Scripture Readings: Isaiah 49:1–7 | Psalm 40 | 1 Corinthians 1:1–9 | ​John 1:29–42

“God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:9).
 
Have you ever had a phone call that ended up changing your life?
 
Many of us have at some point or other. One minute, we’re going about our day, business as usual, and the next we’re speaking to someone, and for better or worse, that conversation… that connection alters the course of our story forever.
 
Maybe it was someone eagerly sharing good news with us… or offering us a chance to take on some new and exciting opportunity. Or maybe it was the kind of call that breaks our hearts instead… a painful argument… or news of a tragedy that catches us completely off guard. Or maybe it’s just another telemarketer. Or worse yet, someone running a scam.
 
When the phone rings… we never really know what is in store for us, do we? And when we answer the call, who knows where that connection will take us?
​
Our Scripture readings this morning have much to say to us today… not about phones, but about another kind of call… another kind of connection… that invites us, along with every generation of Christians, to answer the Living God’s summons to and ‘come and see’ where He is leading us, and what lies in store for us and our world.
 
As we know all too well, right now our world’s being led in many different and even destructive directions, and those who have been charged with the high responsibility of guiding the nations through these difficult waters seem to be making some incredibly disruptive and divisive decisions which will have long-lasting and unforeseen implications.
And although we don’t know where everything’s headed, or what comes next, for better or worse, it sure seems like the next chapters of our world’s story will never be the same.
 
And in times like these we have important work to do, and choices to make: Will we bury our heads in the sand and do nothing? Will we follow along with the crowd, and go with the flow, come what may? Will we rally around those with the loudest voices, and who wave the biggest sticks? Or will we turn our attention to the LORD in faith, and respond to His voice calling us to follow Him… to “come and see” and take part in what God is up to even now?
 
And unlike so many of those who want to lead today, God really can be trusted to have our world’s best interests at heart… and He has already revealed both His ultimate intentions, and His game plan for bringing it about.
 
In our first reading today, from the Prophet Isaiah, God gives His people a message of hope for how He is at work bringing about His good purposes in some surprising ways. In this passage, we hear of the LORD’s ‘Servant’… an image used by the prophets at times to speak of the faithful ones of Israel… kind of a personification of the community, and their role in God’s story.
 
But the image of the LORD’s Servant also connects to the One who would serve as the ultimate representative of God’s faithful ones… the Messiah, the Chosen Anointed One who brings the whole story of God’s people to it’s proper conclusion. So as we listen to Isaiah’s words, we can have both the Messiah and those whom He represents and leads in mind.

And in Isaiah Chapter 49:1-4, we hear that God has big plans for His Servant. From birth He was set apart and empowered to fulfill a particular purpose:  
 
“Listen to me, O coastlands,
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, ‘You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’
But I said, ‘I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
and my reward with my God.’” (Isaiah 49:1-4).
 
And what was that purpose? What does the LORD have in mind for His Servant? To bring about the restoration of His people… and to bring God’s salvation to all the nations! Isaiah 49:5-6,
 
“And now the Lord says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength—
He says,
‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’” (Isaiah 49:5-6).
 
Here in the words of the ancient prophet, God gives us His game plan for His Servant: to rescue both His people Israel and everyone else… the nations… the Gentiles… to draw near to His side all those who have wandered far and dwell in darkness, and who have been cut off from one another… bringing His peace and salvation to every corner of His good creation.
 
And all those proud and powerful ones who currently lead the nations, Isaiah announces, will one day rise up to honour God’s Servant, and fall down at the feet of the One who they once despised. Isaiah 49:7,
 
“Thus says the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
the slave of rulers,
‘Kings shall see and stand up,
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
 
All these words of the Prophet Isaiah were spoken to God’s people at a time of great upheaval and uncertainty, when powerful Empires wared with each other, and threatened to swallow up God’s people, and every other nation that stood in their path, or had something they wanted. But even throughout those uncertain times, and through all of the unforeseen troubles and trials faced in the centuries since, God’s people have held onto this message of hope in God’s faithfulness and in His salvation.   

Which leads us again to the banks of the Jordan River, in our Gospel reading today, where we hear John the Baptist point to Jesus of Nazareth and proclaim: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” (John 1:29-31).
 
John (both John the Baptist, and also John the writer of this Gospel) wants us to see this Jesus of Nazareth as the long-awaited Servant of God… the Messiah… the Hope of Israel in the flesh. But why did John call Jesus the “Lamb of God” instead of the “Servant” of God, as Isaiah does? What ideas are being connected and communicated by calling Jesus the Lamb of God?
 
Very briefly, two main ideas… two images stand out. First of all, there is the use of lambs for sacrifices in the Temple… sacrifices that played a huge part in how God’s people were invited to maintain and restore their relationship with the Living God… offerings God set up to help His people receive His forgiveness, and express both guilt and gratitude. These sacrifices have very deep roots in the story of Israel, reaching back to the story of Abraham and Isaac, on Mt. Moriah, and how in the end Abraham trusted God, and God Himself provided the lamb to spare Isaac’s life.
 
And the second important idea that is brought to mind by John’s image is the story of the Passover lamb… the blood shed and the meal shared that played a key part in the story of Exodus, and God’s great act of salvation for His people… delivering them from slavery, and setting them free to be His own faithful followers.
 
Forgiveness and restoration. Salvation and freedom for God’s people… and for the whole world! By calling Jesus the ‘Lamb of God’ this is what John wants us to see: Jesus is the One set apart to bring all this about! He is the hope of Israel and all the nations! The Son of God, and our Saviour King.
 
And as we heard, some of John’s disciples leave him to follow this Jesus, convinced that He is the Messiah. And when they ask Jesus where He is headed… where He will be staying, Jesus tells them to “Come and see.” (John 1:39).

And so, their story as Christian disciples begins with an open invitation. Jesus doesn’t spell out every step ahead of them. He invites them… He calls them to trust Him. At first to believe John’s testimony, and in time, to see things more clearly for themselves.
 
And what would these first disciples eventually see? That Jesus God’s Messiah saves by suffering… that He reconciles by first being rejected… that He is ultimately victorious… but only after having His blood shed, and His body broken at the cross.
 
They came to see that the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world by taking it all on Himself… dying despised by His own people, just as Isaiah foresaw, before rising again in glory… ascending to the Father’s right hand… and promising from there to come again! To restore true peace to God’s good creation… to bring Israel and all nations together… to extend God’s salvation to the ends of the earth… and to reign as our Saviour King forever… while every other king, and would-be king will one day lay down their crowns and bow before Him… as He deals out true justice, and sorts out the mess we’ve made of His world.

This is where the Scriptures say that Christ’s story is headed: through suffering to the glory of God’s New Creation. And so, if this is where Jesus is leading us… will we answer His call to follow Him? Will we draw near in faith, and come and see up close what His story has in store for us and for our world?
 
Answering His call will keep on changing everything.

I mean, as we heard later on in our Gospel reading, Simon even had his name changed to Peter! And all of the
disciples who chose to answer the call of Jesus faced a lifetime of unexpected changes as they shared in Christ’s story… some truly wonderful, and some terribly hard to bear. They frequently faced rejection and ridicule and danger… but they also experienced up close incredible moments of God’s light and salvation breaking through the darkness, and bearing fruit far beyond their wildest expectations.
 
Because answering the call to follow Jesus, back then as well as today, is really an invitation to be changed… to become something different… something new… with God’s help, to become saints… to be made clean, and pure… sanctified… set apart and made holy by the life-giving sacrifice of the Lamb of God, offered up once and for all.
 
Saints set free by the blood of the ultimate Passover Lamb, who gave His life at the cross so God’s people could be delivered, and drawn out from under the power of all the world’s Pharaohs… and set free to live as God’s one holy people, called into fellowship with the Living God, and with one another.
 
As Christians today, we too are all called to trust and follow Jesus through our days of darkness, and wilderness… to face our own trials and temptations in faith on our way to a heavenly land we have never known… to God’s New Creation, being prepared for us beyond anything we can imagine. But to get there, we have to trust Him… to come and see for ourselves the path He knows we must take… even if it looks nothing at all like the path we had imagined for ourselves.
 
I can still clearly remember one of the phone calls that changed my life, and led me here today. It was an invitation to come to Rothesay for an interview… to fly to a city I had never heard of before, in a Province and part of the country that I knew almost nothing about. And yet, answering that phone call was the start of a whole new journey of discovery… of both challenges and joys… that led me into a new life in the Maritimes… through the paths of lay ministry, ordination, chaplaincy, and eventually here to St. Luke’s as your priest, and brother in Christ.
 
I could never have dreamed of where that phone call would take me at the time, almost ten years ago, and there were many times when I could have turned aside, and taken another path. But I made a choice to trust in God and keep on taking the next step… to come and see what He had in store. And while it hasn’t always been easy, I can see His gracious hand at work through it all.
 
Everyone here at St. Luke’s has our own story too. And our Parish community has had a longer one still. A story with many different chapters… some easier, some harder… but God has been faithfully at work in and through it all, calling each generation to continue to trust and follow His Son Jesus.

And as we face the days ahead, and prayerfully consider the next steps and coming chapters both for ourselves and for our Parish family… may we always remember who we are called to follow… the one who called us to ‘come and see’: the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus our Saviour King. And may we remember where He said He’s leading us: through suffering and darkness to salvation and glory… into the New Life of God… called here and now to be saints, set apart by grace to share in His holy love and freedom together… trusting the faithfulness of God who called us “into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:9).
 
And so, even though we may never know exactly what comes next for us or our world… when we answer Christ’s call in faith… we can trust that we’re in His good hands, and the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world will see us through whatever lies ahead. Amen.

​Our service of Morning Prayer and Sermon can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 42:1–9 | Psalm 29 | Acts 10:34–43 | ​Matthew 3:13–17

“Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all.” (Acts 10:34-36).
 
Today, the first Sunday after Epiphany, we celebrate a milestone moment in the earthly life of Jesus Christ our Lord: His baptism by John in the Jordan River. This is the moment that marks the start of our Lord’s public ministry… when He begins to reveal to the world the Good News of the Kingdom of God… preaching, and healing, and driving out demons… showing us God’s ways up close… opposing religious hypocrisy… and ultimately, giving up His life at the cross… dying and rising again to save all those who place our faith in Him.
 
But the baptism of the Lord is more than simply the starting point for the rest of His glorious story. It also has its own significant things to say to us… about God, and His Son, about ourselves, and about all those around us… and it might even challenge the ways we think and talk about salvation. 

These days, many in our world seem to have some pretty strong ideas about how to set everything right… and it often boils down to some version of ‘let’s just get ride of those troublemakers! Let’s make some clear walls and divisions between us and them… let’s root them out of our communities… let’s shame them, and ridicule them… let’s intimidate and force them to serve our own interests… or even take up arms and turn to violence and bloodshed to definitively separate the ‘good guys’ from the ‘bad guys’… the righteous ones from the wicked.
 
Time and again, this simplified division of humankind into ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ gets framed as the conflict between good and evil… and so our ideas of God and God’s ways can easily get wrapped up and shaped by these familiar tensions, assuming that God must be on the side of ‘the good guys’, and equally eager to wipe out the wicked too. And we can believe this about God even when we’re not quite sure which category we belong to ourselves.   
 
Thinking back to my own childhood, even though I had grown up in the Church, and believed what I was taught about God and His good ways, I was still pretty convinced that God had it out for me. That I was always just one misstep… one sin away from an eternity of torment. That God was eagerly watching and waiting for me to mess up so that He could scratch my name off of His list. And that sense of fear hung over and clouded every aspect of my faith, and how I lived day by day.
 
And when it came time for me to be baptized at the age of fifteen, that sense of dread grew even greater. Somehow I had come to see baptism as sort of my last shot at being ‘good enough’ for God. That it was my last chance to receive forgiveness, and have my slate wiped clean, so to speak… but if I sinned again… (and spoiler alert: I have sinned again since then… ) then I really would be done for.  
 
And I mean, my fifteen-year-old logic didn’t seem so far fetched at the time. And these fears and ways of thinking might even sound familiar to some of us here today. Because if God was just on the side of ‘the good guys’, and ‘the enemy of wicked sinners’, as I had imagined, then what other conclusion should I have come to? The story becomes pretty simple: be a ‘good guy’, and God will have your back. Be a ‘bad guy’, and you’re just out of luck. 

But the baptism of Jesus the Lord calls this whole simplified story I had believed into question… and it offers us instead the Good News of a Saviour.
 
In our Gospel reading today, St. Matthew tells us that Jesus of Nazareth was among the crowds of Judeans coming to be baptised by John at the Jordan River, responding to his message of repentance, and seeking for the mercy of the Living God. But when Jesus draws near to be baptized, John is not on board, and even tries to stop Him, rightly recognizing Jesus as the long awaited Messiah, the Saviour, the One sent by God to turn the hearts of His people back to the LORD, and to rescue them from all their enemies, bringing God’s good Kingdom at last.  
 
John rightly saw that Jesus had no need of repentance… that Jesus did not need to be turned back to God, and be forgiven… He was already fully in line with God’s ways.

“I need to be baptized by you,” John says to Jesus, “and do you come to me?” (Matthew 3:14).
 
But Christ responds to John: “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15). This was the way Jesus would fulfill all righteousness. This is how Jesus would go about making everything right: not by separating Himself from us sinners… but by standing with us in complete solidarity… by binding Himself to us in our sorry state, and sharing the fate of those whose only hope lies in God’s mercy… facing the waves of our judgment and death right there with us… in order to raise us up again with Him.
 
Because the baptism of Jesus is not only about what happened by the banks of the Jordan River. It is the beginning of a life completely devoted to God and God’s ways that would continually carry on this same beautiful but unexpected story of solidarity with sinners… of drawing near to them, to bring God’s mercy and grace up close to those who desperately needed it, not shying away from their darkness and sin, but seeking to bring them true freedom… taking their hands and leading them into the ways of peace… even when it means challenging and calling out the things that keep us in spiritual chains.
 
And this saving solidarity with sinners ultimately led Jesus to take up the cross, to take upon Himself the sins of the whole world, and freely accept this agonizing, humiliating, and truly brutal death to fully share the fate of all those who deserve it… and to rise again to freely give all those who trust in Him the resurrection life of God that none of us could ever possibly earn for ourselves. 
 
The journey to the cross begins in earnest in the waters of the Jordan River, as Jesus choses to stand in solidarity with sinners… binding Himself in baptism to those who know that they’re not good enough.
 
And it is in this very first act of solidarity with sinners, St. Matthew tells us, that Jesus is proclaimed to be God’s beloved Son, with whom the Father is well pleased. It’s not in His separation from the wicked, but in His drawing near to them in faithfulness and mercy that Jesus is shown to be completely in line with the heart of the Father… and enacting the Living God’s intentions and ways in the world.
 
The story of Jesus stepping into the waters of baptism… the story that leads us, step by step, straight to the cross, and the Good News of Easter morning, shows us clearly that God is not simply on the side of the ‘good guys’, whomever we might think they are at any given moment. No, in Jesus our crucified and risen Saviour, we see that God Himself stands with sinners… in solidarity… not to ignore or enable our sins, but to save us from them. To break the power of wickedness over us, and set us free for something completely different: for a life not bound by our fears, and divisions, and prejudices, and violence… but the life of God’s mercy… and forgiveness… and love… and hospitality, not just offered to us, but to all.
 
Because the Gospel is not a story of ‘good guys’ vs. ‘bad guys’. It’s not about ‘us’ vs. ‘them’. The Gospel is the Good News that Jesus our Risen Saviour is not the Lord of some… but the Lord of all.
 
This is what St. Peter came to discover in our second reading today from the book of Acts, and the world-changing encounter that God’s Holy Spirit guided him into at the house of Cornelius.
 
Now this passage deserves a lot more time and attention than we can take to discuss it this morning, but even a quick glance at it offers us a sense of the powerful implications of the great scope and scale and reach of the Good News of Jesus… back then, and today.
 
In brief, St. Peter the faithful apostle of Jesus Christ, and a life-long observant Jew, was led by God to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile. And not just any Gentile: Cornelius was a Roman army officer… a representative of the armed forces of the fierce Empire that had swallowed up not just Peter’s homeland, but what may have seemed like the whole world. As it turns out though, this Roman officer was also someone who earnestly sought to serve the Living God, who had treated the nearby Israelite community kindly, and who was told by an angel to seek out Peter, and listen to what Peter had to say.
 
And through Cornelius, St. Peter puts two and two together, and finally understands, as he puts it: “that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:34-35). In other words, God was not just on Israel’s side… God was after the hearts and lives of the Gentiles as well. God’s saving love was not divided, or reserved for one tribe or nation over another. Anyone who fears Him… who reveres Him, and does what is right is welcome to the party… because as St. Peter was now beginning to see Jesus Christ “is Lord of all” (Acts 10:36).
 
Peter goes on to tell them the story of Jesus, and Cornelius and his whole household believe it, and immediately they receive the same outpouring of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles experienced at Pentecost. And these Gentiles, these former strangers, and even potential enemies are embraced as brothers and sisters, and baptized into the family of God in Jesus’ name.
 
The point is this: if the Living God is at work actively drawing people like Cornelius, a Gentile Roman army officer, into the family of believers in Jesus’ name, then who wouldn’t God welcome? So many of the clear categories that St. Peter was used to seeing the world through were being shattered… and by God’s Spirit Himself! So, from now on, instead of writing off this or that group as beyond God’s concern, or mercy… St. Peter and the rest of the Church had to start seeing everyone through the light of the Good News of Jesus Christ, and the salvation He has achieved for our world through His solidarity with sinners.

And so, our question this morning is this: if Jesus our Saviour is Lord of all, and He stands in solidarity with sinners to save them… what does that mean for you and I today?
 
Well, for starters, it means that even in our moments of weakness, and failures, as those beloved by God, who sent His Son to stand with sinners like us in solidarity as our Saviour… we are invited to draw near in faith and to cling to Jesus always, so that His Spirit can helps us to die to our old sinful ways, and rise again to share in Christ’s new life forever. Far from the fear and shame that kept that fifteen-year-old Rob trembling, in Jesus we know that God truly has our back… that He is eager to stand by us, eager to save us. No matter who we are, where we come from, or what we have done, He longs to draw us near.
 
But that goes the same for everyone else too! Even for those who we can’t stand… for those who do things we can’t possibly support… for those who seem to be tearing down everything we think is worth building up, or building up everything we think is desperately needing to be torn down. Those we are tempted to categorize as ‘the bad guys’… and who make it really easy to walk away from.
 
The Good News of Jesus is for them too… and Christ Jesus our Saviour calls us to love them too. 
​
Not to blindly support, or quietly accept, or tolerate everything that they do. Not to remain silent when we have a chance to speak needed truth. Not to ignore injustice, and passively allow evil to have its way… but like Jesus our Lord, who stood by us when we were sinners to save us, and with His Holy Spirit at work in us, we are called to be open for God to make the Good News of His beloved Son known to them too through our lives… through everything we say, and everything we do… to stand with all those around us in God’s love even when we have to stand against them for a time… so that they might come to know that Jesus stands with them too to be their Saviour forever… knowing now that no one is beyond hope, because of God’s beloved Son, the Saviour and Lord of all. Amen.

​And our Songs for this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 60:1–6 | Psalm 72 | Ephesians 3:1–12 | ​Matthew 2:1–12

“On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” (Matthew 2:11).
 
This weekend, the world was surprised by the news that President Maduro of Venezuela had been arrested… seized from his home along with his wife during a covert military operation, and transported to the U.S. in order to face criminal charges. Now, whatever you may think about all this… (and even if you don’t think about it much at all), this surprising act remains a pretty serious assertion of American power, and the claims of authority from those leading it… setting aside and dismissing the expectations and concerns of many people, both at home and abroad, in order to pursue their own goals, and present an image of their own ‘greatness’ around the globe.
 
And while this bold raid may have caught lots of people by surprise, it’s actually a part of a pattern that should be no surprise to us at all.

After all, all rulers have their agendas. All presidents, prime ministers, politicians, and kings make use of their powers and authority to try and achieve their ends, and to acquire their desires, as diverse as they may be. This is not an excuse, or a justification, just an observation: everyone has goals, and ways to pursue them. The question then becomes: how good are those goals… and how good are the ways of getting them?
 
Today, we at St. Luke’s are celebrating the Feast of Epiphany, the still surprising revelation that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary, is also the Eternal Son of God… the promised Messiah of Israel, and the Saviour King of all the peoples of the Earth. Today we recall that the Living God took on our human flesh and became one of us… in order to turn our sad human story around again for good.
 
And on top of that, Epiphany also offers us important insight and clarity about the agenda of God’s good Kingdom. About what the Living God does with His power and authority… and what He really seeks to acquire.
 
The story of God’s Kingdom, and our King Jesus in St. Matthew’s Gospel starts off in complete contrast to the example of King Herod ‘the Great’… the puppet ruler of Israel under the authority and power of Rome. Despite his relatively marginal significance on the borders of the Empire, King Herod desired to make a ‘great name’ for himself. He invested in massive building projects, including the grand reconstruction of the Temple of God in Jerusalem… and mercilessly dealt with anyone who threatened his reputation or who stood in his way… including a number of his own sons and relatives who he had executed.
 
Last Sunday we heard about what Herod did after the visit of the magi… ordering the death of all of the children in and around Bethlehem two years old and under, hoping to get ride of the newborn Messiah… slaying the innocent just to hold onto his royal position a little bit longer.
 
St. Matthew tells this story in ways that draw very clear parallels between Herod and the Pharoah from the Exodus story… making the case that the ruler of God’s own people had now become just like the wicked tyrant that had once oppressed and enslaved them. And Matthew does this to make a particular point: that if King Herod is a new Pharoah, then we are to see Jesus as a new Moses… as the chosen Saviour of God’s people, who will not only bring them to freedom, but also reveal God’s very heart and His holy ways to them as well. Right from the start, Matthew wants us to see Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel’s hopes and dreams… rescuing them from all their enemies, even if those enemies happen to be their own rulers.
 
But here’s where the Epiphany comes in… the surprising revelation of a mystery long hidden from humanity, as St. Paul puts it in our second reading: that is, that Israel’s Messiah is not just Israel’s Messiah… He’s also the Saviour of the world! The One who has come, not to crush or overthrow the Gentiles, but to share God’s light and life with them, and draw them near.
 
Who does Matthew tell us shows up to honour the newborn King of the Jews? Not the great and the good of Jerusalem, or even the scribes that Herod consulted. It was the magi… the wise men and astrologers from the East… from the Gentile lands beyond the borders of the Roman Empire… the lands of Mesopotamia and perhaps further, where God’s people had once lived themselves in the darkness of Exile.
 
It's unclear from the biblical text itself what these magi would have known about Israel, or the ways of the Living God… but they know enough to leave their homes behind to search out this newborn King, and to pay him homage… to honour Him with precious gifts… precious in both value and significance.
 
Gold and frankincense were gifts fit for royalty… for those with authority and power over human subjects, and also those who were close to the divine. In the ancient world, incense was closely associated with gifts offered up to ‘the gods’, and it was often reserved for use in temples and in acts of worship, for both Israelites and their Gentile neighbours.
 
For St. Matthew’s audience, these gifts would have also brought to mind the promise of hope from the Prophet Isaiah Chapter 60, which we heard in our first reading this morning. This passage speaks to God’s people about the future arrival of God’s good Kingdom… a future where they will no longer be scattered among and threatened by powerful foreign Empires… and instead they will enjoy the blessed life of the Living God together.
 
Isaiah 60:1-6,
“Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
 
Nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Lift up your eyes and look around;
they all gather together, they come to you;
your sons shall come from far away,
and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms.
Then you shall see and be radiant;
your heart shall thrill and rejoice,
because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you,
the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
 
A multitude of camels shall cover you,
the young camels of Midian and Ephah;
all those from Sheba shall come.
They shall bring gold and frankincense,
and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”
 
This vision of hope for Israel’s restoration was tied to their expectations for the Messiah… the Chosen Anointed One sent from God to bring about His good Kingdom at last. And so, when St. Matthew tells us that the magi from the East bring such gifts and lay them at the young Jesus’ feet… the Gospel writer wants us to see that in Jesus, God’s good Kingdom has indeed come! That Israel’s long awaited Saviour has arrived, bringing their hopes and dreams to life at last.
 
And yet, there is one more gift the magi bring… the gift of myrrh… a precious gift used in the process of anointing someone special for burial. And in this gift, St. Matthew offers us an important glimpse into how the surprising story of Jesus the Messiah, and God’s good Kingdom will eventually unfold.
 
But aside from the symbolic significance of these three gifts… what does this part of Christ’s story have to say to you and I today? Did God’s Son come to bring about His good Kingdom to extract tribute and receive precious gifts and resources from the peoples of the Earth? Is God just after the material goods that we have?

Well no. Scripture is clear, again and again, that the Living God doesn’t need anything from our hands. All the gold, and precious gifts in the world exist because of Him! He’s the Creator, after all. Material existence itself is the LORD’s handiwork… and the Universe itself, everything seen and unseen is already in His hands.
 
And yet, offerings and gifts do have a positive role to play in the life of God’s good kingdom, and they are a very practical way to participate in the ministry of the Church, the community of God’s people. That said, it’s really important to remember that God still works through the lives of His faithful people even when they are without money, or buildings, or access to all of the material resources that we can often think of as essential.
 
But even more to the point: our offerings are intended to be a tangible way of expressing something important to God. Of saying thanks, and acknowledging that He is far more precious to us than silver or gold… worth the time and effort of leaving our homes to lift Him up in worship… to elevate His holy Name… and to make known to the world what the LORD has done, for us, and for all.

In other words, our gifts and offerings to God are meant to be an expression of our love… of our devotion… and of our trust in Him. That’s what God wants from us. Gold and incense and myrrh might be nice, but what God is really after is our hearts! Our lives! Our love… not just offered blindly, but as an intentional act… a choice… and as an active response to the great gift of love He has already given to us… God’s great gift of love that finds its focus and fulfillment in the life of His Son, Jesus Christ.
 
To put it yet another way… you are God’s treasure! You and I are the objects of His desire… the precious gifts that He longs to receive. And by ‘you’ I mean the ‘you’ that may still have a lot of healing, and learning, and unlearning, and growing to do. The ‘you’ that you may even struggle to love at times. That’s the you God is after! The real you, ‘warts and all’ as they say. Sit with that truth for a moment. God doesn’t really want something from you. What He wants is you. []
 
And at the same time, Epiphany reminds us… if God is after us… our hearts, and our lives… the way that He goes about getting us is not at all like the way the Pharaohs and Herods of the world go after what they want… seizing things by force, and through self-aggrandizement. No, God the Almighty Creator of all uses His ultimate power and authority to make Himself small… to set His heavenly glory to the side and become incarnate for us… and enter into our humble, fragile humanity… born in a small town, as a baby forced to flee the country with His family… living among the poor, and the lowly, and reaching out to the outcasts, and those who were still dwelling in all sorts of darknesses of body, mind, and spirit.
 
The surprising Good News of Jesus Christ that we celebrate at Epiphany is that God’s Eternal Son has taken on human flesh, and bore for us the burden of all the world’s brokenness… laying down the precious gift of His own life at the cross, and rising again from the grave… and in so doing, He offers us all the gifts of forgiveness, and freedom, and eternal life… not waiting for us to make ourselves perfect, but while we were all still estranged and His enemies… drawing not only the people of Israel, but all peoples together back into the arms of the Living God, and into His good Kingdom.

Epiphany reminds us that God is after the world… not as something to be grasped and hoarded, but to be saved… to be loved, and drawn into the unending life of love that the Holy Trinity has always enjoyed… and created us all for.
And this great gift of love has been offered to us all… to our whole world in Jesus Christ, who commands us to follow His holy ways, and put our enmity and greed, and prejudices aside, entrusting ourselves to His loving care as we take the risks of loving one another, and those around us.
 
So this Epiphany, may we respond to the gift of God’s love for our world in Jesus Christ by offering Him our hearts… our whole selves… our hopes and dreams, our attention and our intentions… and humbly draw near to Him in faith, and in hope, and in love.
 
And may we all do our part to help our world… our loved ones and neighbours, and even strangers come to know the Good News of God’s love for them as well. Acting and talking in ways that help to tell this sacred story, offering up each day as a gift of thanks and praise to our great Saviour King.

I’ll close now with the final verse of In The Bleak Midwinter by the poet Christina Rossetti.
 
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb,
if I were a wise man I would do my part,
yet what I can I give him, give my heart.
Amen.

​And our Songs for this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 63:7–9 | Psalm 148 | Hebrews 2:10–18 | ​Matthew 2:13–23

“Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:14-15).
 
Another Christmas Day has come and gone.
New Years and Epiphany are right around the corner, and soon enough we will be packing up all our lights and putting away our special decorations… and settling into the regular rhythm of winter in New Brunswick: shovel snow, and repeat.
 
On this, the first Sunday after Christmas, it’s hard not to feel a little bit of a letdown. I mean, after all the anticipation… and all of the carols and celebrations, we turn on the news again and see a world still off-centre… still filled with violence, and unrest, and oppression, and wickedness at work. And even after a brief respite of hope, and peace, and joy, it can be really tempting at times to let fear and despair creep back into our hearts… to start to think that our frightening circumstances must mean that we’re somehow out of favour with God… that all the of suffering going on  means either that God cannot do much to stop evil, or that He just doesn’t care enough to do so. 

And if we conceive of Christmas as merely one special day full of hope, and peace, and joy, and love… then it’s kind of easy for us to imagine that it doesn’t have much to say about what happens afterwards… about the days and seasons of deep apprehension, and suffering, that often follow it.
 
But Christmas is not just one special day. It merely marks the start of a whole new movement in God’s unfolding story… a story that holds together the hope and peace and joy of God’s Kingdom even in the face of all of the uncertainty and suffering that we still face in the world.
 
And so, even though we will soon pack up our Christmas lights, and put away our trees and greenery… the great gift of Christmas… the Good News of Jesus Emannuel… God our Saviour here-with-us… remains ours always… and this Good News remains the sure anchor for our faith in our times of suffering. Right from the very beginning, the story of Christmas has been an invitation offered to God’s people to see His loving and saving hand at work setting us free and leading us together through all the darkness and into the light of life. 

In our reading today from the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 2, we are reminded of just how quickly the story of the first Christmas turns from hope, and peace, and joy to darkness and death… as the Holy Family, Joseph and Mary, and the infant Jesus the Messiah are forced to flee their home, and live as refugees in Egypt to escape a tyrant’s jealous rage… and Herod’s subsequent massacre of innocent children. 
 
This part of the story never makes it into our Christmas pageants, and for good reason. It is another horrible but by no means isolated example of how fear and the thirst for control so often leads us humans to do truly hellish things to one another. In recent days of course, we can recall similar stories out of Gaza and Ukraine… alongside atrocities of the past century like the Armenian genocide… the Holocaust… the genocides in the Balkans and Rwanda… and tragically many more besides. And the tyrants of our day continue to toy with the threat of death… wielding this fear and increased suffering over all sorts of innocent people in order to get what they want… to keep their own people in line, and to crush anyone else who stands in their way.

But the whole story of Christmas… the Gospel story about the child born in Bethlehem… reminds us that the tyrants of the world will not have their way in the end… and that against all their bloodshed and scheming, the Living God remains at work remedying the poison of fear with His love… setting us free from its power, to share God’s holy love together. 
 
In Matthew Chapter 2 we heard how Joseph and Mary get swept up into God’s great gift of life: Mary gives birth to a Son, Jesus… the long awaited Messiah, but are suddenly warned to flee… to live as refugees in Egypt, because King Herod of Judea had become just like Pharaoh of the Exodus story… eventually slaying innocent Israelite children… his own subjects… to keep hold of his own power.  
 
But just like Moses escaped from the wrath of Pharoah to one day return to set His people free, Jesus is whisked away out of King Herod’s reach… in order to return one day as the Saviour of His people… and the world! To rescue both Jews and Gentiles alike… breaking the power of the fear of death… and overthrowing our real enemy, the devil.  

But this victory was achieved not by somehow undoing death… by magically waving his hand and keeping its horrors from happening… but by enduring it… by experiencing death for us and with us. Jesus joined us in all the frailty of life in-the-flesh, and faced the full horrors of the grave… sharing completely in our sufferings, in order to save us from death’s grip… dying at the cross, but rising again as One set free from death’s power forever… so that all those who follow Him can also face and come through death too… and live as those sanctified… as a holy people set apart to share in the new life of God’s holy love here and now… transformed by Christ into God’s holy family… as brothers and sisters with One Father over all.
 
This is what the author of Hebrews is getting at, making the case that far from being a sign of God’s displeasure, or failure, it was precisely through His sufferings that Jesus became our Saviour, and united us in God’s family. Hebrews 2:10-11, “It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”

Jesus our Messiah may have been spared Herod’s wrath as a child, but at the proper time He willingly chose the path of suffering for us… taking on Himself not only the worst the world’s tyrants could throw at Him, but also the consequences of all of our sins… dying at the cross to secure our forgiveness, and rising again to break death’s hold over us… offering us through the gift of His own life adoption into God’s holy family… united to God, and to one another through the love of our Saviour, who united Himself to us… first of all at the manger, and then finally at the cross.
 
So today, when we are tempted to spend our days driven by the fear of death, or despairing over the power of tyrants… the story of Jesus that flows out from Christmas offers us the remedy of faith. We are invited to believe the Good News of the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, and that through Him… through His sufferings and saving love, we can now be called God’s own children… His holy family set free from fear because of what Jesus our brother has done for us, and for our world. A holy family, beloved, and open to all who entrust themselves to the loving arms of God’s Son.

And even long after all our decorations are put away, and the lights are dimmed… and when our days seem to grow dark, may the joy, and hope, and peace, and love of the Christmas and the Christian story… the Good News of Jesus Emmanuel give us cause to rejoice, and resist the power of fear, entrusting ourselves and our world to the saving power of God’s resurrecting love… and doing all we can to share the light of this love with those around us.  Amen. 

And our Songs for this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 52:7–10 | Psalm 98 | Hebrews 1:1–12 | Matthew 1:1-25

“Break forth together into singing,
you ruins of Jerusalem;
for the Lord has comforted his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
 
The Lord has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations;
and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.” (Isaiah 52:9-10).
 
One thing my family and I love to do this time of year is to watch Christmas movies… setting aside time together to experience these familiar stories we revisit year after year that stir up all sorts of warm and sentimental memories… while every so often adding a new one or two to the mix… and so, the tradition grows.
 
This morning, Christmas Day, amid all the other activities and busyness of the season, we gather together and set aside time to recount the familiar story of the birth of Jesus Christ… to worship the One born in Bethlehem, to receive the gift of His life gathered around His table, and to remember that, far from being a mere tradition, or a warm, sentimental fable… the Story of Christmas marks the turning point within the whole story of God… the whole human story… and our stories as well.
 
In our reading from Matthew Chapter 1, the Gospel author takes pains to remind us of the origins of the One we celebrate today: that Jesus is the Son of Abraham… a child of Israel, of the tribe of Judah… sharing completely in this people’s story… the story of God’s grace and saving love embracing them, freeing them, and seeing them through countless crises and disasters over the centuries.
 
This list of names calls to mind many characters and episodes in Israel’s story, and locates Jesus squarely in the midst of it… bound to the story of His people’s faithfulness and failures… their moments of glory, and also their ruin and rebellion. This list of names intentionally calls to mind the stories of patriarchs and prostitutes… kings and consorts… reformers and foreigners… and dozens of others whose stories have simply been lost to the sands of time. The story of Israel in the Holy Scriptures is by no means a picture-perfect, Hallmark movie story… but it is one very much at home in our broken and struggling world.   
 
But in the midst of this story, in the midst of Israel’s story… and our whole human story… the Living God chooses to do something new and marvellous: by the power of the Holy Spirit, God brings His Eternal Son into the world through the body of Mary. Not only is He the true Son of Abraham, Jesus is also the true Son of Mary, graciously born into our world to share in its broken story completely… to bear along with us the pains and sorrows of life, and bring hope and joy to those of us still shrouded in darkness… embodying true faithfulness, and God’s saving love up close and in everyday life. 
 
Through someone as ordinary and unknown as Mary, the Son of God took on flesh for us and with us… and so God’s gift of salvation to our world, started off in ages past with Abraham, and promised through God’s prophets takes a massive step forward. As we heard in our reading from Isaiah 52:10, “The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”
 
But we know that this gift of saving love… the gift of God’s Son sent to save Israel and all the world… comes at an incredible cost: in faithfulness and self-giving love, the Son of God chooses to take up His cross, and with it all of our failures and shame and brokenness… and He bears it all for us, offering up His life in our place to cleanse us of our sins and reconcile us to God and to one another… dying to set us free, and rising again to conquer death and reign with His Father forever… and to share the eternal life of hope, and peace, and joy, and the love of His Kingdom with us all even now… present with us always through the gift of the same Holy Spirit that was at work in Mary. 
 
The Story of Christmas, though probably well known to us all gathered here today, is far more than a familiar and sentimental story about shepherds, and mangers and angel choirs. It is the great announcement of the Good News of Jesus Emmanuel: the message that the Son of God… God our Saviour truly is here with us… challenging the ways we see our own stories, and the story of our world… no longer focussed on desperately trying simply to hold tragedy and disaster at bay, but rejoicing because we now know that despite all of the darkness at work around us, our Saviour King Jesus has come, He is with us even now… and He will come again in glory to make everything new.
 
So may we all celebrate the story of Christmas today and always by proclaiming in all we say and do the Good News of Jesus Emmanuel: that God our Saviour is with us, sharing the gifts of His hope, and peace, and joy, and love with all those around us. Amen.

In this sacred night we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ,
who is Himself God-With-Us, wherever we may be.

May this service of Lessons & Carols
stir up within us the 
Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love
that God offers to us all
and calls us to share with all
​through Jesus His Son.

Our service of Lessons & Carols and Christmas Eve Bulletin can be found here:

​Here are some links to the Carols listed in our service, found on Youtube:  

Here is our Christmas Day sermon, 
proclaiming ​the Good News of Christmas
that in Christ Jesus,
​God is with us always.

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 7:10–16 | Psalm 80 | Romans 1:1–7 | Matthew 1:18–25

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” (Matthew 1:23).
 
Our journey through the season of Advent is almost at an end. In a few short days, along with our Christian sisters and brothers around the world, we will celebrate the birth of our Saviour King: Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, and the Son of God.
 
But as we face the final days of Advent together, awaiting not only His birth in Bethlehem, but also His coming again in glory to set all things right once and for all… we are invited to reflect on one of the most important elements of our faith and the Christian way of life: and that is love.
 
Love… offering oneself to another… and not just when it’s easy… when things are going great and we’re all getting along… but when it’s really hard… when tensions and divisions keep pulling us apart… when doubts arise, and dangers threaten, and when we’re really afraid. That’s when love’s needed the most.
 
And in our readings from Holy Scripture this morning we are reminded that even when things seem to be at their darkest, and our tensions and divisions seem to be the fiercest… God shows us that we are not left alone… and that, no matter what, we can trust that God’s saving love is still with us.
 
In our first reading from the book of Isaiah, we hear about a heated exchange between the prophet Isaiah and King Ahaz, the leader of the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
 
At the time King Ahaz was facing a serious crisis: two of his neighbouring nations, the Kingdom of Aram, in what is now Syria, and the Northern Kingdom of Israel… their estranged countrymen… had raised up their armies and allied against him, and were now threatening to conquer Jerusalem. And we can hear their response in Isaiah 7:2, “When the house of David heard that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim [another name for the Northern Tribes of Israel], the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” And can you blame him? Judah was facing an invasion from two powerful kings right on his doorstep.

But through the prophet Isaiah, the Living God promises that Judah will not be conquered by the armies of Aram and Israel. And yet, along with these words of encouragement, God also calls Ahaz to do something… to trust Him. Isaiah 7:9, “If you do not stand firm in faith,” God says to the king, “you shall not stand at all.”
 
Of course, the LORD knew that would not be easy. God understood exactly how Ahaz and all his people were feeling. And so, to help strengthen their faith, God offers to give King Ahaz a sign… anything that would help him and his people to stand firm in faith. But instead of receiving this gift of encouragement with gratitude, Ahaz refuses… in what seems to be an attempt to appear pious… but has all the hallmarks of hypocrisy.
 
Exasperated by Ahaz, God decides to give him a sign anyway. In the middle of this war, and their city’s siege, God says that a maiden will give birth to a son, and the child will be called “God-is-with-us”… Immanuel. And this child’s life would become a sign of God’s salvation! Born in the hell of war, God promises that “He shall eat curds and honey [wholesome, rich foods, not war rations] by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, [while still young] the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.” (Isaiah 7:15-16). In other words, Judah was assured this terrible trial would not last forever: in a few short years, their enemies would be long gone. But in the meantime, the only path forward would be to place their faith in God their Saviour.
 
This episode reveals both the great tension that often existed between God and His stubborn, slow-to-faith people… and also God’s utter determination to remain faithful to them… to encourage, and coax, and urge, and even at times angrily offer them the help and hope they can only receive from turning to Him in faith… loving us, even when it isn’t easy to, and seeking our salvation in spite of our stubbornness. 
 
Turning now to our Gospel passage this morning, we find a very different episode unfolding in the life of God’s people… but one which has its own serious crisis and tensions at work. Instead of an impending war between neighbouring nations, we have a family about to fall apart: a man who feels betrayed by his fiancé, and an innocent woman facing a future of public shame and abandonment.
 
As St. Matthew tells us the story, while she was engaged to a man named Joseph, a young woman named Mary came to be with child through the power of the Holy Spirit alone. Discovering this, Joseph suspects his fiancé of being unfaithful to him. Understandably, he feels deeply betrayed… but rather than give in to the strong impulse to act against her out of spite and seek to ruin her, we hear that Joseph still wants to do right by her… to be as caring and kind as he could, under the circumstances, and break off their relationship quietly… that is, trying to avoid publicly shaming her.
 
How often do we see people like Joseph these days? People who, instead of lashing out at others when they are wounded, can act in love even towards those who they believe have hurt them? People who seek to be as caring and kind as they can be, even when they could easily pursue revenge. I pray we can all become a lot more like Joseph… even though he was plain wrong about Mary.

Thankfully, before he broke off their engagement, Joseph was visited by an angel in a dream, telling him not to be afraid to marry Mary. That she had not betrayed him… and God was at work doing something new in and through her. And this miracle child would be a sign of God’s love, not just for their little family, but for the whole world!
 
And this child will be called “God Saves”… Yehoshua… shortened to Yeshua, or Joshua… or as we know Him, Jesus… “for he will save his people” not from invading armies… but “from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)… from everything at work in them that keeps them cut off from one another, and from the LORD. He will save them through the gift of forgiveness… offering His life in love at the cross to make atonement for us… reconciling the world to God through the gift of Himself.
 
And St. Matthew sees Jesus in the same light as the child in Isaiah Chapter 7: a sign of God’s saving love for His people… graciously offered when they deserved it the least, but needed it the most. But St. Matthew recognizes that Jesus is more than a sign of God’s saving love. He’s God’s love personified… God’s love embodied and walking around in our midst. In other words, Jesus is Emmanuel… Jesus is God-Himself-right-here-with-us! And in Jesus, we see God’s saving love in action… especially at the cross.
 
In Romans 5:8-11, my favourite passage of Scripture, St. Paul unpacks what Christian love… what the love of God really looks like in action: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
 
Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
 
Jesus is God-with-us… giving Himself at the cross to save us while we were still enemies… in order to reconcile us to God… and to each other. Taking those who were far apart, and bringing them together once and for all.
 
And this is where God’s love gets really hard for us. It’s one thing to believe in and receive God’s saving love at work in our own lives… welcoming Him in to heal our hurts, forgive our sins, and graciously embrace us when we don’t deserve it. As hard as that all can be… and believe me, believing in God’s saving love for ourselves can be really hard at times… it’s another thing entirely to share God’s love… this Christ-shaped, cross-shaped love with those around us… especially when they are the ones who have hurt us… and sinned against us… and when they seem to be our enemies.  
 
But the miracle of God’s saving love that we have come to know in Jesus Christ is given to us for this very purpose! To reconcile us to God, and to reconcile us to each other… overcoming our deepest divisions so we can share in the blessed life of God together. This is a central part of the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus… the one place where we can stand firm in faith. 
 
Turning at last to our reading from the first Chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, where we are given a glimpse of the incredible scope of God’s reconciling love in action… in the overcoming of the deep divisions between Israel and the Gentiles.
 
Throughout the letter to the Romans, St. Paul is addressing a deeply divided Church… where tensions between Jewish Christians and Gentile… non-Jewish Christians were particularly problematic. This powerful letter works through the implications of the Gospel… the Good News of Jesus Christ, who He is, and what He has done… within the context of a community struggling to find a way forward past all their differences… differences in language, in diet, in cultural practices… in their own understanding of their place within God’s story… in contrast to ‘those people’ over there.
 
And throughout Romans, St. Paul makes the case, again and again, that in Jesus our Saviour King, God is with us overcoming the apparent chasms between Israel and the rest of the nations… embracing everyone through Jesus, and joining them together into God’s family of faith.

From the start… in the opening lines of St. Paul’s letter, which we heard in our second reading today, we see the Apostle tying both Israel and Gentiles together in Jesus.
 
St. Paul begins by proclaiming that he is a servant of Jesus Christ, set apart to share the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus, the Saviour of God’s people… the Messiah of Israel, who is the fulfillment of the LORD’s promises through the prophets, and the whole story of the Old Testament Scriptures… descended from King David, and proven to be God’s own son by His resurrection.
 
And then Paul insists that he has been called by God’s grace to share this Good News with Gentiles too… in order that they too might come to know what he calls the obedience of faith… walking in the holy ways of the Living God, and placing their faith in His saving love.
 
And then, addressing this deeply divided community, he says this simple, but world-changing phrase: “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
 
To all God’s beloved… both Jews and Gentiles… distinct in part, but now united and embraced together by God’s saving love in Jesus Christ.
 
In Jesus, Paul sees that God is with us all… to save us all from our sins, so that in forgiveness we can all find the way forward to live in God’s love side by side… standing firm together in faith, trusting that as hard as it might be at times, His saving love really will see us through.
 
And so, when we are faced with our own times of great trouble, and find it really hard to love those around us… may we look to Jesus Christ and receive from Him the gift of God’s saving love in all its fulness… so that we can truly share it with God’s messed up but still beloved world, and help them come to know that in Jesus Emmanuel, God the Saviour is with them too. Amen.

​And our Songs for this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 35:1–10 | Luke 1:46b–55 | James 5:7–10 | ​Matthew 11:2–11

“When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’  Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see’” (Matthew 11:2-3).
 
Well, here we are, already celebrating the third Sunday of Advent, and reflecting on the theme of Joy as we anticipate the coming of Jesus Christ our Saviour King.
 
But right from the start, we’ve been thrown a bit of a curveball… we’ve been given a challenging story to wrestle with today as our Gospel reading confronts us with the suffering and disillusionment of one of Christ’s earliest advocates and faithful witnesses: John the Baptist. 
 
After playing a key role in the exciting beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry… baptizing the One he had wholeheartedly believed to be God’s Messiah in the Jordan River… John’s story had taken a much darker turn that was seriously starting to shake up his faith. As you may remember, John had been thrown into prison for speaking truth to power: publicly calling out King Herod’s unfaithfulness, and hypocrisy… and like so many of God’s prophets before him, John’s honesty earned him some enemies in high places.
 
But as John expected Jesus of Nazareth to be the Chosen One sent to set God’s people free… sent to overthrow tyrant kings like Herod… to judge all unjust rulers, and vindicate those who stood up for the truth, and walked with holiness and integrity… there should be no problem! If the Messiah had finally come, now was the time for God’s faithful ones to be rewarded… right?
 
And yet, there John was, locked away in prison… seemingly abandoned for fighting the good fight, while Jesus went about eating and drinking with outcasts and sinners. And so, John starts to wonder: did he miss something? Did he misread the signs, and misunderstand the Spirit? Jesus was not at all following the plan that John had in mind. Was Jesus really the Chosen Saviour King after all?
 
Matthew 11:2-3, “When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’”  
 
Have we ever felt like John did that day, when our own expectations and hopes are dashed?
 
Lots of people sign up for Christianity thinking that it will make our lives easier: suddenly offering us more clarity… more hope… and peace… and love… and joy. And yet, we still end up facing great difficulties… sicknesses, injuries, estrangements, isolation, and failures. And as a result, many of us struggle with our faith, wondering if we had missed something… and are tempted to see our painful experiences as signs that Jesus is not really there for us. That we are either on our own, or that we should look elsewhere for the help and the hope that we need.
 
And yet, as strange as it may seem, our Gospel passage today is an invitation to embrace joy, especially for those like John who find themselves in the midst of some really dark circumstances. Our passage today does not deny the reality of the difficulties that we all will face. Instead, it calls us to trust that our times of suffering are not a sign of our abandonment, and that they can be endured faithfully and even joyfully when seen in the light of God’s good Kingdom at work.
​
In short: while the way of Jesus will not always be easy, even in the darkest times it still offers us real hope, and peace, and joy… as we start to see and share in what God has been up to all along.
 
Turning back to our Gospel passage, let’s take a moment to focus on one of John’s major concerns: that unjust and ungodly rulers seem to be calling the shots, while the innocent suffer at their hands. Now I know many of us here at St. Luke’s share John’s concerns… and that tyrants still seem to be running amok in our world. 
 
And just like John, we Christians throughout the centuries have looked to Jesus as the final Judge who will one day bring an end to all injustice and evil… coming again to sort out the living and the dead, as the Creeds call us each week to confess. And all throughout the Holy Scriptures, we see that justice and righteousness are clearly on the God’s agenda.  
 
But He also has far more in store that we tend to lose sight of when we insist that He adhere to our agendas… and closely follow the plans and timelines that we are expecting.

Matthew tells us that John was discouraged and started to doubt when he heard what Jesus was up to. But what was Jesus up to? Not yet toppling tyrants… He was instead giving the world a long-awaited taste of and a glimpse into what the joyful victory of the Kingdom of God is like!
 
Matthew 11:4-6, “Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
 
In His response, Jesus is pointing John to the fulfillment of God’s promises of salvation spoken of through the prophets, like we heard this morning in our first reading from Isaiah 35:5-6,
“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”
 
Far from failing to fulfill His calling as God’s Chosen Messiah, Jesus was doing far more than John had expected… enacting God’s salvation even before the tyrants of the world were overthrown. And Jesus chose to enact God’s salvation in the lives of ordinary, hungry, and hurting people… offering signs of the New Life of God’s New Creation… the beautiful future that Christ came to bring about from amid the ashes of our worlds selfishness and sin. 
 
And Jesus’ healing ministry among the poor, and the outcasts was not just a gift to those who experienced His healing touch first-hand… excluding all others, as if He didn’t care about all those who did not encounter Him face to face… or those, like John, who continued to suffer under the power of unjust tyrants. No, through His acts of mercy, and healing ministry, Jesus was hard at work pointing us all towards the coming victory of God’s Kingdom: the joyful release from all captivity… the ending of all divisions… the healing of all wounds… the forgiveness of all sins… and life in all its fullness. 
 
Christ’s whole time on earth… all that He says and does serves as a sign, a window into what God has in store… and it is so good! And no illness, no tragedy, or tyrant will be able to keep God’s good Kingdom from coming!
 
And it was for this reason… for this joyful future set before Him, that Jesus Himself endured the incredible suffering and pain of the cross… abandoned and betrayed by His friends… falsely accused and condemned by His own people... Jesus freely chose to take the failures and shame of the whole world on His shoulders… the Judge of all accepting the full price of justice on Himself in order to release us all from the power and hold of sin over us… setting us free by His cross so that we might share in the joys of His New Life. 
 
Jesus pursued joy… not just for Himself, but for us all… by remaining faithful to His Father even unto death… and was raised again on Easter morning as the firstborn and first-fruits of God’s New Creation. 
 
And just as Jesus was raised to this eternal joy, so will those of us who remain in Him. His glory becomes our glory… His victory becomes ours… and through faith, we begin to share in the joys of His New Life, even now. 

Jesus shows us that joy does not come from avoiding the darkness and pain of life in our broken world. It comes from believing that all darkness and pain will one day be healed and overcome for good by God. Joy is holding fast to this Good News, and letting it sink in, and take root within us… like a seed buried in the ground, but bursting through the soil to bring new life into being.
 
And this is where our second reading today, from the letter of James, comes into play, calling us to endure even our days of darkness patiently, trusting that in God’s time our joys will be complete.
 
James 5:7-10, “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.”
 
As we await our Lord’s return, to set all things right, and bring us to His eternal joy, James calls us to patience… to remain faithful to Jesus by holding fast to the hope we have been given… even as we face days of discouragement, and our own great difficulties.
 
Our struggles and concerns may not be like John the Baptist’s… we might not get locked up, or lose our lives for standing up to unjust tyrants. But many of us have had to face other dark challenges, like serious health concerns… or tensions in our relationships… or seasons of not having the resources we need… or times of isolation… or destructive temptations… or a whole host of others trials. 
 
And these struggles are all important to God. He’s not ignoring us when we face them, or asking us to smile and pretend everything’s alright when it’s clearly not. But God does invite us to hold our concerns up to the light of what Jesus has done for us and our world… and to trust that in Christ, true freedom and real release from these struggles is on its way… calling us to hold onto Him in joyful anticipation that all of these struggles will one day be resolved and sorted out for good by our Saviour King. 

And while we wait, we are called to become living signs of joy for our world. I don’t mean walking around as if nothing upsets us, or that nothing is wrong… but living as those who are always in touch with the Good News of Jesus, even when everything around us seems to be shrouded in gloom… speaking and acting as those who know that the good Kingdom of God is on its way, and that despite all the troubles we and our world faces today, Jesus our Saviour King really is coming to the rescue, and nothing in all of Creation can stop His complete victory.
 
And so, with the help of the Holy Spirit, may we all become living signs of joy for one another, and for all those around us… offering a taste of God’s New Life at work in us even now… even when things seem their darkest... and patiently anticipating the joyful arrival of His good Kingdom by being Christ’s faithful witnesses in the world, His active hands and feet working to share His Good News with everyone, any way we can. Amen.

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 11:1–10 | Psalm 72 | Romans 15:4–13 | ​Matthew 3:1–12

“In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’” (Matthew 3:1-2).
 
A lot of people are talking about peace these days… probably because it’s one of those things that so many of us are longing for, while so few know how to practice it.  
 
In the headlines, we hear all about the seemingly endless negotiations and politicking at work between nations striving for peace… but where the ‘peace process’ often looks a lot like a bunch of bullies pressuring the vulnerable until they give in to unjust demands… and powerful leaders boasting and posturing to make themselves seem great while others pay the price…  suffering and struggling to put back the pieces of their broken lives.
 
But it’s not just world-leaders who have a hard time practicing peace. It’s a problem for lots of us… in our own communities, and relationships, and even within our own hearts and minds. So many of us are searching for a path to peace… but it still seems to elude us.

And the problem just might be that we keep on searching for peace on our own terms. Imagining that we humans are the best judges of what needs to be done to put things right… either in the wider world or inside of us.
 
I mean, our commercial economy runs on this assumption, and tries to sell us this message, insisting that ‘If I only buy this new produce… or take up this special offer… or share in this once in a lifetime experience… then I’d finally be at peace.’ And yet, these products and programs which can seem so promising… still leave us longing for more. And how much of our conversations about politics… about the shape of our common life, boils down to something like ‘If they would only do this… or concede to that… then we would all be at peace.’ And yet, most of these paths that seem so obvious to us don’t seem to pan out in practice.
 
But thankfully, the second Sunday of Advent which we celebrate today calls us to look for peace elsewhere… to turn around and instead of pursuing peace on our own terms, to find it by coming face to face with the Prince of Peace Himself. 

Someone whose whole life’s work was to prepare the way for and point us towards this Prince of Peace is the man our Gospel passage this morning introduces us to: John the Baptist… a prophetic messenger sent from the Living God to call His people to repent… to turn around… seeking not only forgiveness but also a new way forward… starting over again as God’s people devoted to doing His good will. 
 
And despite being someone who was not at all afraid to rock the boat and disturb the peace of his neighbours, John’s message seems to have been pretty well received! And that may have been because John’s challenge actually rang true. Many of John’s fellow Jews were well aware that things were not exactly going well. Their people were living under the thumb of a powerful and violent Empire… whose leaders proclaimed themselves to be the great bringers of peace… but who did so primarily by silencing all opposition with the edge of a sword, or publicly displaying their ultimate power by hanging trouble makers on a cross. In other words, violence and the threat of death were the Roman tools for clearing the way for the paths of peace. Not unlike some places today.

But in addition to the dangers posed by the Romans, there were also concerns that the leaders of John’s own people were not really trustworthy either. After all, King Herod’s whole dynasty were little more than puppets of the Caesars in Rome. And the High Priests and their backers, the Sadducees, were largely preoccupied with maintaining their own positions and power as those in charge of the Temple, and were seen by many as completely compromised and corrupt.
 
And then there were more grass roots, but deeply influential movements like the Pharisees, who offered their own solutions… confidently offering their own specific interpretations of the Laws of Moses, the Commandments, spending their time disputing and despising those who didn’t go along with them, or who somehow didn’t measure up. 
 
And so, recognizing how deeply divided and broken their communities and their lives had become, crowds of God’s people from all around Judea were open to a better way forward… and they came to be baptized by John… to begin again… placing their hope in the mercy and promises of the Living God spoken of by the prophets… by responding to John’s message about turning around… repenting of their old ways, and sins… and pursuing faithfulness instead. 
 
And as we heard today, John had some harsh words for those who were not sincere in pursuing this new start, singling out large groups of both the Sadducees and the Pharisees… both the Temple elites and the popular pietists… who came to him seeking baptism… accusing them of hypocrisy, and calling them both a “brood of vipers”… a biting allusion to Genesis Chapter 3:15, where God says to the snake in the garden after the Fall:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
 
This conflict between the descendants of the snake and the descendants of the Woman… that is, those who were devoted to the ways of darkness and sin, and those who were truly faithful to God… would go on until one offspring of Eve, the Messiah… the Chosen One, would crush the snake’s head for good… setting all things right at last… bringing about the ending of God’s enemies once and for all, and establish His peace forever. 
 
And as we heard, John himself was full of anticipation about this coming Messiah, eagerly awaiting and preparing the way for the One who would come to baptize people with the Holy Spirit, and with fire… finally burning away all that’s wrong with the world, and rescuing all those who remained true. “Even now”, John says in Matthew 3:10, “the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 
 
And John was right… the Messiah was coming to completely sort out our world, and to burn away all of the evil at work in it… but not in the ways that John himself seems to have imagined. And so even God’s faithful messenger, dedicated to calling God’s people to repent and return to Him, would himself have to be turned around… to let go of his own ideas about what God was up to, and what the path to God’s peace actually looks like in practice. 
 
And this is a good reminder for you and I: just because we may have been faithfully trying to follow God and walk in His holy ways for some time now… it doesn’t mean that we are the ones who have all the answers… or that we already understand the whole story of what the Living God is up to. 
 
The Sadducees, the Pharisees, John the Baptist, and even Jesus’ own disciples were in need of a whole a lot of turning around… and we will too, I’m sure. 
 
And often, it can seem like our ways of seeking peace… for our world, our country, our communities, our families, and even ourselves… run completely counter to what we know of God’s ways. And in those times, we must make a choice: Will we keep going our own way, or turn around and take God’s way instead?
 
This is not just a choice we make at the start of our journey as Christians… before our baptism, or confirmation… or whenever we first decide to place our faith in Jesus. It is a choice we Christians must make every day… and maybe many times a day. The choice to pursue God’s path of peace every step of the way, all the way to the end. 
 
And Advent points us forward to the arrival of the One who is the true Prince of Peace: Jesus, God’s Son… the One who reveals God’s good ways to us, and who will return to set our world right once and for all… judging the nations with truth and righteousness… sorting through every lie and act of evil… and exposing all of the corruption that rots and erodes the life of His beloved creation. 
 
Jesus is the One spoken of in our first reading from the book of the Prophet Isaiah 11:2-5,
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
 
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.”
 
Jesus came to baptize us with the Spirit of God and with fire… but not quite as John and others had envisioned. Not as an instrument of terror and destruction… as One bent on wreaking revenge against sinners, but rather, as One determined and devoted to refining us… purifying us… burning away all that keeps us from sharing in His holy life and the path of peace… and while we were still sinners reconciling us to God and one another… making peace for us… by shedding His own blood. 
 
Jesus turned the world’s program for seeking peace on its head… not demanding reparations or concessions from those who have been violently overthrown… but paying the price Himself for all of our world’s spiritual and moral bankruptcies. In self-giving love, Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God gave up His life at the cross… suffering and dying for us, and in our place, all to bring us God’s peace:
 
Exposing our failures… but by forgiving them. 
Challenging all our lies… by showing us the truth. 
Bringing our divisions to an end, not through violence, but by embracing us all… conquering God’s real enemies… the devil, the powers of sin, and the seemingly invincible threat of violence and death itself by innocently enduring their full force, dying and rising again for us… breaking the chains of fear and shame forever, and setting us free to move forward together. 
 
At the cross, Jesus reveals the heartbeat and the power of God’s peace as His holy love in practice. And He shows us that the only true path of peace is the commitment to letting His holy love play out in all our relationships. This path doesn’t deny that there are still those who seek to use violence and power and the fear of death to get their own way… but the cross and resurrection of Jesus reveals that these ways don’t stand a chance against the victory of God! And one day, the Risen Lord Himself will sit down and sort out all that’s been done, calling everyone to account for the course of their lives, and answering to Him for what’s been done.
 
But as we await that day, we must actively resist the impulse to look on others as enemies to dismiss or destroy… remembering that the path of peace that Jesus Himself leads us on is the path of reconciliation… bringing those who were formerly foes together into God’s one family.
 
Remember Isaiah’s vision of God’s ultimate peace project, in Chapter 11:6-10, how those who were once completely at odds with one another will one day be completely at peace:
 
“The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.”
 
And this is much more than noble poetry… this is the story of the Church… the community of those who have received the Spirit of Christ, and have been baptized into His new life.
 
In our second reading today from Romans Chapter 15, we heard the Apostle Paul speaking to a deeply divided Church, made up of both Jewish and Gentile Christians, reminding them of the unity and peace they have with God and one another through their faith in the Messiah, Jesus… overcoming almost impossible social and historical obstacles to create this brand new community dedicated to practicing Christ’s peace together, here on earth. 
 
And in Romans 15:5-7, he says to them, and to you and I today:
 
“May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
 
With this high calling in mind: What are the ways that Jesus our Messiah is calling us to practice His peace today? What divisions are we to seek to overcome? What prejudices or preoccupations are we to set aside, and even what pains are we called to endure in order to share His holy love with those around us? Those whom God commands us to love, and whom Jesus Christ gave His own life to save?
 
This second Sunday of Advent calls us to ask these kinds of questions, and to place our hope, not in our own ability to answer them, but in Christ’s own power and peace at work in us through His Holy Spirit. So, as we await His coming again to set our world right, and establish His unending peace, in the words of St. Paul: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:4-13). Amen.