The third list

Hi everyone,

If you were there on Sunday, you would have heard me talk, at length, about the concept of the third list.  If you weren't there, I will run through the lists for you really quick.

List number one is the stuff you have to do.  It's the stuff you have to bake, what you have to clean, what you have to look after, what you have to sweep up and put away, what you have to wrap, and so on.  It's a list typically divided by person, to make sure that everyone has their own jobs to finish.

List number two is like it, but different.  List number two is the list of people who you still have to buy for.  It's different from the first list, because you don't know what you're actually going to buy.  You just sort of walk into a store with a list of names, and you have to match those names to gifts.  Good times.

But the third list is more nebulous, because it's not written down, now, is it?  The third list is composed not on paper, but in your mind, and especially in your heart.  All of us have a wonderful third list that is written on the list paper of our hearts, and it includes what makes Christmas Christmas.  That is, there are certain things that have to happen before it begins to feel like Christmas for you.  It might be cabbage rolls, it might be perogies, it might be the smell of Christmas tree, it might be the day when the Christmas towels come out, it might be when you hear Silent Night sung by candlelight at Good Shepherd at either 5:00 or 7:00.  All of these things have been known to make up the third list for some people.  Now, what's on your list is what's on your list, and it's your list and nobody else's, but it is absolutely vital for you to get that stuff done and together so that the Christmas season can be truly Christmassy.

But as I said on Sunday, a big part of what happens in the scriptures is the fulfillment of this third list for God, what makes Christmas Christmas.  And no, it's not cabbage rolls and Christmas trees.  The scriptures describe it as the fullness of time.  And this is why the Bible seems so worked up about the ancestry of Jesus.  The lineage of Jesus ends up being important to those who were watching and waiting for the coming Messiah.

This is what we forget, and forget pretty quickly, that there were people deseprately for that first Christmas, people waiting for the arrival of the Christ child and there were certain things on that great list that God had made, that they were all looking for.  And one of the major ones is that they were looking for the descendant of David to rise and sit on his father's throne.  Real quick primer, the monarchy in Old Testament Israel started with Saul, who ended up being a fairly bunk king.  Then, the next king was David.  And David was seen as the great king, the one who brought prosperity and light to the world.  And his throne was seen as bringing the kingdom of Israel together.  But David was an earthly king, and as earthly kings do, he died, and left his throne to his son, Solomon.  And Solomon was good too, not, you know David good, but still good.  And then Solomon died too, and he left his throne to, well, Rehoboam his son, and then after that, the kingdom was divided.

And so people hearkend for that time.  They longed for the time in which David sat on the throne, and reigned over Israel, in which they had their independance, in which they had their strength, in which they could repel invaders, and set themselves up as those who were in charge over everyone else .  That was the plan.  And that's what everyone was expecting to happen.  They all wanted to have God place a faithful king over them in the kingdom of Israel.  Someone who would turf out the Romans and who would reign in their place.

But here's the thing.  There's a very good reason that Jesus was of the house and line of David.  He was of the house and line of David to complete these lists, these lists from way back in the Old Testament, lists talking about what the house and line of David would be like, lists talking about the virgin conceiving and giving birth to a son, lists talking about what we are to expect from the coming messiah.  Birth in Bethlehem, born of a virgin, being Immanuel, or God with us, crushing the serpent's head, being called out of Egypt, called a Nazarene, raised up like a serpent in the desert, all these things.

You see, when you forget the Old Testament, you forget about the history of salvation, and it ends up being pretty important, and it helps you to understand Jesus, the Christ, and his echoes all the way throughout history.  If you know him, you see him everywhere, the all in all.  He shows up in the Old Testament in the most curious ways, glimpses of him in the miraculous births of Samson and Isaac, raised up on a stake in the wilderness like a fiery serpent, journeying to Egypt to escape a massacre like Moses, being baptized in the Jordan like Naaman the Syrian, he is all over the scriptures, you almost can't turn a page without seeing him.

And that itself is important for two reasons.  Firstly, because of the fulfillment of prophecy.  God was doing what God was going to do in his own time for his own reasons.  And in the fullness of time, he brought forth his son into the world.  At exactly the right time, in the right place, born into a time and place full of people who were expecting him to arrive, and who could look at him fulfilling the scriptures in their presence and know it.  And secondly, and for us importantly, is that seeing him all the way through the scriptures should remind you of Jesus' image of the final judgment, in which he says

Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me.

Think about that for a second.  We expect Jesus to be all over the Old Testament, becasue we can read backwards into it.  We expect him to be all over the New Testament, because that's his story.  Do we expect him to be all over the world, though?  Not really.  But this is a vital lesson for us to learn as Christians in the here and now. Jesus is everywhere.  The body of Christ is bigger than you had ever thought possible.  It affects you and me profoundly, because we're all in it. Looking into the scriptures, you can see Jesus in pretty much every page.  Look around you, and you can see Jesus in every person.
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And this brings us to God's third list.  The list that isn't written, but is still required.  You've heard it said that God the the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of David, of Solomon, and that's all true.  But the entirety of that list is not written in the scriptures, because that list would be far too long to ever endure.  Because it would contain that unbroken line of faith from Adam right the way down to you.  We talk about how Jesus is the reason for the season, which he is, but the reason for him being here at all is for you.  He forsook heaven and its glory, and came to earth humble in a manger. He lived life in obscurity, he fasted, he wept, he got dirty, he got tired, he got angry, he rode into town humble on a donkey, and was crucified between two common criminals.  He was whipped, beaten, scourged, mocked, and spat upon, all for one very important reason.

You are on his third list.

And it wouldn't be heaven without you.

Advent blessings.  Christmas blessings.

PJ.

Magnificat.

Our journey with Mary, from maiden to mother, culminates with her speaking the Magnificat, the first explicitly Christian piece of poetry, or song, ever written.  It's so old that it predates Christ himself, by a period of about 6 months.

Mary, the unwed mother to be, has just crossed over an immense gap.  She has moved between being scared, not sure what the fate of this child or of herself will be, and at the point of the Magnificat, she has embraced it.  She has embraced her role.

This is something all prospective mothers have to do at some point, is to deal with the fear and trepidation, and to crest the wave of imminent change.  All prospective mothers, when they find out that there is a baby on the way, are riding a crazy emotional roller-coaster for a while, and it brings them dizzying highs and crushing lows, as they consider all the changes that this child will bring to their lives.  And as men, we miss this, because for the nine month period that a mother is expectant, not much changes in our lives.  We get up, go to work, perhaps we make a few more suppers, or give out a few more backrubs, but our lives don't change until the arrival of the child, not really.

But for the women, it's different all the time.  It's crazily different.  It has profound effects almost right away.  Your body changes over the course of those months.  And forget all those magazines you see where Kim Kardashian gets her pre-baby body back nine seconds after giving birth.  It's not really realistic.  The thing is, you go through a period of time, through those nine months, where that baby changes you from the inside out.  You get swollen ankles, weight gain, stretch marks; you're hot when you want to be cold and cold when you want to be hot, and this is all significantly before the child is even born.  And that's how the babies work.  They change you from the inside out, and then, after they're born, you know they're going to change you from the outside in.

More than anything else in creation, your children can bring you to the highest highs, and to the lowest lows.  They bring you more joy than anything else in creation, and them spurning you brings you more heartbreak than you could possibly imagine.  In a sense, when you have a child, you are taking a step into a much bigger, much more frightening world, with unlimited potential, but potentially disastrous results.

It's sort of like when God created humans, isn't it?  The one thing in the universe that had free will, the one thing that was free to love or hate God, without him controlling them.  And before making people, God had the thought that he was to make mankind in his image, but would not be controlling and running them all the way through.  They could love or spurn, they could cleave to or leave.  And when you have a child, when you make something in your own image, there is a chance that they could be very good, or very bad.  And that's the price you pay for embarking out on this journey.

So with Mary, her trepidation gives way to resolve.  She is able to look at her status, unwed mother, young woman bringing a child into the world, and more than a normal baby, but a baby who would be born into the world, and say 'this is what I want.  This is good.  This is right, this is the right thing to do.'  Embracing even in the midst of fear and doubt, what is good and wonderful.

And of course, this child, we know, will cause her unimaginable pain.

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, his mother's 

sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved

standing nearby, he said to his mother 'Woman,

behold your son!' Then he said to the disciple,

'Behold your mother!'

John 19:25-27

The pieta from Durham Cathedral.  It is shockingly moving.

She had to stand there and watch him die.  The greatest pain a parent can ever experience, and Mary had to suffer through it.  It was preordained, it was set, this was going to happen.  She was going to have to have her eldest child die before her eyes. This is as bad as things get for human beings.

But there was also indescribable joy.  The greatest joy that a parent could ever hope for, the thing that is lurking at the back of the mind of every parent who has ever lived, is that their child could do well, succeed, be prosperous, happy, and never die.  If we seriously considered that our children were going to die at some point, I wonder if we'd ever have them in the first place.  But that risk of crushing sadness is mitigated by Christmas, and by Easter, by the decisions made by Mary so long ago, who understood whose child this was to be.

For unto us, a child is born, 

And unto us, a son is given.

Whose child is this?  He belongs to the world.  To bring joy to the world.  Light and life to all he brings, far as, far as the curse is found.  This is what Christmas is all about, the coming of the child into the world, the child who still to this day brings us intense joy and crushing sadness, through his word and his spirit.  He breaks us with the law, and carries us towards heaven with his grace.  And yes, it's a daunting prospect to get close to God, to get close to Jesus, it is a terrifyingly daunting prospect.  But Mary took that journey from maiden to mother, and Christ took that journey from manger to cross, in order that we might be given life, and have it abundantly.  He was born not just for his family, but to the whole world.  whoever does the will of his father is his brother and sister.  

Rejoice and be glad, for Christmas is almost here, and the child who once changed one woman from the inside out, is here to change us all.

My soul doth magnify the Lord : and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded : the lowliness of his handmaiden.

For behold, from henceforth : all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me : and holy is his Name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him : throughout all generations.

He hath shewed strength with his arm : he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat : and hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things : and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel : as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever.

PJ.

Carded

This is the time of year in which card sellers make the majority of their profits. I'm sure of it.  Everyone you've ever met, all your family and friends, all those whom you perhaps have forgotten, they all still get a Christmas card, amirite?  We exchange cards with one another send them out hither and yon, and we recieve cards back in return, decorating our homes with wonderful winter scenes.  As an aside, how loopy is it that we are now in a world in which we'll complain about how cold it is outside, meanwhile, we'll have pictures of snowy woods up IN OUR HOMES?

We do this because winter is pretty.  All of us who don't like to shovel, all of us who are all done with the nonsense, with the plugging cars in, with the ice, with the wind, with the accumulation of all the puffy white powder all over our houses and cars, all of us, there's still something magical about sitting inside your house, sipping a cup of hot ovaltine, and watching the beautiful snow fall.

The point is, that we have a certain disconnect in our brains, in that we feel, genuinely feel, as though we can watch the snow fall, see that it is pretty, sip our tea, and not have to deal with the freezing, back breaking labor that inevitably will ensue.  How else can you explain the popularity of Irving Berlin's "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas?"  Pretty sure it'll be a white Christmas regardless, Irving.

So here we are, as a group of people, who know that the winter is pretty yet hate the winter all at the same time.  And we wish, sincerely, that we could have all the benefits, with none of the fallout.  And you see, this is where our understanding of the incarnation comes in.

Have you seen Christmas cards with the nativity on them?  If not, there's one to the left here.  These cards always, without a single exception, show people looking awfully well put together.  Mary and Joseph are typically kneeling in adoration around the manger, and the incredibly tidy Jesus is sweetly gazing back at them.  If there are shepherds or wise men (and there had better not be wise men), they are well put together too, and in no way look like they were just working in the fields, or had just finished an incredibly long camel journey across a desert.  The animals, if they are there, are quite benign, and are limited in role to just looking on, and to being in the background.  And this is the way that we approach the nativity, nay the entire life of Christ.  That he could be near the world, but only the world as it existed in a snowglobe, or a Christmas card.  Where everything was drawn in pencil shapes, or fashioned out of ceramics, or carved out of wood.  Where everything smelled nice, and looked nice, and where the people were practically perfect in every way.  Almost every single peace of sacred art I've ever seen has had a pretty sanitized slant on it, in order that the people who were there, they ought to look nice.

This ties into the question that Jesus asks the crowds who are there to see him, and there to see John, asking them 'what did you go out to see?  A man dressed in soft clothes?  No, I tell you, for those in soft clothes are living in king's palaces."  You see, people didn't expect the prophet of God to be showing up, wearing animal skins and eating bugs.  They expected him to be nice, presentable, and equivalent in almost every way to wearing soft clothes, hanging out in king's palaces, and looking good.  They didn't expect what they got.  So too, we expect Jesus to be nice, pleasant, presentable, and in no way seriously engaged with the world we live in.  For comparison, this is one of the best pictures of the nativity I've ever seen.  Look at Mary:  She's exhuasted!  She can't even hold her own baby!  She's being very tender with her midsection, and the ubiquitous chickens are not in the background, they're basically underfoot!  And we have Joseph, stepping his daddy game up, and holding the baby that he has promised to raise as his own, showing immediate tender care towards a baby that isn't his.  This is what it's all about:  The stable was doubtlessly dirty and smelly, it had straw everywhere, animals all over the place, unsanitary, dangerous, poorly lit, and honestly rather unpleasant. And we want to sanitize that, we want to make it seem nicer, because we want Jesus to come into a nice place, where it is fit for him.  But that's not what he's all about.  He's not here to wear soft clothes and live in King's palaces, he's not here to look nice, or to only go into nice places.  He's here to enter into the most dangerous, dirty, filty, unsanitary place you can possibly imagine God heading into.

He's heading into your heart.

Your heart with all that depraved nonsense in it, your heart with all its sin and shame, your dark heart, where you love the darkness so that nobody can see your deeds, your heart with all its anger and wrath, that's where Jesus is heading.  Because he's a carpenter.  He's a guy who does repairs.  Have you ever seen HGTV?  If you're a lady, I bet you have.  And you have on those shows on HGTV, something like income property, and there are two types of people.  People who wear soft clothes and  live in king's palaces, and people who are the fixers.  Most people want to move into a place that is already perfect, move-in ready, and they have in mind to have it perfect before they even show up.  Contrast that, if you will, to someone like , Bronson Pinchot Vanilla Ice, Scott MacGillivray or Hillary Farr from love it or list it, and you'll see that they're people who want to live in a nice place, but who are willing to move into a place that isn't yet perfect, in order to fix it up, repair it, so that is eventually will be worth moving into.  Your heart is one of those places, all busted up, with rats and mice infesting it, major structural damage, damp and overrun with animals, covered in straw and filth from those animals, just an absolute mess.  And that's what Jesus walks into.  To make your heart a fit place for him to reign.  By forgiving your sins, and cleansing you from all unrighteousness.

All Christianity is incarnational Christianity.  If you're a Christian, and you think the idea of a dirty, smelly, run down ramshackle stable is offensive, then you need to take a serious look at what you're asking Christ to do in your own life.  Do you want him to be in soft clothes, and living in king's palaces?  Or do you want him to leave all that behind, and walk into the filth?

And if you don't for one second sincerely believe that your heart is a much grimier, more dangerous place for the son of man to enter in, spend a few moment with Him in His word, and see how far off you are from what he would have you do.  And realize that he's not in soft clothes in a king's palace.  He's in the meager manger of your heart.  And through his forgiveness and grace, he will make it into a fit place for him to call his home.

Advent blessings, as always,

PJ.

A suspicious vacation

Okay, normally I just update on Sundays, but the point I made on Wednesday is actually worth expanding on today.  Mainly because it was something I'd never thought of.

The reading I chose for last night was part of my series of Mary: from maiden to mother, and it follows the Gospel of Luke telling us about how Mary was dealing with the pressures of her inevitable motherhood.  Last week, we had the annunciation, and this week, we had Mary's trip to see Elizabeth.  Now, please, for one moment, take off your Christian goggles (which I also wear), and try to think of Mary as less of a saint, and as more of a person.  Think of her as who she is, at the time in her life that she is.  Now, please read the reading that I chose for last night, and I have some follow up questions after you're all done.

39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

Okay, do me a solid and think about this for a second, again not as a Christian, but as a human being.  Who is Elizabeth?  She is Mary's cousin.  How long does Mary stay with Elizabeth?  For three months.

What would you think of a young woman, somewhere between 16 and 19 probably, who suddenly (ESV 'with haste') went to go stay with family somewhere in another town for a few months.

Exactly.

This is just another of our efforts to try to sanitize the Biblical narrative, and remove all the humanity from it.  We have in our minds that Mary went to go see her cousin because she's Mary, and that's what the Bible says to do.  She follows the narrative because that's what's dictated.  But that only makes sense if she's not a real person.  

But she is.  Mary is a real person.  She has genuine hopes, dreams, fears, all that.  And at this juncture, she has been informed by Gabriel that she is going to be having a baby.  And she knows that it isn't Joseph's baby.  It would be bad enough for her if she was to conceive Joseph's baby before getting married, but conceiving a baby that isn't his, well, that's far far worse.  And Mary knows what's at stake, too.  She's smart enough to know that Joseph didn't 'know' her, and that he isn't going to react well.  How do we know that he isn't going to react well?  The Bible tells us so.  

Her husband, Joseph, being a just man, and unwilling to put her to shame

resolved to divorce her quietly. 

She was pregnant out of wedlock with a child that didn't belong to her fiance.  At the very least, she faced a quiet divorce from her husband.  At the worst, she faced public shame, humiliation, loss of husband, loss of family, loss of friends, and lest we forget, loss of life.

If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with

her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city,

and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman

because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and

the man because he violated his neighbor's wife.

So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Deuteronomy 22:23-24

Do you see what was at stake?  Everything!  Mary had a lot to lose, just like every unwed mother throughout the ages.  She had an awful lot to lose, so what's the first thing to do, is to head out to your cousin's house, and stay there for a few months.  And over those months, you have some tough decisions to make.  For you see, babies don't stay babies.  And believe it or not, giving birth do a child doesn't spell the end of your responsibility to that child.  We aren't cane toads where we lay eggs and then sort of walk off.  We have to raise these children if we want them to survive. And so the choice that Mary faced was as follows.  Was she going to give birth to this child and raise it for herself, thus potentially losing a husband, friends, family, respect, and her own life, or was she going to stay with her cousin, give birth to this child, and then give it to another couple who could raise it as their own, and she could go back to Joseph?

Tough choice, and it's the choice you face too.  It's the choice that you and I face as Christians.  Believe it or not, carrying Christ with you can easily lead to the loss of a spouse, or of family or friends, or even of life.  This much is promised in the scriptures.  Jesus tells us that he has not come to bring peace, but a sword.  He tells us that he has come to divide families against each other, three against two, and so on.  Having him around won't under any circumstances make things easier in the world, he already told us that.  

And so this Christmas, we gather around the manger one more time.  We are present for the birth of that baby.  And we have the same questions and fears and doubts that Mary has.  What do I have to lose by taking this baby home?  And what do I have to gain?  If I take this baby home, will it change my life?  Most certainly.  If I take this baby home, will it make me into a different person?  Assuredly.  Will I lose friends, family, spouse?  Possibly.  So is it worth it, or should I just leave this baby here?

That's the question Mary had to ask, and it's the question that we have to ask too.  Is it worth it?  Do we dare take this child home?  Hopefully, for the vast majority of us, the answer is yes.  Hopefully the answer is a very cautious, and tentative yes.  Mainly because of the promise of this child.  The promise that this child will change you.  The promise that this child will make you into more than you are now.  We all know that about children, that they bend you, break you, and make you into something other than you start out as.  But in that, there is the truth that your children make you into a better human being than you would have been, or could have been, otherwise.  Your will is no longer your own, and you are living for something greater than yourself now.  

It's the same way with Christ.  Be perfect, he says, as your heavenly father is perfect, and he means it.  If you bring him home with you, then his will will become your will, his words will affect your words,  His life, every aspect of it, will affect your life.  This is how it is supposed to go.  And finally, he will forgive you of all your sin, and make you holy, that's the entire point of the Christian faith.  

Bring that baby home with you, and make him part of your family.  Believe me, it's worth the cost.

Advent blessings,

PJ.

Re-gifting and re-pentance.

You ever get some junk for Christmas?  'Noooooooo' you may say 'Pastor Jim, I have loved and appreciated every gift I have ever gotten and no matter what, I open and am excited by all treasures beneath the tree.'

Of course you do.

But for those of us on planet earth, we live in a different situation.  You see, even though a gift may be a great

idea, even though it may be great on paper, it may not be quite right.  It might be clothing that is not quite the right size, it might be a video game for the wrong system, it might be a good that you already own, or anything like that.  It's something you might otherwise want, but, well, it just doesn't work out as exactly what you can use.

And I'm being generous.  Those are the things that are so right for you that you already own them, but there's also a chance that someone might buy something for you that you have zero interest in whatsoever.  Something you don't want and can't use.  And that's the deal that you have sometimes, when you open a gift and in no way shape or form desire the contents.  And that means that you might not want to be stuck with the gift in question, because you're never going to use it.  But what to do with it?

Well, there's a good chance that you might just give it away again, a phenomenon known as regifting, which I'm more in favor of than you might expect, since if you're not going to enjoy the gift, you might as well give it

to someone who might enjoy it.  But hold the phone, because there's a really good chance that you might have been given a gift receipt along with the gift.  This is something that all of us should do all the time, include a gift receipt with all gifts, as there is a chance, an outside chance, that someone might not want what they end up with.

Now think of the Israelites of the first century.  For a long time, they had waited for the coming of the Messiah, and for the return of Elijah, who was to prepare the way for the Lord.  And they knew what they wanted, too.  They were living in one of the most humiliating times in their history, as the Romans had moved in, and showed no sign of weakness whatsoever.  The nation of Israel was held down and controlled by the Romans in every way, and your choices for guys in charge were Pontius Pilate, Roman governor, or Herod, the tetrarch, who was basically a Roman puppet.  And you didn't want either.  You may have craved the days in which the Israelites were a dominant major player in the world, and a controlling power in the region, but now, well, it wasn't looking good for them.  Israel is small.  Like, really small.  It could fit into Saskatchewan 31 times, and that's contemporary Israel!  There's a good chance the borders of Judea in the past may very well have been smaller!  This was a tiny part of the world, occupied by a nobody people in the middle of nowhere.  They didn't have the military might to overthrow the Roman empire, and there wasn't much chance that the Romans were just going to emancipate them back to regular life and self government.  They wouldn't be much of an empire if they did.

So, they were waiting for divine intervension.  They were looking God to appear and lay the smack down on the Romans, and beat them into submission, reinstating Israel as the chosen people.

And then John the Baptist showed up.  And things went from bad to worse.

If the good people of Israel ever wished that they'd been given a gift receipt, this was the time.  They looked at the message of John the Baptist, and all at once, wished that they could send it back.  The message of John the Baptist really started to cut them to their core when they came out to the Jordan river to see what the fuss was all about.  And John gave them the exact opposite from what they desired.  What they wanted was for John to show up and promise that God was going to descend from the clouds, sweep away all the people that they didn't like, and would set up a reign full of them, and people like them.  That's what people
are secretly talking about these days when they talk about the rapture, it's what they desire, is to have God, the God of heaven and earth, save them and people like them, and banish people who are not like them to the dustbin of history.  And what they were surprised to find was that John the Baptist did not espouse the idea that God was going to ride in on a white horse and beat on the Romans.

Instead, John talked at great length about repentance.  In fact, that's almost all he talked about.  Repentance repentance repentance.  "Repent" he says "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!"  And what people didn't like about this, was that John didn't seem to be talking to foreigners, telling them to get in line with the Pharisees and Saducees.  Instead, he called them a brood of vipers, told them to bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and warned them not to fall back on where they were born and who their parents were.  He told them, in no uncertain terms that God could, if he chose, raise up from the stones children for Abraham, which is clearly true, as even the birth of Isaac, Abraham's son, was a miracle, impossible without God's intervention.

This call for across the board repentance affronted the Pharisees and Saducees, who were living under the assumption that the Messiah would return, set up a throne, and institute an order in which the world would be made to be more like them, or perish. But God had in mind a different order, a good and just order, an order in which people were pushed not to be more like other people, but more like what God would and did have in mind.  The question that John gets after he promises that the axe is at the root of the tree, is from the terrified people 'what shall we do?'

John answers not with a comparison to people who are doing well in his eyes, but with a comparison to God's laws: "Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none and whoever has food is to do likewise."  Wow!  Anyone who wanted to show up and preen before John and be lifted up by him as an example would be disappointed, when John just told them that there was a divine law that they weren't keeping up with . They were frauds and extortioners just like people today are.

And so, the question that they ask 'what shall we do?' is answered by John with simple terms.  Be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect.  Okay, that's good advice, right?  If you are fearing the wrath that is to
come, if you are fearing being burned with unquenchable fire, if you are fearing the axe at the root of the trees, then just be perfect, not be more like each other, but be more like God.  Simple, right?

Oh, wait.  You're not perfect?  That must be very hard for you.  You must be human.

And now, we get to the core of what John was talking about, and why people shouldn't have been trying to return him for a better prophet.  He pointed out sin, but he told you about a way out.  Bear fruit, he says, in keeping with repentance.  Repent, repent, repent.  Rend your hearts, and not your garments.  Turn from your life of sin, and turn to Christ.  John knows that you're not going to be perfect, he knows that the requirements placed upon you by God himself are far too big for you to ever meet up with, so he tells you not just what perfection is, but what to do when you fail.

Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

And this is what Advent is still all about.  It is about repentance.  It is about turning back from your sin, and bearing fruit in keeping not with perfection, but with repentance.  It's not about doing better, it's about being forgiven.  What you should be thinking about in the season of Advent is repentance, thinking about not just that is a baby being born in a manger, but why that baby had to be born in the first place!  Because we should have come with a gift receipt!  We ended up being wrong, we ended up being bad, we ended up being the sort of thing that God would not want, and would certainly want to take back.  And he had a choice, to either make us into what he wanted, or to get rid of us and start again, with axes, roots of trees, and unquenchable fire.


Aren't you glad he threw away the receipt?

Blessed Advent, everyone.

PJ.

Be prepared

Hey, it's Christmas.

Not really.  But it seems like it.  I know my american friends will complain about Christmas prep starting before Thanksgiving, but here in Canada, we don't even have that buffer.  The last thing to fall is Halloween, which tumbles before our eyes, and is replaced with Santa and tinsel at the beginning of November.  Now, I'm not going to call Christmas a selfish hog of a holiday, but I would like to remind you that with the start of Christmas prep at the beginning of November, and the last of the boxing day sales and such wrapping up in January, this glutton of a holiday has taken up, ready for it, almost a quarter of the year.  No jokes.

But like most other reasonable people, my problem isn't that the Christmas prep is starting early, but that it isn't prep.  Not properly, anyway.  The thing about modern life (and I do mean modern life) is that there is pretty much always a jarring shift in tone.  Between everything.  Have you ever noticed that the commercials are always much louder than the show you are watching?  Or that when a show ends, it is followed up by something vastly different than it? There is no bridging, no shift in tone between the two.  It just goes from one to the other.  In our lives these days, there's nothing even vaguely like downtime.  It's just thrill of the minute from one moment to the next.  Rapid succession.

The shift from Halloween to Christmas is perhaps one of the most jarring in terms of tone, seeing as how it moves from ghosts and skeletons to santa and elves with absolutely zero transition.  But that occasion should give us some time to think and to reflect on the concept of preparation.  It's not just holidays that we're bad at doing transitions with, it's everything.  We move so quickly, and transit is so rapid, that there's no real time to shift in tone or thought between the things we do.

Now, as you heard on Sunday, part of my problem was that the preicope cut off too early.  It didn't go all the way it should have, and it dropped the last bit.  Here it is, for our better understanding of everything:

50 Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, 51 who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. 52 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. 53 Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. 54 It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.

55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

                                                                                       Luke 23:50-56

This is key to understanding, advent, lent, and gosh, the Christian life in general.  As Christians, we tend to not think too much about the rest of Jesus in the tomb, or the time his disciples spent between his death and

his resurrection.  We do the same thing, moving from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, moving with rapidity between the crucifixion and the resurrection.  But that day of rest, the one that the women experienced, resting according to the Sabbath, is huge for us, we just rarely think of it!

Consider it this way - when God made heaven, earth, and everything in them, he did so in six days, and he took the seventh day, the sabbath day, to rest.  And then he made it a commandment in the book of Exodus, giving the ten commandments with a firm notation of the sabbath.  And the people of Israel took that to heart, and began to make the sabbath a huge part of what they did, creating rules about how far to walk, what you could cook, exactly what was or was not work.  And it was a mandatory, nation and people wide day of rest for everyone, great to small.  And the punishment for breaking the sabbath was dire indeed.  

32 While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day.33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly,34 and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35 Then theLord said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.” 36 So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses.

                                                                              Numbers 15:32-35

Did you catch that?  The deal with breaking the Sabbath rest was so severe that gathering wood, picking up sticks on the Sabbath day was enough to get you killed.  Just going out to grab firewood!  Nothing major, no massive crime, and yet that man was stoned to death.  You see, people got a little strange about the Sabbath as time wore on, and it became more of a curse than a blessing.  It became a total disaster, because the blessing became the law, you couldn't do anything whatsoever.  Pretty much.  Within reason.

With this limitation, we run into some issues that end up being rather major.  The time spent in shifting tone is actually vital.  You have the sabbath day in place during holy week, and it isn't any accident that the resurrection of Jesus, on the Lord's day, happened on the day after the sabbath.  After the day of rest.  After the time specifically set aside by God himself to rest.  

Here's the deal - without that day in the middle, without that hallowed sabbath rest, then I'm not too sure that Easter would have meant anywhere near as much.  Oh sure, had Jesus just hopped back up to life as soon as he was taken off the cross, well, the resurrection would still have taken place, but it certainly would have looked much different.  It would have looked different for us.  That day of preparation, that sabbath rest, that time of watching and waiting, of getting prepared and resting according to God's laws, that made the entire thing much greater, and still does today.  

We need that Sabbath rest more than ever now.  We need that time to rest, to be still and know that God is God.  We need that because our lives, our days, are crammed full of more stuff than ever before.  There's always something going on, there's always the next thing to think about, and rarely any time just getting yourself prepared, ready for the next thing.  We never switch off, we never get over ourselves, we never shut down off of anything we're up to, and we move seamlessly from one thing to another, from hit to hit to hit, and we somehow keep on ignoring the simple advice from God to take our rest, and to know that God is God.  

Now, to the thieves on the cross.  Yes, that tired old trope.  I know they've been discussed to death already, but here's something you might not have heard (unless you were in church on Sunday).  The thing about the two thieves, is that they were both asking for the same thing - salvation.  They were both saying to Jesus 'save yourself, and save us.'  But in two strikingly different ways.  The one wanted things done immediately.

 He wanted things done, and by things I mean everything, done on his time, right away.  He says 'If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!'  As in, hop down off this cross, today, right now, and spirit us away.  But the thing about the other thief, is that he says simply to Jesus 'remember me when you come into your kingdom.'  And Jesus promises salvation for the second thief, and promises it today.  Today you will be with me in paradise.

That's the funny thing about the way your faith works.  If you rush it, you will be frustrated.  The only way to move fast is to take it slow, there simply is no other way.  The only way to progress is to say to God 'thy will be done.'  The only way to move rapidly forward is to stop struggling and to let God do what he is going to do.  The only way to be perfect is to stop trying, and the only way to be forgiven is to sin boldly.  It's a funny old thing, and honestly, it all comes down to one simple thing - grace in Christ.  This is why the cross of Christ is foolishness, because it is presented to us all as something we don't do.  The sad irony of the thief on the cross was that had he taken his foot off the accelerator, then he would have recieved his reward as well.  

The way CS Lewis posits it is that we have to love God for his own sake, without any threats or promises involved.  He frames it in the sense of a very rich, very powerful prince, who goes about in his kingdom in disguise.  He wants to meet and fall in love with, and woo a lovely lady, but there is a real risk, with him being a well known prince and all, that she will pursue him for his money.  So, he goes about in disguise, because the truth of the thing is that if the woman goes for the money, she will get nothing, but if she falls in love with the man, then she will get everything, money, prestige, and the man as well.  Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all these things will be added unto you.  How do you do that?  You take that time to prepare, to rest, to listen and to reflect.  You behave like the second thief, and say to Jesus 'remember me whenever you come into your kingdom,' and you find with joy that it ends up being today.  If you say to Christ 'thy will be done,' you find that your will is being done too.  If you stop hiding your sins, you find that they are taken away.  And, perhaps most ironically of all, if you focus on thelife to come, you will find that your life here is enriched in many powerful ways.

This is the way of things.  Wanting Christ for your own sake will lead to ruin.  Loving him for his own sake will bring joy and life.  Though this may seem difficult to do, this is why we need that time of rest, stillness, and prepartion.  Moving from us to him, as we away the coming of the King into the world.

Blessed Advent, everyone.  Let every heart prepare a throne, and every voice a song.

PJ.

Remembrance Day

As you know, if you live in Canada, the US, or Great Britain, it was Remembrance Day / Veteran's Day / Armistice Day yesterday.  A time for us to spend a moment remembring and thanking those who fought and died for our freedoms.  And there are a lot of those people to thank.

But here is a question ahead of us: what do we do with all this remembrance?  Well, we set aside two minutes for silence on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour, and then what?  Huh.  Then we sort of go about our day, I suppose.  For us, that was a trip to the Agribition, because really, why wouldn't you?  All that egg council swag isn't going to pick itself up, you know.

Joking aside, what do we do after we remember?  The book of James tells us: "If one o fthe brother or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them 'I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty' Faith is like that.  If good works do not go along with it, it is quite dead." - James 2:15-16.

On Remembrance Day, it's good for us to remember the words of the Gospel reading from this last week, in which Jesus says that God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.  And we Christians are not people of the dead, we are people of the living.

If we take our faith seriously, we will know a couple of things.  First of all, that people are supposed to know that we are Christians by our love.  I'm not sure how immediately apparent that would be for most people on the outside looking in, but that's how you're supposed to know Christians.  By looking at them, from the outside, you should be able to tell a Christian from a non-Christian.  But almost nobody can. Secondly, as the book of James tells you, Christians probably have a funny idea about what religion actually is.  We think that religion is a set of beliefs that we assent to and say 'this is most certainly true.'  But that's not what the Bible says that religion is.  The Bible tells us that "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: To care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." -James 1:27.

We are very tempted, as Christians, to turn God into a God of the dead.  That is not to say that we are Saducees and doubt the resurrection, but it is to say that we end up fixated on the end result.  Do we get into Heaven.  Do people we like get into Heaven?  How do you get into Heaven?  These are the questions that we ask, and that we end up fixated on, to the extent that when people are starving and dying of dyssentery, we give them Bibles instead of food or medicine.  We want to be so sure of their belief, because we believe sincerely that this is the be all and end all of our religion.  Which it isn't.

You see, we, as Lutherans know about Grace, about the love of God, and about forgiveness of sins.  We know that inside and out, we are well versed in it.  But as far as everything else goes, what the heck else do we do with our time?  What do we do with ourselves, and how do we realistically see ourselves as Christians?  God takes people to Heaven after they die, but what does he do with them while they're alive?  Well, God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.  At remembrance day, it's not enough for us to solemnly say 'we will remember them.'  Yes, we should, we absolutely should.  You know what else we should do?  We should visit widows and orphans in their distress; that's the deal.  We should visit widows and orphans in their distress, including, but not limited to, widows and orphans of war.  By now, we should know that there is always going to be war.  We, as human beings, claim 'never again,' but naturally, there is always war somewhere.  There's always a war going on on planet earth somewhere, usually multiples.  There is going to be war, there is going to be calamity, there is going to be disaster, there's no escaping that.  As I mentioned on Sunday, back in a time when there was only four people on earth, there was a murder.  If we can't get along even in a nuclear family, what are the odds of world peace.

So we as Christians have two jobs.  First, quite simply, to be peacemakers.  Blessed are the peacemakers, says Jesus, and he's right to do it.  We are called upon by the Prince of Peace, to be peacemakers.  Global
peace?  Not likely, that's not something we can do.  But we can make peace around us, by following what Jesus says to do - to love our neighbors, to love our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us.  You know, the actual words of Christ.  But there's more than that.  The second job is to bind the wounds of the world, to help families as they are cracking apart, as husbands and fathers have been torn from wives and children.  Whose job is that to look after orphans and widows in their distress?  Why, that's our job, isn't it?  I would find it very difficult to look through the Holy Scriptures and come to the conclusion that it is anyone else's job to care for these people.  It's our job, as the body of Christ, to care for those left behind, those who have been abused and robbed by war.  That's our job.

And finally, on the subject of remembrance day, you may think that these quotes from the book of James are all a little bit heavy, and they are.  James is a heavy book.  It's one of the shorter books, but also manages to be one of the heavier ones.  All that stuff I said, about caring for the poor and the widows, about feeding the hungry, and not just wishing them well, do you do all that?  No?  Then you have two choices: to either forget I ever said anything about it, and carry on with a man-made religion in which Jesus loves what you love, hates what you hate, and is generally in your corner about everything, or realize what Jesus actually died for.

This is of utmost importance: Jesus died on the cross for sins.  For looking at internet porn, yes, but also for you neglecting to do what he has called upon you to do.  For all the many times and moments in which you

had the chance to do the right thing, and squandered it.  That's what he died for. We remember all those who fought and died for our freedom, and we also remember the one who died for our souls.  Because Christ died once, the righteous for the unrighteous, we have courage and confidence and hope that war is not the end.  That death is not the end.  That although war and death and calamity may seem unjust, that there is hope to be hand in the blessed reuinion in heaven.  That doesn't absolve us of our jobs to do here, obviously, but it does mean that no matter how hideous the conflict, no matter what the death toll is, there is hope to be had.  We believe in a God who promises to put everything right, who has overcome the world, and who is preparing a place for us.  We're not there yet, so we still have some work to do here.

The stupidest story in the Bible

How much do you know about Jacob and Esau?  Odds are, pretty little.  But I was tooling around on the internet the other day, and I came across a youtube video of a long drawn out cartoon / commentary about how the Jacob and Esau story was stupid, and for a moment it made sense.  After all, that story always has seemed a little bit silly - somehow Isaac figures that goat skin all over his smooth son's arms in any way resembles his hirsute son?  It seems a little silly.  I am hardly likely to win fatehr of the year anytime soon, but oh my, I could tell the difference between my two sons no problem.  They're totally different in every way, aside from genetics, and I could tell the difference between them blindfolded.  

But maybe that's the point.  Perhaps the ludicrousness of this story underscores the ludicrousness of our faith.  You see, back in the day, Martin Luther figured something out about the Christian faith.  He figured out justification.  He figured out that the death of Christ on the cross justified us before God.  That our sins are forgiven, and that God no longer sees all our terrible sins when he looks at us.  And we are redeemed and forgiven.  And strangely enough, those of us in the church, we no longer see this as absurd.  'Of course,' we say 'why wouldn't we be justified?  Justification is the article on which the church stands or falls.'  Yes, it seems really simple, until you think about it.

How did the execution of a Jewish carpenter two thousand years ago affect you in the slightest?  How do his good works and his inherent goodness apply to you?  It's a straight up question, and one that most of us don't even think about for the overwhelmingly vast majority of our time.  Jesus gives good advice, he's a neat guy, he has interesting things to say, but does this in any way actually connect with us?  Yes.  And I'll tell you how.

As mentioned on Sunday, the Old Testament reading of Jacob grappling with God, wrestling with God until morning, it happens at a key point in the scriptures.  It happens as Jacob is trying to figure out what will happen between him and his brother.  You see, Jacob, in case you didn't know, he'd stolen his brother's blessing under false pretenses, he'd taken his brothers birthright for a mess of pottage, and he was now on the lam, watching lambs, waiting for a chance to return.  But here's the problem .  Things with his brother were bad.  Really bad.  His brother had four hundred men with him, and his brother was big and mean.  Esau was a warrior, a fighter, a hunter, an outdoorsman, he was big and strong.  And Jacob, by comparison, was a creampuff, someone who got his way by talking his way into our out of things.  He could in no way hang with his brother and fight him.  He was going to have to run, or to make things work.  But if he was going to run, he was going to have to keep running forever.  He'd already been doing that, and now, it was time to face his brother.  And his prayer to God before he met his bother was that he might be saved from the grasp of Esau, his enemy.  

After wrestling with God all night, Jacob was changed.  His hip was put out of joint, and his name was changed, from Jacob to Israel.  And so when he went out to meet his brother, it wasn't to run, and it wasn't outfitted for war, it was to grovel and to beg for forgiveness.  You see, the thing is, that if you wrestle with God, wrestle with him all night, he's going to work on you and change you, through his word.  And to do that, you have to actually be connected and immersed within that word.  You can't start off with the idea of God that you want, the God of 'itching ears,' the God who tells you what you want to hear.  You have to start off with the actual God, and to get through what he has to say, you have to wrestle with him, all night if you need to.  

You have to grapple with what God really says, and know him for who he really is.  You have to get into the scriptures, and see what God has in mind for you and for your life.  You'll come across the very real truth that the way he wants you to resolve difficulties and broken relationships is through forgiveness and reconciliation.  It's through mercy, through asking for forgiveness where it is required.  It is through repentance, and through love.  And the Biblical requirement is that if you have overstepped, you must repent; and if someone else has sinned and repented, you must forgive.  You don't have a choice.  And this isn't the sort of thing you understand unless you actually do the work, and wrestle with God, and allow him to change you through his word.  Otherwise, your itching ears will make for you a God who says that you're tops, the problems you have in your life are problems caused by other people, and all you have to do is to steer the course and wait for everyone else to figure it out.

In other words, a lot of what you have to do as a Christian is to see God, and his word, for what they actually are.  You need to see God for who he actually is.  And this is the miracle of how justification works, and how it ties in with that story of Jacob and Esau.  For justification to work, you need to see God for who he actually is, and as Jesus says 'he who has seen me has seen the father.'  If you want to know who God really is, get to know Jesus Christ for who he actually is.  Not just the parts you like, either, but get to know the parts you don't like  Wrestle with him and realize that he promises grace, but requires repentance from each and every single one of us.  Realize that the gospel is offered to sinners, and those sinners need to know their sin, and confess it, and be done with it.  In doing so, we'll be seeing God for who he actually is.  

And he won't be seeing us for who we actually are.  That's the real kicker that we weren't expecting, isn't it?  For people who want to be seen as their real selves, to be known as who they really are, they really expect and desire to be recognized as their true selves.  But I have some bad news for you in that department:  When God looks at you, he doesn't see the real you in the way we'd expect.  In a way, the story of Esau and Isaac and Jacob gets less silly the more you consider the story of Christ.  You see, the story of Esau involves Jacob sticking some goat skin on his hands and neck, and fooling his father into thinking he was his brother.  In that, when Isaac touched his hands, he felt his elder son, not his younger.

And that's what happens with us too.  When God looks at us, to bless us, he doesn't see us.  He sees the merits of Christ.  When he reaches out to touch us and give us his blessing, he doesn't see our merits, he sees those of Christ.  He sees the work and righteousness of Jesus.  When you remember that, all of a sudden, the story of Esau being an hairy man is a way better story.  God gave a blessing to someone who didn't deserve it, just like Isaac did.  He gave it to us, because looking at us he saw Christ.  And just like Jacob, we don't get the blessing whipped away because it shouldn't have been ours to begin with.  We were blessed, we were blessed at baptism, and we are blessed at the Lord's Supper.  We are blessed through word and sacrament, we are blessed through God's love, we are forgiven and redeemed.  We are given all these things because God sees Christ when he sees us.  

And the so-called 'real us?'  The sin is removed, and the rest, God looks at, and says that it is good.

Fresh eyes.

Does anyone remember the lockhorns?  Sure you do. And did you know they're still around?  Still married, still hate each other.  It's a sad state of affiars, isn't it?  Can you believe that strip is still running?  This couple has been in middle age since 1968, and has long since passed the seven year itch.  They're doing that thing

that you're supposed to do when you get married - hate each other.  It's such an expectation that we pepper even our good wishes for newlyweds with the same ideas, that they will end up hating the person that they're professing undying love to.

But have you ever wondered how that happens?  How does it transpire that couples who love each other to death end up sniping at each other constantly, and end up slagging each other off to mutual acquaintances and we think it's normal?  Shouldn't that be a pretty big deviation from what we're expecting?  Well, hold the phone, fibber macgee, because that's what this is going to be all about.  Because we're in the season of thanksgiving, and it's the season in which we, hopefully, will be looking a little closer at what we have to be thankful for.

You see, folks, it's really easy for us to fall out of love with stuff, be it each other, God, our nation, our family, whatever.  It's really easy for us to fall out of love, though.  And the biggest way in which we do that is when we take each other or anything else for granted.  It's a major, MAJOR problem.  In fact, facing people of our persuasion (white, middle class, living in the first world), it may be the biggest problem driving an awful lot of unhappiness.  We are people who are generally dissatisfied with the amazing lives we live.  Generally.  You may think this doesn't apply to you, but it almost certainly does.  And I'll tell you how I know this.

I know this because you are probably someone living in the first world, bombarded by advertising all day, and continually being told that your life up until this moment has been nothing but a failure, which could only be rectified by purchasing the latest product or service.  Think about this, as I've said many times,that 99% of ads these days say very little about the product or service in question, and usually just says a lot about your life as a failure.  You're not being sold the product, you're being sold the lifestyle, which weirdly enough never shows up after you purchase the product.  Weird right?

Anyhow, knowing that you're being marketed to in a certain way should explain something to you, or at least make it clear.  It should make things clear that you're being approached in your weakness as a satisfied person.  Have you ever asked yourself why it is that your house is like mine, a graveyard of thing that you thought would fill the gap in your life?  Well, it's for that reason, that you were sold them under false pretences.

What's the solution?  Well, it's not too complicated.  Have you ever found something in your house that you were sure you'd lost forever?  Ever been looking for something sensible, like a hammer or whatever, in your

house, and found something that you've lost a long time ago, like an old record player, or a gameboy, or a shirt that you haven't worn in forever?  And then, all of a sudden, you're totally delighted by this hitherto unknown treat, because you're seeing it with fresh eyes.

Seeing things with fresh eyes is fundamental to not just this story, but to the Christian experience in general.  Look at the reading that we had from Sunday, in which ten lepers asked Jesus for healing on the road to Jerusalem.

12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy[a] met him. They stood at a distance13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?”

As I mentioned on Sunday, part of what is important in this is that this is a foreigner, someone looking at Jesus and his ministry, and possibly the faithful God himself, with fresh eyes.  Someone capable of doing what we are incapable of doing, of looking at this relationship with fresh eyes, and seeing it perhaps almost for the first time.  Seeing Jesus from the outside instead of from the inside.  Because Jesus, like everything else, gets a little drab the closer we are to him.  As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt.  It's a real thing.  And we've lost that ability to see Jesus with those fresh eyes, instead seeing so many many other things rather than God in human form.  We see the pews, we see the potlucks, we see the narthex, the elders, the council, in fact, we see everything but God in human form.  His news about forgiveness of sins was great a while ago, but now, well, it's old, daddy-o.  But looking at things with fresh eyes is key to finding satisfaction not just with God, but with everything else, too.  Sure enough, as I said on Sunday, do you have any idea how paradisical your life would appear to someone from Syria?  It would doubtlessly be paradise.  Nobody would be trying to kill them, nobody would be trying to bomb them out, the government wouldn't be trying to gas them to death, there wouldn't be war all around them all the time, and it would be wondrous.  What do you think they'd thank God for on Thanksgiving?  Just pumpkin pie lattes?  Or that they live in paradise.  

Your life is pretty amazing.  It might not seem like it, because you're viewing it from the inside, but take a second to look at it from the outside.  Try to see your life as though you were a foreigner.  Try to see your wife or husband from the outside, as you used to.  Try to see your house not as someone living it, but as someone shopping for it, someone homeless, someone from Syria whose home has been bombed out.  Try to see your office not as your cubicle, but as someone who is unemployed, and desperately seeking work.  Try to see your cars not as the person who had to drive it, but as someone who has to walk everywhere.  When you look at your faith, at God, see him not as a lifelong Christian who is kind of bored with the whole thing, but as someone bent double under the weight of their sin, desperate to be free of it.

In a sense, at Thanksgiving, it's time not just to be thankful for big meals, but thankful for the regularity of our lives, the routine, and asking that we may find joy in it again.  Or, as GK Chesterton puts it:

A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life.

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.

But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.

It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun: and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.

It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.

It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.