Both of today’s lessons are loaded with expectation. They show us: what we expect makes all the difference, here to hereafter. (all) “So… what do you expect?” What do you expect when what lies ahead just seems impossible? ‘When what you have done, or can do seems just-not-enough? ‘When you’ve waited and waited, or prayed and prayed (or both) and it’s just not happenin’? Friends, what do you expect when faith seems like a pipe dream and hope seems like a hollow promise? There are lessons to be learned when we and our faith feel up against the wall. And expectation holds the key.

Now, what if walls could talk? Especially the Bible’s walls. None more famous than the walls of Jericho and the walls of Jerusalem. The Temple’s in particular. What could they tell us about standing against, and standing for expectation? Why not ask them? O, let’s!

Jumpin’ Jericho, what was it ‘really pulled those great walls down?

And what’s all that got to do with us?  One way to say it. It was all a matter of whom expected what. It often is, right on down to us. Coming’ south to north in Palestine, Jericho stands at the land’s natural entrance. Traders, travelers, robbers and invaders have used it for centuries. When old Israel in the wilderness sends her spies to scout out the Promised Land it’s to Jericho they come. Tall thick walls. Smooth glacis you couldn’t climb. Big brave souls on watch. But from Rahab the Harlot, those spies get both protection

and the scoop. The leaders fear for their lives. They’ve heard about the God who wrested Israel from Pharaoh and the ruckus at the Red Sea. They expect defeat. The people expect the soldiers to save them and the soldiers expect the walls to protect them. What they never expect is that faith (Israel’s faith) can overcome them. The walls can tell you. “We just stood there, caught in between.” (Walls, even ours, are often just silent witnesses to the battle of belief with unbelief, with no real power of their own.)

Well, let’s go up to Jericho with Joshua and the rest, and see what walls can show and tell. Those look-out towers spy old Joshua, up before the sun. “‘Rose in the dark,” (we too, as to what the day might bring) He doesn’t go to Starbucks or 7-11 for coffee. ‘Doesn’t read the Times, Jericho, Washington or New York. No Palates or Morning Joe on MSNBC. He prays, 1^st thing. ‘Asks what to expect of the Lord. He tells the trumpeters to tune and the marchers to march, once around the city… six days straight. (Maybe it was God, not mom, 1^st to teach, “If at 1^st you don’t succeed….) On the 7^th day, same thing. Up Early. Pray. Play those trumpets. March. 1ce, 2ce, 6x, 7! Oh, shout, too. Shout this! Shout, “For the Lord has [already!] given us the city!” “What?” the walls shout back. “We’re still here!” And the tower watchmen cried out, “Amen!” But Joshua’s been told the walls will fall, and he believes! He expects! He knows in his heart, “FAITH is the assurance (not the vague or sentimental yearning) of things hoped for, the conviction (the unwavering of spirit that invests every effort and commitment) of/to things not [yet] seen.” Don’t miss this. Israel shouts, shouts mind you, not as though they want Jericho, but because they believe it’s already theirs! Just because God has said so. Oh, those walls could tell us. “We didn’t tumble because they threatened to undo us, or played their tricky trumpets. We just couldn’t stand up to the expectation that God has already won, long before the battle seems begun!” So they fell like lumps of lead, crumbled like crackers cupped in the hand of Heaven!

So what, so far as we’re concerned? The lessons, if you please, clear as 1, 2, 3. Lesson 1: When impenetrable walls/unshakable obstacles lie in front of you: get up in your darkness, doubt and distress… and go to God 1^st! He is not, “When all else fails, but where all victories begin!” #2. Keep prayin’. Do as directed. Repeat yourself! Even God needs to. Not that God requires your effort to succeed (it’s not on you); it’s that God empowers your faith as God brings God’s wonders-to-behold. #3 Expect miracles, because God has already made them. But expect them in God’s time, not yours. It might take 13 X through the tune before your walls & woes come a tumblin’ down. But just keep shoutin’, 'cause the deed’s already done. Simple truths, but not easy. So… what do you expect?

Witness Simeon, in the days of Jesus-the-infant-King! Get this. An OLD soul & an itty-bitty infant 8 days old. Simeon has been to the Temple, day upon day, year upon year. Right-living and right-believing. (Lots of you are like that!) Devout: not just talkin’ the faith, but eagerly growing in it. (Many here could amen this, too.)  ‘Looking for the consolation (peace/comfort/ saving) God has shown and promised (as to Joshua long ago). How often he’s been disappointed! Hurt. Maybe angered. Felt abandoned. (Does that sound at all like you sometimes? You fill in the times..!) But Simeon’s still here. Still prayin’. If walls could talk, the Temple’s might have cried, “Not you again!” when Simeon prays for what he’ll see before he’s died. So, on one hand, Simeon. On the other, baby Jesus, brought by parents inspired of the Spirit. Why? Because they expect God to do as God has promised. So… what do you expect? And they offer back what God has given. (Like Joshua’s Israel saving for God all the gold and silver.) And Simeon “took him up”. ‘Embraces and offers in one sweeping gesture (like nothing that comes to us of God can be withheld from God). “Now my eyes have seen,” he says. “‘Seen what my faith already and wholeheartedly expected.” “Light for all (in so dark a time), glory to those who know what to expect (Israel)! And a way to test those who keep expecting from those who keep rejecting.” We can only wonder if the Temple’s walls themselves don’t say, “I’ve seen it all now!”  So what, so far as we’re concerned? #1. Keep watchin’ for what God has promised, rather than focus on what the day does not provide? (How many babies does Simeon hold who are not the one? How many would-be Saviors have we embraced who were not, either?)  #2. Never take to heart what you can’t offer to God (as worthy), or withhold what God has given for your heart to hold.

Ahh, if walls could talk, holy walls, these walls, here’s what they’d say: Great Expectations: ours, from God! Rise up and praise him!

Witnesses. That’s us! Seers & tellers. Jesus’ followers have always been witnesses. So too, the faithful of old Israel… whose stories Christ carried as the Bible of his soul, the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s remarkable the variety and vitality of those called to testify to God – coming to seek and save us. Just look. Creation itself. The mouths of babes and infants. The heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars, full grown women and men. (Ps. 8) Prophets and prostitutes, the religious and rebellious, the rocks and the revived. Renegade Moses to real-easy Rahab; Jeremiah to Jonah; Palm Sunday paraders to Lazarus lifted from the stone cold tomb. Witnesses. ‘None left out! Well, maybe just one! What if …walls could talk? My, my! Suppose the bushes bore witness, where Adam and Eve hid out from God? What would be the talk from the timbers of the Ark? Or the tales from the Temple where Isaiah was called, or the plaster that pulsed with the Spirit when Gabriel whispered to Mary. What, the upshot… if the Upper Room did eavesdrop? Wouldn’t it be something if you and I could get a witness, a first-hand low-down from the hallowed ground where God’s foot-fall has touched down? God in Christ would want us to know! ….One of the youngest who set me prayin’ and studyin’ these last 3 weeks asked: COULD YOU JUST HELP US SEE THE BIG PICTURE, Genesis to Jesus? What’s it all about? I asked the Lord for help. He sent a word from a block of stone, cast off Babel’s Tower. He pried a promise from the window ledge, where a young woman heard it off the lips of the archangel of archangels!

Take it from a block of stone: LEARN THE LEGO LESSON. PLAY GOOD, DON’T PLAY GOD! Fail, and all you build up will fall down. Your language will be confused. ‘Your project put on hold… longer than you might ever hold on. This is big stuff at the start of the Bible’s big picture. But it’s as simple as those little things we give to kids at play. Remember. ‘Adam and Eve, evicted from Eden, trading the Garden for a Granny Smith Apple! (Bummer!) Cain and Able have already wrestled. Murder’s melted the first-ever mom’s heart. Noah and the Mrs. ‘been watchin’ the Weather Channel. “Dude! Can’t you see those clouds comin’?” (We never do!) Their boys are just off the Ark. Their kids are havin’ kids. Already (just verses from the flood), they’ve got a bright idea: a tower to the sky, “a name for ourselves”, a chance to be high as the Lord! Even the stones of the tower could tell us. “Will you never learn? The Lord our God is One. (And you’re not the One! It is He that hath made us and not we ourselves. Ps 100) And you think I’m a blockhead!” O, let these old walls talk!  DON’T PLAY GOD!

PLAY GOOD. Did you know? Lego’s Danish, from leg goht: play well! In 1932 Kirk Christiansen used it for his wooden blocks, miniatures of Babel’s blocks. But soon-in-plastic Lego’s took their classic form and began to teach lifetime lessons. Babel’s stones could only look on and lecture, “I ‘been tryin to tell you this +1,000 years!” PLAY GOOD, not God! The secret: BUILDING BEGINS WITH CONNECTING. The extensions from the top are perfectly fitted to the tubes within. Make the connection and all is well. Don’t, and not even Humpty Dumpty will ever be a good egg again! How are you doin’ at connecting Who’s above with what’s inside you? Belittle the top connection (God) and you-are-weakened-and-fall like Babel’s tower or your kid’s mis-creations. Make yourself too big, and what you intend will never fit securely… the loosy-goosy connection will not hold tight, and your dreams will tumble! This is very practical. When you dream, do you really include God? When you take stock, is Heaven your partner, or is what’s good all your doin’? (How I remember gardener/preacher Bobby Bishop’s line. “God and me are in business together. The savin’ business. ‘Bobby,’ He says, ‘I’ll do the savin’, you do the weedin’ and rakin’. ‘Long as I get that, God gets the harvest, I get the stronger.’) BEGIN CONNECTING with God, then with each other. Babel’s blocks or Lego’s, a block by itself is not a wall, a wall not a tower, and a tower not a home… without connection between us! Jesus’ still commands “…your neighbor as yourself!” All around us objects: Culture, family, us! Our truest trinity: ME. I. My. Watch TV. Surf the web. Ask: whose face is on my Facebook page? (Stats say our own, by over 1000/1)! O, God’s brought a modern scattering Babel’s blocks foretell: we text, not talk; like God come down to confuse our language, our generations do not understand one another’s speech! Loves or households, churches or nations, we can’t build lest we connect. A block will never be more if left alone… Daa!!!

THE BIG PICTURE, Genesis to Jesus! O, the story, if walls could talk. Genesis 11: blocks of scattering sin & sorrow’s sadness. Luke 1: Mary’s house of hope! For all our films and portraits, Heaven only knows the scene of Gabriel with Mary! And the walls that saw and heard. What would they say? 1^st, that what Mary heard was not for her alone. “The Lord is with you, not against you!” (A week from a new classes, a day from a new job, a night from the doctor’s report …how’s that?!) If plaster can hear God say, “No fear!”, how much dare you worry while sittin’ right here?!” And get this. God is not neutral! Like Mary, you have found favor! [There’s a holy thumb on the scale! It’s like (cashier) Safeway-me announcing a head of leaf lettuce @ 1.5 lb!, only to discover the milk jug holding down 1 edge. But here, the advantage sits our side. Only Satan and his minions are diminished.] “You will conceive!” Ok, not quite like Mary, maybe. But how many of us, just like Mary, just can’t imagine, believe, conceive that God has a mission and a blessing in store for us? [Gourley, Zimbabwe//Water, Train//Homeless Shelter, Hope//Kitchen, Family United] ‘How many of us are the destination of unexpected forgiveness, unbelievable healing, inexpressible relief? But this is not the last or the best. If Mary’s walls could talk, they’d tell you just what to name this saving grace! Luck? No! Chance? No! Your Earnings? No? Your Just Reward? Heavens No! There’s only one name Gabriel would promise and Mary’s walls pronounce. Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! And here’s the best of the best. Should you say to those wonderful walls, to Mary or her angel, “What did I do to deserve this?” all of them will answer, “Nothing; absolutely nothing.” And should you ask, “How long can this last ?” you’re bound to hear a voice from the crack in the wall still echoing what Mary heard, “Without end!” “Without end!” “Without end!” Now, wouldn’t it be something if together we stood like Mary and said to these sacred 4 walls, [standing, turning clockwise from front], “Lord, let it be with me, according to your word!”  What a story, when walls begin to talk!

Forget Dr.s Phil and Oz, your gym coach or the PTA. Life doesn’t really offer infinite options. Especially in our relationships with others, even God. Jesus’ Samaritan story makes this point and essentially challenges: choose one! And we do. We all do. Take the lawyer who asks the question that prompts Jesus’ tale. He has his own way. It’s constantly to say, “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?” Life and faith alike can be ordered this way. Note what he asks Jesus. “What must I do to inherit… eternal life?” The question wasn’t how to please God, or live a righteous life, just, “What’s on the entrance exam to get through the pearly gates?” Now, consider:  A New York mailman, shot, was ordered to leave a building lobby. …Because he was dripping (blood) on the floor. In Oklahoma City a woman startlingly gave birth on a sidewalk. Bystanders ignored her. A taxi driver looked, then sped off. A nearby hotel refused to give her a blanket. We hardly see ourselves as so callous. But then, neither did the priest in Jesus’ story. He just went his way on the other side because his way was to say… ‘NOT MY PROBLEM. The Levite went the same way. …The Samaritan shows the most famous, faithful way. His way was to say, “WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?” So, where do you find yourself in the story? What way will you go?

Will you go along and get along with those who ask, “What’s in it for me?” You’ll have a lot of company! We are less interested in the work of living a holy life and more interested in the happy ending of life with the Holy One. ‘More interested in having a better outcome than being a better person. We’d rather be pleased with our mansion-in-the-sky than please God/know God nearby! Now I pray that you and I will want heaven. ‘And cling to the Savior who holds open the gate. But it’ll help us experience and welcome heaven-here-on-earth to understand that by themselves, heavenly hopes can be empty, selfish dreams. Journalist Charles Krauthammer writes of the grave consequences to society of human cloning. He notes: in our narcissistic society, immortality is the highest aim. We can’t picture life going on without us, therefore we must find some way to live forever. It’s perfectly human, but still selfish-at-heart. And… it’s a long way from the abundant life Christ desires for each of us now! Few of us would say it openly. But lots of us believe because we are assessing quietly, “What’s in it for me,” clutching to heaven as the prize. How natural. But this can be the sad beginning of obsession with our selves. We do wanna get stuff. Lots of it. We don’t wanna get sick. If we do, we want SOME ONE out/up there we can turn to. Literally, God help us, we worry for our family. So if being religious gets us God on the look-out for them, it’s a small price to pay. Beware, this week, this lifetime, choosing the way of Philadelphia-Lawyers-of-the-soul! Hear Jesus open heaven this way, “Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind” and “your neighbor as yourself.” No excuses or weaselly questions. Yes, the street beggar is your neighbor, and your neighbor-who’s-a-pain. And the slow driver in the fast lane and the slower clerk at the store. Even the turbaned guy with the gun, and the kid in the bush with the empty belly! So Jesus wants to know. Is What’s In It For Me the way you wanna go?

You could go this way: IT’S NOT MY PROBLEM. That’s the priest and the Levite’s way. It’s why for 14 yrs., most major news services have maintained a special Apathy file! ‘Not my problem. This is not the sole refuge of uncaring people. Or bad or mean, or selfish ones. We are not immune. We are at risk! The priest & Levite offend us, not with badness, but with unemployed kindness and misplaced priorities. The urgent: their meeting, their schedule; their next duty or clean clothes crowd out the important: to love kindness, do justice, walk humbly (meaning, to put others 1^st). This lesson’s so familiar. I’m not going far with it. But I do observe 2 things. #1. What bugs us in the priest/Levite is that they know better! We expect better of them. So does God! And #2, the point is they are us [sic.]; we are them [sic.]. I know! Repeatedly sermons prepped on this theme are interrupted. Somebody @ our door needs help. THIS IS A TEST. HAD THIS BEEN AN ACTUAL ALERT…! Do I go or stay, write or turn away. Sure enough, 7 AM writing day for this, doorbell! Ahhh! I’ve both passed & flunked over the years. You? Jesus asks, what way will you go?

What way, indeed? Surely we trust the Camp Hopers will take the Samaritan way…. go to them (the wounded), bind them, pour on the oil and wine; lift and care for them. Well, that’s 24 of us! What about the rest of us?  What way will you go?  The Samaritan question is always and ever, “WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP, NOW?” Heroism is not required, just a right heart! Spectacular is not required, just specific. (I had a grieving friend once who constantly received his friends’ remarks, “If you need any help; if there’s anything I can do, just call.” He termed this, “Slow death by good intention.” He urged, “If you wanna help, just do. Quickly, quietly. specifically. Need is an alarm clock, not a watch. When it goes off, don’t wait. Push the button! Act!)

Three ways: What’s in it for me; it’s not my problem; how can I help, NOW? … You’ve heard of these as often as you’ve heard of the Samaritan. GET THIS. THERE’S A FOURTH WAY. “WON’T YOU HELP, NOW, TOO?” Don’t miss the rest/best of Jesus’ story.  The next day he invited the innkeeper into the Holy Circle of Help, saying, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay.”  We can choose this way, too. ‘Always looking to expand the circle. It is not to burden others but to bless them. Maybe the best way to offer Christ is to invite someone to act like him. “Won’t you help, now, too?” Let this be our way. And everyone we invite will hear the promise we hear. It’s Jesus saying, “Take care of him/them/all of them; and whatever more you spend (body and soul), I will repay you when I come back.” He will. I know he will. In the meantime, Jesus wants to know, what way will you go?

Oh, I imagine lots of us could say amen. Now here’s m’ next question. How many of us could say we’ve spent some time in the furnace? The fiery furnace! What was it [that] put you there? Doubt. Pain. Illness or diagnosis. ‘Some decision or dilemma. ‘Some urge to act or speak up, shut down by some need to stay quiet and take the safer course? Could it be your faith that licks like flames on the feet of your soul, convicted you need to bear a witness, but cowering at the thought, or in the moment? Hmmm… how many of us have been taught that silence is golden? Just as I thought: Scripture has something to say to that. Often, for God’s sake, for Christ’s sake… our silence is nothing more (or less) than fool’s gold! Our lessons today bear bold testimony that it’s time to speak up! ‘That the world can’t wait for us to speak, in the name and for the cause of Christ.

Three names we know (at least some of us). One, nobody knows, and yet he speaks for us and all time.  There’s dear old Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The Bible’s original Three Amigos. Then there’s the centurion, at the foot of the cross. ‘His name long gone. His word, out there on the wind, forever and ever. The amigos are Jews. Jews carrying out the business of overseeing other Jews in a foreign land, or under occupation. It’s a role played over and over, into modern times. Some might have thought them collaborators! Apparently not. They’ve done what was right for their people in God’s eyes. But that’s never alright with the man who would be king, Nebuchadnezzar. It never is. “These men, O king, pay no heed to you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.” Result: a furious royal rage. “Stoke up the furnace, Stanley, 7X hotter than hot!” (Ain’t that always the way?!) The other soul-to-sample today, belongs to the Captain of the guard. The centurion who sacrificed Jesus. ‘For much the same crime: failure to worship the idols of the day. ‘Insistence on “a more excellent way.” Well, it’s the centurion who gets it. And says it at the cross. THIS is God’s Son. Four souls, one commonality. Because the world can’t wait, they speak up, for heaven’s sake!

O, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. ‘Wouldn’t bow down to the petty princes and insistent idols of their ancient day. And for that, it’s into the oven, the MACROwave oven, 7X higher than high! But there’s a problem. A surprising problem. Not their problem but the king’s problem. Lookin’ into that Babylonian barbeque pit, he sees four figures loose. Unhurt. And the extra one looks a lot like a heavenly helper. Well anybody knows you can’t toast God! So out they come, spared becoming spare ribs! Hallelujah! Daniel goes on to say: even the king comes to praise God! Now I ask you. How is it we know this story? Was it only by Nebuchadnezzar’s decree? Shucks, he made many decrees! How many of his others do you know? (I got time. Just list’m!) Ahh, we are silent, but  S/M/A were not. We know because of what they told! …See, when the world presses in, everybody wants to know. “Is there anyone who will come to be with me in the heat and flame of that fiery furnace?!

Let there be a witness, even you and I dare to tell our testimony, and you’d be amazed at how many will come into the company of our God! Why Nebuchadnezzar himself will acknowledge God as the Most High! So… if you’ve ever been in a fix, a pickle, the soup, or the furnace… and right in the middle of it with you… you’ve seen an angel, felt the Presence, been touched by the Hand… and walked out and walked away… who(m) have you told?!

Speak up! The rest of us can’t wait! Lois can tell us! Gerry! Jim! John! Catherine! Bill and Ann, too! And somebody ask Traci & Ali about “another day in Paradise!” There’s somebody, near you, who needs to hear about the One who’s brought you outta the furnace. ‘Just so they too can stay cool, clutch the comfort and come out of that furnace of their own!

Our world can’t wait. God in God’s Self needs us to speak up. There are more kings than Nebuchadnezzar, more powers than penned in The Book of Daniel, more idols and pretenders than we can name. They all want our worship. Our praise. Our attention, our loyalty, our surrender, yes, even our souls. But maybe as much as anything, they want our silence. They don’t want us to expose them to the light of the Light of the World. Or reveal their utter lack of saving grace. The Cordish Companies have had their day in court. Their Arundel Mills Casino is a “go”, or so… it seems… if we who bear witness will just keep silent now. Surely BP would prefer no one give voice to the fish of the sea or birds of their air. (Sorry, Ps. 8) If we speak up about the wrongs we may see at work, our companies are more likely to open the furnace for us than to afford us a raise. Challenge a classmate about drugs, a school pal about cheating or a friend on facebook about what they reveal. Which is more likely: thank you or forget you?! “Shhh” has always been the devil’s desire for us. And that’s before we get to the great big things like war and peace, unnecessary hunger, undeserved illness and gratuitous suffering. I am reminded of powerful words from Elie Weisel. “Perhaps the first sin is to be indifferent to someone else’s hunger. For food, liberty, happiness, love, humanity itself .” [KH] For the hope to see God’s angel in the midst of their own fiery furnace! Weisel’s words would draw Jesus’ own amen, “To forget the victim is to kill twice.” This Auschwitz survivor bears a witness that is a severe mercy. “I’ve never doubted God’s existence, only his presence, his whereabouts!” O friends… in Jesus Christ, this is precisely our job, our mission. To tell God’s whereabouts! To bring and show God’s presence. To break the silence. Jesus says on the way to the cross, when implored to silence his followers, “I tell you if they were quiet, even the rocks would cry out!” I invite you in this hour to give the rocks the day off. Let’s us be the ones to speak to the furnaces, the Faithfulness of God in Jesus Christ!

Surely that brings us to the cross. And principally to Him who dies upon it, for the sins of the whole world, and for ours! He would not be silent! His last words from that place are recorded as a shout, not a whisper or a whimper! And that brings us to that anonymous centurion who said what no one else would dare. (We hardly ever stop to notice the risk in his remarkable refrain, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”) Only God knows where that soldier’d been. Traipsing the Mediterranean World in allegiance to an Emperor-god with no power to save. Inflicting punishment on behalf of the Peace of Rome that brought no peace. Wielding weapons that could kill, but not quell the will for something more. That nameless soul had many times looked into the fiery furnace, but this day, he finally saw that angel, that Son of God, face to face, with the power and the heart to bring him out, and us with him.

He could not be silent! Neither can we.

The world can’t wait. Speak up! Speak up! Speak up!

It’s OK. It’s Pentecost. It’s your birthday! And you’ve got permission to check your watch in church! Today’s the day to check your watch, watch the Time and claim the Name… of Jesus!

Do check your watch. Be sure it’s set right. Set your watch for GOD’s time. ‘Cause that’s what we’re on, now that God has poured out God’s Spirit in the name of Jesus, once crucified, yes, but now alive, and up from the grave! This day tells us. You and I are living in the days when God has busted loose! The Spirit’s broken out. And from now on, our time is not our own. We and our time alike belong to God in Jesus Christ!  Don’t miss this, we’re gathered here today to say that we’ve got a new agenda. Check your watch. It’s never too early or too late to be called as a servant of Christ. In every service here today, somebody’s sayin’ count me in. It’s my time to follow Jesus.  IS THIS YOUR TIME? The youngest of us, a babe in arms, less than a year old. The eldest 94! One way or other, with starts and stops along the way, we’ve come from around the corner; from Ghana, Australia, China, Germany; from North Carolina, North Dakota, and back from Zimbabwe!

And today we’re here as they were there, way back in Jerusalem, all speaking one language, in fact one name: Jesus, Jesus, JESUS! Check your watch! Is this your moment? Never too early or late! I’m reminded of a line from Dag Hammarskjöld’s journal, Markings. Pentecost, he writes. Then, “I do not remember who or what put the question. I do not even remember when it was put. I only know that at some moment I did answer yes [to something or someone] and from that moment on my life, in surrender has a goal, a meaning!” [Q fr. mem.] Jesus is asking. Is this your moment? Check your watch. Note the time!

Watch the time! Peter did. When the folks thought these believers were into spirits, shall we say, & I don’t mean holy, Peter knew it was his time. Finally, 3 denials & a run to the empty tomb later; after seeing Jesus raised, even heaven-returned: Peter finally got it! “It’s my time to speak up for Jesus! I dare not miss my chance! It’s barely noon. This isn’t Happy Hour! It’s God’s promise come true. God, pouring out the Spirit! Time for prophesies, visions, dreams!”

What Peter learned on Pentecost, we need to. No time to waste. Do not waste or overlook any opportunity to spread the word. People all over are hungry. Souls and stomachs alike. Our job’s to make any time, every hour, supper time! [“Nancy” can barely hear. But when we asked 20 folks Friday, “What brings you to church, why come?” she spoke up 1^st. “To help others,” she said, “and help them know/see Jesus!” Nancy gets it!] Don’t you miss it. Watch the time! Waste none. Tell every child and youth. “You belong to God. Your very body, God’s temple. Be careful what you do with it!” It’s urgent. Outta-work folks (& we got ‘em) need to know they’re not outta God’s sight. 2/3’s of our neighbors in 5 miles: no church, some, no faith. Miss no chance. It’s time! 1 new member young mom said she found us this way. “I saw all those folks on the lawn 1 Sunday, and all the kids. And I knew. That’s where I want our family!” And you thought it was just a picnic! Not! All we do is a witness. And that’s before we reach out to the wider world. Watch the time! Peter did. Don’t miss your chance to be a Christ-ian, a Little Christ. That’s what it means. And you’ve signed on!

It’s time. Claim the name. Always make clear to whom you belong. After all, you’ve seen the Son…. And so you’ve seen the Father! This is our experience. It’s our claim. It’s our call. O, we mighta heard it in contemporary language, but it is what Peter said and saw, “Heaven and all-hell breakin’ loose in our day! Right before our eyes. The sun, dark; the moon blood red. Ours is a time of God’s revealing.” And we have good news. “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Let what was said then be said now. Here. Today. “Those who received his word were baptized. Many the souls, added to Christ. And they devoted themselves to The Teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers.  And awe came upon every soul; and many wonders and signs were done through them.”

… Check your watch, watch the time, claim The Name.

Mom might kickoff the conversation like this. “Mr. Moses, thanks for driving today. I just love what you do with the traffic! [Part.] But you might wanna learn to use the GPS. I hear you’re prone to wander. And I just don’t have 40 years to pick up the kids, get granny to the doctor, get to the store and cleaners.” Some silence follows. Mom’s getting impatient, really perturbed. Her head turns from left to right on the front seat. There sits Jesus. “Lord,” she says, “Carest Thou not if we perish; how canst Thou fall asleep?” The Lord notices, “Nobody talks like that anymore. Besides, I’ve already heard this complaint. (That time, I was boating.)” He looks out at the traffic. He utters “Peace, be still!” Horns stop; aggressive drivers signal their turns. Trucks head for the right lane. YES! But Mom, Mom’s still not happy. And even Moses and Jesus both learned long ago, when mama ain’t happy….

Brace yourself. On behalf of moms everywhere, and grannies, sisters, aunts, wives, and women who just care for others as women are prone to do… this mom really opens up! “Holy Moses! Sweet Jesus! Let me tell you what’s really on my mind. I love everyone I love. I love loving/doing for them. I try to live by your commands, Moses. I teach them, too. And Lord, Lord Jesus, I try to follow your example. ‘Do as I do,’ you say. ‘Be perfect, like your Father in heaven,’ you say. Well, I’m tryin’. But I’m tired, and sometimes don’t get it. So many take advantage. And bad things still happen all around us, and even to the loves of my life. It hurts when I get ignored. The kids make me mad. ‘No respect! There’s that guy in my life who just wants to watch the ballgame. I worry, especially when my prayers seem to go unanswered. Still, I’m proud of those I love and want to protect. I’m hopeful. Afterall, ‘I am woman, hear me roar!’ I belong to you both, and to God. I know. I thank God every day.”

Whew! So, Ma, tell us what you really feel, Moses and Jesus must be thinkin’. Moses doesn’t want to be a distracted driver. He pulls off 695, Exit 18B, lookin’ for a place to pull over. It’s just a couple blocks to Little Vinny’s Tatoo Parlor. Moses pulls in, turns the key, turns to Mom. Jesus lets Moses speak first. (That IS his habit.) “My Dear,” he says to Mom, “About those Commandments. I’m glad you honor and teach them. But you got stuff to learn. They’re all for you! Not just Mother’s Day’s #5, honor your mother and father. Go to Exodus 20 [now] any time. Read it to the kiddies and the guy on the sofa (just commandeer the clicker now and then)! Take the 1^st 2. God 1^st, no knock offs or cheap imitations. Talk about your priorities. Your identity. Get it straight and help your loved ones to. Nothing else is more important than God and good. Whenever you think this would be good, remember good is just an adjective (a describing word) for God. Know and teach: if God is not in it, good is not! And ditch the no graven image thing as little stone idols. It’s about makin’ anything, even your own image a substitute for God. And that includes your own body, and especially your daughter’s. Teach your girls. Don’t desire to be worshipped like a goddess. 1 God’s enough, and you’re not ever gonna be it! Good/God on the inside’s always the main attraction! Remember, teach. God’s-name-in-vain is out. Your words are God’s breath. Don’t waste God’s breath on words you’ll wanna take back! Oh, take the Sabbath off. Take a day for you and God. (They say Sundays are good.) It’s not that this is a rule. It’s a blessing. Practice and teach. Sabbath sets us apart. That’s what holy means, set apart. Ignore it and we lose track of what we’re workin’ for!  Sabbath tells us where we came from, and are headed. Rest and praise-time pull us toward freedom in the tug-of-war with needs. God-Time pulls us from the lies that tempt, and the temptations that lie.

And as for honor…” Right about here, mom’s head’s swimmin’. and Jesus would like a little equal time. “Excuse me, Moses.” Mom turns to Jesus. (‘Always a good move!) “A mom story’d help.”

“This Canaanite woman, a non-believer came begging me, ‘Have mercy, Lord, my daughter’s possessed!’ I said not a word. My friends begged, ‘Send her away. She’s bugging us.’ I told her, ‘My job’s with Israel!’ She begged me. I said. ‘It’s not fair to give you what’s meant for others. You wouldn’t take from your daughter for your dog! She said, ‘True, but I’d make sure he got the scraps. I’m not askin’ much!’ I said, ‘Madame, what faith! So be it!’ Her daughter was healed instantly.” There in the car, Mom spoke what we often think. (Moms do that!) “Jesus, thanks, but  I don’t get it!”

Our Lord looked Mom squarely in the eye. “Well, Mom, it’s like this. You too live with folks you love. You try to be perfect, just like that storied mom. But whereas you think that means unflawed, she knew it means complete, single-minded for love’s sake. That’s my desire! She knew trust makes all the difference, and all things possible. Do you? [Do we?] O, she was as tired as you. Every caregiver gets put upon and put down. (Her! You!) Don’t think she-and-her-daughter didn’t have it out now-&-then. Troubled loved ones always give us trouble. We who love deepest absorb hurt most often and deeply. She strove as hard to be good/mom as you. ‘To keep Moses’ commands and mine. She couldn’t imagine why that didn’t keep her and hers from evil, hurt and harm. But doing good and doing right are not to keep you from evil, but to keep you from doing evil… or missing the moment to do good. To do God! Do not worry that your prayers seem unheard. Just don’t leave God’s prayers undone! Do no harm. Do all the good you can. Stay in love with God every way and day you can. [JW] And your worry will turn to wonder, and God will take you and yours to heart, held in the hollow of God’s own hand!

No more waiting. What a healing!”

Well, time to start the car. Back on 695. Mom agrees to drive. Jesus navigates. (Moses wonders at how straight is the Beltway, and how well marked the exits. If only it had been like that on the Sinai Parkway!) He looks at Mom behind the wheel. She’s got it, he muses. To be honored, is to honor those who made us, our own mothers and dads. ‘And the One who made them. The Holy One. It’s to know and be who we are, and were made and molded to be. Set apart. Directed. Good. Of God! Loved. Answered. Answering. Helping. Hoping. Not perfect, just whole! HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, ALL!

Peter. Peter could have said amen! OK, there was that courtyard appearance while Christ was in the courtroom. Peter’s denials. 1ce. 2ce, 3X! (I do not know the man!) But he was the 1^st to call Jesus the Christ. He was, the Rock! ‘A disciple first among equals. Runner to the tomb. Now, two weeks from Easter Evening, invited to breakfast with Christ-Raised-Up. If anybody coulda, Peter mighta said it to Jesus. “Lord, compared to Judas, Pilate, the soldiers or their Caesar, why shucks, Lord, I’m only a Sinner 2^nd class. For heaven’s sake, let’s have some fish. ‘No big deal!” …BUT, this isn’t how it went!

See, Peter understands the magnitude of his sin. That’s why he gets how deep is Good Friday; how high, Easter Sunday. He knows it’s not about me compared to them, but me in touch with God! Sin always calls us to look up, not look around!  True enough, Christ takes us by the hand, our advocate for mercy at the Throne of God-the-Just. But when we are seen with Christ beside us, surely the difference is plain and palpable to God! You and I, we always want to compare our best to somebody else’s worst, our sin to someone else’s. Peter knows better. He knows that God will not see his denial overshadowed by Judas’ betrayal. God will hear his “I don’t know him” insistence in the courtyard in the light of his own, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I’ll lay down my life for you,” said at the Table, just a little earlier.

Peter will come to testify to Jesus! But (as Colby Knoll puts it) there’s no testimony without a test! Peter’s had his and failed miserably. And he knows it! O, how he would love to make it right with Jesus! What about you? Is there a test in your life you have had, or keep on having? ‘Some missed chance to say and show you know and love Jesus, love God, love others? How are you doing with it? … How are you doing? O, the stories I could tell. I know of a young boy who’s mom tried so hard to teach him to tell the truth, the whole truth. In reward of his progress she sent him on winter break to a ski retreat. He wrote back. “Mom, having fun. But to tell the truth, I’m not good at this. I fell and broke a leg! ‘So glad it wasn’t mine. Love, Bob.” Bob flunked the test. I know of a soul that passed. John Braatan clued me in. An elder gent suddenly ill. Hospitalized. John visits. ‘Sees a chair at bedside and apologizes for disturbing rest. “I see you’ve already had company.” “O no, pastor, let me tell ya. I used to fall asleep at night prayin’ my prayers. A friend suggested I put a chair by my bed and imagine Jesus there listening. He promised, you know. ‘Been doin’ that ever since. ‘Makes a big difference. John was moved. 'Communed the soul and left. Later that night, he got a call, “Dad just died. Can you come?" The man’s daughter reported, “I was in the room. Dad seemed okay. I left a minute. I came back. He was gone. Strange. Somehow, he managed to turn over, stretch out, and place his hand on the chair.” First the test. Then the testimony. How’re you doin’?

Well, PETER! No excuses or weaseling. Sin’s a sin and he knows it. A test’s a test and you face it. Peter’s in need of another chance. A 1^st class grace for a 1^st class sinner. That’s the need. So. When Christ Risen tells this boatload of dejected-disciples-turned-flops-at-fishing to make their haul on the right side… and they do… Peter’s stoked! A word from John, “It’s the Lord,” and Pete’s over-the-side.

But get this! He stops to dress 1^st! Now he knows. It IS the Lord. All honor and glory! Put your glad rags on! There’s lots we could say we won’t. ‘Can’t remind Christ has readied the meal, this resurrection breakfast. ‘Needs no help. ‘But asks for their fish, of the 153, the full harvest of every kind of fish, a foreshadowing clue of fishers-of-souls who bring all the world to Christ. No, let’s not mention this. Stick with Peter. And a fresh start. A clean slate. Says Jesus 3X, “Peter, do you love me?!” 3X Peter gets to say, “Lord you know I do!” Here is the perfect proportion of grace, forgiveness. Every denial, now wiped away. Christ offers us just the same! Imagine. Better, believe! Whatever the boat you’re in, get out of it and come to the shore/the meal Jesus makes ready. And he’ll offer you exactly the portion of grace/forgiveness you need for a new, even eternal life.

1st Class forgiveness for 1^st Class sinners whose 1^st sin was believing they were only Sinners 2^nd class! What Jesus says to Peter he says to us. “If you love me, feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.” Love for Christ exceeds sentiment, is not so flimsy as a feeling. It’s not a noun but a verb! Reach the most vulnerable and least lovable. Stay with them as Christ stays with us. Let no soul hunger, no soul thirst. That’s our job! Our glory! Frederick Buechner's The Final Beast pictures a pastor begged to declare forgiveness to a deeply disturbed soul. The pastor replies, “I’ve done it.” The member replies, “But [my friend] doesn't know God has forgiven. That's the only power you have, pastor: to tell that. Not just that God forgives her [sin]. Tell her God forgives her for the faces she cannot bear to look at; for being lonely, bored, not full of joy every day in a house filled with children. Tell her: she’s forgiven whether she knows it or not! Tell her what she wants, what we all want, is true! Pastor, what on earth do you think you were ordained for?” 1st Class forgiveness for 1^st Class sinners whose 1^st sin is believing we are only Sinners 2^nd class! Let no one be hungry, or left alone for that! Feed. Tend. Share. That’s our calling. Even Peter’d say “AMEN.” What about you?

You may wonder. You may wander. You and I may seem to go and get far, far astray. We may not be able to see or find our way back. But here’s what we can promise in the light of Easter. Jesus shows up! We may wander. He does not. He stands always near at hand. Some months ago a good friend, a dear soul, a devoted believer wrote to me and asked, “How do we find our way back to him when we wander so far?” What a question! And no doubt there’s some stuff we can do. Indeed, we can learn from the disciples. We can learn from Thomas. But we begin and end right here. Though we may wander, Jesus does not. And that is forever the key to coming home to Christ and going home to God!

Thomas is not alone in his wandering. Neither are we. Yet Jesus is with us, long before he appears to us. It’s an ultimate gift of grace!

It has taken me a long time to see this. Maybe you, too. John reports the disciples all shut up and shut in. Why? For fear’s sake! Isn’t that the way with us! And what were theirs, what are our principal fears? First that we’re alone. Abandoned. On our own. No

body cares. Second, that hope can be crucified. We fear that evil has the upper hand and death the last word. Third, we fear that in the end what we think, believe, do, doesn’t finally matter. 10 shaken men, and perhaps a compliment of women believed all this, that 1^st Easter evening. Two more had already left them. One for the rope-without-hope. (Judas was literally hung up on it.) The other, for the wandering unaccounted. We don’t know why Thomas wasn’t there. How true of us. Sometimes not even we know why we wander, from Christ, the church, our families, each other. We just do! And we can feel far, far away. But Jesus is still near! A 32 yr. old young father in another church shared this. “Ken, I lost my wife because I cheated; my job because I lied; my kids because I lashed out. I lost me because I lost my worth. Last week, at a stop light, I looked over at that big stone church. ‘With the concrete Jesus. On that concrete cross. I swear I heard him say my name. And then, ‘I’m up here for you. You.’ It was weird. But wonderful. I got it. He gave me another chance! [Thomas would understand!] If he can get down off that cross and forgive me, and get outta the grave and talk to me, I can get outta this ditch. And talk to the ones I love. And ask them to forgive, too. I can be… NEW. I’ve got a Resurrection Day.” Jesus shows up! Powerful. Personal. For you. Our Easter Jesus is present long before he appears to us! That Fri-‘til-Sunday for the 10. That Easter evening +7 for Thomas. Even through our own long nights of the soul. In the famous Les Miserables book/play, Jean Valjean gets 5 yrs. for stealing bread!  He serves 19, all downhill to the soul! He ends up at an old bishop’s home a beggar. He betrays this kind soul, steals his silverware. He’s caught. ‘Returned to the Bishop, booty in hand. Surely jail is next! But Christ is present, if not appearing. Says the Bishop (for the police’s benefit), “Glad to see you. But I gave you the candlesticks too, silver as the rest, worth 200 francs. Why didn’t you take them along with [you]?” Off the hook! Forgiveness. The doors no longer shut for fear. The bishop blesses, frees him. “My brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and I give it to God.” Resurrection! Jesus just shows up! Just like in the Upper Room. We wander. Not Jesus.

How do we find our way back? ‘By the marks and markers of the One who will show us the way! And… by standing in the midst of

those who have already seen …and believed.  Something happened to the 10 that Easter night. Granted, in their locked up, buttoned down fear Jesus just showed up. He didn’t need their permission, approval, expectation or welcome. Their hearts were as shut as their doors. John’s pretty clear on this.  But Jesus comes with two gifts. His peace. I love it! Don’t you? And I want it! ‘You? How do we get it? Just as they. Christ Risen just gives it away! He breathes on/into them! “Receive the Holy Spirit!” (Breathe) It’s just like God in the garden with Adam! We’re a NEW CREATION today. Now for the 2^nd gift. A mission (literally, missio, Lat., a sending). “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Our reason for being is now forgiveness, boundary, blessing. Be careful. Mindful. Faith-full! Forgiveness will be hard. And judgment of others a tempting test, a trial. How easy to see and squeeze hold of our neighbor’s sins, while wanting to scatter our own to the 4 winds! Retaining the other’s sins has eternal consequences for us, too. Nothing Christ says in the Upper Room cancels what he says on the hillside, “If you forgive others’ trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not, neither will your Father forgive yours.” Sobering! Maybe it’s why the 10 welcome Thomas back. Forgiving his wandering may somehow sign forgiveness for ours! Thomas senses this. ‘Keeps company with the believers. Here’s a practical, if unoriginal answer to the question, “How do we find our way back when we wander so far?” Put yourself among believers who’ve seen him risen, breathed his breath, got what you’re lookin’ for. ‘Loneliness lifted. ‘Sin forgiven. ‘Hope restored. If you want a resurrection, get with those who’ve seen One Resurrected! Then, like Thomas, lay your doubt and fear at His feet. His wounds will not be re-opened by your honest doubt. Have no fear of that. Paint your darkest desire on the palm of his hand and he’ll offer you that pierced place in his side. You’ll learn as Thomas learned. “No need, Lord. I believe.” Surely if Thomas can challenge as he does, be safe/saved, whatever your burden, it pales by comparison!

It’s about this Jesus. Risen and alive. He just: shows up! O, we may wander. He does not. ‘With us, before he appears. He comes with peace, and a mission. Forgiveness! Lost your way? Take heart. He’s not lost you! Stand with those who believe! And the Risen Jesus will guide you home!

Even death is swallowed up in victory.

No more sting. NO MORE TE(a)ARS, NO MORE TE(e)ARS!

You and I, we come to this Easter morning out of a broken, weeping world. ‘Just like Mary! Oh, to begin with, there is that backlog of botched living. The church calls that sin. We don’t really know Mary’s list exactly, any more than anybody else in this room knows yours, except for God alone. But we all got a list! ‘All that tears us apart (Paper); all that tears us up (Kleenex). Then too, there are those dislocations and ruptured relations. Kids run away, even here! Bullies don’t just badger in the Massachusetts news. They beat kids off a bike in Crofton and we are left to mourn. Mary’s not alone in her loneliness. Whatever Christ forgave in her, the part of her without friendship, warmth, companionship, confidence, even hope, we’ve got that empty part, too. Like Mary, John and Peter we live in an occupied land, foreign-army overrun. No Romans here, I know. But wars and rumors of war abound. Amazing, pirates still make the news. 7-17 year olds now hold the keys to technologies that occupy or overwhelm us. Our emperors have corporate names we carry on our charge/debit cards. Master Card and Visa put Pontius Pilate and Caesar to shame! We long to liberate our lives, just as they. So when a Savior comes to call, we sit up and take note. We lean on him as they leaned. We love him, this JESUS, as they loved. And when our time crucifies him, just as theirs did (and it surely does), we too come mourning to the grave. ‘Expecting the same tearing, death and dying we have always known. ‘Little wonder our teary-bleary eyes don’t see straight. Why, even Christ himself looks like the gardener to us. But there is news this Easter. Good news! The best of news!

Just when we’re ready to give up, give in and get outta this garden, the Risen Jesus calls us by name! He calls Mary. SHE TURNS. And everything changes! O, friends, this bright fine Easter mornin’, listen for your name. Turn around AND SEE! Nothing remains the same. Peter’s 1^st (NT) Letter’s got it right. “Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for.” Mary is ready to leave alright. Just a gimpy gardener and a hollow tomb, all that remain for her hope. But then he calls and she turns. And suddenly, neither tears nor tears…. The run-up to Easter always places me in Mary-moments where changing direction makes all the difference. An elder saint on a bed of confusion looks up at me in a brief clear moment. “I just can’t keep anything straight. I don’t know where I am or why I’m here. It’s like by brain’s hollow.” Now, listen for the turning. A shaky hand finds and clutches a cross around the neck. He’s alive again. On Jesus’ behalf, I speak a name. This sorrowing face looks up and says, “At least I know who’s with me.” Here is SEEING! Resurrection! A battling couple can’t even speak to each other. (Not you, that other couple!) They’ll talk to me, just not each other. But, finally one of them stops the himming and herring, TURNS and calls the other by name. The anger melts a little. The hurt eases. Hope happens. It’s like Christ himself has said your name! Resurrection becomes real. This is no dirt-digger/weed-puller/gardener; this is Jesus, alive and not dead. (I SEE.) A family mourns a loss here, weeks after the passing. Lovely words are spoken of the life. And that helps. But the loss still lingers, and no one sees clearly in this morning mist? But we name our beloved. It’s like Jesus calling us all to turn. And we do. And as Jesus is alive and real, so is the one we remember! Resurrection! This is no metaphor, no figure of speech. “If this life is our only hope in Christ, what a pity! In fact Christ has been raised from the dead, [truly] the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. …then at his coming those who belong to Christ. When everything and everyone is finally under God’s rule, Christ will take his own place, a perfect ending! … The saying will come to pass, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ (I Cor. 15, Message inspired)

“Raboni!” Mary exclaims. “Teacher!” we are told she means. But what she means to say, what she feels is nothing less than this. “It’s you! YOU! YOU, Jesus! You who once were dead are alive again, and this is everybody’s birthday! Now, only tearing and tears are born to die. Not us. Not we who believe. The prophet of the Revelation (21) sees it like this. “A new heaven and a new earth; a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” Everything’s all turned around. “The dwelling of God is with us.” We, whom God has called, turn and see. We shall be his people, and God himself will be with us; God will wipe every tear from our eyes, death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. These are ‘used to be’ things, now passed away.”

I invite you, stand up (if you can). Turn around. Everybody.

Isn’t there something back there that tears you up. (Paper)

Turn to your right. Take a look. ‘To your left. Lean forward.

Don’t you see somethin’/somebody that just makes you wanna cry? (Kleenex)

Now turn forward if you will. Look into the Resurrection Garden.

That cross there? Do you see it? On Friday Jesus was on that cross.

We who were here saw him. Big as life… or death.

Where is he now? Not there. Not in the tomb. Not dead but alive!

And so are you! And you can live with him forever.

NO MORE TE(A)ARS. NO MORE TE(e)ARS.

Dry your tears. He mends your tears.  Turn! See! Tell!

He is risen. Risen indeed!

For weeks, we’ve been on our way to Jerusalem with Jesus. On CHRISTwatch, in the CROSSwalk, so to speak. And we’ve been looking, really looking at those, like us, near to Jesus, along the way. We’ve been learning from them and their examples. Come this way. Walk by here. Don’t go there! Andrew and Peter, James and John. Matthew. (That ol’ tax collector!) Mary the Anointer, Mary Madeline. Jesus’ characters of the Godly Father, the Prodigal and Elder Sons. Now we’re down to some of those final hours. In the Garden. Gethsemane. A lonely Jesus at prayer; exhausted, distress-wearied disciples who can’t stay awake. And now. Now you can see that twisting line of torches walking out from the city gate, across the valley. Up the switch backed hillside. Closer. Ever closer. Near the head, a familiar face. It’s Judas! Iscariot. Keeper of the common purse. Treasurer: sorry Karen, Kermit, Terri. And on his lips he carries, of all things, not a curse but a kiss. A kiss, mind you. What’s he thinking?! Why would he? How could he?! But far more to the point today, could we?

Oh my! What about… Judas? There are three or four classic thoughts about Judas and that, that kiss. First, simple avarice, just plain greed gets him goin’ t’ward this awful kiss. You know the deal he makes with the authorities. 30 pieces of silver for Jesus’ head. The thought wows some, disgusts others. It might help to know. This is not a retirement account’s worth. Nor a king’s ransom. It’s the price paid for a common slave, not a Savior’s sum. It’s about a month’s wage in that day. In our day, it amounts to about 20 or 25 bucks! You gotta be quite a piece of work to sell out the Son of God for 25 bucks. You make Ebenezer Scrooge look like Mother Theresa! Maybe… this kiss puckers up on the lips of a disillusioned dreamer. Likely (from his name), Iscariot’s a zealot. ‘Attached to Jesus as the Messiah who will overthrow Rome, ‘give God’s chosen back their Israel. But Judas sees Jesus has chosen another way. “Peace, not the sword,” says Jesus. Grace not gore. Forgiveness not fear. [Matthew’s Gospel orders this whole story uniquely. Christ’s last great teaching: the Last Judgment… as you do to the least, last, lost, you do to me! Judas response: right on! Next, Jesus at Simon the Leper’s, poor man. (Illustrate.) The Lord lets a woman anoint him with oil... a sign of his coming kingship. Judas is appalled (like the 11). His heart turns. Maybe for him, Jesus has gone over to the dark side of the privileged, cf. the poor. The moment is a veritable enactment of Ps. 23 for Christ (quote). What’s next? Matthew has Judas plotting his plot and its sign, and next, approaching Jesus intent on that kiss… never delivered, by the way, at least Matthew deletes it. Hmmm.] There’s a 3^rd view. Judas pines for a revolt, not a crucifixion /  resurrection. So he plots and kisses to force Jesus’ hand. He kisses and steps back, expecting all hell (or heaven) to break loose when Jesus and the angels finally claim their kingdom! Just one more view. It’s scriptural. The Devil gets into Judas. Literally. It’s like he has no choice. It’s foreordained. He’s no match for Satan! …OK. I do remind you. God is ever on the lookout for those who will serve Heaven. But there really is another presence, on the lookout for servants of the Southern Clime! Like the rest of us, Judas will have to choose. See, neither God nor the Evil One can enter, unless we open the door! I love the line that says, “There is no latch on the outward side of the door of human heart!” (Barclay) It’s only opened from within!

Know that, you can take your choice in knowing Judas. Know this,

too, before you choose. All our thoughts of why (with Judas) bear one common thread. It is the one that ties us to him. In every case, Judas is an insistent witness to Jesus. Insistent. He insists on his own upbuilding; his own opinion of the holy Way; his own control of God and good, outlook and outcome. And his own choice of whom to admit to his heart. …Now here is the key to the message: all of this brings all of us to ask, not of Judas, but of ourselves, what about us? Jesus asks us as surely as that other disciple (who’d walked with him for years, after all, just as we), “Would you betray me with a kiss?”

Oh my! What about… us? Few of us would knowingly trade Jesus for a mere month’s wages. But we regularly insist that our security depends on our own plans and programs, efforts and associations. Greed doesn’t fit us. But we do want more in this world with little thought to the next. And when asked how we’re doing, we are far more likely to compare ourselves to those with more, not those with less. How often or how rarely do we think with Scripture, “In Christ I have all things”? Are we not disillusioned sometimes? Insistent on/in our own way? We kiss Jesus with a betrayer’s kiss when we twist his gospel to fit our inclinations! Either we make Christ a capitalist or a socialist, a “lib” or a “winger”, a condemner or a condoner. It’s amazing how the gospels seem to say what we think, and history, holy or otherwise, is headed where we wanna go! It’s as though we approach him with a pucker, crucify him with kindness, follow him with false motives day after day. Give me mercy, Lord; give ME mercy! Old Iscariot is not alone in desiring to force Christ’s hand and arrange God’s outcomes. In our homes we’re always trying to change our partners instead of love them! With our kids, we overschedule them with activities, gorge them with gadgets and program them with propositions to get them to be what we dream, with scant discipline to help them discern what God made them to be and where Christ bids them to walk. (E. g., Mother Church here has not been pregnant with souls into full time Christian service in a long time.) And who here has not answered the door of their heart with intent to let in some ungodly presence. Who hasn’t asked, “Whatever got into me?” on the web, at work, over the phone, in the meeting… and not known… I answered to the wrong knock. I insisted on my own way. I would have stolen a kiss with Christ, but instead, welcomed the wrong Presence in the garden.

Judas remains a caution. Beware.

Insistent witnesses still give betraying kisses!

Get near Jesus. Get near him, and who-you-are will come clear. To you, and to everybody else. You move from misunderstood to Miss (or Mr.) UNDERSTOOD. And you get to understand. Did you hear the story? Here’s Jesus on his way to Jerusalem and the cross. He gets an invite. Come and dine with an important soul. He does. It’s a big party. The host is such a big cheese, he doesn’t greet Jesus at the door himself, shake his hand, escort him to table, or see to it he has napkin, knife or fork. BUMMER! Now when guys like this throw a party in Jesus’ day, everybody shows, just to be near the important host and his most important guests. One such nobody, a woman, comes. It seems she knows Jesus. ‘Even loves Jesus. ‘Treasures Jesus. O, she knows: she didn’t measure up to him. Who does? She can list a long list of mistakes, missed chances, messed up moments. [Her sash hadn’t many medals or patches. She was not much of a Girl Scout!]  When she puts all she isn’t beside what Jesus is, tears flow! And get this. Perfume too.

She won’t let her tears go to waste. (Sadly we often do.) No, she uses her tears to praise Christ. (Do you ever do that?) She showers his tired, road-torn feet with them. O, she knows lots she’s done has pushed her away from family, neighbors, what we’d call church. But there’s 1 symbol of connection, belonging left to her. The phial of perfume ‘round her neck. ‘Her only treasure. ‘The 1 thing that says, “‘Still a daughter of Israel.” Well she pours it all out on Jesus’ feet. And Jesus sees. Knows. Understands. All of it. Sin to sorrow. Self-surrender to faultless faith. And even before he speaks it, he forgives. And before she knows it, she is lifted/saved. She becomes for Jesus, Miss Understood, complete w/ sash & crown.

What a happy ending.

But there’s more: more mistaking, misunderstanding. Our hotshot host is standing there watching all this. He’s sayin’ to himself, I’m better, she’s worse. If only you knew, Jesus; if only you knew. [We say that, too. I’m better (than somebody) Jesus. Love me better. Love me best.] Hmph! He knows… and always better than we. To his host he says, “You gave me no kiss; she hasn’t ceased kissing. You did nothing to show me your special friend, she has bathed me in blessing, down to my toes. She sees her sins; yours are hidden to you. Do you see this woman?” ‘Really see her? She’s loved much and is pardoned much. YOU are ‘0 for 2’. I understand you both. And I see you as you are, and might become.” Is that good news or bad news, should Jesus say the same to you? You decide. Do you get a sash and crown, when an understanding Jesus comes around?

I’m fascinated. I’m hoping you’ll be at least a little interested. Despite the fact this woman is unnamed, the centuries want to make her Mary Magdalene. Her name appears just verses later. ‘The woman whose 7 demons Jesus cast out. The demons are never named. But the centuries have supplied a ready, endless, merciless list of suggestions for this lady. In fact, they have said she was no kinda lady at all. Scripture never says that! But we have, and do. Scripture does says Jesus heals and forgives Mary. Sad! We do not! Whom we misunderstand, Jesus crowns Miss Understood. Now there will be/are Girl Scouts here today. I can only wonder how we will treat them; and they, themselves, and each other. We put magazines in front of them that make weight, blemishes, freckles, height (+/-) and curves (+/-) demons by the dozen. We tell them to or let them text their feelings, and clobber them when they do. We drive them to picture their most private outsides to each other and prosecute them when they do. But we do not, as a whole people, attend their insides so closely as to know and correct their confusions. Nor do we faithfully nurture their confessions of faith. Literally, thank God for the Scout Group and the Youth Group and the Sunday School classes that can answer yes, should Jesus ask us, “Do you see this woman?” How I weep for God, whom some of these and other young women will have difficulty calling “Father.” Why, because we dads (and I’m in that union) have sometimes let them down. The worst, abuse in word or act. More ignore. Some don’t try to understand. We are remote sometimes, unkind, not tender. Yet it is from us more than any that they will learn what to hope/expect/demand in a life-partner and as co-parents to their children. We can do better.

Ooo… how I thank God there’s an antidote. To me. To menfolk, our culture, our families, our every goof-up with these children/all God’s children. This sister-of-the-perfumed-praise knows. The Magdalene knows. I hope we will help each other know. It is Jesus. I believe that unnamed woman follows him. Mary does, as we have read, all the way to the cross. Because Jesus understands her, she comes to understand, from this world to the next. Miss UNDERSTOOD, she. Her sash has one badge only. Jesus calls her by name in the Garden of the Resurrection. Her crown, she is the first to tell, “He is risen!”  You and I can bear the same crown with the very same word!

Gracious, this message seems to have begun at a table, passed by a cross, and come to a garden. May the same be true for each of us. Perhaps it’s a matter of understanding. A holy matter. God understands, in Jesus Christ. And so can we. We can take a step, like those who followed long ago, just by coming to table here today. A loaf and a cup, the promise of a sash and a crown!

You can only imagine what a glory it will be!

James and John were alot like us. And alot like each other (but also different).  They knew what they knew when they knew it. (Us too.) They knew about people and things in advance. So they could pre-judge. (Today we call this prejudiced. ‘For good or ill!)  Oh, they could be patient. (Fishing.) But too quick, too. ‘Kinda knee-jerk. Who here's never been that? Oh, they tried to be good, right, true, faithful. But they wanted their own way, their own place, even in the heart of Jesus. Ambitious, we’d say. We oughta know. ‘Been there. ‘Done that. But in the company of Christ, all of this got changed around, converted, transformed. Lightning struck. Thunder rolled. So much so, Jesus changed they’re name, Zebedee to BOANERGES, Sons of Thunder. And – they – were – thunderstruck! How I hope our day’s comin’, too. And just like this. Consider…

JAMES. The elder. That was his place. Jesus gave him a new one. He was never the same! Walk with Jesus and we won’t be either. O, James wasn’t poverty–stricken, any more than we. Papa had a good FISH business. The Bible tells us he hired managers. He had 2 houses, 1 on the water, 1 at Jerusalem. James learned his Bible & tradition. He knew: my people, the chosen! Others are the less. So when Jesus heads for Jerusalem through Samaria, hated of the Jews, and they refuse, James notes: ‘Told ya. They’ll never change!

Pre-justice, prejudice! It’s like that time when some fella, not 1 of the 12 got to casting out demons in Jesus’ name. The 12 freaked! James also. Jesus had to rebuke them and remind, “Those not against us are for us!” Knee-jerk! (‘You ever write that hot email, hit send, then think 2ce? Or say the mean thing to the slow store clerk? ‘Blast the teacher, then learn the dog didn’t eat Johnny’s homework? Ever zing your beloved, belittle the boss, and want it back?) Well then you might get the scene when James and his brother thunder, “Lord, since these Samaritans have put you down, do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?” Jesus has to give them THE LOOK! (I know you know the look. Your mamma likely borrowed it from Jesus. You ‘been rebuked!) Ah, dear elder brother James, accustomed to his place. To this day, a certain privilege applies. And an ambition to keep and extend it! It’s tough to turn from. So despite 3 years with Jesus, even near the end, it’s not hard to see. ‘James, egging on little brother John, to go to Jesus and ask, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” This time, the look’s not enough. Jesus lifts the cup. [@ hand] “Can you drink this?” He asks, “Do you wanna be bathed/baptized with me in the (blood)bath/baptism that’s comin?”

Here’s a shocker. He’s still askin’. ‘Still askin’ even us. Be careful how you answer. You might get your way. James and John did. It cost them everything (more about that shortly). And it gave them the only thing that really matters. Are you able? …Are you able?

Thunderstruck by Jesus! That was John, the brother of James. Now everyone knows: nothing follows lightning so closely as thunder. That was John, the disciple “whom Jesus loved.” If Peter was the thunder off one hill when the Christlight flashed lightning, John was the answering thunder from the neighboring hillside! John. Yes, he shared the flaws of his brother, James (and added his own). But there was so much to love about John. (James too, in fairness.) And Jesus loved them both dearly. John: convert of the Baptist, disciple of Jesus, witness from the calling of the 12 to the mount where Moses and Elijah point Jesus to the cross. John: in the Garden, invited to pray with Jesus. ‘At the cross, witness to suffering, racer to the Easter tomb with Peter. Evangelist, too humble to write his own name in his own Gospel. 70 yrs., apostle of Christ. ‘Seer of Jesus in majesty, the church in reality, the world lost in hostility, God’s eternity wrapped in Christ’s glory. But once upon a time, John was willing to wrestle with Jesus over going to the cross. And bar the little ones and the seekers from tired Jesus’ side. And light up the hillside with the ashes of Jesus’ rejecters, and connive for advantage, even his mom had to do his bidding. Ooo, this disciple whom Jesus loved was as wrapped in contradiction and enveloped in potential as, well, you and me! You know what redeemed him, with Jesus, with God? HIS STEADFASTNESS. His in-it-to-the-end heart. His NEVERTHELESS love. His let-me-try-this-like-Jesus-does-it spirit. His sheer capacity to absorb what he witnessed and felt of Jesus, then reflect it without getting in his own way. These two capacities, for frailty and faithfulness not only stand in the light of Jesus, they shine his light on us. They call out for our answer, like a flashing sky scours the hills for a thunderstruck reply. Are you able to drink from my cup. bathe in my baptism?

Friends, be anything but quick with your answer. Neither inflate your self by your yes, nor deflate God’s-power-and-grace in Christ Jesus with your no. You might just be astonished, should you walk with Jesus, upward toward Jerusalem. Afterall, the Zebedee boys turned out thunderstruck, because of themselves, and in spite of themselves. Once they were certain of everything, but at last, they became certain of only one thing. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten.” Once, they would act on sheer instinct. But Christ taught them the mercy of “on second thought” and the grace of the second of second of second chances. (They learned to give as they received.) They achieved the grace that stops asking for God to make a place for them at the top. They learned that nothing can top the place God has made for each of us at the side… the side of Jesus. Are you able? they were asked. Hmmm. Are YOU able? Am I? James would end up the second great martyr of the church, behind only Stephen. At the flash of the Herod [Agrippa]’s Sword, he would shine Jesus’ light and thunder his name. John’s was a different thunder, not a clap, but a rolling… the longest of any of the 12. A Gospel, great letters, a Revelation bear his name. All because the Lord who set his face toward Jerusalem, set his heart on these, and the likes of these, even down to us. He still invites us to walk uphill with him. And he still listens, waiting to hear thunder in his name.

THAT’S where you’re goin’!

Believers on a journey, Scouts on a hike, just-folks in a hurry,

we all need to know!

So if you wanna follow Jesus, even to the end,

you gotta get your heart right, and your head, too.

Consider… the Johnson boys!

You know the Johnson boys, don’t you? Drew and Rocky? Both Scouts. Eagles all the way. Like so many brothers (and sisters) amazingly different. But (as we say) tarred with the same stick. Drew, driven by what he set his heart on. Rocky, headstrong and determined, but warm and passionate. We can learn a lot from these two, in life and faith. …Ahh, the Johnson boys. That is, John’s sons. In Hebrew, Bar Jona. Drew, short for Andrew Bar Jona. Rocky, from the Rock, Petros, Peter, the name his friend Jesus gave the elder brother, Simon Bar Jona. You could say they were in Scout Troop #1, their Master, Jesus! Both made Eagle, best-of-the-best for Jesus, in their own distinctly different ways. One, by heart, one by head, each led to follow Jesus all the way.

The heart is the emblem of Andrew’s life. (Hmm: that’s also the badge of those who become LIFE scouts on the road to Eagle.) Now, Andrew had his heart set… on God. And the ways of God. And the hopes of God. And the love of God. So let me stop here and ask you plainly. What’s your heart set on? What’s your heart set on becoming (no matter your age or station)? Where’s your heart set on going, and taking you with it? (Any chance it leads to a hill or a cross with a Savior on it?) Let’s talk about Andrew’s heart. And where it guided his feet. ‘Could be, we might wanna go there, too. ‘Drew grew up a good scout, so to speak. Lots of us have, too, in or out of uniform. He was a devoted child to his family. ‘Worked the family business: FISH. He earned all his water merit badges. Boating. Sail mending. Fish catching. Net tending. He stayed at it ‘til grown. But that’s not where his heart was set. By & by, following his heart, he earned his hiking merit badge. He likely led several “spirit scouts” from town on a 60 mile hike to meet up with John the Baptist. John bathed Andrew in a kind of cardiology of the spirit. He placed it on Drew’s heart/soul that faith isn’t in outward forms and religious rituals. (Not in creeds, laws, stained glass or Bible class.) It’s an affair right here (gesture) with God! He learned following your heart’s not an argument but a living experience of the holy. That’s why he was so good at bringing others to Jesus and to God. [We can learn from this!] He never gave folks all the reasons they should believe.  He didn’t have to know-it-all and answer-every-question to win someone to Christ. He just said, “Come and see. Share the air. Hear the Word. Fill your heart.” The Baptist permissioned Andrew to be #2, knowing God is #1! [What that would do for me and you!] John willingly gave disciples to Jesus. Among them, Andrew, Peter, James and John. Andrew introduced Jesus to Peter, and to the Zebedees (J/J), then let his older brother have all the fame, and Christ have all the glory! It was his heart’s desire to bring others to Jesus! Who spies that lad (scout) on a hungry hill with loaves and fish and brings him to Jesus? Andrew! And 1000’s are fed. By “a good turn” from a boy scouting for God, led to Christ by a heart set on serving God. [Maybe it’s no accident. Scouts to this day live a 12 point law. You know: “thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.” Reverent, of God/for God/from God. The last point, the summary that contains the other 11…. It’s where scouting’s heart lies! What about yours?] To the last, Andrew has his heart set on heaven, even heaven on earth. Christ is on his way to the cross. Now, even non-believers are coming. “We want to see Jesus!” The 12 have never seen such a thing. So Philip goes to: Andrew! He’ll know what to do.  Andrew goes with Philip. They tell Jesus! And Jesus just knows. “This is it! The hour’s come! Crosstime and glory shine, straight ahead! So what’s ahead for you if you follow what your heart’s set on?!

There IS, of course, another brother and another way. Or at least another lead. Ask Rocky. Jesus did. Today, we’d call Peter sort of a headcase! I mean, stuff had to make sense to Peter. He was a make up your mind kinda guy! We got those folks, too. In church, scouts, family, on the job. What can Jesus do with such as these? Well, he can build on them. On us. On you! There’s a little Pete Johnson in most of us. I’ll believe it when I see it. Prove it to me. I’m gonna do it my way! You’ll never convince me, I’m as sure as I can be. We’ve all had a scout like that, a student like that to teach. Friends are like this. Husbands! (Amen?) Wives, sons, daughters, parents! (Amen?) I mean, don’t they/we seem just hopeless! Maybe not so much, when heads are turned to Jesus!

Consider Peter the elder/Eagle! The solid citizen. The one parents always hold up to younger brothers (and sisters). “Why can’t you be more like him/her.” I know that tune! You? Peter. The one dad will will the company too, even back then! First married. Houses at Bethsaida, Capernaum, maybe Jerusalem. He even lets his mother-in-law move in with him! (Such a nice boy!) It will take Jesus three calls to win Peter over. And you can imagine. Imagine how hard it was to follow when Jesus said, “You’ll have to give up everything to come along with me.” For some, that wasn’t askin’ much, they had little or nothing. But Peter, he had stuff! Still, Jesus called him his Rock! ‘Not just because he was the first to say, “You are the Christ,” but because he was warm. He had a certain touch with people. He connected with them. He was passionate. Once he got his head around something he was truly all in! ‘No weaselly ½ way about this Rocky! So God in Christ was willing to work it out with Peter. The same guy who lifts Christ also forbids him the cross. And Jesus will have to tell him to take a step back! Peter’s hallelujahs always seem to pass through a great furnace of doubts! (Dostoyevsky) Who here can relate? Boys to men, girls to women, in life and faith. Headstrong Peter will become rock ready and rock steady. He will affirm, yet deny Christ at the start. But he’ll be the Pentecost preacher who converts 100’s at Pentecost, as Andrew, proud not jealous elbows a friend, “That’s my brother!” He will say only to himself, “I got to bring him to Christ!”

Peter will open the faith to non-believers (Gentiles). We’re not here, if not for Peter! Andrew will get credit for taking Christ to Russia, the Black Sea, even Scotland! He will die on a “X” cross, 2 days to come to Christ. Peter will leave us on his own cross, upside down, saying, “I am unworthy of a cross in the same manner as my Lord!”

No matter your age, may it be your adventure to scout out God’s Kingdom in Jesus Christ. Set your heart on it! Nothing less! And if you’re headstrong, be strong in HIM, and your strength might change everything, from this world to the next!

Mountaintop to Valley Floor…

O, Friends I tell ya, we’ve been there before! (With Jesus, Jesus, Jesus)

Let Vancouver have its Olympic moment in the glory! We’ve been there too this week, and ours is a better story! Why, just consider.

No contest, I’d say. But on this Sunday when snow and games and even valentines come together, I want to remind you. There’s another Olympic experience, another hilltop high and valley low where we’d do well to go. The Gospel invites us. And Jesus leads the way. Come up this gleaming white mountain, and you go away with reassurance, direction and power-to-plow through! Who here couldn’t use that? In a blizzard? In times when our souls freeze while our courage melts? In the chilling and thawing of love for God and each other? Who wouldn’t wanna be the best of valentines for earth and heaven alike, an Olympic champ in faith and love?! …Let the rest have Vancouver, let’s us get near to Galilee.

Here are the basic elements of the story. Jesus has just confronted the disciples directly: who do you think I am. They fudge, “Well, others say…” (We do this too, we weasel around when confronted with Jesus.)… Finally Peter says, “You’re the Christ! God’s only begotten. Lord of our lives!” Yea, Peter! (Even if he does mess up and protest, “Heaven forbid” when Jesus says he’s called to the cross.) Well, about a week passes. Jesus needs a deeper word. ‘Maybe a clearer “why”. Get this. He takes the 3 closest to him up on the mountain. Now what he’ll do, he’ll do for all. But those who will see it first, understand it best, who are most ready, are these who have walked nearest, followed tightest to Jesus. They’ve already done the discipline of discipleship! Here’s our 1^st lesson.

We also need to do, to practice, to walk not just talk Jesus, if we want a glimpse of his glory sooner than later! Jesus invites. But he invites the prepared first-off. Well, on the mountain, A) Jesus is transformed; he shines-holy, radiant in glory. B) Moses appears, giver of the Law, giving Jesus blessing for the cross. Elijah, greatest of all prophets, gives Jesus the words he will need to speak. C) Peter sees how good it is to be here. (We all love the shiny times, the glory times) He wants to stay. (Us too). He’ll even build the place to stay. D) God speaks. “This is my son. Listen to him.” E) They gotta come down. There’s work to be done! Ain’t that always the way. F) Jesus heals where the disciples can’t … to show them that they can… if only they have faith!

Jesus on the mountain is an epic story of Olympic-size reassurance. Christ comes to this as a crisis moment-in-the-snow! (Never thought of that? Well, if the site is Mt. Hermon, and many think so, it may well have been snow-capped.) You and I, building-up and climbing up on mountains of our own making have been asking why all week. Why us? Why so much asked? Why now? Why so long for help? Our dilemma will melt away. Snow always does. Real suffering – not so much! [*Haiti] Much less the cross. Jesus knew the what of his calling. And he embraced it. But the why seems to trouble the very- human-side of Jesus as much as it does us. ‘Even to the garden prayer, “If it be your will, let this cup pass.” The hilltop holds back why from Jesus and from us. (E.g. believed/ff’d cf. crucified/denied) But Jesus is assured up there. Moses and Elijah point the way and empower the day. “You can do it!” they say. All things are possible. You are who you believe you are because you are who God made you to be! (Don’t you need to hear that? I do. ‘More inspiring, even Jesus did.) Such a word brings a shining to Jesus. He’s transformed. A new man! In that moment, Peter, James and John were too. I love this. When they looked up, all they saw was Jesus! What would be your list of sights to fall away… if you had eyes only for Jesus? (E.g.s… storm, roads, relationship problems, etc.) What an Olympic moment. Let Christ see only God’s will and God’s way, let us see Christ alone, and we too get to be in a good place (Peter). Why becomes less a torment and what a do-able thing. Snows may drift. We do not. We come close to Jesus, who comes close to God. And we know ourselves as valentines of Heaven.

Direction. That’s what Jesus gets up on this chill-of-a-hill. Surely we can get the same.  The Great Ones direct Jesus down the hill. And up to Jerusalem. And up that other hill to Calvary. And to the valley beyond, where a tomb lies empty, but in waiting. The Faithful Three get to hear again what echoed off the Jordan at Jesus’ baptism. “This is my son. Listen to him!” And Jesus says to them, “It’s time to go down this hill.” I don’t know what’s been buildin’ up in your life this week (besides snow, that is.) But I do know, whatever your standin’ or sittin’ on can’t last forever. (Glory and gore alike.) At some point, school does open, work does resume. Relationships do challenge. Even the Olympic Village closes down and the rivalries of nations heat up. Valentines on Sunday night become the partners we just don’t understand come Monday mornin’. We are told to go and stand in the midst of it all. And to listen to Jesus! Jesus, mind you. Jesus, who’s forever goin’ down that hill, only to encounter somebody with a need for healing! And we too are to go down, gather ‘round and reach out.

Power-to-plow through. That’s what Jesus brings to the scene he sees coming into view. The downhill disciples have labored in vain to cure a papa’s child. No go. It’s been a 5’ drift of a day, and without any traction, they! Jesus says it’s faith they need, like the F(f)ather’s in him and his in the F(f)ather! The child is healed. And when the disciples ask their lack, he says… but a mustard seed of faith will do… and anything would be possible for you… too! It is expected, but it is not trite to say. 1st, faith gives us strength for today and hope for tomorrow, as the old song says. 2^nd, the investment of that faith in others, from our loves to our neighbors is rewarded with the power to plow through. Bishop Valentine knew, languishing in jail in the 300’s AD. He could hardly imagine how he’d push through. His crime: performing marriages. It made young men want loving more than soldiering! Those who loved Valentine (for his devotion to Christ and to them) showed their support. They secreted notes to him. He wrote back when possible. Condemned to death, he wrote a final love letter to his wife Asterius, his jailor’s blind daughter. He signed simply, “Your Valentine”. We will write the same today. For 17 centuries it has been a kind of act of Olympic faith that love wins! Christlike love. Mountaintop love: reassured, heaven-directed, Christ empowered. Let today be such a day for you!

IT BECOMES CLEAR SUNDAY WON’T BE A USUAL WORSHIP DAY!

SO PERHAPS AN UNUSUAL MESSAGE IS IN ORDER.

We’ll have no time before Sunday next to think about it, so I thought I’d take this chance to give you and me a little different slant on a moment that will focus a bit of our week… coming to Valentine’s day.

I INVITE YOU TO READ I CORINTHIANS 13,

OFTEN TERMED “THE LOVE CHAPTER”

I REMIND YOU IT IS MEANT TO DESCRIBE LOVE IN THE BODY OF CHRIST, THE CHURCH, NOT JUST ROMANTIC LOVE

(DESPITE ITS FEQUENT WEDDING USE).

THEN READ THE LITTLE MESSAGE BELOW AND ASK YOURSELF

WHAT THIS SPECIAL DAY AND WEEK CAN MEAN FOR YOU…

IN JESUS CHRIST, AND FOR ALL WHOM YOU LOVE AND SERVE IN HIS NAME.

More than Hearts and Flowers

Did you know that Valentine’s Day is about much more than hearts and flowers? Have you ever heard the story of how it comes to us, or how we could make it a time to express our love and faith in Jesus Christ? Maybe it would warm us on these cold February days to share a little about these things.

‘Truth is, none of us have ever received a Happy Lupercalia card, or a box of chocolates in the name of Lupercanus! That’s because about 1700 years ago, the Romans were discouraged from continuing their February 15 festival. It honored one of their pagan gods (Lupercanus) whom they believed protected their city. Among their customs on Lupurcalia, they placed the names of eligible young women in jars. From them, the young men drew names in lottery fashion, thereby pairing off with newfound sweethearts for the year to come. Both the growing church and the Roman authorities frowned on this and tried to alter it.

Enter Emperor Claudius and Bishop Valentine. Claudius II did not want young men to marry. He wanted them for soldiers. He feared they wouldn’t want to leave their families to do battle for his empire. Bishop Valentine, however, continued to perform weddings in secret. He believed in love, but more, he believed that love for Christ and Christ’s Kingdom were more important than empire and the emperor.  When word reached Claudius, he had Valentine jailed. Tradition says that two things happened there. First, the bishop fell in love with the jailor’s blind daughter Asterius. (While in prison, he is said to have healed her in the name of Jesus.) Those who loved Valentine for his devotion to Christ and to them, those he’d married, or wanted him to, showed their support by secreting notes to him. It is said he wrote back when possible. Eventually he was condemned to death, but wrote a final love letter to Asterius that he signed, “Your Valentine”. So began the practice of sending those February cards we still sign the same way today. By 496 A.D., Pope Gelasius outlawed the old lottery. He substituted the names of saints to be drawn on Feb. 14. Their lives in Christ were to be imitated by the recipient in the year to come. This development was short lived as young men at court abandoned the saintly and began to send handwritten notes to women they admired and wished to suit. All of this pretty much brings us to the present day and those opening questions about more than hearts and flowers, and expressing our faith and love in Jesus Christ.

Why not take this Valentine’s Day as a chance to show our love for Christ and His Kingdom? Why not pattern ourselves after the one for whom the holiday is named? There was real courage in standing up to the emperor in the name of Jesus. There was a deeper love than candy and confections can show in saying, “I honor the Kingdom of Christ above every other claim upon my heart.” There was a wonderful conspiracy of love in the Christian community. It supported Valentine with notes of care and kindness in response to all the tenderness this early bishop showed. That old bishop was prepared for his end, because he knew that there is no end to the love of God. If the cross would not have the last word with the Lord Jesus Christ, then no other cruelty can have the last word for those who love and follow Him. Courage, deep love, Christian community, tender kindness, triumph of the Spirit… these are the real marks of Valentine’s Day. Way more than hearts and flowers are at hand.

*** *** ***

Now I close with word of a special Nichols-Bethel Valentine Project. It will require about 35 helpers. If you’d like to help make somebody’s day, come February 14, somebody who could really use a blessing, call the church office and ask to be a helper on the list. OR E-MAIL US AT office@nicholsbethel.org. (It won’t cost you more than a little of your time and a very modest little gift. But it will mean a great deal to someone else.) In turn, we’ll make clear our request and share how you can help. (We can’t have to many Nichols-Bethel Valentines sign up!) It will be a lovely bit of love to give in the name of Jesus Christ.

Ken

It’s an age old issue. Even Jesus knew about it. ‘Dealing with the difficult, the destructive, the dim and doggoned cuss-ed. Let me tell you about Milton. He saw a young fellow eager to open his own business. The young man got off to a great start. Soon, he needed more capital. Milton stepped in, became a “silent partner.” The young upstart poured it on at work. Things went great. ‘Good enough to take a vacation. When he returned, Milton had changed the locks and taken over the business! Young Edward went to a lawyer. Options: #1. Shut down, liquidate, sue. That would fix old Milton. But also take down customers, suppliers, many friends in business. Option #2. Walk away. Edward walked away. But he did not forget, or forgive. Now in my mind’s eye: Edward fusses to folks about Milton. Time passes. Eventually Milton calls. “Let’s lunch!” “No chance!” Days pass. Ed rehearses 100X how he’d like to tell-off Milton. He takes the lunch. But he’s polite instead. Milton apologizes for the hurt and damage he caused. He admits the business is struggling, invites Ed back. Ed accepts the apology and the invitation. Both are healed, the business made whole. Isn’t that great? …Here’s what really happened. No lunch. No reconciliation. Milton did the same thing to several other folks. All his businesses failed. And Edward became ever untrusting, or at least guarded, never got over the hurt, and the affair marked him the rest of his life. Milton, the unwanted house guest, became the unwanted tenant in his soul. I know. I saw it in my dad’s eyes for years. Now: everybody’s got their Milton: more, or less! Someone stresses you, bugs you, twists you, damages or diminishes you. How do you deal with this, this presence in your guest room?

Jesus knows about all this. (I’ve already said so.) It’s a very important part of his Sermon on the Mount. Christ catalogues a list of common suspects. And gives us sacred, but practical advice on how to cope. Difficult folks in church! 5: 23-24 … You’re altar bound, gift in hand; first, go make peace with your brother offended. OR, Difficult folks who threaten you. 25-26 Next, those who hurt you physically: bullies, abusers at home, angry parents, road-ragers. 39 Takers: of your things, money, good name, good will. 40 Fifth, Demanders: who make us do/work what is often theirs… the bad boss, leader, even friend. 42 Ahh, the Askers: by phone, doorbell or mailbox, the gimme & won’tya folks. Finally, 43-44 those Christ just calls enemies. They delight in our failures, list our faults, magnify our mistakes, dream our demise. Every leader, teacher, pastor, manager or merchant at any level knows these folks. You do too. Jesus counsels: make peace, make friends, turn the other cheek; put boundaries around anger, never fret at what you give away, meet enmity with amazing love and persecution/unfairness with passionate, unassuming prayer. Whew! Did you get all that? …Let’s go a little further, dive a little deeper.

Jesus knows where we need to grow, dealing with difficult people. He knows our gut reactions. “You’ve heard it said, ‘You shall not kill.’ I say every one who’s angry’ll be liable to judgment.” Christ knows we wanna get even, and then some. “You’ve heard it said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ I say…” The Master knows we’ve twisted Heaven’s intent. He’s not contradicting the OT, he’s explaining it. We distort the lesson like we’re obligated or justified/permissioned to “Do unto others just what they’ve done unto us.” (And then some.) In fact the Hebrew teaching counsels proportion. Don’t take a life for an eye, or a soul for a tooth. Jesus teaches, don’t use an A Bomb to ward off a gnat. And put your whole heart into every effort to clean up what’s messed up between us. You gotta do better than bring emotional paper towels to clean up relational oil spills! The starting line in dealing with difficult people hasn’t changed much since Jesus’ day. We still just want to get even. It’s the end line that Jesus wants to change. He wants us to get healthy, get peace in our souls and connection in our community. He knows we get carried away when we lash out. He wants us to get caught up in reaching out instead.

Dealing with the difficult… is difficult. Yet it’s uncomplicated. Jesus says that on the Mount. It is simple. It’s just not easy. It’s a cliché. But it’s as demanding/extraordinary as love-in-the-clinch! It involves the most radical conversion for which Christ asks. This is it. You can’t put yourself first. You can’t stay where you are and think you can move forward. You have to decide to make things better, not worse. The right-cheek-striker gets your left cheek, not your left hook. The one who wants your shirt gets your coat, too… because you gave it to him/her. You give a second mile to the one who asked/demanded one mile… when you felt you couldn’t take another step. You don’t beat the literal hell out of your enemies, you devote yourself to loving the light heaven into them! Wonder of wonders, this doesn’t deplete you, it makes your life complete!

Two examples will do. In the 90’s Hutus slaughtered Tutsis by the 1000’s. In the end 100,000 were tried for genocide. Deborah had lost her son. His murderer came to her. A young man himself, he confessed; ‘invited her to charge him, saying, “Let them deal with me as they will, I have not slept since I shot him. Every time I lie down I see you praying, and I know you are praying for me.” She said, “You are no longer an animal, but a man taking responsibility. I do not want to add death to death. But I want to restore justice by replacing the son you killed. I am asking you to become my son. When you visit me I will care for you.” Today, he remains Deborah’s son. Simple, but far from easy! Costly, but priceless.

Let’s come closer home to get the picture. B. B. Taylor writes of Will’s 1^st birthday. Presents, cake, cute. Will dancing delight, adults looking on. Finally Jason, 7, has had it. He barges into the adoring circle, shoves Will down. Will cracks his head. Will’s stunned. ‘Never known hurt like this ‘til now. ‘Whimpers. ‘Gets up.  ‘Toddles to Jason. He knows full well Jason’s been mean, his hurt undeserved. What to do, the 1 yr. old wonders. He closes in on Jason. ‘Lifts both arms, embraces Jason, lays down his head on him.

Isn’t that what God does for us with Jesus on the cross? You see, we are God’s difficult people, and he has shown us how he deals with the difficulty. He would have us do no less for each other.

The Turning Point

As the people were in expectation, and all men questioned in their hearts concerning John, whether perhaps he were the Christ, John answered them all, "I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." So, with many other exhortations, he preached good news to the people. Luke 3: 15-18

What do you expect? Really. ‘Your glass, ½ full, ½ empty? Do you expect God to make a difference in your life? Would you trust him to do it? Really? If so, you will almost certainly require a turning. ‘A turning from everything that turns you away from God and a clinging to all that turns you toward God. That old baptizer, John, was right. Somebody’s comin’! Winnowing fork in hand, to gather the wheat into his granary, and burn the chaff. ‘Comin’ to clean us up and clean us out. What are your messes? …Wouldn’t you like to be clean of them?  What twists you, from your gut to your goodness? Wouldn’t you like to come to a moment where you get straight? And who else ever asks you this, except here, in the company of Christ? Wanna new day, a clean spirit, a life untwisted and turned? At your baptism, we asked (for) you to turn aside and give up some stuff. Christ and his church still ask, as on the day you were baptized: On behalf of the whole Church, I ask you: Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin? Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves? Do you know He will help you? I do.

Hymn/Praise Response: Spirit of the Living God No. 393

The Embrace of Grace

Hear this. Christ himself once came to the waters. Why is that? Not for any sin of his own. Oh no. ‘But to admit and to show that he has waded in those same waters we do, too. Scripture says he was tempted, tried by sin. He was, as we’ll see in a moment, The Tempter’s very own personal project. But he held fast. And at the sight of it, Heaven itself opened up, and the Spirit could not be kept away, but came to him. Heaven could not be silent either. “You belong to me!” That was the Word. Luke writes:

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”  Luke 3: 21-22

Do you believe that? Really? Down deep? Jesus: God’s son. Do you get it that when he beckons with his teaching, he’s asking you to come to him? When he heals, he’s telling you you don’t need to be a broken body or spirit either. And when he stretches out on the cross he’s telling you to put it all on him. (What have you got that you need to lay at Jesus’ feet? What weighs on you only he is strong enough to bear?) Do you believe and are you brave enough to say out loud to somebody, anybody… “This Jesus, only Jesus can save me from myself, save me in the world, and save me for heaven?” His outstretched arms, the embrace of grace; his drenched face with saving droplets of the waters of life I want to glisten on my face and in my soul? At your baptism, we asked (for) you, and we ask you to renew your word today: Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races? I do. …Imagine: YOU, God’s beloved and God’s pleasure!

Hymn/Praise Response: O for a Thousand Tongues (vss. 1, 4) No. 55

The Call to Commitment

AND JESUS, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing in those days; and when they were ended, he was hungry. … And Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'"  And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.  Luke 4: 1-2; 12-13

There’s a wonderful song we sometimes sing when children or adults are baptized here. “You have put on Christ, in Christ you have been baptized.” Put on Christ and we make a commitment. To God. To each other. We agree to wrestle with all our hungers. and with every devouring instinct afoot in our world. (Remember, Jesus tells the devil himself, “Not by bread alone.”) We agree to behave without tempting God to bend the rules of earth or heaven just for us. (Cape/porch.) ‘And not to test God, bargain or barter with him like God had anything to prove to us. (God, if you’ll…. I’ll….) ON FAITH, that’s how we agree to live. And not just by ourselves, but in the smack-dab middle of a company of sinners and saints (the church). And we trust we’re fully authorized to tell the Good News of Jesus, anywhere, with any one, any time, all the time. The sign of this is the Waters/Baptism. At your baptism, we asked (for) you, and we ask you to renew your word today: Will you, according to the grace given to you, remain faithful members of Christ's holy Church and serve as Christ's ambassador in the world? I will.

Hymn/Praise Response: The Church’s One Foundation (v. 1) No. 545

…An Offering of the Heart…

Bound by Grace, Fitted for Glory

And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.” And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Acts 2: 38-42

Ahh, the Waters. They are where we begin. But not where we end. Everyone of us who has been brought to or come to the waters is bound by grace and fitted for glory! We take on a life and a light for Heaven that comes no other way. And it grows. In us. On us. Through us. Because of us. Beyond us! Listen again, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” We’re not to fit in but to stand up/out.

And then we get an extreme make over. ‘Devoted to the teaching and fellowship of faith, to holy bread-breaking and prayer.  Are you willing today? Would you like to glory in this grace, and are you willing to live in this grace that gives such glory? It will mean a certain kind of life. And a life that is kind in its certainty. When we baptize we always invite: Let us rejoice in the faithfulness of our covenant God. We give thanks for all that God has already given us. And then we seal the Bond in this way: As members of the body of Christ and in this congregation of The United Methodist Church, we will faithfully participate in the ministries of the Church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Hymn/Praise Response:  I Have Decided to Follow Jesus

Coming to the Waters to Remember Our Baptism

“Remember your baptism and be thankful.”

Come…touch the water, make the sign of the cross on your forehead; or scoop the water, let it fall back into the basin; or scoop it over your hands, or refresh your face. You may wish to come to the rail/cross, pause and allow the water to be cast in your direction at the pastors’ sign, like sprinkling with hyssop for purification (Ex. 12:22 ; Ps. 51:7) and as a sign of renewal (Ez. 36:25-26).

Closing Hymn: Go Make of All Disciples (Vss. 1, 2) No.

Consider: the earliest of church signs, set to announce the blueprint for the Savior, was nothing less than a STAR! And a star can say plenty. It can speak to the whole universe, in a way not even the best of our own signboards can, electronic or otherwise. It turns out, only a star is big enough, bright enough for such a message! And there is no star bigger or brighter than the Star of Bethlehem. Here is its message. WE BUY OLD HOUSES. We buy old houses. Surely you’ve seen smaller signs with the same message, all along the roadways, every now and then. You know the plot. Some company buys broken down old houses for a song, fixes them up ‘til they meet their full potential, then sells them at a great profit. Friends, the Bethlehem Star reveals the same blueprint for the earth, drawn by the Architect of Heaven. It tells the magi. It tells us. It tells anyone who can see from any place in the universe with the eyes to see the light. God himself is now in the business of claiming broken down old souls. Not because they deserve it. Or because they have worked for it. But just because God sees a value we do not. ‘A loveliness we cannot. ‘A value we will not. And God has a plan for renewing these houses, these souls of ours, until we meet the potential for which we were created. He’ll be working with the tired among us. (Whew.) And the discouraged. ‘Those of us who have to go back to work or school tomorrow. God’ll be leaning a little on the side of those of who are wrestling with demons. Lightly shadowy demons. And those deep-and-dark that we hide from everyone except God and our inmost selves. Oh my.

His plan is to let this star-announced child to grow up. ‘Teach the Kingdom. ‘Heal the broken. ‘Challenge the wayward and the willfully lost, too. (Which one are you?) His plan is to compress all that starlight into something the shape and size of a cross. ‘Enough to hold this Christ-child on it, attach every sin and sorrow to it, bury and resurrect that Child-of-Light through it. And in the process, the plan is to renew all of us, each of us, to what/whom we were meant to be: COMPANY for God, Kin to Christ/to one another.

Here is a life-changing, re-directing wonder! The child Jesus will speak it as the man Jesus Christ. God will give everything (that matters) to those who seem to have nothing. Ask those from here who’ve been out there (on the Katrina Gulf, at the worksites, in Zimbabwe). Imagine, the mourners (aren’t we all mourning something or someone) comforted. Those who accept what-little-they-have get to have as much as the earth can hold. No more hunger; no more thirst, body or soul! And instead of getting run over when you give mercy, now it will come back to you. The simply good-hearted will get to see the goodness of God! Those who try to quiet the hell raisers will get to hear heaven sing “hello”! If you try, just try, lifting up the Godly, and the ungodly put you down, The Good Lord’s got a switcheroo in store for you!

This is the plan. And the Carpenter’s Boy’s got the plan in hand! But here’s the thing. Once you’ve heard it… AND YOU YOURSELF HAVE HEARD IT TODAY… there are no more excuses. No more hidin’ your own light under a bushel. This boy-child, carpenter-savior says you’ve got a light in you. Don’t miss this. It’s star-borrowed, it’s just that bright. And you’re supposed to let it shine! Why? So everybody all around can see. Why? So they too can give God glory! Now let us not close without noticing. It turns out no matter how big, small, young or tall; employed, unemployed,  boring or widely enjoyed we are… there is enough light in all of us to do some shining. (So no more whining!) You matter to the plan! You matter to Christ. You matter to Christ. (Me too, even.) You and I, we have been renewed by grace! (Our souls, the old houses God has chosen to secure and restore.) You and I, the star-announced, Christ-burnished light God is counting on to restore the luster of this old world, ‘til it beams like heaven, and sings for joy at the Great Light Throne!

Sign off with Satan and tune in with heaven!

Where will you stand on the day of glory?

[…On the day that Christ is born?]

Do you hear that playin'? CD (SAY: Yes, we hear that playin'.)

Do you know who's playin'? (SAY: No, who is that playin'?)

Well, it's Gabriel, Gabriel playin'! Gabriel, Gabriel sayin'

"Will you be ready to go When I blow my horn?"

[… Over at Bethlehem where that baby’s born?]

CD

Blow, Gabriel, blow, Come on and blow, Gabriel, blow.

I've been a sinner, I've been a scamp,

But now I'm willin' to trim my lamp, So blow, Gabriel, blow.

Oh, I was low, Gabriel, low. Mighty low, Gabriel, low.

But now [should] I [come to see] the light

I’ll [be saved] that day and I’ll be [saved that] night

So blow, Gabriel, blow!

The only reason to talk about Gabriel this morning is Jesus. Sweet Jesus. Jesus coming. Snow or no snow. Darkness or light. For sinners or saints. Ready or not. Jesus is coming. ‘Coming for you. And coming for me. And Gabriel, old Gabriel is ready to sound the trumpet one more time. His message, captured so well in Cole Porter’s stirring tune, “Here's a good lesson for ya, sinners! Search your hearts! Sign off with Satan and tune in with heaven!

Where will you stand on the day of glory?” Where will you stand? Will you come to the cradle? Will you stay for the cross? Will you gather in the Resurrection Garden? Will you look up to heaven, and not just for that Stunning-Come-Christmas Star-in-the-East? Will you look up for Jesus, Christ-Coming-Again on clouds of glory?

Today, I hope we pray and say, “Blow, Gabriel, blow! Like you did for Elizabeth and Zechariah, what with John the Baptist coming to be born through them! Old. Tired of waiting. When Gabriel blew a message their way, it sounded like a thunderclap and flashed like lightening out the bell of that blessed horn. The very voice of God was in it. And everything impossible became possible. We’ve heard what Elizabeth heard. And what she said. Zechariah was literally struck dumb. But he has nine silent months to consider what to say when the angel’s promise comes to pass. Luke says, filled with the Spirit, he blesses God, who “has visited and redeemed his people. And raised up a horn of salvation for us as he spoke by his prophets. We will be saved from our enemies, and all who hate us [even from the Evil One].” Why? “To perform the mercy promised our fathers. And to remember his holy covenant. [God will be our God; and we, his people.]” What better day than today to listen again for a horn of salvation? Blow, Gabriel, blow! Tell a snow-covered people that heaven is bringing one with the power to turn scarlet sins into snow-white souls! Announce as you did so long ago. Tired spirits like ours and disappointed disciples like us can hear what you proclaim. Somebody’s comin’ who can straighten out the way. ‘Make the rough places smooth. (What are your rough places?) Oh, somebody’s comin’ who can lift up the valleys and the ditches where your life, not just your car’s slipped in (like mine did yesterday). Somebody’s comin’ who can raise us all to a wide, level plain. And best of all, ‘put us on the path to salvation, wholeness, even fellowship and friendship and kinship with God!

Five notes. One per syllable. That’s what we need to hear, just like Mary. Gabriel blowin’, “Do not be afraid!” “Do not be afraid!” “Do not be afraid!” It turns out Mary’s not the only one who has found favor with God! YOU HAVE! (Rept.) The child conceived in Mary has been conceived for you. For me. For our age and for all the ages. ‘Conceived for eternity, ‘this world and the next. A little secret. Friday night, I sat and watched the film, The Nativity. Lots of you have, or will, too. Something surprising struck me. The number of scenes of women and men wailing and weeping. At points, it’s kind of agony central in ancient Judea. I thought about it awhile. I kind of inventoried in my heart the wailing and weeping of the present day. (Hearers and readers… what agonies would you count?) For each count, Gabriel blows those same 5 notes. “Do not be afraid.” When I got up Saturday morning I asked

Beverly, “What do you hear?” She listened a moment. “Quiet,” she said. “Real, deep quiet.” In that moment, it was like God laid a pure white blanket on this anything-but-pure place, this earth, and said, “Don’t be afraid. It will be well. It’s the Most High that will overshadow you now… instead of all that stuff that’s just so, so low down!” All that, in just five solid notes, from the lips of an angel with a message from the lips of God. “You shall bear [and we shall receive] a Son. And like Mary, we too will call the child Jesus!

Blow, Gabriel, blow! In a musical, it makes us want to tap our feet. In real life, it does much more. Mary first sinks to her knees. If Gabriel blows for you, by all means, answer from your knees! “Let it be to me according to your word,” she prays. For Christmas’ sake, and your own, if you hear that trumpet sound, dare to answer in the same way. But listen and look what happens next. “Mary arose in haste and went up into the hill country, to Zechariah and Elizabeth.” She stopped looking within, at her own wants and fears. She gave up looking around to see what everyone else would think as she embraced what God announced by his angel. And she began to climb higher. Not just in altitude but in attitude. It’s five days ‘til Christ is born, yet again. ‘Still time for you to quit your habit/sin of making the world revolve around you. ‘Still time to stop asking what the rest may think. ‘Still time to start lookin’ and climbin’ upward, Christward, Godward. Mary went up. And then she settled-in awhile, with those who were expecting a miracle… just like Mary was. Five days left. Five notes linger on the air. With whom will you wait? I’d say… get close to somebody expectin’ a miracle… like a child in a manger, a Savior and king!

Oh, I was low, Gabriel, low. Mighty low, Gabriel, low.

But now [should] I [come to see] the light

I’ll [be saved] that day and I’ll be [saved that] night

So blow, Gabriel, blow!

Note I. The Christmas Angel bears tidings of a world turned upside down. I mean, do you have dreams? Mary did. Wedding dreams. Are you makin’ plans? She was. Are you doin’ your best to serve God? But… are you holdin’ some stuff back? If scratched deeply, come Christmas, are you hopin’ for at least a little personal payoff in exchange for Christmas worship? I poled about 25 NB folks about this, in classes or by phone. Asked, “What do you want/need for Christmas, answers included Christ himself, peace, love, healing (others). These were out-poled 3/1 by happiness, my health, family, security, specific items. Mary may not have had a store or online site on which to “register” for her wedding, but she’d know the feeling. Enter Gabriel. ‘Not to be mistaken for any of the TV prophets of profit. ‘Or local pastors who suggest a righteous life or a heavy tithe is a ticket-to-ride, not the Polar but the Excess Express!

Mary gets a comfort first, “No fear! God’s on your side!” Whew! Her first thought was of the jealous angel who comes to slay your groom by the wedding night. (Tobit) This is not that! So far so good. Next, “Unwed, you’ll conceive a son by the Holy Spirit! He’ll be great, rule like David, but forever!” Mary’s not just a confused virgin. She knows women can be stoned (with rocks!) for this! If Mary’s to be in on this, she’ll have to be all in. Starting with Joseph,

ending at the cross. Who would choose that? Mary does, with the clear knowing that this, of all things, will be a Wonderful Life. Sorry, Jimmy Stewart and Co., at best you’re the 2^nd edition of the drama. More about that shortly. For now, I just want to ask. Are you up for this kind of Christmas? Here’s a way to check. What’s your favorite Christmas hymn? Favorite line? I’m a Joy to the World guy. Who doesn’t love the line, “No more may sin and sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground”? I love it. ‘Til I see it’s my sins goin’, not just my neighbor’s? Even: my favorites! What kind of good news is this? I wonder. Mary too. And I hope you do. There’s no joy in a savior where we don’t know we need to be saved from sin, saved by Another, not by ourselves; we are not in charge. We are not saved for a life of stuff and status, but a life of wonder we wonder about in many ways, until we die. Upside down, this word!

Take another note. #2! Mary found a very different wonder than she wanted. Us too. What a list we could name, but won’t. Nine more months engaged. That L/D room: a stable. Losing her son at 12. At 30 he’s late for a wedding. Doin’ such things she fears for him, teaching that would kill him, healing that strikes fear in hearts, his rejection when she pursues him. The Hill. That last hill. Or was it? O, if we had time…. But when the angel announces, all she says is, “All in! Let it be with me according to your word.” Impossible? Oh, no. Gabriel himself insists, “With God nothing will be impossible.” Because Mary really believed that, a Wonderful, Wonder-fill life was hers. If you want the keys to a Wonderful Life, in Mary’s way, go to the back of the line! Overacted, schmaltzy, cliché it may be, but the easiest holiday example of them all may still be It’s a Wonderful Life. Poor George. Every glory: denied him. From college to war hero, prominent provider to trusted banker. He’s Bible Job, Hannah, Jeremiah, Mary all rolled into one. “Better I’d not have lived!” he says. He even gets Clarence, not Gabriel as his angel. But he is shown that faithfulness is a wonder all its own.  He learns what they used to whisper in the Roman Emperor’s ear, parading back from conquest. “All glory is fleeting!” George quietly saves his war-hero brother, houses his town, saves a family from poison, fends off Mr. Potter, meanest man in Bedford Falls.” In the end he looks on himself and concludes, “It’s a Wonderful Life!” In simple service and trusting faith, Gabriel himself, and Mary with him invite us to be all in! I can’t promise you what you want or believe you need. But I can promise a Savior, a world upside-down, sin relieved. ‘And in an angel’s word and a maiden’s choice, a wonder-filled life, unexpected but unequaled.