Beloved Son (Baptism of Jesus)

Scripture:  Isaiah 43:1-7; Acts 8:14-17;  Luke 3:15-22

I don’t know if any of you have ever spent time peering at one of those “Where’s Waldo” cartoons – it’s usually some enormous crowd scene – at a beach, or an amusement park, or some other large gathering – and you’re supposed to find Waldo, a guy with round glasses and a distinctive red and white striped shirt and a matching red and white striped hat, almost like a santa cap, usually cocked at an angle.  It definitely takes keen vision and a good eye for detail, as well as a bit of patience - and it usually helps if you've got some extra time on your hands.

 

I would imagine that, for John, the search for the “one more powerful than John”, of whom John spoke, was a bit like an exercise of “Where’s Waldo” – only more difficult, because in this case he didn’t know beforehand what Waldo looked like.  When we think of baptism, we think of one person – usually a baby – along with parents and godparents or sponsors – not that many people involved - but the Gospel writers describe crowds coming to John, day after day, with Jesus in their midst, one among many preparing to go under the water.  The spirit coming down like a dove and the voice from heaven are what help John, and help us - pick out Waldo – or rather Jesus – amid the mass of humanity converging on John.

 

What was Jesus doing in the midst of the crowd at the Jordan River that day, listening to John haranguing them about the need to repent of their sins, going down into the cold, muddy water of the Jordan?  It’s not hard to imagine why the crowds were there.  Those coming to John had a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the way things were – with the world, and with themselves – especially themselves.  The political order of the day was about as corrupt as one could imagine, and the people felt a deep need for God to touch them, to lay a renewing finger on them in a deep place that the rituals of the Temple couldn’t touch.  The crowds that came to the Jordan knew that there was a whole lot wrong with the world, and a whole lot wrong with themselves – and somehow knew that any healing and renewal of the world would have to begin with renewal within.  Harsh as John’s preaching was, it only put into words the sense of sinfulness and internal chaos within the people who came to be baptized. 

 

Normally, in Jewish practice, baptism, or ceremonial washing, was used for spiritual cleansing.  Baptism was also a ritual by which Gentiles signified their conversion to Judaism.  But of these crowds who came to John, most were already Jewish.  But they came – yes, to signify their desire for spiritual cleansing, but also to become part of the religious renewal that John was leading. 

 

So that explains the crowds….but what does it say about why Jesus was in the midst of the crowds?  Jesus, after all, was sinless; he had no need for spiritual cleansing.  Rather, Jesus was there to identify radically with John’s renewal movement, with the crowds, with sinful humankind.  In great humility, Jesus waded in the water with everyone else, felt John’s hand pushing him under the surface of the cold, muddy water of the Jordan. And, like the crowds who came to John for a new direction in their lives, baptism was a transformative moment for Jesus – it has been said that he went into the water a carpenter, and came out of the water a Messiah newly empowered for his earthly ministry as the beloved of God, as witnessed by the voice from heaven, with a new understanding of the calling to which God had called him. The Spirit coming in the form of a dove reminds us of the dove that was released from Noah’s ark at the end of the flood, reminding us of new life. 

 

By his baptism, Jesus identified radically with the human need for repentance, and the baptism of Jesus was a moment of transformation and empowerment for ministry.  And therefore the voice from heaven heard by Jesus continues to echo in our ears.  And it’s very personal – You – you individually – are my beloved Son or Daughter.

 

Just as, in Jewish practice, circumcision was a mark of inclusion in the covenant, and just as, through the waters of baptism, John’s followers were brought into John’s renewal movement, in the same way, through the water of baptism, we are brought into a much larger family, the church.  This may not initially seem to be of much importance.  The way baptism was often explained in the past put the emphasis on the individual salvation of the one being baptized – my baptism, my soul, my salvation, my, my, my.  And certainly, baptism is a very individual, very personal experience.  But it’s an individual experience by which we are drawn beyond ourselves as individuals, a personal experience by which we are connected to other persons.  We are welcomed into the larger family of faith, and in that welcome are commissioned to serve the Lord.  This is why, in UCC practice, at the end of the baptism, the newly-baptized is called “child of God, disciple of Christ, and member of Christ’s church.”

 

In our baptism, God claims each of us as beloved sons and daughters.  While that promise is for us, it’s not only for us.   What would the church be like – what would the world be like – if we could remember that those with whom we come in contact are likewise created in God’s image, likewise beloved sons and daughters of God?  Might that change our behavior toward one another, and toward our neighbors?   Might we speak or act differently if we remember that the person to whom we speak or act is, like us, a child of the king, a child of God?

 

For us, baptism is a moment of sweet sentimentality, a moment marked by baptismal certificates and photos and such.   But it’s more than that.  It’s the moment in which we, as a child or as an adult, are brought into the care of the church, and a moment of preparation to take part in the church’s ministry of bringing the good news of Jesus to the world.  Of course, we don’t expect an infant to toddle right out the front door of the church and start preaching the gospel.  That’s why those promises that parents and godparents or sponsors make to raise children in the Christian faith are so important – ultimately baptism is preparation and authorization for ministry, preparation and authorization to be messengers of the good news wherever our lives take us.

 

Which doesn’t mean that our lives will be easy.  Like Jesus, we may experience grief, anger, frustration, loneliness.  Like Jesus on the cross, there are those moments when we feel so overwhelmed that we say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”  In those moments, our baptism reminds us that God will never abandon us.  In the words of the old Heidelberg Catechism that our older members grew up with, we’re told that “our only comfort, in life and in death, is that we belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to ourselves, but to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ” - who through the waters of baptism has claimed us for his very own.  Amen.

 

Who Invited Them?

Scriptures:  Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12  Matthew 2:1-12

There’s a story – probably more than a little embellished, if not outright confabulated - but it’s a memorable story nonetheless, just the kind that preachers like – about a middle-aged couple who turned up on the doorstep of the President of Harvard University.   Both the man’s threadbare suit and the woman’s faded dress had seen better days, as, apparently, had the couple themselves.  They told the President’s secretary that their son had recently died of typhoid fever – the year was 1884 – and the couple wanted to donate some money to Harvard in memory of their son.  Now, one might imagine that the President of Harvard University kept a busy calendar, and he didn’t have time among his many pressing meetings that day to chew the fat with these shabby out-of-towners who hadn’t bothered to make an appointment in advance.    So he told his secretary to send them away, and if they wanted to talk to him, to tell them to make an appointment next time.   As she was showing the couple out the door, the secretary casually asked how much money they had wanted to donate and the husband said, “Oh, about $5 million….but since your president doesn’t want to be bothered, we’ll see if we can set something up in our son’s memory on our own.”  As the story goes, the couple in question were Leland and Jane Stanford, and since Harvard didn’t have time to talk to them about their $5 million dollars, they went on to use the money to establish Stanford University.

 

Or so the story goes.  It’s hard to say how much of the story is fact and how much is fiction.   But, regardless how factual or fictional the story is, it’s a reminder that sometimes great opportunity comes in unlikely persons and situations, that an uninvited guest is not necessarily an unwelcome guest, that what may at first seem like an imposition can turn out to be a blessing.

 

Today we commemorate the Epiphany, the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles.  Our reading from Matthew’s Gospel also tells a story about uninvited guests – that of the wise men coming to pay homage to the Christ child.   It’s helpful to keep in mind that a lot of what we think we know about the Wise Men isn’t from the Bible, but comes from various embellishments that have been added to the story over the course of many centuries and unknown thousands of Christmas pageants and productions of Amahl and the Night  Visitors.  We don’t know that there were three of them – there could have been six, nine, or twelve of them for all we know factually.  We don’t know their names – somebody decided to call them Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, but again, that’s tradition, not Scripture – for all we know, their names were Manny, Moe and Jack.  They didn’t arrive to greet Jesus in the stable, but some time afterward – Matthew’s account speaks of a house, not a stable – and Jesus could have been as much as two years old, given the age of the babies that Herod martyred in attempt to eliminate Jesus – still very young, but hardly a babe in arms.  

 

Who were these folks, and what motivated their journey.  We’re told they came “from the East” – possibly from Assyria or Babylon or Persia, former enemy countries that had conquered Israel at various times in centuries past.    We know that the ten tribes of Israel had never returned from exile in Assyria – they just intermarried with the local population – and likely there were many Jews who had likewise decided to stay in Babylon rather than return to Jerusalem at the end of the exile.  These Jews likely intermarried with the local population, and so at least some of the local population would have had some exposure to Jewish scriptures and beliefs.  While these wise men were not themselves Jews, whatever little exposure they’d had to Judaism had inspired them with great hope regarding the birth of a child. 

Now, their GPS had sent them a bit off course…..they naturally enough thought that the Jewish savior would be born in Jerusalem, the capital city, but Herod’s advisors told the wise men, “No, not here, but in Bethlehem, the city of David.”  The name Bethlehem literally means “house of bread.”  As it happens, Bethlehem, with a current population of about 25,000 is in what is now the West Bank…..since 1995, territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority.  The majority of the population is Muslim, but it’s one of the largest centers of what’s left of Palestinian Christianity as well.  These days, Bethlehem, like the rest of the West Bank is heavily patrolled and monitored by Israel…..if Mary and Joseph were making the journey these days, they’d have had guns pointed at them and had to go through checkpoints and searches of their baggage and such.  But that’s another story, for another time. 

 

Of course, the fact that these wise men landed on Herod’s doorstep asking about a child who had been born King of the Jews would have raised Herod’s hackles – and, in truth, while the visitors may have been wise about stars, they weren’t very savvy about politics.  You see, as far as Herod was concerned, there was already a King of the Jews – and that king’s name was Herod.  As far as Herod was concerned, Herod was the only King of the Jews that was needed.  No others need apply.  From Josephus and other writers of the time, we know that even on his best day, Herod was suspicious to the point of paranoia.  And the day the wise men landed on his doorstep wasn’t his best day.  He made nice to the wise men, but in his troubled mind he resolved to eliminate this rival of whom the wise men had tipped him off. 

 

So the wise men found their way to the house where Mary and Joseph and the baby were staying. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall to watch that scene…..knock at the front door, Joseph opens up – “Who’s there” – and here’s a bunch of outlandishly-dressed foreigners on their doorstep, probably looking just as outlandish as I do in my robe today.  The visitors looked funny, they talked funny, and after their long journey they probably smelled a little funny too.  Imagine if a group of Arabs, with traditional headgear and robes wafting in the breeze, landed on our doorstep.  We’d likely stand there blinking for a bit, ask, “Can I help you?”, and probably wonder about their intentions.  Perhaps we’d be tempted to leave them stand outside.  Quite possibly someone might call 911.  But, faced with this scenario, and likely with some misgivings, Joseph says, “C’mon in.”  And, as Matthew tells us, the visitors paid homage to the child and left the gifts they’d been carrying so far for so long.

 

Matthew’s account of the Wise Men fulfills two functions.  First, it basically represents a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy to the Jews, which we read this morning, that “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn…A multitude of camels shall cover you; all those from Sheba will come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”  In the visit of the wise men, we see this text literally come to life, on a small scale.

 

Beyond Isaiah’s image of the wealth of the nations flowing to Israel, Matthew’s account speaks of the broad reach of God’s grace. Through this story, Matthew told the predominantly Jewish early Christian communities in which his Gospel circulated – and continues to tell us – that God’s grace and God’s love cannot be contained by national borders or ethnic boundaries, that within the expanse of God’s grace and love there is room not only for Jews, but for Gentiles – even for such outlandish characters as the wise men. 

 

As I’d mentioned earlier, today is Epiphany, when we remember the revelation of Jesus to the  Gentiles – ultimately, the revelation of Jesus to us.  While the visit of the wise men was a one-time event, the revelation of Jesus to Jews and Gentiles alike is an ongoing event.  Every day, people are experiencing the grace of God through Jesus Christ for the first time.  I pray that each of us here has experienced that grace, and if not, that God will grant that grace today. 

 

We, as church, are one of the ways in which God has chosen to reveal God’s grace through Jesus Christ.   Inevitably, this means that the church has to be in contact with those outside the church.  Archbishop William Temple was quoted as saying that “The church is the only organization that exists only for non-members.”    And so God will send new visitors our way.  They may not be as exotic as Matthew’s wise men, and likely won’t be dressed as exotically as I am.  They may be dressed more like the Stanfords on their incognito visit to Harvard.   But every visitor to Emanuel church comes bearing a gift – the gift of opportunity.  Everyone who visits bears the image of God.  Everyone who visits is infinitely beloved of God, is one of those for whom Christ died.  Everyone who visits gives us an opportunity to live out the Gospel, to share good news.

 

And we aren’t called on just to wait for visitors to come to us, but to venture outside the sanctuary of this building, to hit the streets.  Last Sunday, the Adult Bible study group finished our seemingly endless study of the Gospel of St. Matthew.   The last chapter of Matthew’s Gospel contains Jesus’ great commission to his disciples – “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”  Go and make disciples.  Go!  It’s an intimidating request.  But Jesus also equipped his disciples with this promise:   “And remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  So when we go, we do not go alone.  God does not leave us out there hanging by ourselves. 

 

Matthew’s account of the visit of the wise men ends by telling us that, being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they returned to their own country by another way.  Likewise, when we, or when those with whom we share the Gospel - are transformed by the grace of Christ, they cannot return to their old lives; they do not return by the way they came.  We cannot continue in the way of Herod, serving the priorities of the world, the priorities of empire – money, power, personal glory.  Instead, we walk a new path, the way of the cross, following in our lives our crucified and risen Savior.  We don’t seek to save our lives – self-preservation, self-justification, self-glorification is no longer our primary concern – but rather we seek to lose our lives in humble service to the Gospel.  May this transforming grace of Christ be active among us here at Emanuel Church, and may this transforming grace touch all those with whom we come in contact.  Amen.

 

What Child Is This?

Scripture:  I Samuel 2:18-21, 26; Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:41-52

One of my earliest childhood memories is of a time when I wandered off from Sunday school, at the age of 4 or 5.    I don’t remember the specifics of why I wandered off from Sunday school, but I suppose I wasn’t very impressed with the lesson that day.  I do remember that one of the teachers kept bringing in weird stories from Weekly World News, and I guess on that day I didn’t want to hear about Jesus and the Bat Boy or Jesus and the Alien or Jesus and Elvis.  So anyway, I was bored, and I decided to go home.  Of course, there was the minor matter of exactly where “home” was, and how to get there from church.  But I set out on my quest.  I don’t know exactly how far I got, but my vague memory was that I may have made it 6 or 8  blocks – in what direction, I have no idea – before my parents found me.  So let that be a lesson to our Sunday school teachers – don’t bring in articles from Weekly World News for the Sunday school lesson.  And, of course, you now know that even future pastors aren’t always crazy about spending time in church.

 

In today’s readings, we’re given, side by side, portraits of two boys who, unlike me, didn’t want to escape from the Lord’s presence, but wanted to live in the presence of the Lord - the prophet Samuel as a boy, as well as a glimpse of the boy Jesus at age 12.  Samuel, of course, was the much-prayed-for son of Hannah, who had been barren for so long.  As Hannah had promised, Samuel was presented to the Lord as a Nazarite, to minister to the Lord.  Today’s reading tells us that while Hannah and her husband Elkanah visited the boy Samuel each year, it was the priest of Shiloh, Eli, who was the formative influence in the life of the young Samuel – at least until he heard the voice of the Lord calling to him. 

 

 In today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel, we catch a glimpse of Jesus at the age of 12, becoming separated from his parents.  The lectionary series of Gospel readings this year does a weird time travel thing – we read about Jesus birth on Christmas Eve, today we read about Jesus at age 12, and next week on Epiphany Sunday, celebrating the visit of the wise men, Jesus will be about age 2.  Traditionally, the Sunday after Christmas is supposed to focus on the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  As it happens, we see Jesus beginning to show a bit of independence from his earthly parents.  And, unlike my childhood wandering away from church, Jesus got separated from his parents, not because he wanted to leave the Temple, but because he wanted to stay.

 

The parents among us can take comfort from today’s reading, in that even the Holy Family had its moments of tension.  We’re given to understand that Mary and Joseph traveled to Jerusalem  with their extended family in a large group, and so when Jesus stayed behind, it was easy for him to get lost in the shuffle.   His parents found him in the Temple in conversation with the teachers.  Mary tells Jesus that she and his father had been searching high and low for him.  And the boy Jesus replied, “Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house.”  And so we have two contrasting mentions of Jesus’ father, with Mary referring to Joseph and Jesus referring to God.  As far as Mary and Joseph were concerned, the house of Jesus’ father was in Nazareth, where they lived.  But Jesus saw the Jerusalem temple as his father’s house.  Luke tells the story in such a way that his account of the boy Jesus conversing with the teachers in the Temple would have reminded his readers of the boy Samuel ministering under the guidance of the priest Eli.  There is an earlier parallel between Jesus and Samuel in Luke’s account – Mary’s magnificat is very similar to the Song of Hannah. And both stories end with very similar words to the effect that “The boy Samuel or the boy Jesus grew in stature and in favor with God and the people.”

 

This story is really the only glimpse we get in the Bible of Jesus as a child.  There were some non-canonical “gospels” circulated among the early church that didn’t make it into the Bible, such as the infancy Gospel of Thomas, that portrayed the boy Jesus as having miraculous powers but a small boy’s immature outlook and peevish temper – so in these “gospels” the boy Jesus made clay birds and then breathed life into them so that they flew away, and struck dead a neighbor boy with whom he had a quarrel, and then brought him back to life.  But today’s Gospel reading has no miracles – after all, Jesus isn’t teaching the elders in the temple, just learning from them.  But the account does give us a sense that Jesus had some early insight that God had a special purpose for him.      

 

These stories remind us that even for Samuel, and even for Jesus, faith did not come fully formed from the moment of their birth.  We’re given to understand that both the boy Samuel and the boy Jesus had unusual insight for their age, but that insight needed guidance, as Samuel was guided by Eli, even with all his limitations, and Jesus sought guidance from the teachers in the Temple.  And their faith did develop beyond those early influences – not long after the events in today’s reading, Samuel receives an ominous word from the Lord with regard to Eli and his family, and as an adult, in his earthly ministry, Jesus would be quite critical of the leadership of the Temple. 

 

Our congregation, Emanuel Church, has been blessed to have children among us in recent years, after several years when we rarely saw children among us.  Just as Samuel needed the guidance of Eli, even with all his limitations, these children need our guidance, even with our limitations.     And age 12 is an important age – as I understand it, Jewish girls are bat mitvahed at age 12, and boys at age 13, and thus are held accountable for their own actions, and counted as full members of the worshipping community.  It’s also about the time when, in many churches, young people start the confirmation classes that mark their journey to full “adult” membership in the church.   It’s been a while since we’ve had a confirmation class, but our children are growing older, and I live in hope that in a few years, Emanuel Church will once again hold confirmation classes.  But even though we don’t have a confirmation class right now, we do have a Sunday school, and all of us, even those who are not Sunday school teachers, have a role in making this church a safe and nurturing environment for learning.

 

And growing and maturing in the faith is not supposed to stop age age 12 or 13.  It’s for all of us – children, teens, and adults of all ages.  We all, of whatever age, are called on by God to grow in wisdom and spiritual stature.  For many Christians, though, confirmation class is the last time they attend church regularly or receive any regular religious instruction.  Many teens depart from the church right after confirmation, and don’t return until there’s a wedding or a baptism, if at all.  And so, for many who don’t regularly participate in the life of the faith community and don’t engage in spiritual study and reflection on a regular basis, their faith development gets stuck wherever it was at age 12 or 13, while the rest of their lives are moving forward into adult maturity.  And when these people undergo difficult life transitions, faith that is at a teenage level of development isn’t enough to carry us through adult crises. 

I’m grateful that members of our congregation are willing to help our children grow in the faith.  But, ideally, none of us is ever done learning or growing in the faith, this side of the grave.  For our adults, we offer a time of study after worship on most Sundays.  And if anyone wants to schedule a Bible study or prayer gathering at some time other than Sunday morning, I’m certainly willing to listen.  And we can learn and grow just through our encounters with each other on Sundays from week to week.

 

St. Paul wrote these words to the church at Corinth, who were struggling to come to spiritual maturity:  “When I was a child, I spoke like a child; I thought like a child; I reasoned like a child; but when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.   Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”  Until that day when we all see face to face and know fully, may we at Emanuel Church continue to encourage each other to grow in wisdom and spiritual stature – and may we be a place where visitors can be supported in their journey of faith.  Amen.

 

Expecting

( Scriptures: Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-55 )

 “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas……”  The Mayan calendar has ended, but we have not – and so Christmas day will soon be upon us.

I don’t know about you, but I always enjoy the last day or two before Christmas.  The days immediately following Thanksgiving are filled with crowded malls and office parties and cards to mail and such – much of which feels like chores to be done rather than blessings to be enjoyed, much of which leaves me exhausted rather than exhilarated.   But finally, at some point, the mall crowds and office parties are past, and any last minute cards likely won’t get to their destination in time anyway, so why bother….and so I can exhale…..and inhale….and take in something of the spirit of the season.

 

The lectionary feels a bit like that also, as the readings make a transition on this last Sunday in Advent.  During the past three weeks we’ve been pondering ominous prophecies about the 2^nd coming of Christ and listening to annoying, demanding voices like those of John the Baptist.  But now things shift, the men are shoved offstage for the moment, and two women – two pregnant women – take center stage, Elizabeth and Mary.  Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah the priest, living in the hill country of Judea, and her cousin Mary, living up to the north, way out in Galilee.  Both are expecting, and in both cases this is unexpected; in Elizabeth’s case, because she had been barren and was getting on in years, and in Mary’s case because she had not been intimate with a man.  We’re told that Mary set out with haste from Galilee to the hill country of Judea – quite a long journey – and Mary kept Elizabeth company during the last three months of her pregnancy.  What they must have talked about during those three months – yes, Elizabeth’s increasing discomfort as the time for her delivery approached, but also their questions – how did the two of us ever wind up in such a strange situation anyway? – and their hopes and dreams for the children growing within them.  And what dreams Mary had! – she sings that through the child within her, God has shown strength with his arm and has scattered the proud, brought down the powerful and lifted up the lowly, fed the hungry and sent the rich away empty.  Mary’s son isn’t even born yet, and she’s expecting that through this baby, God will somehow turn the world upside down – or maybe, to be more accurate, will somehow set our upside-down world right side up.  And she sings of all this as if it’s already happened, as if it’s already a done deal.

 

Over these four weeks of Advent, we’ve lit the candles on our Advent wreath.  Of course, we associate these candles with hope, peace, joy, and love…but perhaps we can also associate them with the words of the prologue of John’s Gospel, that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

 

Mary and Elizabeth lived in a world in which there was great darkness – looming behind every aspect of their lives was the Roman occupation, the heavy taxes that went to pay for Herod’s building projects, the harsh dealings with Rome’s army of occupation and with their tax collectors.  And yet God said nothing about somehow turning off the darkness, making the darkness go away, but rather shining a light in the darkness that the darkness could neither comprehend it nor overcome it.   The darkness was based largely in fear – Rome’s fear of threats from within and without, Herod’s fear of losing his throne, the peoples’ fear of incurring the wrath of Rome – and their fear of incurring God’s wrath if they failed to follow the dictates of the religious establishment of the day – and at least the Jerusalem temple religious establishment was working hand-in-glove with Rome.  But remember the words of the angels to Zechariah and to Mary – “Do not be afraid.”  Because perfect love casts out fear.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

We also live in a time of great darkness.  We live in a country in which fear runs rampant – fear of being attacked by other countries, fear of being attacked by our neighbors, fear of not having enough, fear of losing what little we do have, fear of those who are different from us, who we consider “other” – and in America we’re very good at “othering” our neighbors - fear and regret over the past, fear and anxiety for the future.  Like the Roman empire into which Jesus was born, ours is a violent culture, and just as Rome did, in America we respond to our fear, among other ways, by arming ourselves to the teeth.  

 

The words of the angels to Zechariah and to Mary are the words of the angels to us – “Do not be afraid.  God is still in the process of bringing new life, and so our lives, and the life of this congregation, are expectant, pregnant with possibility.   And so we acknowledge the darkness – kind of hard not to, though many try – but we are not controlled by the darkness.   Instead, we let the light of Christ shine in us, and so our lives, and that of Emanuel Church, are like candles against the darkness…seemingly insignificant, seemingly always on the verge of being blown out by a stray gust of wind, but still there.  In this connection, I’d like to share a 2009 article, from the newspaper USA Today, of all places, about the power of candles in the darkness.

 

The church that helped bring down the Berlin Wall   Posted 11/5/2009 4:51 PM | Comment | Recommend

By Deborah Potter, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly LEIPZIG, Germany — St. Nikolai Evangelical Lutheran Church hasn't changed much since the 16th century. Bach once played the organ here and the music remains alluring, but it is the church's more recent history in the last days of the Cold War and its role in the fall of the Berlin Wall that draw tourists today. The Rev. Christian Fuhrer became the pastor at St. Nikolai in 1980, when the world was divided by the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. Germany itself was split in two, most visibly by the wall the East German government — the German Democratic Republic— built in Berlin in 1961 in an attempt to keep its people from fleeing to the West. In the GDR, atheism was the norm. Churches like St. Nikolai were spied on but allowed to remain open. "In the GDR, the church provided the only free space," Fuhrer said in an interview with Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. "Everything that could not be discussed in public could be discussed in church, and in this way the church represented a unique spiritual and physical space in which people were free." In the early 1980s, Fuhrer began holding weekly prayers for peace. Every Monday, worshippers recited the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. Few came at first, but attendance grew as the Soviet Union began opening to the West. The prayer service, Fuhrer said, "was something very special in East Germany. Here a critical mass grew under the roof of the church — young people, Christians and non-Christians, and later, those who wanted to leave (East Germany) joined us and sought refuge here." As a college student in those years, Sylke Schumann was one of the hundreds, then thousands, who joined the vigils in the sanctuary at St. Nikolai and then marched in the streets holding candles and calling for change. "Seeing all these people gather in this place ... from week to week and more and more people gathering, you had the feeling this time really the government had to listen to you," Schumann said. In October 1989, on the 40th anniversary of the GDR, the government cracked down. Protesters in Leipzig were beaten and arrested. Two days later, St. Nikolai Church was full to overflowing for the weekly vigil. When it was over, 70,000 people marched through the city as armed soldiers looked on, but did nothing. "I remember it was a cold evening, but you didn't feel cold, not just because you saw all the lights, but also because you saw all these people, and it was, you know, it was really amazing to be a part of that, and you felt so full of energy and hope," Schumann said. "For me, it still gives me the shivers thinking of that night. It was great." "In church," Fuhrer said, "people had learned to turn fear into courage, to overcome the fear and to hope, to have strength. They came to church and then started walking, and since they did not do anything violent, the police were not allowed to take action. "(East German officials) said, 'We were ready for anything, except for candles and prayer.'" Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount were Fuhrer's primary motivations, but he also drew inspiration from German pastor and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer as well as Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Fuhrer said King "prepared and executed this idea of nonviolence, peaceful resistance, in a wonderful way. Then it became our turn to apply the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount here in Leipzig." Just a month after the massive demonstration, the wall between East and West Berlin came down. The church had sent a powerful message to the world: the East German government no longer controlled its people. "If any even ever merited the description of 'miracle' that was it," Fuhrer said. "A revolution that succeeded, a revolution that grew out of the church. It is astonishing that God let us succeed with this revolution." Fuhrer, who retired last year at 65, as required by the church, has written a book about those historic days. St. Nikolai itself has gone back to being a parish church, its congregations not much larger than before the demonstrations. But Fuhrer said he and his fellow worshippers didn't do what they did back then to draw people to the church. "We did it," he said, "because the church has to do it."

 

And let me close with these words from Howard Thurman, whom the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. counted as one of his spiritual mentors:

 

“I will light candles at Christmas

Candles of joy, despite all sadness,

Candles of hope where despair keeps watch.

Candles of courage for fears ever present,

Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,

Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,

Candles of love to inspire all my living,

Candles that will burn all the year long.”

 

Amen.