Superman

Back in 1983, there was an animated short called 'charade' that won the academy award for best animated short.  I'll submit a link here, because it's worth a peek, though caution, there is some extremely light nudity at the end (a mooning).  

Anyhow, the conceit of the production is that there is one person acting who is extremely elaborate, and nobody can get it, and there's another person who comes out and does basically a pose, and everyone gets it.  The best bit is when the first guy acts out Superman by doing things like changing in a phone booth, being faster than a bullet, lifting a truck, flying, all that stuff, and nobody gets it. The second guy comes out and just takes of his glasses, and someone guesses 'Superman.' 

It's a funny gag, made all the funnier because of the reality of the disguise that Superman himself wears.  I know it's a tired observation now, but how crazy is it that nobody recognizes Superman as Clark Kent without the glasses?  Even as superhero disguises go, it's a feeble one.  And people in the comics always seem to react the same way, by saying 'Clark, you missed it!  Superman was just here!' 

I bring this up because I want you to think about why it is that Superman would need a secret identity in the first place.  That is, Batman is pretty vulnerable when he's wearing a business suit, but Superman? Even if you walk up to Clark Kent in broad daylight and pull a gun on him, he'll only be as damaged as Superman would be because he is Superman. Just in disguise.  Superman may be bulletproof, though, he may be completely immune to poison, stabbings, lynchings, all that, but do you know who isn't immune to any of that? Lois Lane.  Ma Kent.  Jimmy Olsen.  Perry White.  All these people are regular people, and if Superman is found out to have been Clark Kent at any point in his life, all those lives become forefeit.  

So, Superman has a secret identity not for his benefit, but for the benefit of those around him . And unlike most heroes, he is wearing a disguise when he is dressed as Clark Kent. When he's dressed as Superman, that's when he is actually without disguise.  Bruce Wayne puts on a disguise to become Batman, Barry Allen puts on a disguise to become the Flash, and Hal Jordan puts on a disguise to become the Green Lantern.  Superman, though, puts on a disguise to become Clark Kent.  His natural state is Superman.

This is important for Transfiguration Sunday.  I brought this guy up on Sunday as a visible reminder of secret identities, especially Superman.  For on the mount of Transfiguration, the disciples got to see the Lord Jesus without disguise.  For most of the time on earth, he was visible as a human being like any other.  But as with Superman, when Jesus is in disguise, he puts something on, in this case, a mortal nature.  In his purity, without disguise, he is manifest in his glory.  The mild-mannered carpenter is like the mild mannered reporter - that's the disguise.  And why does Christ need a disguise?  Well, like with Superman, it's for us.

The voice from the cloud says something very important to the disciples: "this is my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.  Listen to him.'  Yes, listen to him.  That's the hard part.  And you can tell it's the hard part because we tend to want to be like Thomas Jefferson, and to cast the Bible into two separate halves, with two separate gods.  And a lot of people do that, saying to me 'how is it that the God of the Old Testament is mean and vindictive, but the God of the New Testament is nice and mild?'  But that question only makes sense if you don't listen to the words of Christ.  GK Chesterton made a great point, saying that the accusation that the church had taken the simple message of peace and love that Christ gave to the world and despoiled it with him being vindictive is false.  In fact, it is the opposite.  The Christ of the Gospels is firm, hard as nails and in many cases furious.  There are no statues to my knowledge of him denouncing the sinful, or glaring in wrath at the 'brood of vipers.'  There are no statues or carvings of the Lord of Life discussing Gehenna, or promising wailing and gnashing of teeth.  But all those thing are in the scriptures, if you'll listen.  

If you follow through with the recommendation that the voice from the cloud gives, then you'll see that the flesh on Christ is as convincing a disguise as the glasses on Clark Kent. They shouldn't fool anyone, but they do.  If you listen to the words of Christ, it becomes clear that he doesn't just sound like God, he is God.  Not only is it not a different God in the New Testament, the God of the New Testament is the same as the God of the Old, and it is Jesus Christ himself. Once you work that out, then the rest of the New Testament begins to make sense, as a fulfillment of the Old.  You see Christ as the Lord of the Old Testament stepping into the world to drag it out of the sinfulness that it had gotten itself into.  And the words of the cloud are true and good, because anyone who truly listens to the words that Christ says will come away with the impression that this is a fulfillment of everything the scriptures had ever spoken of - from the fall of humanity until the arrival of the savior himself.

The kiss of death

We've got lots of questions about a certain topic right now.  In case you haven't noticed, novel Coronavirus, hereafter referred to as just 'coronavirus,' has been spreading through the world a little at a time for a while now.  And every time we get a new disease like this, people start to ask one big question about a certain part of the worship service.  And no, it isn't communion practice.

The questions come up about the exchange of the peace.  And that's a great topic to talk about.  In the exchange of the peace, you tend to shake hands, and people have asked me about what they can do if they don't want to shake hands, which they might not.  "Pastor," say they, "if I don't want to shake hands with anyone because I don't want to get sick, can I just fist bump?"  You sure can.  You can fist bump, elbow bump, shake hands, or just wave.  It's all fine.  I'm non committal, because I happen to be aware that, as a Lutheran, the 'sola scriptura' answer would be to greet one another with a holy kiss … and that gets used a few times in the scriptures.  But if you don't want to shake hands, bump fists, elbow bump or kiss, what should you do? Well, ultimately, it doesn't matter.  All that matters is that you do something.

You really shouldn't do nothing.  And I'll explain what I mean.  In a situation in which you're expected to exchange the peace, ask yourself why it would be that someone would not want to shake hands / fist bump / elbow bump / even wave to someone? Is it because you don't want to get sick? Maybe. Or maybe it could be the reality that you don't want to wish someone the peace of God.  Because you don't like them very much.  Now, there is a possibility that you like everyone, of course, and you have no disputes with anyone.  But for the rest of us on planet earth, the story of Jonah is one of the best stories for this.  For you grow up hearing the story of Jonah, and it's just the story of a guy and a fish, for a long time.  But the story of Jonah has one major complication for all of us that we should, as adults, want to hear about.  That is, that in the story of Jonah, the whole reason he runs away from his responsibilities, gets into a storm, gets thrown overboard and gets swallowed by a great fish, is because he doesn't want the people that he has been sent to to be spared. He's perfectly content for Nineveh to be wiped off the map, because he hates them and everything about them. They're his enemies, and he acts accordingly.  God wants Jonah to give a message of repentance to the Ninevites, and he refuses to do so probably because he's looking forward to the smiting.  Once you get this about Jonah's story, then you can start to get something about your story as well, that there are probably people that you don't want to share the peace with because you don't actually wish them God's peace.

That's normal and human.  It's so old and universal that it's part of the Bible.  But what you have to contend with is the reality of the words of Christ, who issues all of us a stark warning.  He tells us that we have to approach the altar of God with our issues resolved.  And that's hard to do.  It's hard to do because there are people that you don't like for good reason. I'm not going to do what might be expected, and tell you that you have no real good reason to be angry with people, no you probably DO have VERY GOOD reasons to be angry with people.  Because people are bunk.  They are lazy, rude, have no respect for you.  They tend to take and not give, talk about themselves too much, put their feet on your couch or tell either too many racist jokes, or tell you that your jokes are too racist. There's a good chance that the people you don't like are disliked for good reasons.  And I'll agree with you that it's true.  But the big difference for the Christian is that it doesn't matter.  Not one bit.

How can I be so flippant about this?  Because in the big scheme of things, the real disagreements that you have with other people pale in comparison with your disagreements with the Lord your God.  It goes this way, if you think about it - God has certain expectations of majesty for all of us, holiness and righteousness, and we don't meet up.  But we clearly and openly expect God's attention, his affection, his forgiveness and his company.  We expect his blessings even though we are tempted to withhold our forgiveness, blessings, and love from others.

This is the issue.  You know that you have true and good reasons to be angry at a large number of people, for sure you do.  But you have to deal with the fact that when Christ tells you that you have to deal with, and make peace with people who you don't care for too much.  And if you tell me that they're tiresome, unpleasant, or whatever, then you have to deal with the fact that before God, you are as much. And more.  And once you work that out, it's very difficult to have a relationship with people in which you can choke them out and ask that they pay back what they owe you.  Jesus tells a parable about that, in which a man who was forgiven 10 thousand talents then chokes out a man who owes him 100 days work.  If you're wondering how much money ten thousand talents is worth, in today's prices, we're looking at  25479255000

That's a tidy sum.  If I did the math right, which is questionable, we're looking at about 25 times the GDP of Canada.  That's a lot of money.  It's an absurd about of money, so large that that man could never pay it back.  Several generations could never pay it back, it's nonsense.  And this is the sort of debt that we are dealing with when it comes to God.  We sin against him all the time. And when you figure that out, then dealing with one another becomes much easier, because you understand how much you have to be forgiven, and then the concerns that you have with others become easier to deal with.  They're easier to deal with because you're not God, and they don't have a massive debt owing to you bigger than the one you yourself owe to God.  Essentially, nothing about this is too terribly complicated.  If you're a beggar at the foot of the Lord, if your relationship with him is as one who is essentially begging for mercy, then it's extremely difficult to hold grudges against those who have committed relatively minor slights against you. It's really only then that you can make peace with your accuser while you are on the way, because you are both in debt to the same master, and it is that master who forgives the massive debts of you both.

Do it again

Sunday was a curious confluence of events.  We had a fairly prominent festival in the church year on Sunday, with the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple and the purification of Mary.  But it was also Candlemas, for those of you who celebrate that event.

But in case you weren't paying attention, there were some secular events going on yesterday as well.  We had the Big Game yesterday, in which the Kansas City Chiefs, representing the great state of Kansas, beat the San Francisco 49ers.  And if that wasn't enough, we also had Groundhog Day yesterday.  For those of you who don't know, Groundhog Day is a day in which certain towns have a celebrity groundhog who may or may not see his shadow when he emerges from his burrow.  The conceit is that if the groundhog sees his shadow, then there will be six more weeks of winter. If he does not, then there will be an early spring.

Now, as I said, there are several groundhogs all plying this trade, from Punxsutawney to Shubenacadie to Balzac, and they end up having varying predictions that are all over the map.  It's a fun thing to do, and to keep up with, but here's my prediction as a human being who lives in Regina SK.  Ready?

We will have six more weeks of winter.  Guaranteed.

How do I know? Did I see my shadow or something?  No, I sure didn't.  And for the record, 31st of January here in town I saw people wandering around the city in shorts, but I'm still predicting a longer winter.  And the reason for that is that I have lived on the prairies for almost my whole life, and after enough years of living on that Canadian prairies, you start to notice a pattern.  And that pattern is that beginning in October, things start to get cold, and they don't tend to get nice until April.  In reality, you can't expect things to get nice until the days start to get significantly longer in April, or sometimes into may.  The odds of having a spring that starts anywhere before the middle of March is extremely unlikely.  As I say, this is based off of almost 4 decades of the exact same results, over and over again.

If you repeat something often enough, you start to get a pretty good handle on it. And that's what the movie Groundhog Day is about.  If you haven't seen Groundhog Day, go ahead and watch it.  It's pretty good.  The plot centers around a weatherman, played by Bill Murray, who covers the Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.  He hates it, and has essentially open contempt for the entire festival.  After a day of having contempt for the people, town, and festivities, he finds that he and his crew can't leave town, and have to stay overnight.  And when he wakes up, the day starts again, the exact same way.  Over and over and over and over again. The day doesn't change, no matter what he does. He tries driving out, killing himself, going to jail, and nothing changes.  The day always plays out the exact same way.  And over a long enough time, after having enough repetition of the same day over and over again, Bill Murray starts to get it right.  He lives the day essentially 'perfectly,' and ends up finally leaving that day upon the realization that he has gotten it right.

This story is a good one to tell when we are thinking about the presentation of our Lord in the Temple. For in the Temple, Jesus meets up with Simeon and Anna, two people who had been in the Temple for years, dedicating themselves to the Lord and His service.  These are people who have been living out the history of Israel in their lives.  Simeon and Anna were older people, who had been hearing the same stories year in and year out.  And they had lived through numerous Passover festivals, and had seen lots of baby boys brought to the Temple to be redeemed as well.  And this redemption was a way of remembering and retelling the passover story again and again within the family, with the clear instruction that when your son asks you why you do these things, you tell him that it is because the Lord brought you out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and so on.  These were stories that the people of Israel told one another all the time, they were repeated every year, every time that they had a firstborn male, human or animal, of their household.  And these stories were told very frequently indeed, to the point that the Passover became the single most important, foundation story of the Hebrew people.  The story of freedom from slavery, the story of liberation from captivity, of God stepping into history with a mighty arm to free his people from captivity is a story that had to be told over and over again, or else the people of Israel would be tempted to forget it.  But more than that, as they continued to tell the story over and over again, as it was told not just through Simeon and Anna's lives, but through the lives of the nation of Israel as a whole, it became clear that the good people of Israel were not just recounting an event that happened in history, they were looking forward to what that event meant for all of them forever.  The story of the Lord's Passover wasn't just a story of a moment in time for a few people, it was a story that prefigured a much bigger conclusion.

Upon the arrival of Jesus Christ, Simeon recognized him for who he was, not just a child who would be redeemed with two turtledoves like all the rest, but rather the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  This is not a boy who had to be redeemed, but rather a boy who would, himself, do the redeeming.  Once you tell a story often enough, once you internalize it and make it a part of you, and you become significantly better at working out what it is all about, from every angle.  After all, if you hear the story of the Passover once, you may think that it is a story limited to a single moment in time, when God stepped into history and rescued a people.  But if you keep on telling it, you will realize that something else becomes clear as you hear it again.

A lot of people have a lot of ideas as to what the movie Groundhog Day is all about, but I'm going to let Harold Ramis tell you through God's gift of the internet.

 Harold Ramis was a Jewish gentleman, and according to him, the story of the movie was the story of the Torah.  That is, the stories of the Bible do not change.  If you're on a one year series, or a 3 year series, or if you're just doing your devotions, you'll notice that even though the stories don't change, you experience them differently.  That is, the story of Jonah moves from being a story about a man and a fish when you're a child, to a story of avoiding God's call as a teen, to a story of God's insistence on his love for your enemies as an adult, to a story of God's grace applying to his children as a parent.  Same story, but you find different things in them.  Simeon had heard the story of the Passover countless times, had seen countless boys come to be redeemed, and then all of a sudden, even though it was the same story, same ritual, this time it meant something different. This wasn't just the story of one child, or one nation, this was the story of the world being redeemed.  This was the story of the king of kings, the Lord of Lords, the salvation of the world, the light to the nations.  The Passover story was identical, had not changed, but now Simeon could see what it was about all along.

It had always been about the redemption of humanity.  The celebration of the Passover meal was a way of prefiguring the arrival of Jesus Christ.  Once Jesus had arrived, then the story became wonderfully clear, as though you had finally seen the two silhouettes instead of a vase, and now couldn't see anything else.

That's part of the reason we tell the same stories over and over again.  So that as your lives change, the grace of God can speak anew.  And if you don't believe me that that can happen, try a test case.  Go read Calvin and Hobbes if you're a parent, and see who you identify with now.  Apply that case to the scriptures next.  Think about the Lord's prayer when you were a child, how you understood that your daily bread came from God, and how he grants you all you need of body and soul.  But then, when you're a parent, go back and think about it again, and realize that the Lord's prayer means something more now.  You know what it is like to lay your life down an hour at a time for your family, to give to them without them noticing what goes into their survival.  All of scripture works that way, and the way that God speaks to you changes, even though the story does not.  It's why we, and Christ himself, tell you that you have to continue in his word, and if you do you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Titus

You could be forgiven for not knowing that Titus is even a book in the New Testament.

It isn't long, like the letter to the Hebrews or to the Romans.  It doesn't have a sequel, like the letters of Timothy or Corinthians.  It isn't divisive and exciting like the letter of James, and it doesn't have all the strangeness of Revelation.  It treads a lot of the same ground that the letters to Timothy do, so you may be forgiven for not knowing much about it, and for being overall not sure of its existence.

But Titus has an important part to play in the development of the Christian faith, that is, it is Titus who is used by St. Paul as a living example of what the church would eventually be.  The thing is, that we live in the world we occupy at the present moment, and we forget very quickly indeed that things were not always this way.  We forget that things used to be quite different indeed, and that for a long time, most of the time in fact, things were not the way they are now.  The Christian church has undergone a few changes since its inception, and one of the first had to do with who could possibly be a Christian in the first place.

This seems obvious now, because of the way we currently interpret the great commission that Jesus gave at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, that 'All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Me, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.'  I added the emphasis there, and I did so because of the nature of the great commission - that we are to go to all nations.  What does all nations mean?

Well, it means something different to us now than it did to the people hearing it from Jesus for the first time.  These people had never heard of places like Japan or Australia, had never conceived of places like Mexico or New Zealand, so were unlikely to make the connection between the great commission and their role to those places.  For them, "all nations" probably meant everything from Great Britain down to Pakistan inclusive.  And that's it.  The known world at the time wasn't that big.

But what did it mean for these nations to be fully, authentically Christian? Well, given the nature and character of the earliest church, and what you know about them, they were all Jews.  And they had grown up hearing and understanding that salvation is from the Jews.  No problem so far.  But in learning that, and in seeing that Christ himself was born a Jew, the disciples were all Jews, Paul was a Jew, you can understand why the thoughts in the earliest church were all about understanding the Christian church as a Jewish offshoot.  That is, the disciples for the most part believed that to be a Christian was to be a Jew first.  You had to keep the sabbaths, keep kosher, and be circumcised in order to become a Christian.  The early church split itself neatly into the party of the circumcision, and the party of the uncircumcision.  It seems strange to us now to hear about how the party of the circumcision was for sure the bigger and louder one.

Peter was drawn before the rest of the disciples, and had to defend his position as someone who was evangelizing Gentiles, because the disciples were living in a situation in which such activity would have been impossible.  They believed that a Christian life was an extension of a Jewish life, and to join the church would be to join the nation of Israel, physically and culturally.  And the big break to that was the person of Titus.

The feast day of Titus is borderline exciting because it is so dull.  If you remember the words of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, where he said that he was a feminist, and would continue to say that much until it was met with a shrug.

Say what you will about Trudeau, but when he vocalizes this, he is making clear that his vision is not just to declare that he is a feminist, but rather to have feminism be so thoroughly normalized that it is met with a lack of surprise as a declaration, because in his future everyone will be a feminist.  So declaring that you are a feminist would be as obvious as being a biped, or whatever.  If Trudeau's vision for the future becomes reality, then the future as feminist would be eventually so normalized as to be met with borderline indifference.  Think about your position vis-à-vis the circumcision party from the first century.  Do you care? Or have you completely forgotten about this first great schism in the church, because the party of the uncircumcision was so victorious as to create not only indifference, shrugging, but a lack of knowledge even of the dispute!  The party of the uncircumcision argued their case so conclusively that you may very well shrug at hearing about it.

How did this party win so conclusively? Part of it, not all of it, but part of it falls to Titus, and how instrumental he was as a case study for the disciples to observe.  Something you will notice about the letter to Titus is that it is not vastly different in what it says to Timothy in Paul's letter to him.  But Timothy is a Jew, and Titus is a Greek.  It's the lack of difference between the two that actually makes this interesting - Titus doesn't have a separate set of instructions, a different approach, he isn't a second class pastor and confessor, he is functionally the same as Timothy.  This means, according to Paul, according to the way he treats these two men and the responsibilities he gives them, that there is no Jew nor Greek.  Titus was brought about with Paul, sent by him, displayed by him in the world, and Titus was able to live and teach in such a manner that nobody could possibly speak against him. 

Now, this wasn't a matter that was only settled by the presence of Titus, but it partially was.  And what Titus helped to do was to take the Christian faith from being something relegated to being for the children of Abraham, and made it known to everyone.  This was the means through which the great commission was lived out and realized, and the way that the church began to understand itself in the same way that Jesus Christ of Nazareth did, that it was for all people.  When Paul discusses Titus in Galatians 2:1-3, he says that Titus was not compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek.  Titus was the great test case that Paul was able to bring to the party of the circumcision, and that made the instructions that Paul had for Titus so important:  "If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of insubordination. For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach.  He must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined...Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say against us."

Famous First Words

If you go onto the Texas department of criminal justice website, you can find the repository of the last words of executed prisoners.  It used to record their last meals as well, but for now, you just have their last words recorded for public posterity.  I have discussed these words in the past, contrasting them with the last words of Jesus Christ from the cross, and I will be using them today, but just as a frame to talk about something else.  For someone may very well have their last words recorded, for good or ill.  Some of these last words are relatively famous last words, that you could possibly identify by looking at them for a moment.


“Kiss me, Hardy.” Was said by Horatio Nelson


“Honeybun, how do I look in the face?” Were the closing words of Jeb Stuart.


“Now, God be praised, I will die in peace.” Those were the last words of James Wolfe on the plains of Abraham.


Now, the final words of these men were recorded, but nobody recorded their first words.  Nobody recorded their first words because their first words would likely be something incredibly straightforward, and rather dull.  It’s always exciting when children speak their first words, but it’s rarely something overly meaningful.  In fact, it’s likely going to be something along the lines of babble, possibly ‘mama’ or ‘dada,’ but nothing too terribly important. 


Now, we don’t have the actual first words of Jesus Christ recorded, but what we do have are the first time he speaks in each of the Gospels.  Luke’s gospel, I suppose, carries the first words of Christ that would have occurred chronologically, that is words that he speaks as a boy in the temple, where he says “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?”  Each Gospel gives you a different facet of the same story, though, and the Gospel of John flat out tells you why it was written.  The famous last words of the Gospel of John says “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name…Now there are also many other things that Jesus did.  Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”  Not everything was recorded, but the things that were recorded are there to let you know who this Jesus is, and what he’s all about.  Not all of his words will be recorded, but the important ones, the ones that lead to faith and life in his name, certainly will be.


So the famous first words of Christ are a question.  In our Gospel reading, He is there, walking on the shores of the Jordan river, and John points him out, identifying him as the very lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And when Jesus is identified as such, two of the disciples of John begin to follow him.  Jesus turns and asks them an important question:  “What are you seeking?” 

It’s an open question, and a question that can be asked in a multitude of different ways.  For those who are boomer-tier, you have probably had multiple occasions in which you’ve walked into a room, or downstairs or whatever, and stood there, looking perplexed for a moment.  There’s a good chance that you have been rifling through a drawer, either drunk or clothes, and have had someone come up behind you and helpfully ask what you’re looking for.  But this question, just taken on its face value, is deeper and broader than just that particular moment.  It reminds me of this moment from Star Trek IV, the voyage home, where Spock is answering a number of questions correctly that all have to do with science, logic, history, all that sort of thing.  But then the computer asks him, at the end of the test ‘How do you feel?’  Spock doesn’t know how to answer the question.  The question is not a logic question, a science question, a question about sine waves, but a question about how Spock himself feels.  If you’re actively looking for an item, or a person, or whatever, then you will be able to answer the question of what you are seeking relatively easily.  But if the question is bigger and broader than that, if the question is about what you are seeking, big picture style, it’s much harder. 


When Jesus asks that question to his disciples, he is asking it to you as well.  What are you seeking? What are you looking for? What are you hoping to find?  You spend your days working, expending effort, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, all those things, and you must be doing them for a reason.  What is that? What are you looking for overall?  Honestly, we are usually too busy working, driving, drinking, smoking, watching Netflix or sleeping to consider the large metaphysical questions, so when Christ asks this question in the words of the Gospels directly to us, we stand there, like Spock, blinking and staring at the page.  We may as well repeat Spock’s answer “I do not understand the question.” 

It’s a rare occasion in which we deal with the question as printed.  It’s a rare occasion in which we deal with the implications of answering what it is that we are looking for.  What are we looking for, what is the pearl of great price that we seek? What is it that we desperately want to find, what is the focus of our lives and effort?  Well, most people would have hard time answering that question.  Even the disciples who find Jesus that day don’t have a clear answer – instead, they say “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  They follow him to where he is staying, and stayed with him that day.  Whatever he said to them was important enough for them to find others and to bring them to Jesus, with the promise “we have found the Christ.”


So, you who are reading this blog, the question comes to any of us who read the scriptures, where Jesus asks us “what are you looking for?”  What do you hope to find in the person of Jesus Christ? The world by and large is confused by this question, and will approach it the same way as Spock, not understanding it. But why the Christian faith at all?  Why do we go to church, venerate the Lord, listen to his word, any of it? What is the purpose?  For a great many people, their understanding not just of God, but of the concept of gods in general, comes down to hoping to find something that will operate as a justification for what they do . For what the human heart wants and craves is to be justified.  The human heart desires to hear the voice from heaven that says to us ‘you are already doing the right thing.  You have nothing to change.’  But we want to hear that when we do have things to change.  We want to hear that voice when we have a large number of things to change.  We want to hear that voice no matter what.  And when you want to hear that voice from God, even in the midst of your own imperfections, in the midst of your sins, then you aren’t looking for God at all.  You’re looking for an idol.


The big question any of us Christians have to ask ourselves is how we would handle it if Christ were to speak words against us directly.  What would you do if Jesus spoke directly against you, with some degree of anger or wrath that would humble you? What if the most important thing Jesus came to do was not to reinforce the view that you have that you are the best and have nothing to change?  Part of the revitalization of the faith is to realize that for too long the dialogue from the church was only to say to people that they were super, and had nothing to change.  Morally, says the church, you are an exemplar, and have nothing to alter.  Even Jesus of Nazareth, the lamb of God would agree.

But if he is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, then John the Baptist has in mind something different than what we normally think.  If you are seeking a god who will agree with you all the time in every way, then Jesus will have nothing for you.  But if you have in mind the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, then you have to deal with the fact that there are sins to be forgiven . That’s an incredibly hard question to deal with.  By and large, we want to have all of the benefits of justification without the mess of dealing with the sins that exist.  But all that does is to make us into what we tend to be – creatures that believe so powerfully that they are right that they will earnestly resist anyone who tells them otherwise.  There have been lots of people who have left their spouses, left their churches, left their families because they were confronted at a certain point and told that they weren’t 100% correct on everything.  But in the pages of the Bible, Jesus tells you where you have gone wrong frequently and consistently.  He calls the one who he named Peter, the rock on which the church would be built “Satan” just a few moments afterwards, so you know that he’s not all about ignoring problems.

He’s all about fixing them. 


Christ is all about making you perfect as God is perfect.  He’s about giving you abundant life, and full joy, that’s his role and his job.  But this only works if your sin and imperfection is encountered, dealt with, and removed by Christ at the cross.  This only works if what you are looking for is not an idol, not a cheerleader, but a savior.  And that’s Christ. The very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.


That question posed to the disciples, ‘what are you seeking?’ is asked to us as well.  What are you seeking?  I hope it is forgiveness.  I hope it is salvation.  For you will find that in Jesus Christ.

The new Herodians

In the Epiphany periscope, we hear about Herod's interaction with the Magi.  This interaction, from one king to the others, is very telling about Herod, and if we're being honest, about ourselves as well.  For Herod, when he hears of the birth of the King of the Jews, is troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.  On the surface, we can assume that Herod is a bad guy who doesn't want to give up his hold on power.  That is very likely true.  But it really isn't quite that simple.  I'll explain.

Herod doesn't want to give up power because Herod knows what's up as far as power goes.  It's easy to forget that the concept that we are all used to by now, that of a peaceful transfer of power, is relatively new.  Before that, and for most of human history, what would happen would be that you were in power, and on the throne, but your family would tend to go from the throne to the graveyard, or into exile.  You wouldn't do that thing where you retired from public life and retired to work on your chalk fossils.  The way it tended to go, was that your dynasty would take over violently from the one before it, and your dynasty would last until your family was murdered and another dynasty took over from you.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  If you want proof of that concept, think about the family who was in power before the Herodian dynasty, that of the Hasmoneans.  What happened to them?  A lot of executions..  And if Herod knows how his family came to power, he has every reason to be suspicious of an up and comer looking to take over from his dynasty.  Especially if this newfound king of the Jews is the real deal.

If this is the real deal, if this is the inheritor of the throne of David, if this is the real King of the Jews, then Herod is through, he and his whole family.  And if Herod is done being King, he's not going to go back to peanut farming.  If there were a Wikipedia at the time, probably carved into stone tablets or whatever, then almost every ruler's 'later life' section would just state that they were murdered, or died of a surfeit of lampreys, and then their heir or rival took their place. Herod had no intention of being added to that statistic, especially not to have a rival who had an actual claim to a throne that Herod himself had only through treachery and collusion.  So, Herod went out of his way to find out from the Magi, from the scribes, where this King of the Jews was.  And here comes the lie - "Go and search diligently for the child" said Herod, "and when you have found him, bring me word, so that I too may come and worship him."

That's a whopper.   It is absolutely, categorically untrue, and is violently so.  I don't use the word violently as a metaphor, either, for Herod seeks violence against the newborn king, to kill him and to bury his rivalry.  Herod is lying to the Magi, to try to get them to deliver the location of Christ, so that Herod can have him killed.  If Jesus is dead, then the threat to Herod's home, family, dynasty and life all go away.

But here's the thing.  This attitude has not changed at all.  Consider this: Christmas is the biggest racket of them all.  It's a glutton of a holiday that lasts from late October all the way to the end of December.  So, pretty much a quarter of the year, including boxing day, is devoted to the observance of this festive season.  Now, nobody I know loves and is attached to the Christmas shopping season, and the longer it goes, the less we all like it. I hope we can all agree on that.  There's a great essay from CS Lewis that talks about Christmas being separate from Xmas, which I've quoted before, and which still retains its poignancy.  And what we learn about the season is that everyone is dragged about, hither and yon, to try to make up the shortfall that retail outlets suffer through over the course of a year.  Profits start on Black Friday, if you will.  But the longer that goes on, the more we begin to understand that we are being played largely for suckers, but we don't seem to be able to stop.  And that's the key right there, that somehow, the celebration of Christmas became wholly co-opted by commercial interests.

Stop me if you've heard this one: "Go and worship this newborn king, and when you have done so, tell me when you are doing so, so that I may worship him too."  Oh, sure.  Different person, but same lie.  'Tis the same deception, the one that says that I too, would like to worship this king, when I have zero intention of doing so.  But I do want to co-opt his worship for the sake of power, wealth, and control.  And that's the punchline.  The punchline that says that the crowded marketplace, the modern Herod, ever had any interest in the worship of Christ.  They never did, and they never will.  It was all in aid of profit, and the increase of the same.  Many people have bemoaned the retreat of the words 'Merry Christmas' from stores and markets. Many people have been disappointed that the retail landscape is dominated by a profoundly secular ethic even and especially at Christmas, but the big question is to ask what you expected from the new Herod? What did you expect the new hegemon to do when his power is threatened?

For the only thing standing firmly against the weight of commerce is the one who flipped the tables and scattered the coins.  The system we have today views human beings as economic units, a resource to be used, and then discarded, while Christ focuses on the unique vitality and essential dignity of every individual human being.  But who else at this hour is intending to understand human beings as spiritual rather than economic units? That conversation is silent save for the voice of Christ who calls us by name, and tells us that our worth is not dependant on our output or on our utility.  He in fact warns us that we cannot serve two masters.

Herod knew that Christ's claim to the throne was more valid than his own, and were he able to take the throne, Herod would be deposed.  How right he was.  But the modern Herod knows the same - seeking to give the illusion that they wanted to worship Christ as well, they did so only to debauch and to destroy, to eliminate the presence of the one who transcends purchase at all.  Christ stands as the central figure of this debate, and stubbornly resists the reduction of humanity into a service to money, and reclaims the dignity of a creature born for eternity, and born for a world without the scarcity that drives the market.  He stands at the centre of it all, and makes you into more than a value on a balance sheet, more than a bottom line, and more than your economic utility.  And at Christmas, we ponder anew that what he gives isn't something that we, or the new Herod can buy, because we couldn't possibly afford the price that it cost.  The blood of Christ that purchased eternity for us.  It is worth more than the gold, the incense and the myrrh. The wise men acknowledged it, and wise men today still do.

Please wait

I bet you think you're easy to shop for.

I bet you think that you're the easiest person to shop for, and your friends and relatives who don't feel that same way are wrong, and probably fools.

I bet you're also the person who sees things that you would like to have everywhere you go.  I bet that you go into stores, shops, marketplaces, boutiques, and see things you would like everywhere.  That's why you think you're easy to shop for, because you see so much that you like.

And I bet that while you are out shopping, and you see those trinkets and baubles that you think are precious, that you pop them into your cart and buy them as a little treat for yourself, instead of telling someone about it right ahead of Christmas.

You should stop doing that.  You should stop shopping, or at least, stop shopping for yourself right before Christmas.  For Christmas is a time of year in which you will be surrounded by people who will want, or who will feel obligated to buy something for you, and even though you think that you're an easy person to shop for, if you're buying everything for yourself, nobody can possibly get to something that you want before you do.  And that might mean that you may have to exercise that most complicated of all things, you may have to exercise patience.  And we're not good at that.

If you're not great at being patient, well, take a number, because the people of the Scriptures weren't exactly hyper-patient either.  Think for a second about Abraham, who was promised by God that he would have children, descendants as numerous as grains of sand on the beach, or as stars in the sky.  Now, Abraham was already getting on a bit in years, and understood that there is a ticking clock when it comes to fertility.  So although God had promised him that he would be the father of a multitude, Abraham wasn't seeing a lot of movement on that, so he figured that since he knew where babies came from, he would just cut God out of the equation altogether.  Which he did.

This is not a rare story. God makes a promise to people, and people get tired of waiting for the promise to be fulfilled, so they either abandon the promise altogether, or decide that they can happily find another way around it.  When God promises a Messiah, a savior, the people get sick of waiting and appoint a few to be the messiah while they wait.  Again, this isn't new at all.  And as I say, you're in good company.

But part of being a Christian, especially being a Christian in Advent, is that you have to get used to waiting.  Things are not going to happen on your schedule. In fact, it won't even be close.  And of course, it's easy to want things on your schedule, why wouldn't you? It's easy to want things on your schedule, especially because the things promised in the scriptures are good things that you ostensibly want.  If you have been paying attention through this Advent season, you will have noticed that we have been looking at Isaiah a lot in the Old Testament readings.  And all the readings have been looking forward to perfection.  They have been looking forward to a return to the garden, a return to paradise.  Whether it be the swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, lions eating straw like oxen, or streams of water flowing in the desert, all these things are looking forward to fulfillment of the end of all things, the new heaven and the new earth.

And that doesn't work until Jesus returns.  You may kick and scream and say that it should, but it doesn't.  Only once Christ returns will everything be set right.  Until that moment, in this world you will have trouble.  We are dealing with flawed ingredients, you know.  We are dealing with broken material, and the overall desire for justice, for perfection, for all of that will not happen while the ingredients are still of dubious quality.  Human beings are that ingredient, and from the moment they turned away from God, committed sins, and fallen from grace, they would be unable to have any kind of paradise, given that we, as humans, are fundamentally flawed.  There can be no perfection as long as we are a part of it.

I talk about the garden, because it was in the garden, while Eve was on her way out, that God gave a promise of a savior for the first time.  Right after the first sin, right after a need for a savior first appeared, the savior was promised.  But it would take a long time for that savior to arrive.  Even though Eve thought from the word go that a savior had arrived, it would take a long time to happen.  Generations of people would live and die in the promise, never seeing the presence of the Lord on earth.

Now, here's how to deal with the fact that there are tons of things you want, and you kind of want to buy them now.  Take a moment to think about the gifts you got last year for Christmas.  Think about all those things that you were given, and think about the fact that there are probably still all sorts of things that you haven't used yet.  There are still boxes you haven't opened, there are still books that you haven't cracked, all these things that you were super excited to get at the time, but haven't gotten around to since.  If you're starting longingly at what you want, maybe at this time it's the occasion to think about what you already have.

Take a moment to open that book that you were happy to get last year.  Take a moment to open that bottle of scotch, to play that game, to use that paint or that wool.  Take a moment to enjoy all those things, and to delight in them instead of only thinking about what you don't have yet.  And this works in the church as well, you know.

I know, you're looking forward to a time in which everything is made right, where those who died are alive again to die no more.  You're looking forward to a time in which all scarcity is gone, where all issues are resolved, and where tears are wiped away from every eye.  We all want that.  But you need to wait.  We're broken material, and you can't make perfect out of the imperfect.  For there to be perfection, we would have to be perfect. Which we will be, but not yet.  For now, you have to wait.  But while you wait, you get to think about, and take joy, in what you already have.  House and home, clothing and shoes, spouse and children, food and drink, all these things that you can enjoy this side of heaven . All these things that are gifts of God for you, that you can enjoy in the here and now.   Forgiveness, life, salvation, sanctity, salvation, a good conscience through forgiveness of sins, these things are all things to be enjoyed now, and will make waiting much easier for everyone.  For then you're not thinking only about what you want.  You're thinking about what you have.