyes would you choose if you could change them?

I always like green eyes and if I had to change, I might go to that bright color. However, I’m partial to my own eyes (at least their color, if not their level of sightedness).

3. Do you wear glasses or contacts? What kind? Like ’em or hate ’em?

I wear glasses. I’ve worn glasses since I was five and it became obvious that I could not see the school bus headed up the street toward my house… until it was practically in front of me. Both my parents wear glasses and they deeply lamented how long it took them to realize that I couldn’t see. At 11, I got bifocals (frustrating and embarrassing), but wearing such a strong prescription helped my eyes improve to reading glasses level by the time I was 14.
I wanted contacts for a time, but my astigmatism prevented that. Now it wouldn’t be a problem, but I’ve developed a fear of things coming toward my eyes (no eyeliner for me!). I go back and forth on the Lasik surgery. It would be great to be able to go hunting without worrying about the scope hitting my glasses, but eye surgery (?)… we’ll see. (rim shot!)

4. Ever had, or contemplated, laser surgery? Happy with the results?

I go back and forth on the Lasik surgery. It would be great to be able to go hunting without worrying about the scope hitting my glasses, but eye surgery (?)… we’ll see. (rim shot!) I’m glad to hear opinions on this.

5. Do you like to look people in the eye, or are you more eye-shy?

I look people in the eye, unless I’m thinking. Then I seem to look off to the left. In general, people on my left in a group probably get more eye contact that people on my right.

Bonus question: Share a poem, song, or prayer that relates to eyes and seeing.

Dust in the Eyes- Robert Frost

If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes
Will keep my talk from getting overwise,
I'm not the one for putting off the proof.
Let it be overwhelming, off a roof
And round a corner, blizzard snow for dust,
And blind me to a standstill if it must.

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:1-2 (NRSV)

This is an essential passage of Scripture for me because of the nature of God that is revealed here. In contrast to what we are able to do, God is able to bring about creation out of nothing, in fact, out of a void. The Hebrew word for that void stirs my imagination.

Hebrew: tohu wabohu (TOE-hoo vah-VOE-hoo or wah- BOE-hoo)

Tohu – root word (unused) meaning to lie waste
– “formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness”, “place of chaos”, “vanity”
– Reference: Job 26:7

Bohu – “from unused root meaning to be empty”
– emptiness, void, waste

____
Though other citations point to the use of the words empty or void, the passages do not convey the same absolute emptiness that seems to be implied by the writer of Gen. 1. Tohu wabohu, used specifically here from typically unused roots, create a feeling of a deeper emptiness than simple non-existence (if such a thing were simple). This void speaks to something deeper than what might have been before humans were and points to the reality of God and the reality of the felt absence of God. The “deep” is not even really the ocean, in the sense that we think of the great blue deep, but is a deep darkness- something that stirs in our subconscious and tweaks at our ultimate concerns. In that tohu wabohu are all our fears: “What will happen to me? Why am I here? What is beyond me?”

The possible translation of tohu as “vanity” can be related to Ecclesiastes 1:1- where all is vanity. The comparison between what God’s hand can bring about and what human hands can leaves nothing but vapor or vanity. The comprehension of that void is the most punishing part of the law (which is not always punishing) in that we are forced to realize the world came about neither through our bidding nor our doing. Rather the Spirit of God moved over an absence and brought everything into being. This creation story answers the others of its time by making God the prime mover and shaker- there is no sun (and thus no Sun god) or sea (and thus no water gods). There is nothing but tohu wabohu until God brings it into existence- in creation, in faith, in living.

In each step of the creation, God notices what has been made is good. We might consider the work of our hands good, but such blatant approval of our own works can lead to vanity, self-centeredness and, ultimately, emptiness. Tohu wabohu demonstrates that the void- without God- is vanity and because God creates out of a void, is not tohu wabohu, God is not empty or vain.

In God’s act of creation, we are able to see God as the opposite of tohu wabohu and the bringer about of creation. What we [vainly] put our hands to always seem to turn to chaos until we recognize the One who is truly in control. Only the God who can bring wholeness through suffering, creation from a void, hope from hopelessness, can bring peace.

Isaiah 40:1-11; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There are no shepherds, no angels, no manger, no silent night and no verbs. Yes, verbs- action words. In this first sentence of Mark, there are no verbs. So, where is the action?

Is this the start of the story of the ministry of Jesus the Christ, starting with the proclamation of John the Baptizer? Or does the story begin with the prophesy in Isaiah, when Israel is still in exile in Babylon and God says, “Well, they are just not getting my message. I’m going to have to try something different.”

In the Isaiah text, we hear the call to prepare a way in the wilderness, a way for the Lord. So, through Isaiah’s words, the people were called to get ready for a royal visit. What comes with a royal visit? Well, what comes with having guests over to your house? Countertops are suddenly exposed to daylight, bathrooms get fresh towels, corners are vacuumed, minor repairs are made, and new food is purchased. And that’s not even for royalty.

A royal visit promises new and improved infrastructure. The countryside must be ready for the whole entourage to come in and settle for the duration. Buildings are upgraded, food storage is increased, and roads are improved, widened and smoothed. Everyone looks forward to the gifts that will come with a royal visit.

But preparing for that visit costs everything. Everything a town or city might have. All the other plans that have been made completely bypass the back burner and are taken completely off the stove. A royal visit takes all the money, all the time, all the energy and all the vision that can be mustered. But it’s all given because of the promise that comes with the event: the knowledge that a royal visit will be a physical, significant and transforming occasion.

That’s the action that John the Baptizer points to at the side of the Jordan. “Come,” he says. “Come and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. Get ready for the one who is to come. Level the mountains of your sin. Smooth the highways of your understanding. Get ready. He is coming! And, oh, what gifts he will bring!!”

We are further out in scope than John now. We see, through faith, to whom John was pointing. We know the nature of that royal visit, of the coming of the Son of God, so that we might have life. But sometimes we still get lost in the preparations. Just like you can get tired of getting ready for guests and lose sight of the excitement of their coming, so too has the Church, have we, forgotten the excitement of Christ’s visit.

In anticipation of his return, we also forget the joy of his presence with us still. For our God does not follow rules. For Israel, God was not going to abandon them in exile or because of their failure to keep their end of the covenant. God spoke through the prophets and said, “I am with you and I am coming!” And God still says to us today, through the Spirit, “I am with you and I am coming. Get ready for me and the changes I will bring. Pay attention to what I am already changing.”

Each of the readings today points to that reality in the life of faith: that God is approaching and God is here. If it were any other way, all the preparations, all the action, all the initiating would be on us. But God has sent his Spirit into the world, from the time of creation until now, so that we would not prepare alone and we would not be lost.

In our Advent time, even now, God is with us- giving us patience, giving us hope, granting us salvation within the wilderness of our lives. In our wildernesses of grief, of pain, of worry, of anxiety… the Spirit lifts us up so that we can hear the voice that cries, “Here is your God.” Get ready for a royal visit. Confess your sins. Prepare to celebrate.

Where is the action in “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”? It is in God. And it is in you. “Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” How that may be is a mystery, but so is this: the Lord is with us and the Lord is coming. We live in and with that mystery.

We are called to prepare ourselves, to prepare one another and all those around us for the royal visit, but those preparations only happen through the One who remains with us- in the wilderness and in civilization, in sorrow and in joy, in the manger and at the cross. We are ready for a royal visit through God’s grace that we encounter at the table, in the water and in one another.

In a season of too many to-dos, do not ignore this one fact, beloved, the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is in you, today.

Amen.

I’ve been reading many conversations lately among church leaders (clergy and lay) and scholars centered around the questions, “Why does church matter?” and “How does church matter?” In a world that constantly harps on “change” (with very little seeming to actually do so), how can a two-thousand year old institution still offer something that people need?

To answer this question for myself, I have been looking for something to read to stir my imagination. Granted, God’s word does this for me all the time. But part of encountering the Living Word, for me, involves going into the Bible with a guide (the Holy Spirit) and a partner (some other theologian- living or dead, clergy or lay).

My newest hunting partner is G.K. Chesterton. While I would not say that G.K. and I will become best buddies- he’s a good hunting partner with sharp spiritual eyes, stirring me to looking for new signs and shapes of God’s work in the world. So I have begun reading his book The Everlasting Man.

I’m not terribly far into it, but I’m already thinking of so many new things. He particularly stresses in his introduction the need for the Church of Christ (and its people) to look at the Church from a different, even foreign, perspective so that the significance of the Church can be grasped. While Chesterton eventually became a Catholic, here he is emphasizing the nature of the whole Church as the body of Christ- less the institution, than the embodiment of the Real Presence.

He says this: [The] Church, being a highly practical thing for working and for fighting, is necessarily a thing for [adults] and not merely a thing for children. There must be in it for working purposes a great deal of tradition, of familiarity, and even of routine. So long as its fundamentals are sincerely felt, this may be the saner condition. But when its fundamentals are doubted, as at present, we must try to recover the candor and wonder of the child; the unspoilt realism and objectivity of innocence. Or if we cannot do that, we must try at least to shake off the cloud of mere custom and see the thing as new, if only by seeing it as unnatural. Things that may well be familiar so long as familiarity breeds affection had much better become unfamiliar when familiarity breeds contempt. (Ignatius Press, 2008, 14)

In the season of Christmas, we are full of things we “always” do because of their tradition and symbolism. Yet is the symbolism what has become meaningful to us… the symbolism more than what is actually celebrated?

We are entering the season of the church year when we see many people in the pews who have been missing in the intervening months since Easter (or maybe since last Christmas). Why is that? Because they’re busy? Perhaps. Or maybe it is because we (pastors, regular churchgoers, bishops, etc) have failed to make the majesty, the grace, the awe of God known throughout the year. Church is more than tradition: Sundays, Wednesday, Christmas, Easter.

It is a strange and alien institution, formed by an alien righteousness. (Romans 3- all of it) The righteousness of Christ covers all our sins, so that we might be made right with God. The familiar shapes and sounds of Christmas- Mary, shepherds, fumbled microphones in Christmas pageants, Silent Night, green and red- consume the shocking event that we are celebrating… GOD AMONG US!!!!!! LIKE US!!!! BUT GOD!!!!

Consider this verse from Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Mild he lays his glory by
Born that we no more may die
Born to raise us from the earth
Born to give us second birth

That’s no regular baby (no regular birth story either). Familiarity hasn’t necessarily, yet, bred contempt, but is it still breeding affection, in the words of Chesterton? In this season of overworked metaphors, let yourself be stunned by the miracle of Christmas- a pregnant virgin, angels everywhere, an accepting fiance, God present on earth in human form (yet retaining full divinity).

May God water the seeds of your contemplation, so that they may bloom forth in good works toward your neighbor and your family.

Church still matters. It is in the Body of Christ, God’s church, that we experience together the provoking wonder of the greatest story ever told.