Praise and Opposition

Luke 2:22-40

“This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed…”  Luke 2:34

I saw a TV commercial on Christmas Eve that almost perfectly summed up how the world understands Christmas.  I don’t remember what it was advertising.  Furniture, I think.  Doesn’t matter.  But as this couple is packing away the last of their Christmas decorations the narrator says something like, “When the holidays are over, and you realize how drab your house really is…”  On Christmas Eve the world was already busy going back to business as usual.  Christmas Eve!!!  I just shook my head with sadness.

In this week’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, we meet Simeon and Anna, two prophets who look at the Christ child in Mary’s arms and see anything but business as usual.  They see the changing of the world, the turning of the tide, and the healing of the nations.  They see the promise of God in flesh and blood.  They greet the baby Jesus not with a drab sigh of resignation, but with words of praise and thanks to God. 

Then, right in the middle of all this praising and blessing and rejoicing, Simeon drops a line that yanks us back into the very reality Jesus came to address.  Falling and rising.  Opposition.  Inner thoughts revealed.  He tells Mary that a sword will pierce her soul.  Simeon prophesies that  Jesus’ ministry will be surrounded both by praise and conflict.  And so it was.  And so it is today.

In the Gospel of Luke, time and again, Jesus challenges the status quo and those who have power and privilege in his world.   It doesn’t take long before Jesus is cross-ways with the leaders of the religious establishment of his day, exposing them and their counterfeit religiosity.   In the end, the Romans, encouraged by these leaders, nail Mary’s son to a cross to die while Mary stands watching with a sword in her soul and tears of anguish in her eyes.  The opposition appears to have won the day.   But, with God, opposition is never the end of the story.  Luke’s story of Jesus ends with an empty tomb, the salvation of the world and Jesus sending his disciples out to bear witness to the Good News that the opposition has not and never will prevail. 

As we head into the new year, it appears that 2018 will be just like 2017 and the many years that came before them.  Many will rise and fall.  There will be opposition and turmoil and violence and war.  Revelations will shock us and some, sadly, will not.   People will lament over their drab furniture and try to fill meaningless lives with the latest meaningless thing being peddled in the popular marketplace.  But the promise of the cross and resurrection is that the son of Mary will still be there in the middle of whatever realities we face.  There will be opposition.  Yes.  But redemption too.   No matter what happens in this new year Christ’s love and grace, compassion and mercy, forgiveness and healing, will still be transforming people’s lives, still bringing life from death and calling us to follow and bear witness to the Good News that we find in him.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

Thanks for reading.    Pray that the New Year will bring peace, with justice, to our hurting world.

Holy Disruption

Luke 2:1-20

Twenty years ago this month, I almost died from blood clots in both lungs.  The year before that, my father died suddenly.  The year after, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Three consecutive Christmases filled with disruptions.  Major upheavals in my life.  For a long time following those three disruptive years, I had a hard time getting into the “Christmas spirit.”   Like most years, 2017 has had it’s share of ups and downs, challenges and joys, disruptions and moments when things felt like they were coming together.  For a variety of reasons, I’ve had a hard time getting into the “Christmas spirit” this year as well. 

But, what exactly does that mean?

Does it mean experiencing a little “silent night” in the midst of the disruptions of life?  Does it mean getting a fleeting taste of the “peace that passes all understanding” in a world that so frequently seems bereft of peace?  Is it a momentary break from the realities that plague so many lives?  I really don’t think that’s what Christmas is all about.

If you read the biblical stories of Christ’s coming carefully, you will discover that his birth itself was, in so many ways, a holy disruption.    In Luke’s Gospel, the great Roman Emperor Augustus calls for an enrollment and a heavenly army shows up to declare the birth of God’s Son.   In Matthew’s Gospel, the announcement of Jesus’ birth so threatens King Herod that he sends his armies to massacre all the children under two in Bethlehem.  John tells us that, in Jesus, God’s Word became flesh and dwelt among us, only to be rejected.  Angels appear and disrupt the lives of Mary and Joseph and some shepherds minding their own business on a quiet hillside.  In her “Magnificat” Mary declares that, in her child, God will turn the world upside down. 

Christmas is not about getting a break from the disruptions of life, it is about the God of steadfast love breaking into the disruptions of life.  It is about good news of great joy coming to all the people.  It is about the Word made flesh dwelling among us full of grace and truth.  It is about the coming of the Messiah who gives his life on a cross for the sake of the world and rises again on the third day as proof that God’s love is even more powerful than death.  The child we celebrate each Christmas not only disrupts life, he transforms it.  Changes its meaning.  Changes the basis for hope not just for a moment, but for every moment of every day – even and especially for days that are filled with blood clots, sudden death, a diagnosis of cancer and all the challenges and trials that are inevitably a part of every human life.

The Christmas spirit is not some warm fuzzy feeling you get from colored lights, tinsel, carols and packages under a tree.  It is the Spirit of God’s love and grace shared in the midst of the realities of human life. It is the Spirit of God With Us and of the One who promises to be with us to the end of the age… and beyond.

That’s the Christmas Spirit I know I will feel as I sing “Silent Night” this year.  That’s the Christmas Spirit I will celebrate as I give thanks for the gift of the Christ Child and for the community of family and faith that reminds me of that gift every day.

A blessed Christmas to all!

Bishop Mike

Thanks for reading.  May God go with you in the New Year!

Light for a Hilly, Twisting, Half-lit World

John 1:6-8

Most evenings, we take our 11 month old Blue Heeler puppy for a walk around our neighborhood to help her burn off a little energy before bedtime.  Because our neighborhood is hilly with winding streets, limited streetlights and no sidewalks walking after dark can be a bit precarious.  So, not wanting to be run over, we wear reflective orange vests and I wear a “jogger’s headlight” so we can be seen.  Some of the other walkers in the neighborhood have given us a hard time for our safety gear, but every time a car visibly slows down when spotting us, I am grateful for the reflective light.

The Gospel of John tells us that John the Baptist was not the light, but one who pointed to the light that was coming into the world.  John’s Gospel teaches that Jesus was the “light that shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” (1:5)  Jesus was the one who, through his life, death and resurrection, illuminated God’s grace, love and compassion for a world careening down the hilly, twisting, half-lit streets where most of us walk as we live out our lives.  

Like John the Baptist, we are called to point to the light that is Christ.  We are called to reflect the light that is Christ into the darkness of our world.  We do that by joining Christ in his work of bringing good news to the poor, releasing the captives, opening the eyes of the blind, freeing the oppressed and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor.  (Isaiah 61, Luke 4)   We shine the light into the darkness as we care for those in need, work for justice and share the grace, love and compassion of God in word and deed.

December 13^th was the annual commemoration of St. Lucia’s day.  This day is a significant part of the Advent-Christmas celebrations in Scandinavia and in churches that have their roots in Scandinavia.  St. Lucy (whose name means “light”) is remembered for her martyrdom, and the fact that she used her wealth to feed and care for the poor, and especially for Christians hiding in the catacombs during the violent and deadly persecutions of the Roman Emperor Diocletian in the 4^th century of the common era.  December 6^th was the commemoration of St. Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra.  (The saint whose life lies behind the tradition of Santa Claus).  St. Nicholas was a contemporary of St. Lucia who, like her, used his inheritance to assist the needy, the sick and the suffering, even as he suffered at the hands of Diocletian.    Their spirit of generosity and giving in one of the darkest times in the history of the church radiated from their faith in the Light of the World, who gave himself for the world.  Like John the Baptist, both these saints, and many others (many unnamed) show us what it means to shine God’s grace, love and compassion into the world. 

As we walk with a similar generosity of spirit, letting the light of Christ shine through us, maybe, just maybe, we will get a few people to slow down a bit as they careen in and around the twisting, half-lit hills of life.

Peace,

Bishop Mike.

Pray for light to come…  through us…  to all those suffering in so many ways this Christmas time.  Thanks for reading! 

The Beginning of Good News

Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  --Mark 1:1

Where does good news begin?

In a world filled with bad news, I think this is an important question to ask.  I’m not calling for more of the “feel good” stories they tack onto the end of some news broadcasts.   I’m not looking for a place to stick my head in the sand and ignore, deny or avoid the bad news.  I’m looking for something deeper.  Something more enduring.  Something that gives us a solid place to stand in the midst of all the bad news.

Where does good news begin?

The four Gospel writers in the New Testament all answer this question the same and quite differently.   All of them understand Jesus, and the story of his life, death and resurrection, to be the Good News.  That’s the point of writing their Gospels in the first place.  But each starts that story in a different place.  Matthew starts with a genealogy because he wants us to understand that Jesus is the culmination of God’s whole history of steadfast love and faithfulness to God’s people and the whole world.  Mark starts with John the Baptist, and his pointing to the appearance of the “one more powerful than I” who will “baptize God’s people with the Holy Spirit” and then dives right into the story of Jesus’ healing, teaching and proclamation of the Reign of God breaking into the world.  Luke tells the story of John’s and Jesus’ birth, “in the days of Ceasar Augustus” and presents Jesus as the fulfillment of the promises of the God who, as Mary sings,  “brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.”  John presents Jesus as “the Word made flesh and lived among us…   full of grace and truth.”  For John, Jesus is the embodiment of God and God’s plan for the whole human race from the dawn of time. 

But,  where does the good news begin… for us?

Like the Gospel writers, we who follow in the Way of Jesus continue to believe that good news begins with Jesus’ way of life and living.   As the writer of 1 John says, “whoever says, ‘I abide in him,’ ought to walk just as he walked.”  (1 John 2:6).  And for 1 John, that is always about walking in the way of love.  Jesus teaches us that this way of love is about loving God, loving one another and loving neighbor as self.  What we discover as we strive to live in this love is that this is not three different kinds of love…  but one and the same thing.   If we ground our lives there we will find a life that truly is life even in the face of the copious bad news that has always surrounded human life in this world.  How that love gets lived out in concrete ways will play itself out differently for each one of us, just as it did in the four Gospels. 

Loving in the way of Jesus is not always easy, or convenient, or fun.   Because we are broken human beings living in a broken world, we can fail at it miserably.  But, because God’s Reign of love and faithfulness for us is steadfast, the promise of Jesus’ resurrection is good, and we have the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to guide us, the Good News will never fail us – not even in the face of death itself.

Trusting in that, is where good news begins.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

Thanks for reading!  Someone earlier this week suggested stopping at the end of each day to think about where we saw God in our lives and the world around us during the day.  Not a bad idea if we’re looking for Good News!

Lean Forward

Mark 13

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”  -- Mark 13:31

Happy New Year!

Lutheran Christians and others who follow a liturgical year probably get the reference.  Others, might scratch their heads and think, “the fool’s a month early!”   In the Christian Calendar, Sunday, December 3, 2017, the First Sunday in Advent, marks the beginning of a new church year.   Each year, the calendar focuses on one of the Gospels, and, this year, the majority of our Gospel readings will come from Mark.  I like this Gospel for it’s urgency and the way the whole Gospel leans forward toward the cross.

Mark was likely written around the time of the Jewish War (66-73 CE) and the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 CE.  Those were tumultuous times in Judea and the region around Jerusalem.  To the Jews and Christians living during those dark days, it must have seemed like the whole world was falling apart.  We know that the Christian community fled the violence in Jerusalem and immigrated to Syria in the late 60’s.  The original readers of the Gospel heard Jesus’ prophesy in Mark 13 against this violent, uncertain and terrifying backdrop.  

In the context of Mark’s telling of Jesus’ story, Mark 13 was spoken to his uncertain and confused disciples as they balanced on the precipice of the crucifixion.  Jesus had warned them three times that he was going to Jerusalem to die.  They didn’t understand.  His confrontations with the leaders of the people grew more and more intense as the last week in Jerusalem passed.  They didn’t get it.  “Keep awake!”  He said, but they couldn’t manage to stay awake for an hour as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane (14:37).

The picture Jesus paints in Mark 13 may be bleak and terrifying, but doesn’t it describe the way life is often experienced in this broken world?  Perhaps that’s why so many people down through the centuries have read Jesus’ words and have said, “this is us.”  But there is a promise here.  It is the promise of the birth of Immanuel (which means “God with us”).  It is the promise of an empty tomb on the far side of the horrors of the cross.  It is the promise of a Christian community that survived the Jewish War of the early 70s CE and many other trials and tribulations in the years since.  It is the promise that Jesus’ words will not pass away.  Not now, not ever.

We still live in tumultuous times, don’t we?   North Korea launched an ICBM this week that the “experts” say could reach any place in the United States.  Scary stuff.   Wars and rumors of war circle the globe with fear and terror and uncertainty.  The pervasiveness of hatred and abuse and harassment are revealed in the halls of the powerful and privileged and even from those once respected in our land.  To quote a line from a 1987 R.E.M song,  is this “the end of the world as we know it?”  

Maybe.  Maybe not.  But Jesus’ words to us are the same as they have always been:

Stay alert!  Continue to trust the promise.  Stay focused on the mission.  Love God.  Love one another.  Love your neighbor as yourself.   Lean forward into whatever the future may hold knowing that God truly goes with us.  Always.

Blessed New Year!

Peace,

Bishop Mike.

Thanks for reading.