This sermon was preached at Grace Lutheran Church (River Forest, IL) on January 11, the Baptism of Our Lord. You can watch the livestream recording and follow along in the bulletin. The image is Baptism of Christ by David Zelenka (2005, used with permission).
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace be unto you and peace in the name God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
- On Friday morning, I dragged myself out of bed a bit earlier than usual on my day off. In an inversion of Christmas morning, I grabbed my cup of coffee and made my way to the Christmas tree. There were no gifts below, no stockings hanging nearby, no carols playing. Its daily donation of needles to the floor had been steadily increasing. The tree was engaged in its own version of dry January and hadn’t had a drink in days. Without ceremony, I unscrewed the pins holding it in its stand, dropped it on its side, and dragged it outside. I had to do all this early to make sure that it was ready for collection by the village for its journey to the chipper. As I dumped it in our alley in the gray light of a rainy morning, I took one last look at what had been, for us, a good tree. But now it was, cold, lifeless, cutoff. And the thought I had in that moment was simple: I know how you feel, tree. I know how you feel. Cut off, the joy and purpose gone, helpless and hopeless. Like Green Bay in the fourth quarter…
- The people of God were well acquainted with such a state of affairs, having lost much more than a football game. We find them today in exile, strangers in the strange land of Babylon, victims of the neighborhood bully who took them over because it could. Temple destroyed, homes far behind, the people wonder if this is the end of the story. Has the light finally gone out? Are they cut off forever? The prophet sings them a song, the first of the four Servant Songs of Isaiah. And who is the servant? The servant is the whole people of God, the people of Israel. The Lord sings to the chosen, the people in whom God delights. Yes, like a reed the servant is bruised but will not break, is faint but will not be crushed, burns dimly but will not be quenched. The same God who stretched out the heavens will use the servant to bring justice to the coastlands, not to work violent revenge upon the nations but to bring them into the promise of a new covenant that will one day come. The people, far from home, wonder in Psalm 137 how they can sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? With their own voices cut off, God sings a new song to them – a song of promise, hope, and life when all seems lost. When will the servant of whom God sings rise up?
- Perhaps you come into this space today feeling cut off, overwhelmed, wondering not just where the joy of the season went but whither to go now. The news cycle has been relentless, from last weekend’s military incursion into Venezuela to the killing of Renée Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday. In between these two events, a high-ranking government official spoke with CNN, offering not just his understanding of the role of government but a theological, cosmological, vision of how the world works. A world, he says, “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” What is striking is that there is no particular defense of this or that action, no nuanced articulation of this or that policy. It is a simply a vision of a world in which might makes right and power is to be used, always, to dominate and subjugate others. To further the interests of one people at the expense of others. To be fair, this is too often how the world has always worked, but that is a result of our sin, not God’s intention. If we live in a world governed by brute force and who can wield it best, we are left with limited options. In that light, are we left with limited questions? Less why Venezuela and more who’s next? Less why was Renée Good shot to death and more when will it happen again, and to whom? If the iron laws of the world are strength, force, power, where does that leave us? Shall we all be driven by fear to seek domination over one another? I desperately hope not. The words of the poet, Rilke, come to mind: “Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
- This morning, we see the new servant come at last, Jesus, the hope of all people in our helplessness. He goes down to the Jordan and, over the protests of John, is baptized. One unique feature of Matthew’s account of this baptism is Jesus’ explanation that he must be baptized to fulfill all righteousness. Not because he is sinful, which he isn’t, nor even to begin to address our individual sins, although that is, of course, part and parcel of his saving mission. In going under the waters of the Jordan, Jesus does so as one who stands behalf of the whole people of God, to bring them back into right relationship with God so that they – in Christ – may now fulfill their call of bringing sight to the blind nations, and with it, justice and peace. Just as this world was created by God out of the watery chaos, so now does Jesus go under the floodwaters to begin the renewal of creation. He will complete this work on his cross and be vindicated by his resurrection. And throughout his work, from the Jordan to Calvary, Jesus will make it clear that this world’s ways of strength, force, and power are not God’s ways. Jesus makes it clear that we were made for love – a love, Peter will discover later in his encounter with Cornelius, that shows no partiality.
- The baptism of Jesus is the beginning of God’s endgame in which creation will be reborn, put back to rights. There is a second element of Matthew’s narrative this morning that is unique. Mark and Luke tell of the heavenly voice speaking to Jesus, but in Matthew the voice is for us: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” This, God tells us, is the only One to whom we can look for forgiveness and life and hope for the future. And this One to whom we look is the Lord who brings peace and love.
- Michael Gorman writes of the cruciform nature of our baptismal faith, that we are justified “by means of God’s faithfulness expressed in love, to which humans, moved and enabled by God’s Spirit, respond in faithfulness that expresses itself in love.” Friends, in baptism we have been drawn under the waters with Jesus and find ourselves alive in him. As Jesus goes under the waters and under death for us, alive in Christ even now, so do we now in Christ give of ourselves for others. We seek not to dominate, always to serve. All is not lost. We suffer, but the song of the servant goes on. The power and the glory belong to God alone, and God’s reign is marked by love. Forgiven of your sin, go forth as bearers of the light, that all may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven, the God who shows no partiality. The God working for peace and hope and love. Amen.
And now may that peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, this day and forever. Amen.
This sermon was preached on New Year’s Eve at Grace Lutheran Church (River Forest, IL). You can watch the livestream recording and follow along in the bulletin. The cantata, BWV 28, was wonderful. The picture of a goat is used with permission.
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace be unto you and peace in the name God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
- When I first saw which cantata would be part of our New Year’s Eve worship this evening, I thought, yeah, that’s appropriate. I though Bach, or more to the point, Pastor Neumeister, our librettist, had really tapped into my feelings about the whole thing. But that was because I was misreading it. I thought the cantata was titled, “Praise God! Now the year comes to an end,” as in, “Good riddance, thank God that’s over.” I imagined a litany of misfortune, a droning dirge to march us out of this year. A year in which so much has been fraught, so challenging, so difficult. I was a bit surprised to discover that Bach and Neumeister meant what they said: Praise God! The soprano calls us to think on how much God has done for you over the past year, to delight in how much God will do for you yet. If we, at times, have a hard time looking back and not focusing on the bad, we gather tonight to remind be reminded that our God is faithful and good; that God has not failed us yet. That while there are disasters and disappointments, God is with us even in these things.
- This does not mean, of course, that we shouldn’t also look about with honesty about all that was not well this year. But instead of reflecting upon all ways in which other people fell short, did wrong, or generally weren’t too our liking, Jesus holds up a mirror so that we might do some self-reflecting. In his last parable, spoken days before his own death, Jesus tells of the last judgment. All people shall be separated into two groups, sheep and goats, based on how they have treated Jesus. Not Jesus as he shows up in himself, but Jesus as he is present in others. Specifically, Jesus as he appears in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned. Those who have shown love and care to these least of these shall be welcomed into the eternal Kingdom. Those who didn’t? Well, that’s what hell is for, and if you didn’t care for the least of these, you can look forward to an eternity with the devil and his angels.
- On first glance, this seems, well, okay, for me? I mean, sometimes I feed the hungry and welcome the stranger. I’ve even visited people in prison. I mean, I probably do these things more than some of you, you old goats. Won’t I be a wooly sheep? But the hard reality of the matter sets in. However many times I have done these things pales in comparison with how many times I haven’t. And the same, dear friends, is true for you. Jesus isn’t grading on a curve. You have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Full stop. Do you know how I know? Because the last time I checked, we still allow ourselves to live in a world in which there are people who are hungry and thirsty and naked and sick and in prison. We still allow this world’s least to stay least. I will make special note of the stranger Jesus mentions. Who are they? The New Testament scholar Mark Allal Powell points out that the word is xenos, meaning “foreigner” or “noncitizen.” “It is,” Powell writes, “the term that today would be used to refer to an ‘undocumented immigrant.’” Powell continues, with what I consider a fair amount of understatement, “Modern Americans may take note of this when reflecting on the circumstances of noncitizens in the United States.” Indeed. It would be foolish to imagine that Jesus has an exact immigration policy in mind. The matter is complex. But make no mistake: When Jesus speaks of those among whom he is to be found and about whom we should deeply care, Jesus includes people without documentation and status. We don’t get to not care about them. We don’t get to pretend they are worth less than us. That is the sort of thing that leads to condemnation.
- So, goats. How are we doing? Perhaps wishing we’d skipped this service and started in on the champaign a bit earlier? Is there no good news at the end of this not-so-good year? As mentioned, Jesus will shortly be crucified. Yes, the Son of Man finds us all wanting. Goats, every last one of us. But the Son is also the Shepherd, and the Shepherd is still good. So Jesus, who actually spent his life welcoming and caring for the least of these, goes to the cross for the sake of those who have fallen short. He takes our sin with him and leaves it in the tomb. When he emerges, alive, the sin remains behind. For the sake of the Good Shepherd who is the Lamb of God, the goats become sheep. We have been baaaaaptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection, covered with the wooly righteous of Christ forever. Christ stands in our place, and we receive life, abundant and eternal.
- It is amazing to think on how far God would go for our salvation. The Episcopal priest and chef Robert Farrar Capon writes, if this “is in one way the heaviest, more fear-inspiring parable of all, it is also the lightest, the last laugh of the mighty act of salvation.” It is, he writes, “the Three Stooges working only for laughs. God isn’t trying to hurt anyone; [God’s] not even mad at anyone. There are no lengths to which [God] won’t go to prove there are no restrictions on the joy [God] wants to share with us. If you were never afraid of Curly, Larry, and Moe, you don’t need to be afraid of the Trinity either.”
- Of course, Jesus means what he says. If, after finding him here for you in Word and sacrament, you’re still looking for Jesus, he tells you were he’ll be. In the person and in the needs of the hungry and thirsty, the stranger and naked, the sick and imprisoned. Just because God isn’t planning on casting you into the eternal fire doesn’t mean God doesn’t want you to help people. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! So, get after it. The sins of this year are forgiven. You are free for the future God intends. You’re not goats anymore; you’re sheep. Act like it. And trust God to work it out. After all, as Pastor Neumeister teaches us to pray: “Give us a peaceful year / Spare us from all suffering / And nourish us gently.” There is no doubt that the coming year will have both the good and the baaaaaad, and so shall it be year after year until this old world gives way to the new heaven and the new earth. The Shepherd will be with you all the way. Praise God for the year that was. Praise God for the year that will be. Amen. Happy New Year!
And now may that peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, this day and forever. Amen.
This sermon was preached at Grace Lutheran Church (River Forest, IL) on December 28, the First Sunday of Christmas. You can watch the livestream recording and follow along in the bulletin. The image is Flight into Egypt by Eugène Girardet (unknown date, public domain).
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace be unto you and peace in the name God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
- It’s amazing how quickly things turn. Just a few days ago, our living room was immaculate. Beautifully wrapped presents waited under the tree and anticipation hung in the air. That all changed quickly on Christmas morning. Make no mistake; it was wonderful. Gifts given and received with joy and love, reminders of the true gift of the season, Jesus the Christ Child. But goodness, did it go quickly. By the time I left to come to Grace for Christmas Day worship, our living room had become a holding pen for recyclable materials. So it remained until yesterday, when the village picked up the recycling that was already in the bin and we could fill it up again with our Christmas detritus. We’ve just about built all of the new LEGO sets, for goodness’ sake! Maybe your Christmas has been similar; if not literally, metaphorically. It’s the Fourth Day of Christmas but it also feels so quickly over. Here we are, back to normal, ready to move on.
- It’s amazing how quickly things turn. The angels and shepherd of which Luke told us on Christmas Eve have returned to their heavens and their fields, respectively. The Magi have completed their long journey, following the star to find the newborn king. They’ve given their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The wrapping paper has been ripped off and the recycling taken out. And how quickly things go back to normal. Normal in all the worst ways. Normal in broken ways of this world, in which peace on earth and goodwill to all people are the exception, not the rule. Here, in the wake of Christmas, we are confronted with a massacre. The wise men receive a divine dream, urging then go home by another road. Joseph, too, receives divine direction and flees with his family to Egypt. Herod, unable to find the one child, takes out his wrath on the many. This paranoid potentate seeks to eliminate any possible threat to his reign and orders his troops to put to death all children in the area who were two years or younger. This is heartbreakingly extreme, but not out of character. Herod had two of his own sons murdered because he saw them as threats to his rule.
- For all of the wonderful ways in which we value children, especially at Christmas, it is also true that they are the least of these, often the first to be forgotten. We have our own modern-day massacres and mistreatments of the innocents. From 2020 through 2024, 329 children in Chicago were victims of homicide. Since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, more than 20,000 children in Gaza have been killed. That’s more than one per hour, if you’re keeping score at home. Our own nation has taken to separating families through increased immigration enforcement; this year, more children have been taken from their parents and placed in government “shelters” than in the past four years combined. All of which is simply to say that the situation of the Holy Family is closer to the rule than the exception. Joseph and Mary find themselves in a situation all too common for young families who simply want the chance to raise their children in peace. But rather than being able to put down roots, violence forces them to flee, refugees in a foreign land.
- If this seems like a disruption of the Christmas story, however, perhaps we haven’t been paying close enough attention. The Son of God did not leave the splendors of heaven to stay distant from the dangers of earth. Jesus was born precisely for these children, lost and forsaken. While the angels come to Joseph in dreams and lead the Holy Family from immediate danger, it is merely a delay. Jesus, Mary’s baby boy and the Father’s only Son, will eventually suffer death at the hands of another Herod. In his dying, though, Jesus destroys the power of death. In his cross, Jesus opens wide his arms to all. Even and especially to children, so easily disposed of by this world.
- Today, in just a few minutes, Audrey Rae will be brought to the baptismal font by her parents and sponsors. Audrey is blessed to be born to parents who love her, blessed to have home and safety and love in this world. May it be so for every child. Today, by God’s grace alone, Audrey is welcomed into God’s family forever. Her baptism is a reminder that God is the God of children. That God doesn’t wait for children to become adults who prove themselves worthy of love and welcome. Audrey is already everything God needs her to be, and we can’t wait to see everything that God does in and through her. And as we witness her baptism today, so, too, do we hear God’s call to create a world in which all children have access to this world’s abundance, regardless of the circumstances of their birth.
- Matthew’s first readers would have caught the allusions immediately. Centuries before, their people had been led by a dreamer named Joseph to seek safety in Egypt. That safety had evaporated. 400 years later, they would flee Egypt to escape a child-murdering monarch. The scene is recapitulated in the saving story of Jesus as another Joseph returns to Egypt with his family. Jesus, the Savior of the world, enters into this world as a vulnerable child. He endures the vicissitudes of life and the victimhood of death. But nothing in this life or death will undo what Jesus has been born to do: raise all children of earth, to life in the coming kingdom and to lives of dignity in this world. Let us worship the Christ child by caring for children. For while Christmas flies away, the promise of the Christ Child lives on. There is still darkness in this world, but as John proclaims, the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. Amen. Merry Christmas!
And now may that peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, this day and forever. Amen.
This sermon was preached on Christmas morning at Grace Lutheran Church (River Forest, IL). You can watch the livestream recording and follow along in the bulletin. The image is The Birth of Christ by Jan Erasmus Quellinus (1689, public domain).
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace be unto you and peace in the name God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
- The other day, I heard of a congregation in Missouri that recently had two funerals, close together, for longtime members and dear saints on the church, Mary and Shirley. Mary’s service was first, with Shirley’s following a few days later. As it turned out, they had similar requests regarding readings and hymns. The bulletins would be nearly identical, other than their names. So, whoever in that congregation is in charge of preparing the bulletins made a decision. Why prepare Shirley’s bulletin from scratch? Instead, they decided to let AI do the job. They utilized one or another tool, ChatGPT I assume, and told it to make Mary’s service into one for Shirley. On first glance, all seemed well. There was Shirley’s name, right where it was supposed to be. In the prayers, in the commendation. It was only just before the service was set to begin that the vicar noticed an issue. He crossed the chancel and whispered to the pastor, who responded by standing up and grabbing bulletins out of as many hands as he could. It seems that, right there during the funeral liturgy, they were about to confess their faith in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Shirley. I do want to take a moment to assure you that this is, to the best of my knowledge, a true story. Not that I think that you would think that I would ever, you know, engineer a joke for a sermon. This one’s true!
- It is not for me to offer an ethical investigation about the uses of artificial intelligence, at least not right now. Although, hey, humanity, be careful here. But whether AI ends up being a useful tool that makes silly mistakes or instead conquers the world and installs robots as our overlords, one thing is clear: The A will always be part of the I. I will always be artificial It will never be human. Which is fine, of course. It’s simply to say that, whether AI is a blessing and a curse, it, like all of our tools, can never save us, for it will never be one of us. Only One of is like us can save us, which leaves us in a bit of a lurch, of course, because not one of us is not in need of saving.
- Which brings us back to Mary and her baby boy. Last night, in this room and around the world, we heard again of the journey to Bethlehem, the angels and the shepherds, the new parents gathered around the manger in wonder, and their little child who is Savior and Messiah. Today, we enter the Christmas story from another vantage point. John zooms out from Bethlehem and goes back to the beginning. John’s prologue invites us to remember the genesis of all things, of God moving in the darkness, Spirit upon the deep, bringing worlds into being through words alone. God speaks, and it is so. But John the Evangelist tells us that these words are not alike to our words, that these words are not simply spoken by God. These words are the Word, in whom and through whom all things have come into being.
- One might reasonably expect that the Word who creates worlds would keep ours, so broken and benighted, at a safe distance. But John proclaims the most wondrous, surprising thing: The Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth. The wonder of the Incarnation is that God has joined Godself to humanity, fully and freely, forever. As Pastor Roger Nelson writes in The Christian Century, “the wonder of Christmas is that we gather not just for an idea, creed, or confession, not just for music and family traditions, however beautiful. We gather together because in a particular place, at a particular time, God became mass and matter, took on cells and cellulose. We gather,” Nelson concludes, “in the mystery that God slipped in among us.” We, friends, trapped in cycles or sin and violence, sickness and suffering, sorrow and death; we, who have – by our own fault and through the fault of others – become less human that we were made to be, look and behold the most wondrous thing. The Word has become flesh. Jesus, God-among-us, is truly human. And in his living, dying, and rising, we become truly human, too. We wake on this Christmas morning to a dual reality. On the one hand, nothing is different. Sin and suffering roll on. Death still stalks us. On the other hand, nothing is the same. Nor will it be ever again. God in Christ has refused to stay far off. There is nothing artificial about Jesus, Son of Mary and Son of God, this Light that forever shines in every darkness, that shows forth death to be nothing more now than an empty shell.
- Though this day has dawned, this world’s night is not yet passed. But everything is different, for God has refused to stay far off. As Christ has joined himself to our suffering world, so, too, does he join us to God’s coming Kingdom. If we remain in the “not yet,” we also live in the anticipated “already.” Or, as the poet Anne Brontë writes:
Though Darkness still her empire keep,
And hours must pass, ere morning break;
From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,
That music kindly bids us wake:
It call us with an angel’s voice,
To wake, and worship, and rejoice.
- Friends, let us wake, and worship, and rejoice, for the Word and become flesh. Judgment has given way to grace and mercy. The God who seemed far off is now anything but. Christ is here, now, present for you, in Word and sacrament, lived out in prayer and song and service to others. God, true God, is present with and for you, now and forever. In Jesus, you are now finally and fully human, too, joined to the divine light of Christ, in this world and the next, world without end. God in Christ has become one of us. God in Christ has saved us. God in Christ is with us, now and forever. Merry Christmas! Amen.
And now may the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, this day and forever. Amen.
This sermon was preached at Grace Lutheran Church (River Forest, IL) on December 21, the Fourth Sunday of Advent. You can view the livestream recording and follow along in the bulletin. The picture is of this year’s Lyle family Christmas tree, shining in the darkness.
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace be unto you and peace in the name God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
- The darkness feel like a dangerous place. This is certainly true for me physically. My shins are nearly constantly bruised and battered because the furniture is never where I think it is when I’m walking around at night. Left to my own devices in the dark, I’m constantly running into things. It’s hard to see the path forward. But it’s also true for me spiritually, emotionally. In the darkness, my mind spins and my spirit wavers. I think the worst, or feel overwhelmed, or imagine entirely unhelpful ways to respond to difficult situations. Again, left to my own devices, I’m constantly running into things. It’s hard to see the path forward. Maybe this is why little children often fear the darkness, because they struggle to trust what they cannot see. Maybe that’s why we’ve created a modern world in which little lights are ever present. For that matter, maybe it’s why we, in sinful stupidity, invented the sin of racism, pretending that light is better than dark. Darkness, we imagine, is to be shunned and avoided however we can. But can it be, perhaps, that it is in the darkness that we can most clearly see?
- Joseph finds himself in a difficult position. He is engaged to Mary. Betrothed, really, as you’ll recall from older translations. And the difference is not unimportant. To be betrothed was to have a relationship with legal standing. Breaking off an engagement in our day creates all sorts of problems, of course. You’ll likely not get those deposits back, and where now will you wear those fancy clothes? But if ending such a relationship is the right thing to do, it can be done without much fuss. A betrothed couple in year zero couldn’t just call it off. While they had not yet consummated their marriage, they were legally bound to one another. A divorce would be necessary in such a situation. Jospeh, unable to see a path forward, decides to at least be decent about it. He doesn’t want to shame Mary. But Mary is pregnant and that is that. Joseph has run into more than the furniture. This, as far as he can see, is a dead end.
- Sometimes the dead of night can be just the thing. I remember cloudless nights during my time ofnsummer staff at Lutheran camps in Wisconsin. If there was no cloud cover, I would go down to the waterfront, grab a canoe, and paddle by myself out to the middle of the lake. I’d lie down and look up. Without clouds and away from the tree line, there was nothing to keep me from seeing the brilliance of the night sky. The stars, bright as they are, can only be seen in the dark. Living in the suburbs, where it’s never really dark, my sprit yearns for the sort of night sky than can only be seen on the water, or in the country, far from city lights. My spirit yearns for the darkness. Because sometimes, that’s the only way to see clearly.
- Joseph’s very reasonable human plans made sense but led nowhere. But God? God is the God of dreams in the darkness. Four times Joseph is visited in his dreams by an angel of the Lord. Four times the dreams change the direction of life for Joseph, Mary, and, eventually, Jesus. Of these four dreams, the first – today’s – is the most significant. Joseph learns that God is at work in the darkness. As God moved in creation in the dark, formless void, so now does God take form in the darkness of Mary’s womb, the divine gestating in human flesh. In this dream in the darkness, Joseph hears the most confounding thing: this child being carried by his beloved is the result of divine, not human, scandal. Not the scandal of a tawdry affair, but the scandal of a God who does not remain far off from God’s people, from their suffering in sin and death. The scandal of a God who would come near, and does so through this most blessed of women, of people, Mary. The scandal of a God who fully joins the divine to the human. The Christ who joins himself to us. This Jesus who takes flesh as a particular person so that all people, in all their particularity, can be saved from their sins, saved now for life.
- In The Lord of the Rings, when Frodo and the rest of the fellowship prepare to depart Lothlorien and continue their hopeless quest to destroy the One Ring, the Lady Galadriel presents gifts to the companions. To Frodo, she gives a small phial which contains the light of Eärendil, brightest of the stars. With the gift, she speaks: “It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” J.R.R. Tolkien, the author, knew about despair. Orphaned at a young age, a survivor of the trench horrors of World War I, he was intimately familiar with the depths of human experience. But he also understand that, in the dark, we could behold the true light. One might say that when we strip away the blinking lights and glitzy glare, it is then we see the light that matters: Jesus Christ, the Light of the world.
- Friends, this has been a difficult time at Grace. As if everything else in the world wasn’t enough already. But don’t rush out of the darkness. In the quiet of night, God comes to us with dreams. Dreams not of war, but of peace on earth and goodwill for all people. Dreams of a world in which all people are loved and valued, in which all people have enough. Dreams in which God makes a way where there once was no way. A dream in which the separation between God and humans is erased, for God is Emmanuel, God with us in all things. In the darkness, may you find clarity and know peace. The peace of the God who knows you and loves you. In the darkness, Christ is born. Amen.
And now may that peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, this day and forever. Amen.
