Moses puts a choice before the people as he stands looking back into the wilderness from which they have traveled and they stand, on the bank of the River Jordon, looking past him into the Promised Land. It’s an incredibly poignant moment. He is about to be taken from them, and they will wait for many generations until his true successor, the Lord’s Anointed Messiah is revealed to them.
Moses makes it clear what is at stake. The nation is being asked to choose between life and death. They are asked to choose to follow what they have learned in the wilderness, or to forget the experience of living a life totally dependent on God’s provision and care, and to strike out on their own to make a life for themselves in a way that will ultimately lead to their death.
Choose what? Why?
But what exactly is it that they are being asked to choose? As I read this, it is the same choice that Lewis points out is often at the core of what we struggle with in this modern world. It is a choice between living a life of relationship and faith, and a life of control and domination.
The direct link to the sermon video is found here.
The Reign of God is not like the Kingdoms we know on Earth. God’s Reign, proclaimed by Jesus is not based on retribution and extravagant violence like the Empires we know now. God’s Reign is characterized by justice, truth and repentance. Rather than seeking our own way, we collectively seek to know God’s will.
We read the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount this week in our Gospel lesson. I remember the day years ago when I was invited to preach for the women of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church on this topic. It caused me to spend weeks in study about the context and true meaning of Jesus’ words in the part of the Sermon on the Mount. He’s teaching us what the Reign of God will look like, he’s telling us what will be coming into the world. It’s a prophecy as much as anything else.
In this week’s version of the Call of the Disciples (Matthew’s version – we heard John’s last week), the way Matthew views the events of Jesus’ life colors the way that he tells the story of the Gospel. For Matthew, there’s no such thing as a random bit of scripture being included as filler. Everything has a purpose, and every seeming digression is being done to place a particular event into a larger context of God’s actions in history.
We hear St. John the Evangelist’s account of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist today. Last week we heard St. Matthew’s version. The accounts are similar, but not identical. That’s not surprising for a number reasons; different eyewitnesses, different authors and different purposes in telling the story for instance. But what is striking in this account is what happens the next day. Andrew hears something that St. John says of Jesus, perhaps in passing. But Andrew hears it, and being present to the moment, acts. And because he acts, his life, the life of family, and all of our lives are changed.
This first Sunday in the season of Epiphany is traditionally marked by hearing the account of Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordon River. Each year we are reminded of the surprise that Our Lord went to John to be baptized. There are lots of ideas about why he did that, and thoughts about what it means. To tell the truth, we don’t really know what it fully signifies. In St. Matthew’s Gospel Jesus asks to baptized despite John’s reluctance because it will fulfill all righteousness. But that trades one riddle for another one doesn’t it?
Many, maybe even most churches will be observing this New Year’s Day by reading and singing Lessons and Carols. But there are probably a few out there who will be keeping the calendar’s Feast of the Holy Name, the eighth day after Christmas, when we mark that Jesus was circumcised according to the custom of his people. Jesus is Jewish, something that I’ve been surprised is not understood by more people. And that’s something that, in this season of rising anti-semitism, we Christians should keep reminding people.
We talk in prayer and poetry of the night of Christ’s birth being filled with light. But it is was night, so what does that mean?
As Christmas approaches and Advent comes to a close, we finally hear a story from the Gospel that is directly connected with the birth of Jesus. This year we hear the story of Matthew’s experience of the miraculous events surrounding Jesus conception and his birth.
We’ve come to Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, the one where we light the pink candle on our Advent wreath. All the lessons we read this week are about the coming transformation of Creation, and of ourselves. We read of the vision of the new Creation in the first lesson, we are exhorted to be patient in the second and we are told the signs of its coming in the third this week.