Reflection on Philippians 3:17-4:1

"Power in Weakness" Verse 1 by Jira Albers

Formed in the image of God.

Equal with strength from above.

Glory is hard to define;

it means he gives up his life,

on a cross.

Glory to God on high.

Praises to Jesus Christ.

Voices raise to the sky.

Power from God on high;

high upon the cross.

Power in weakness

on the cross.

Have no doubt, Jesus had all of the power of God. Jesus could have done anything he wanted.

There are kings and politicians who love power and will go to any length to stay in power. Take the president of Syria, as one example. He will willing to go to any length, even harming his own people in order to remain in control.

Well, those type of rulers existed back in Jesus’ time also.

Just as easily as Jesus filled the nets of the disciples with abundant fish just by waving his hand, and just as easily as Jesus stilled the storm of the sea with a three simple words, “Peace, be still,” Jesus could have just waved his hand and destroyed the corrupt rulers of his time. He could have easily set himself as a worldly king.

With the power to create the universe at his disposal, it would have been as easy as a snap of his fingers to take over political control of the world.

But, Jesus did not. He did not find the power of God…equality with God…as something to simply exploit at will just so that he could get his way.

I am not like Jesus. I know a couple of choice politicians who I would love to simply make vanish with the snap of a finger.

But, Jesus knew a truth as deep as creation. Creating life and showing love does not mean control. Creating and loving means giving something of yourself. For Jesus, that meant giving his life on a cross.

"Power in Weakness" Verse 2 by Jira Albers

Taking the form of a slave.

Power and strength in a grave.

Jesus asked no one to tell.

None knew that glory is felt,

on a cross.

Glory to God on high.

Praises to Jesus Christ.

Voices raise to the sky.

Power from God on high;

high upon the cross.

Power in weakness

on the cross.

Power is found in weakness.

Power is found, not in getting your way, but in allowing someone else to find their way.

Power is found not in controlling the world, but in caring for the world.

Power is found, not in getting even, but in showing mercy.

Power is found in giving up your life for the sake of someone else.

Power is found in imitating Christ, the one who gave his life for all creation.

Giving up your life for the sake of another is what it means to be a citizen of heaven of heaven. Giving up you life for the sake of another is what it means to be an imitator of Christ, and of his followers such as Paul, and our own teachers of the faith.

Just south of where I live there is a man who lives alone in a very large farmhouse. Well, at least he used to live alone. The man discovered that his neighbor was struggling to even pay the rent, so the man decided to offer up one of his empty rooms to the financially struggling gentleman. It was a gracious act that did not stop there. The man kept offering up his empty rooms to men who needed to get back up on their feet. To this day, he regularly has about 8 homeless men in his home, giving each one a chance to get back on their own feet. No longer lonely in his large home, the man imitates Christ and gives his all. For this man, there are no lines separating himself and his neighbor in need.

Lines

Part of being an imitator of Christ, who gives of himself, requires not drawing lines.

In this life, whenever you draw a line of separation you have, in essence set yourself apart from another person. When countries draw lines (when they draw boarders) they set apart who is in and who is out; who is deserving of love and care and who is none of our concern.

When families draw lines a similar thing happens, families decide who deserves attention and who does not. Our child is our problem, your child is yours.

The only problem with lines is that as soon as we draw one and plant our feet firmly on one side, we have decided that our citizenship is something less than “God so loved the world.”

In other words, when we draw lines, we decide to be citizens of somewhere other than the Kingdom of heaven.

Whenever we draw our lines and build our walls, demarcating who is in and who is out, we discover a shocking thing. Looking across the line we find that Jesus is always over on the other side. Jesus is always on the side of those left-out and forgotten.

When the righteous and religious fail to love the man beaten and bloodied on the side of the road in the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus gently points out that it is a Samaritan (someone on the other side of society’s line) who is the self-giving hero. Jesus is always concerned about the other side of the line.

When Jesus’ family requests that he stop teaching and come to out from his crowded home to be with them, Jesus refuses and then teaches that all who do the work of God are his family, and, therefore, citizens of heaven. Jesus dares to step over the line of family because, Jesus is always concerned about the other side of the line.

When you were lost in sin, at the right time, Jesus gave his life that you, a sinner, might have live.

Meditate deeply on these things, because the truth is that Jesus is always concerned about the other side of the line.

The Apostle Paul urges us to always imitate Jesus who puts citizenship in heaven above any other obligation. Jesus' highest priority is giving it all for those left on the other side of the line. Jesus' love erases all lines. Country and family, as important as they seem in this life, are not exempt from this line erasing.

It is the people of the earth who draw lines and separate. The citizens of heaven look to Jesus who seeks to draw all the world together, even if it means giving his life.

That is why Jesus gets the glory. That is why Jesus is followed. That is why songs are written about him.

"Power in Weakness" Refrain by Jira Albers

Glory to God on high.

Praises to Jesus Christ.

Voices raise to the sky.

Power from God on high;

high upon the cross.

Power in weakness

on the cross.

Reflection on Matthew 6:1-6, 16- 21

Yesterday, I did a funeral for a 28 year old woman. It was a sad day, especially for her father who said outright,

“She isn’t supposed to be gone. I was supposed to walk her down the aisle. I was supposed to hold her first child. She was supposed to take care of me when I got old.”

But, none of that would come to be. “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust;” as the dirt falls on her coffin.

“Pastor, I’m not going to say I’m a religious man. I’m not, though I do believe in Jesus and his salvation. But I…well, what I’m trying to say is that I made sure that she got baptized. She was baptized Lutheran, and now, with you here, she dies Lutheran.”

As I drove home, I started thinking about dust. At the start of life, God forms us out of the dust, mixing the dust with the grace-filled water of baptism to mold a child of God. And, at the end of life, we fall apart and the dust blows away while the pastor again speaks words of grace and eternal life. Our life…the beginning and the end…is surrounded by dust and God’s Word. And, rightly so, because without God’s Word the dust would never be molded in the first place and the dust would not be given new life at the end. We are God’s, from beginning to end.

Somehow that truth is easy to forget in the meantime…the time between birth/baptism, and death. That was one of the father’s unwritten worries; that there was little contact with God for either he or his daughter. He sensed that, somehow in the middle of life, they had somehow gotten lost between the two
.
Now, it would be inappropriately easy to throw some guilt in his face and mention that there are churches in every part of town; it is not like there was not opportunity. But, Jesus stops us cold before we can even open our mouths. Even the most devout of people, Jesus says, can get lost in the meantime…in that middle time. In fact, most of us do.

Religious people may give to great causes, and that is all well and good. But, if one cares more about the giving than caring for the recipient, or caring about the one who gives us all gifts in the first place (God), then we have become lost in the meantime.

Religious people may pray eloquently and may even remember to do it daily, or more, and that is all well and good. But, if one cares more about prayer than caring for the ones for whom the prayers are lifted up, or caring about the divine one who listens to them (God), then we have become lost in the meantime.
Religious people may fast from the things that distract in life, and that is all well and good. But, if one cares more about the practice of fasting, than caring for those who could use our undistracted, undivided attention, including God, then we have become lost in the meantime.

Jesus could go on and on I am sure, listing off the ways that even those of us with the best of intentions tend to wander away from God in the meantime.

You get the point: being religious in no way automatically excludes you from the numbers of people who forget about God and neighbor in the meantime.

“We are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you, God, in thought word and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.”

This is why Ash Wednesday exists. It is a time when the dust at the beginning and the dust at the end touch somewhere in the middle.

Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it this way:
"If our lives were a long piece of fabric with our baptism on one end and our funeral on another, and we don’t know the distance between the two, then Ash Wednesday is a time when that fabric is pinched in the middle and the ends are held up so that our baptism in the past and our funeral in the future meet. The water and words from our baptism plus the earth and words from our funerals have come from the past and future to meet us in the present. And in that meeting we are reminded of the promises of God: That we are God’s, that there is no sin, no darkness, and yes, no grave that God will not come to find us in and love us back to life. That where two or more are gathered, Christ is with us. These promises outlast our earthly bodies and the limits of time." (Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People)

 On Ash Wednesday, the dust of our beginnings touch the dust of our ends, with the dust of today right in the middle in the form of a cross on our foreheads. It is a reminder, in the meantime, that we are nothing but dust, if not for the love of God through the Word who breathes life into that dust, mixing it and forming it with the waters of grace. Remember, that you are dust, and to dust your shall return. Remember that you are, and will forever be, Christ's dust.

Reflection of Luke 9:28-43

The pastor found her just around the corner of the funeral home, sitting in the long-cut, Georgian lawn, staring forward.

“May I sit beside you?” the pastor asked.

“Sure,” the young woman said with a smile.

The pastor lowered himself, making an indent in the long grass, legs outstretched matching the young woman’s.

He looked over at her face and was confused by what he saw. What he expected to see was anguish. What he expected to see were red eyes and a running nose that required one of the pre-loaded tissues in his breast pocket. The pastor expected to be counseling a crushed soul who needed a savior in a harsh world.

Instead, he saw that the smile that she had given him still lingered as she stared forward across the lawn. Granted, it was a smile with a slight hint of pain, but a smile none-the-less.

“You’ve just lost your husband. I can’t believe you would have a smile left in you.”

“Not just my husband Reverend, but also my grandfather a month ago, and my best friend to an automobile accident two months ago.” After she spoke, there was a great silence. The smile lingered in the silence.

Finally breaking the silence the Pastor stated, “You know, when someone loses so many people in such a short period of time, it is normal to be angry with God. Others question why bad things happen to good people. Still others wonder if God is good at all. This is all normal, in case you’ve felt any of it recently.”

“Thank you Reverend for your words, but I tend not to worry about the things I cannot know or answer. I don’t know why bad things happen to good people or if God intended all of these bad things to happen. Maybe, God wants to prove a point, or maybe they just happened. I don’t know. I don’t get riled up about such things. There are depths to God that I just cannot know, so I don’t worry about them. But, there is one thing that I do know…one thing that keeps me going…one thing that allows me to smile even now.”

The Pastor searched her face, waiting for the answer; waiting as a gentle breeze blew waves across the lawn.

As the woman indicated, there are just some things that we cannot know about God.

Oh, how we wish we could ascend the mountain with Jesus and his disciples, see the glory of God shining through Jesus, and listen in on the holy discussion that Jesus has with Moses and Elijah about the depths of God’s purpose. Oh, how we wish, like Peter, that we could pitch a tent with the three of them, and over the course of a few days be guided and enlightened by the deep truths of the Holy One. But, the reality is: such insights into the divine are short-lived and fade quickly.

One night in college, while I was pondering the depths of grace in my mind, and just on the edge of sleep, I had an insight. It was as if I had been brought up the mountain of God to see the depths of God’s heart. And, for one instance…one brief moment…I felt what it must be like for Jesus to love even an enemy so much that he would go to the cross for them.

It was an empathy that understood their pain, their longings, their misguided desires to fix their world. For one brief moment, I felt what it must be like to have unconditional love with no reservations. But, just a moment later, it was gone.

It’s weird, I remember that I had the experience, but I do not remember what it was like to have that unconditional love with no reservations. That memory blew away just as quickly as it had come. The depths of God that I thought I understood so well are just as hidden after my hike up God’s mountain as before that experience. Some things are not available to us to understand.

Maybe it is because of the inaccessibility of God’s depths…the inaccessibility to the answers to the questions such as “Why do we suffer?” and “Does God intend this evil for good?”…that God does speak out clearly from the cloud saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

“Listen to him.”

Listen to Jesus.

This is more than just a request to open your ears. It is more than when I tell my granddaughter to turn on her listening ears and she reaches back and actually pretends to twist them to the on position.

Instead, it is the answer to the question, “If God is so hidden, how do I know what God thinks and what God cares about?”

Listen to Jesus. Look at his life. Pay attention to him, and you will see and know all that God desires to reveal to us about who God is and what God cares about.

As we watch Jesus walk down the mountain, we do see, immediately, what God cares about. A child, one of the lowly ones, is brought to him, infested with a terrible spirit. The child spits and snarls and screeches. No one else has been able to give him any help.

Maybe, no one believes that he can be helped. Maybe, no one believes that he is important enough to be helped. Maybe, people are afraid to even look at him. That is what people tend to do when they see the hopeless walking about, they tend to look away.

But, Jesus looked. He looked and he healed. Maybe, we do not know what it feels like to have God’s unconditional love…love that knows no enemies and fears no one…, but we know what it looks like. It looks like giving time to even the most lost of causes. Even people who are the most lost of causes are children of God.

“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

“Thank you Reverend for your words, but I tend not to worry about the things I cannot know or answer. I don’t know why bad things happen to good people or if God intended all of these bad things to happen. Maybe, God wants to prove a point, or maybe they just happened. I don’t know. I don’t get riled up about such things. There are depths to God that I just cannot know, so I don’t worry about them. But, there is one thing that I do know…one thing that keeps me going…one thing that allows me to smile even now.”

And, she pointed straight ahead. Ahead, the Reverend saw what looked to be a three year old boy spinning with his face to the sky with complete abandon. He recognized the boy as the woman’s son. The boy seemed oblivious to the pain surrounding his world.

“I smile because of him. I smile because Jesus cared that little children be given a fair shot at life…healing them and all. Well, that boy right there deserves the same. He does not deserve a broken mother or a broken world. I smile because I love him.”

The child stopped spinning, and waved to his mother and the pastor. The mother kept smiling and the pastor gave a smile of his own. It was a fake smile, of course. But, for the child it was the reassurance that life can be whole and new and wonderful again. The smile told the story of the cross...of death and resurrection. One does not need to understand the depths of God to understand the need for love.

Reflection on Luke 4:21-30 and 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Jesus had just stood up and delivered his sermon to the people of his hometown in a way that almost sounded like a political platform. In essence, he preached the core of what he planned to be about during his ministry:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them,

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The crowd goes wild. The people have been completely captured by the gracious words that have come from his mouth.

People envision their own lives filled with release from captivity, with clarity of sight, and freedom, and the restoration of all that once was.

In today’s time, Jesus’ words would create in people a longing for the prosperity and optimism of the 1950s and 1990s. Jobs would return, homes would be built in the suburbs, children would play in the cul-de-sacs, and the stocks would only rise. People's imaginations would wonder to being free from the pains and fears of today’s world.

With such feel-good vibes coursing through their veins, the people smile at Jesus and someone even remarks astonished, “Wow, I can’t believe that’s Joseph’s son!”

Feeling loved and saved by God, they would join together in song, gladly belting out words of love that sound like they come directly from the apostle Paul,

(Sung) “Love, God’s love never ends. Love bears all things, hopes all things. Love endures to the end…”

But, Jesus stops their singing of love cold and the record player scratches loudly making all wince as he proclaims that none of this good stuff is directed toward them.

In a jarring way Jesus reminds the people that God refused to help anyone but a widow and her child in the time of Elijah, and that it was an outsider…a foreigner from Syria…a foreign soldier at that…who was the only one to be healed of leprosy during the time of the prophet Elisha.

The people of Jesus’ hometown automatically, and selfishly, assumed that they would be the recipients of God’s love and favor, not the bearers of God’s love and favor.

This is like a hedge fund manager finding out straight from Jesus that God could not care less about the 3 million dollars he lost last week during the global economic correction. Rather, God cares about the poor families in Flint Michigan who have truly suffered from the toxic pollution of their waters. God cares about the future of the children who may suffer physically because of balanced budgets and tax breaks.

Or, the hedge fund manager might hear that God actually cares about the Syrian refugees who still sink their boats trying to find freedom. And, that through his hearing (and through his wealth) maybe he should at least think about being a part of the solution.

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing sir.”

Jesus’ sermon was not a “feel good” sermon after-all. It was not a promise of self-fulfillment; it was a call to join Jesus in self-sacrifice.

“Not for you…for them.”

For them. Them. The dying widow. The outsider.

No wonder the people tried to throw Jesus off of a cliff.

(Roughly...and I mean rough...to the tune of "Jesus Loves Me")

Jesus loves your neighbor, this I know,

for Isaiah tells me so.

Poor and foreign to him belong.

They are weak but he is strong.

Yes Jesus loves THEM.

Yes Jesus loves THEM.

Yes Jesus loves THEM.

Isaiah tells me so.

Who wants to go to a cross with Jesus?

Anyone? Anyone?

At least the edge of a cliff?

"Come on!" we say. "Faith is supposed to sooth our souls, not place them in danger!"

Because of that idea we can get so full of ourselves and our needs and our wants that we become completely blind to others.

Just because I am preaching these words does not mean I am immune to to that same lulling of blindness and selfishness. I too would prefer a good old “feel good” sermon with some great old hymns any day, compared to facing the fears of helping those who live in the darkest places in life. It is hard to even bring myself to look into those dark places, so I would rather just worry about myself thank you very much.

But, Jesus is not afraid. Jesus is not afraid to go into the dark places. In the old version of the creed we say that Jesus "descended into hell." There is nowhere that Jesus fears going, and no length that Jesus would not go in order to save those who dwell in the darkness.

That is love. That is a love that never ends. That is a love that bears all things and never loses hope.

(Sung) “Love, God’s love never ends. Love bears all things, hopes all things. Love endures to the end…”

I once heard an old Jewish parable about a rabbi who invited his friends and a homeless man over for a meal. Seated at the table, the Rabbi's servant brought out the first course of the meal, and set a plate only before the Rabbi and the homeless man. They ate. The others looked on, confused. The same happened with the next two courses of the meal, only the Rabbi and the homeless man, whom they did not know, ate. Finally, incensed that they were all being dishonored, one of the guests complained that they were not being fed.

The rabbi replied, "Why are you mad that someone else is getting something good? Why don't you simply rejoice with them and thank God that they are finally being provided for? Rejoice with them, that would be the loving thing to do.”

Somehow when we pour the foundation of our faith, we envision that we are pouring the base using God’s love. We deceive ourselves though, because we tend to use our own love to pour the foundation of our faith…thinking that it is as good as God’s love.

As you already know, a foundation poured with our own love looks nice, until you get up close and inspect it. Up close you see the cracks, and see the selfishness mixed in. When we construct our own faith, we tend to use poor materials.

Here’s the silly thing though. Jesus already poured a foundation for us. It is a foundation of love for all. It is a foundation of love that would go to any length, especially for the sinner and the unlovable. That foundation is already there beneath our feet in the shape of a cross. We did not need to pour our own foundation at all.

From time to time, Jesus jabs a pry bay into one of those cracks and chip away that top layer of self-serving that we poured on ourselves. There is no doubt that such chipping hurts and can drive people to want to throw Jesus off of a cliff. But, even if we try to get rid on Jesus, no harm done. Jesus will just walk through our attempts to destroy his love.

You cannot kill forever the love that provides the foundation for all creation.

Once our own self-serving love is chipped away, and Jesus' foundation can be seen, it reveals a mosaic of love for the neighbor…even if they don’t deserve it…even if they are an enemy…even if they live in the darkness…even if they are sinners in need of God’s salvation. When Jesus shows us the mosaic of love sunk into the foundation of our faith, we are drawn to see, and care, and love as Jesus loved.

Now, I am not going to pretend that Jesus frees us from our blindness once and then we are completely Jesus-like for the rest of our lives, thanks be to God.

No, the minute Jesus chips away our selfishness we tend to pour more back on. But, chipping away need not be so hard the second time around…or the third time…or the 10,573ed time…that is pretty much where I am at by the way.

Instead, we can use the wisdom of those who have gone before us, who taught us to put Jesus’ love into song. We can sing melodies that repeat in our heads, and remind us that our foundation is Jesus' everlasting love for all. They are words that glimmer of Paul's reflection on love:

(Sung) “Love, God’s love never ends. Love bears all things, hopes all things. Love endures to the end…”

A Reflection in Seven Sentences (Based on 1 Corinthians 12:1-11)

I take issue with Paul’s notion that idols do not speak.

He did not get to look beyond the figures of baked clay and metal
to see the ideologies of the modern world
that fight with the unbending words:

“All or nothing.”

Our idols today speak loudly and harshly,
and they have no capacity
for bending,
for forgiving,
or for showing mercy.

They implicitly say,

“Jesus be cursed”

by claiming to have higher importance than Jesus
and his ethic of love for the poor,
the outsider,
and even the enemy.

But, we have the Holy Spirit to speak for us.

We have the Holy Spirit set ablaze within,
who gives us gifts
for the good of all,
and who melts the ideologies of this world as if they were made of wax.

The gifts of the Spirit look different in each one of us,
but they all point over the heads of the idols of this world
to the words of truth written in the heavens:

“Jesus is Lord.”

Reflection on Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

The people “were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah.” With all the talk of winnowing forks, sorting out and burning the chaff (in other words, sorting out the sinful), and the heavens opening up with the Spirit descending as an actual dove on Jesus, I want to ignore all of that dramatic stuff for the time being and instead focus on something much more boring. The people wondered if John was the one who would save them.

Of course, we know that John is not the Messiah, but they did not. They were waiting with great expectation for the one who would come along and make everything right again. John was bold. John was persuasive. John was charismatic. John definitely was not a part of the business-as-usual establishment. Even the soldiers were coming out to listen to him. “Is he the one who will make everything right?”

I focus on this first because, even though I know exactly who my Messiah is, still I find myself searching for someone to fix the problems of the world. “Will he or she finally by the one who will figure it all out and make everything alright?” Or sometimes, more times than I would like to admit, I ask, “Will this thing make everything alright?” We put our trust in so many things each day, expecting them to work miracles.

But, rather than asking you, “What have you put your trust in that ultimately failed?” I will go ahead and offer my life as a humiliation on your behalf. So here we go, a list of people and things that Jira Albers has trusted to make everything right instead of Jesus:

1. Candles and scented soaps. I lit the candles and set them around the bathtub, hoping for an experience of bliss. Instead, I just found myself sitting in a tub with sub-par lighting, and no place to safely rest my head because of all the stupid candles.

2. My dog, Sparky. He was to be my friend at a time when I had very few. And, he was a great dog, when I could bring myself to get close enough to him to pick off all the ticks. And, the licking…I never got into the whole dog licking/kissing thing. Making out with a dog is not a good enough substitute for a girlfriend…just saying.

3. My first car. It was to be my freedom. It was to be my release. It was to be my salvation. It ensured that all my free time was filled with a minimum wage job to pay for gas and insurance. Welcome to the real world Jira.

4. President Bill Clinton. Well, we do not have to say too much more there, do we?

5. My Grandpa. I loved him, and he loved me. We would go on rides in his jeep together, and there were those special times of fishing in the lake with one another. The world was right when I was with Grandpa. And, then the phone call came telling us that he was dead. Even Grandpas are not the eternal Messiah.

Why mention this list? Because, even though we have a Messiah, here’s the reality: it is hard to remember that we have one. There are some days when we are certain that someone or something will make our lives happy and right and good. And, when they fail…as they always do…the feeling is devastation. On those days of devastation, the heavens feel closed up like in the days of Elijah, when God refused to shine on the land and its people. On those days, we feel like the widow as she prepared her last bit of flower and oil for her son and herself. They would plan to eat, and then they would plan to die. Their messiahs had all given out. Everything they looked to and hoped in had dried up, like the blowing soil just beyond their front door.

But, I have news for you: the heavens are not closed up. God has not chosen to leave us dry. Instead, the heavens were torn open and the Spirit was spilled out onto Jesus in the waters of his baptism. And, later Jesus chose to spill that same Spirit upon us.

It is still happening today. They heavens are still torn open, and the Spirit is freely flowing here. Our Messiah has already come, and we have been washed with this saving presence.

That reminds me just how much I like taking time each day to remember my baptism. Here’s how it works; every morning, when you splash your face with that refreshing water and scrub away the grime of the night, you can say boldly, “I am God’s child,” in remembrance of that day when the Spirit was splashed upon you. It’s a great discipline to have. It is refreshing and life-giving. Let’s practice by declaring it loud. “I am God’s child!” “I am God’s child!” “I am God’s child!”

I love this daily morning practice because it reminds me before the day even begins that I do not have to go out into the world looking for a Messiah. I do not have to waste time, putting my trust in people and things that will fail. Instead, I am reminded that Christ has set me free to be who God designed me to be. I am free to go about my day loving the world as much as I want.

Here is an idea. What if, instead of trusting others to fix what we see as wrong in the world…instead of putting hope in a politician or a pastor or someone quite close to you in order to make everything right…what if we simply trusted that Jesus is already on the task of redeeming the world.

Not only that, since we aren’t looking to someone else to fix the world, we can feel free to join in on what God is up to. What if everyone felt free to join Jesus in improving the world, rather than trusting that a politician will do it for us, or worse yet, trusting that scented candles and soaps will magically make the world well?

I can feel bold in asking the question because, I know one thing to be true, your Messiah has come, and Jesus has set you free from all that binds you and holds you back. Sin? Gone. Low self-worth? You are accepted. No matter what binds you, you are free in Jesus Christ. You are free to go from here and love all that you want. No one can stop you. And, the gift of love never dries up. The heavens have been torn open, and the Spirit pours down permanently on us with grace until the end of time. How is that for some good news?

Reflection on John 1:1-18

The confirmation lesson was on that little verse, “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” This is a hard enough lesson for adults to take seriously and apply to their lives, but for one of the students, it seemed an insurmountable task.

She piped up nervously at the end of the lesson and asked, “What about bullies? I try to love and pray for mine, but it doesn’t help. What do you say about bullies, Pastor?”

The question took courage to ask in the first place, in front of other kids, no doubt. But, they clearly were not judging her. Instead, they were looking to me, with hope in their eyes, as if I had the answer to life’s most important question.

I looked at the teen and said the only thing that I could, “Do whatever you need to do to get through this time in your life. Keep praying. Mark a calendar of days until the end of the school year. Change a class to get away from the person. Double down and focus on your school work. Do yoga. Take a martial arts class. Do whatever you need to get through it because, I promise, when it is over…and I promise, it will come to an end…you will be making history and the bully won’t even be remembered. I promise you: God shines a light, even in this dark place. Plus, when it is all done you will have better accomplishments to put on your resume than, ‘I beat up someone weaker than me.’”

I realize that it was not a solution for the teen, but it was hope. It was the same hope found in the Gospel of John. It was a light that shined in the darkness, and I am happy to tell you that the darkness did not overcome that light.

The teen is now an adult who is happily married, with two children, heading up a military support group for spouses who have lost loved ones in our multiple battlefronts. I am glad to see that the light Christ ignited in her was never blown out, and so are a lot of other people who are deep in the throes of grief.

Why is Jesus important to me? It is not because he shows me how to live a good life, through there is a little of that. It is not because I think He will be like Santa and shower me with gifts of wealth and prosperity, I could not care less about that.

No, the reason Jesus is important to me is that when I look at Jesus, I see God. I see a God, who cared enough about the world to come, in the flesh, just so that we might see clearly God's love for us and to reveal clearly to us what God cares about.

Sure, God gave us the 10 commandments, and that helps to show us God’s will also, but the 10 commandments do not tell us the whole story.

They do not show us God’s mercy. They do not show us how much God cares. They do not show us that God is willing to go as far as to come into our dark world, live and love among even the worst of us, forgiving us in the process, go to a cross and die a very grisly death, and then rise again. Jesus did not need to do any of that, but he did.

“A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Why is Jesus important to me? Because Jesus is that light that cannot be snuffed out. Jesus is that light that cannot be overcome by darkness. Jesus is the word made flesh through whom all things were made in the beginning, and through whom all new life can come.

Jesus is the hope to which we cling when the bullies of the world seem to have the upper hand. In him, we clearly see that there will always be new life...there will always be a light in the dark. That is why Jesus is important to me.

You see, it is easy to get stuck in the dark. Just turn on a 24 hour news station in order to see the state of the world, and you will plunge headfirst into the dark depths. What about terrorism? Is there an end to the violence? The darkness.

But, we do not have to turn on CNN or Fox News to find the darkness. People ask, “What about my inability to get healthy? I keep eating the wrong things, even though I know I shouldn’t. Twinkies are great! Will I never be able to be whole?” The darkness.

Others ask, What about my depression? Will the crying every…single…night of the week stay forever?” The darkness.

Others ask in confirmation class, “What about the bullies? Will I always be at the bottom of life?” The darkness.

To all of that I say, a light shine in the darkness, and things can change…even terrorism…even your own self-worth…even depression…even bullies.

Look, Jesus is the one who showed us that when you have run out of wine for your wedding guests, water can be turned into fine wine. God can change things.

Jesus is the one who touches a paralytic and shows us that a sick body does not have to define who you are; a sick body is not the last word. God can change things.

Jesus is the one who cares for well over 5000 people just to show that even hunger does not stay forever. God can change things.

Jesus is the one who shows us that blindness need not be permanent. Maybe there is some hope for our politicians after-all! God can change things.

Heck, even a dead guy who was rotting in the tomb for a while is unwrapped and given another chance to live and love. In Lazarus we see a hint of the fact that even death cannot hold the author of life down. God can change things.

Why is Jesus important to me? Because, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Jesus in important to us because in him we see that the reality that is today need not be the reality of tomorrow. Jesus can always create something new.

I have to admit, this is sometimes hard to trust. The darkness can seem so oppressive. And, I also have to admit that for me, this hope is sometimes no more than a flicker of light in a dark room. But, here's the thing. Once that light is lit, no matter how dark the room, no matter how small the light, the light still baths you with its flicker. The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light, and that hope is a gift of God especially for those in the dark places.