That We All May Be One

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them has light shined.” (Isaiah 9:2)
“Oh the majesty and magnificence of his presence! Oh, the power and the splendor of his sanctuary.” (Psalm 96:6)
“…the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.” (Titus 2:11)
“Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them…” (Luke 2:9)

Light shining…magnificence and splendor…grace appearing….glory all around.

All of our Lessons from Holy Scripture tonight seem to emphasize Light! And it’s easy to see why anciently the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrated Christmas on January 6 – or what we call the Feast of the Epiphany. Because the word “epiphany” means a “shining forth” and surely the birth of Christ was a “shining forth,” an epiphany of God’s purposes in ways the world had never seen before!

Even in evening celebrations of the Christ Mass, like this one, there is an emphasis on candlelight and “candle light services”. We’ll sing Silent Night by candlelight at the end of this service. And our homes are filled with Christmas lights of all kinds. Why all this emphasis on “light” at Christmas? Well, what does light do? It “reveals”, doesn’t it? It makes things known that would otherwise be hidden. And that is exactly what the birth of Jesus Christ did for the world. It revealed, made known, manifested, something of what God is really like.

You might think that would have been unnecessary for the people of Israel who had worshipped God for nearly 2,000 years before Jesus was born. But there were still differences of opinion about what God was like. There was a Priestly understanding of a God who approved of cult and temple and sacrifice. There was a Prophetic understanding of a God who desired justice and righteousness above all else…and was quite suspicious of the sacrificial system.

There were those who saw God as vengeful and capable of destroying entire nations if they opposed the Divine Will. And others who saw God as tender and compassionate, One who brooded over this world like a mother over her children.

To this day, people have all kinds of ideas about God. Some believe in a God who sanctions violence of the most extremist kind. On the other hand, some Eastern religions have a very peaceful, tolerant view of the Divine, but don’t say much more than that about God. Seems to be a more of a Force, or a Divine Mind, rather than a Personal Being for them.

But our claim as Christians is that we know a bit more than that about what this God is like. Without wanting to say that we know everything there is to know about the Creator of the Universe (we certainly do not!) we do believe that something of the very nature of God has been revealed to us in the Person of Jesus Christ. We have been “enlightened” to some degree about that very Nature.

For example, we know that God is not callous or cruel. God does not willingly afflict or grieve human beings. We know that God is not distant from us or from the affairs of this world. For all God’s power and majesty, there is a certain vulnerability and even the possibility of being “hurt” – like a baby in a manger, our God can be vulnerable…and even wounded.

We know that God is not static and predictable by our rules and regulations, but is perfectly capable of surprising us, like the twelve year old boy in the Temple once surprised his parents by being about his Father’s business instead of being where they thought he ought to be. God “shows up” in unexpected places!

We know that God cares very deeply about what happens to us and so reaches out with a Word of wisdom and with healing, like that itinerant rabbi who once went about preaching Good News and backing up his words with actions like the healing of a paralytic, and the restoring of sight to one who had been born blind.

We know that God is capable of being betrayed by us, and delivered into the hands of sinners, for even less than the thirty pieces of silver Judas once got for betraying his friend.

But, in all this, indeed because of all this, God reigns! With all the vulnerability and unpredictability and deep compassion, God remains the creator and sustainer of the Universe, the ultimate source of all life and all that is. And this God is able and willing to bring good out of evil, and life out of death at every turn. Just as he once split open the grave and won the victory over death and hell on Easter morning.

How can we say all this? How can we believe all this with such passion? Because we believe in the essence of the Christmas story… because we believe in the “good news of great joy for all the people (for to us) is born this day in the City of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

We know something of what God is like because we believe that the meaning of the Christmas story is what St. Luke said it was, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth.”

We believe that Jesus Christ is “the grace of God…bringing salvation to all…” And his name will be called, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Light shining…magnificence and splendor…grace appearing…glory all around. That’s what we celebrate here tonight, dear friends. Merry Christmas!

Pentecost 20
Our Collect, or prayer for today, mentions three aspects of the Christian life that are sometimes called the three “Theological Virtues.” And those virtues are faith, hope, and love. The Collect says “faith, hope and charity” which many of us grew up hearing (in fact, I used to know a family with three little girls they named Faith, Hope, and Charity!) but St. Paul did not use the Greek word “caritas” when he first linked those Theological Virtues in First Corinthians 13.
When he wrote “faith, hope, and love abide; these three, but the greatest of these is love”, he used the word “agape” – God’s love, the kind of love God has for us and the kind of love we are to have for one another. Besides, the word “charity” has taken on such a specific meaning in modern English that the even the Latin word “caritas” is probably better translated as “love” not charity. Benevolent giving to the poor (which is what we usually mean by “charity” today) is not really what Paul meant in First Corinthians 13.
In any case, one of the wonderful things about the Bible is that it provides stories and describes characters who demonstrate spiritual concepts like the “Theological Virtues” we have today. And we couldn’t have three more illustrative figures for faith, hope, and love than the three our Lessons hold up for us today – Paul, Moses, and Jesus!
St. Paul is, of course, the great Apostle of faith. It was his discerning insight that we are “saved,” brought into eternal relationship with God, not by our good deeds or good works in this life, but by radical trust in God (which is what the NT Greek word “pistis” or “faith” means). We are not going to earn our way into heaven by impressing God with our moral purity or even our charitable works. How arrogant to think that we could “earn” God’s love in that manner!
We don’t ‘earn’ our parents’ love by “being good.” That love is freely given from birth. Of course our parents were pleased when we did good things, but their love didn’t depend on it. (If it did, then they really weren’t very good parents, were they?) God’s love is freely and unconditionally given. Our response must be to “trust” (have faith) that that is so – and to rejoice in the saving relationship with God that that love makes possible. That’s what it means to be “justified by grace through faith.” Saved by trusting in God’s love.
The theological virtue of “hope” is perhaps best seen today in the person of Moses. He was, of course, the heroic military commander who brought the people of Israel out from under the yoke of slavery in Egypt. Yet, in our First Reading today from Deuteronomy we see that this great leader died before the tribes of Israel were able to cross into what they had come to understand as their “Promised Land.”
He got to see whole land from the top of Mount Pisgah across from Jericho, but he could only hope that they would one day possess the land. Yet, he was a man full of hope, and always had been. So he put that hope into action by choosing his brave lieutenant, Joshua, to succeed him and make that hope a reality for his people. Hope leads us to action!
The Gospels, of course, are filled with the Good News of God’s love (the third Theological Virtue) and we see it “incarnated” (made flesh) in Jesus. Has there ever been a person in all of history who lived a life of love more completely than did Jesus of Nazareth? He taught that we could fulfill all the commandments, and be all that we were created to be, by simply loving God and loving our neighbor.
He lived out his days showing us something of what that would look like – by worshipping God in the synagogue and on mountain tops, by respecting the dignity of every person (no matter how different they may be from ourselves), by working for healing and wholeness in the lives of those who are in “trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity” (as our Prayer Book liturgy has it), and by teaching us to forgive those who have wronged us intentionally or unintentionally by his very words from the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
So, dear friends, “faith, hope, love abide; these three, but the greatest of these is love.” I invite you, if you have not already done so, to take that “leap of faith” by trusting that the God of this Universe is a loving God and that that love is intended for you – whether you think that you “deserve” it or not. Because it doesn’t really depend on you! It is God’s very nature to love!
I invite you to hope (even if you cannot “know”) that God’s love for you is eternal and that, when your earthly life is over “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” you will be “raised imperishable…For this perishable body must put on imperishability and this mortal body must put on immortality.” (I Corinthians 15:52-43)
And finally, most importantly according to Jesus and Paul, I invite you to live a life of love. To decide to love your neighbor as yourself (because love is a decision not a “feeling”) and to respect the dignity of every single, human being you ever run across. Because that’s what Jesus did…and because that’s what he commanded us to do.
And that’s why we pray today, “Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and love; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

As today’s Gospel reading reminds us, St. Thomas, the Apostle, had a problem with Easter! He had a problem believing – and relating to the fact – that people were saying that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Many of us, if we’re really honest, also have a problem with Easter. We too may have a problem believing – and relating to the fact – that people have been saying for 2,000 years that Jesus has been raised from the dead.
And that’s understandable! It’s easy to understand why so many people have a problem with Easter. First of all, like Thomas, we often see Easter from the wrong side. We’re on the outside looking in. We see, first of all, the deep darkness of the empty tomb. We often experience the absence of Christ before we ever experience his presence. Thomas missed the apostles’ original encounter with the Risen Christ because he wasn’t in church that Sunday to see him!
“While it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear…” (John 20:19) they had experienced Jesus has being among them, speaking words of greeting and of peace.
But Thomas wasn’t there. He wasn’t’ part of the Christian community on that particular Sunday (we don’t know why) and so he missed the encounter the others had. He was on the outside looking in. And it’s very difficult to understand something you haven’t personally encountered. Same with us. If you’re not part of the Christian community, it’s pretty difficult to understand what Christians are talking about with respect to Easter and the Resurrection.
Secondly, we have no experience to tie Easter to! It’s easy to relate to Christmas – everybody loves babies…and birthdays. We can relate to Ash Wednesday, like so many do to our many “Ashes To Go” services on the street, because – deep down – everyone knows that they have made mistakes and have shortcomings and need to say they’re sorry and receive forgiveness. Our Jewish sisters and brothers do something of the same thing on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. So do Muslims…and many other religions around the world.
Good Friday is immediately understandable to us because most of us have experienced the death of a loved one, a parent or a grandparent or even a beloved pet. We know something about death and loss; we’ve experienced it. But resurrection! None of us has experienced that in its fullness. At least no one but Jesus.
And so, because so many of us have a problem with Easter we have a tendency to trivialize it. Because we have a hard time relating to a one-time unique event which has really only happened once in history, we surround it with something familiar, something predictable like the cycles of nature…and flowers…and eggs…and springtime…and, God help us, the Easter bunny! A chocolate Easter bunny, no doubt.
And yet, there is an experience that each of us has had that relates to Easter. It’s called – Birth! Being Born! Jesus’ tomb was a dark, confined space from which – Scripture tells us – he was expelled by a Force quite beyond his control.
That’s why it’s really better to say “Jesus was raised from the dead” rather than “Jesus rose from the dead.” It was God the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, who raised the dead and buried Jesus from the tomb, from that dark and confined space. A Force quite beyond his control!
But the womb is also a dark and confined space from which you and I were expelled by forces quite beyond our control. And the life we quickly experienced outside the womb must have been about as different from what went before as the Risen Life Jesus experienced on the other side of the grave must have been. The womb and tomb…birth and resurrection…are analogous experiences, it seems to me. That must have been what Peter was getting at in his First Letter when he talks about our having been ‘born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus…” (I Peter 1:3)
Same thing in today’s Collect: “Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith…” We have been born from the womb of our mothers’ where we were sustained by embryonic water and nurtured by her own body and her own blood which we shared.
We have also been born through the waters of baptism and are now nurtured by the Body and Blood of Christ which we share with one another in the Eucharist. One day, we will be born yet again from the darkness of death into the very Life of God which we will also share. Our personal Easter is being born into the Presence of God whom we cannot see now, but one day will – face to face. As Jesus said to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.” (John 20:29)
I hope that you have experienced something of that this Easter. For the Easter miracle is, in some ways, no more miraculous (and no less miraculous!) than the miracle of birth and life itself. And, because of Easter, life has triumphed over death forever!  The poet, Dylan Thomas, wrote that we should not “go gentle into that good night” and that we should rail against death as against the “dying of the light.”
We know that is not true. And that, when our time comes, we can indeed go gently into that good night, for it is not the dying, but the dawning of that Light. I hope that you have come to believe that about Easter. And my prayer for you comes in the form of a Celtic-style Easter blessing written by David Adams:
“The Lord of the empty Tomb/The conqueror of gloom/ Come to you.
The Lord in the garden walking/the Lord to Mary talking/Come to you.
The Lord in the Upper Room/ Dispelling fear and doom/Come to you.
The Lord on the road to Emmaus/The Lord giving hope to Thomas/Come to you.
The Lord appearing on the shore/Giving us life forever more/Come to you”.
HAPPY EASTER!

Palm Sunday is also known as the Sunday of the Passion. The story of Jesus’ so-called “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey soon gives way to the Passion Gospel, the story of Jesus’ arrest and trial and execution. It’s called the Passion because the Gospel writers all see this as being the result of Jesus’ “passion,” his love, for God and for his people.
It’s important to know that there were two processions entering Jerusalem on that day. One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. While Jesus and his followers were entering the city from the east, Pontius Pilate the Roman governor and his legions were entering the city from the west. Pilate’s entry into Jerusalem and its significance would have been well known in the Jewish homeland of the first century.
It was standard operating procedure for the Roman governors of Judea to be in Jerusalem for all the major Jewish festivals. This was not out of any respect for the religious devotion of their Jewish subjects. It was to reinforce the Roman garrison permanently stationed in Fortress Antonia in case there was trouble. And there usually was trouble, especially on Passover which was a festival celebrating the liberation of the Jews from an earlier oppressor, the Egyptians. There would be trouble on this Passover as well!
By staging a “counter procession” to Pilate’s, Jesus wanted to make a specific point. His purpose was to fulfill the prophecy made by Zechariah that the Messiah would come to Jerusalem in a very specific way – not like King David, in splendor on a white horse at the head of procession of armed men, but “humble, and riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). Moreover, Zechariah tells us what kind of a king he would be:
“He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.” This Messiah would not be a warrior king…but a prince of peace.
What a contrast to that other procession! On one side of town, Pilate was entering Jerusalem in a display of imperial power – cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets and weapons and banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, and the sound of marching feet – implicitly claiming that the Romans were the rulers of the ancient world. On the other side of town, Jesus and his rag-tag group of followers were trotting into town on foot and on a donkey with children and the poor claiming him as representing the true Ruler of the ancient (and modern!) world – the living and true God!
You and I have been given a choice in life by the events of Holy Week and Easter which we will be rehearsing this week. In short, we have been given a choice as to which procession we want to be in – the procession of the Empire (with all of its promises of wealth and power and success) or the procession of the poor (which calls us – no matter what our station in life — to stand in solidarity with the last and the least, with those whom society has forgotten or wishes to forget – the poor and the oppressed, the old and the sick, those on the margins and those work for peace.) We get to decide which procession we want to be in.
We’re confirming and receiving a couple of people here at Trinity Church this morning. And, as we do so, we will all join with them in reaffirming our Faith and renewing the promises of our Baptism in something called the Baptismal Covenant. Pay attention to the words we will be saying together in a few moments. They are not meaningless words of an empty ritual.
They are a kind of pledge of allegiance… allegiance to the true Ruler of the ancient (and modern) world… and a statement of our intention to live our lives as part of that Kingdom. Think twice before renewing these vows again this morning.
They will determine which procession you want to be in.
And perhaps where you will arrive…at the end of your journey!

One of my favorite Evening Prayers in our Book of Common Prayer is one that reads like this: “Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord, and by thy great mercy, defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.” That prayer was written in a time when darkness was much to be feared and people worried about “perils and dangers” which might confront them on a given night, or were concerned that they might die in the night with no time to repent or prepare for death.
But the prayer can also be understood as asking God to shine light into “our darkness,” into the darkness of our minds and to give us true understanding. All three of our Lessons from Scripture this morning have to do with God shining light into our darkened minds. In the First Lesson, God guides the prophet Samuel through a long discernment and elimination process through all of Jesse’s sons before finally arriving at his choice of David to be anointed king in place of the late ruler Saul.
“Do not look upon his appearance or on the height of his stature…” God says to Samuel, “for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7) God was teaching Samuel how to really see!
And that’s the point of our Gospel lesson today as well. It’s not only about Jesus bringing physical sight to a blind man. It’s also about John’s conviction that Jesus is the light of the world. The long process of Jesus healing the blind man– and the interrogation the man faced after that– is paralleled by Jesus trying to bring spiritual light to the Pharisees who were blind to the fact of who he was and to the truth he was trying to proclaim about God’s goodness.
“As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world,” Jesus says (John 9:5) But his opponents are unwilling to accept that and get downright huffy about it, “Surely WE are not blind, are we?” Only to hear Jesus’ withering response, “If you were blind, you would not have sin, but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” (John 9:40-41) Jesus was willing to be infinitely patient while the man born blind comes to faith, but the smug ignorance of the Pharisees kept them in more darkness than the blind man had ever been in!
Finally, all this is summed up for us in the Epistle to the Ephesians, “For once you were in darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light – for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:8-10) “For everything that becomes visible is light. Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (Ephesians 5:14)
What does it mean to say that Jesus is the light of the world…and that we are to live as children of the light? Well, we are baptizing and confirming some folks here this morning. And the service we will be using to do that tells us exactly what it means to say that Jesus is the light of the world…and tells us something of what it means to live as children of that light! You and I will shortly join the baptismal candidates’ (parents and godparents) and the confirmand in renewing our own vows in the Baptismal Covenant. We do that every time we baptize and confirm…and at the Easter Vigil as well.
You remember that the first part of this Covenant is a question and answer form of the Apostles’ Creed. “Do you believe in God…I believe in God the Father Almighty. Do you believe in Jesus Christ…I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only son. Do you believe in the God the Holy Spirit…and so on.
The point of that Creed is to remind us that Christians have experienced God in three different ways — as the One who created the whole universe…as the One who became visible and understandable to us in Jesus…and as an ongoing spiritual presence and reality in the world today.
In other words, we actually believe that because of Jesus and because of his Spirit we have become “enlightened” as to what God is really like. When we look at the life and the ministry and the teaching of Jesus…and are informed by his Spirit…God is no longer in darkness for us but in the light. God is no longer completely invisible, but actually becomes visible in Christ. When we look at Jesus, we see what God is like! That’s the first part of our Baptismal Covenant.
And the second part of the Covenant tells us something of how we are to live now that we know that about God. We’re to come to the Eucharist every Sunday to hear apostolic teaching from the Bible, to break bread together, and to pray.
We’re to try to do what the letter to the Ephesians told us this morning (to try to do what is pleasing to the Lord, by doing what is good and right and true) but when we fail, to know that we can tell God we’re sorry and start all over again.
We’re to share our faith with others in words and by the way we live our lives. We’re to seek and serve Christ in other people and love our neighbors as ourselves. And we are to work for justice and peace in this world and respect the dignity of every…single…human being we ever run across!
That’s what it means to live as children of light! And that’s what we are praying those who are being baptized and confirmed…and all of us as well…are going to be doing. Living as children of light in a dark world.
“Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord, and by the great mercy, defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.”
Enlighten us as to your true nature, O God.
And help us to do what is pleasing to you, what is good and right and true.
For only then can we be living in the light; as you are Light!
Sleepers, awake! Rise from the dead! And Christ will shine on you!