Christmas Lights

Our Advent series, with prompts from the prophet Isaiah, spills over into the Christmas season (Merry Christmas, by the way) and continues on this holy day, the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord. For your consideration, a reading from Isaiah which you may have heard in church on Christmas Eve, or perhaps a reading you’ll hear today in church. We’ve reprinted that reading above.

Those who selected readings for our worship chose this vision from Isaiah for this particular day. The reading is filled with Christmas sermon material, filled with insight into the character and mission of the Messiah. For our purposes this morning, join me in reflection on the first verses, with the image of a great light shining in a land of deep darkness.

How is it that the arrival of that baby Jesus represents light shining in a world where light seems to be in rare supply? The prologue to the Gospel of John (1:1-18) states in this way: In him was life and the life was the light of the world. What might that light mean for you this Christmas? Let’s look at light.

Light shows us the way. Scripture is filled with stories of wilderness, people wandering aimlessly. We often do that in life. Think this Christmas morning about how Jesus shows you a way forward, what our Presiding Bishop calls the way of love.

Light reveals what is hidden, including those things that we might want to keep hidden. Jesus comes to show us, how shall we say, our growth opportunities. We don’t often see those things in ourselves (though we might see them clearly in others). Again, from John’s prologue, we read that the word made flesh came among us full of grace and truth. Both things.

Light shining can offer judgment, a clear-eyed view of the ways we fall short. Think this Christmas morning about how Jesus casts light on ways we need to grow.

Light dispels fear. I’ve been told that the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is fear. As we stumble around in clueless darkness, fears of what we can’t see can mount. Think this Christmas morning about how the perfect love of God expressed in Jesus’ presence among us can cast out fear.

Light allows us to see that we are not alone. When the light of Christ breaks into our dark night, we can see that we journey with others, and that God is present with us. Think this Christmas morning of the meaning of Immanuel, the name given to Jesus. It means God is with us. Give thanks that we are not left alone.

Light, like the sun breaking the horizon at dawn, represents the possibility of a new start. Each day we’re given that chance. Each new season in the church year gives us that chance. Each New Year’s celebration gives us that chance. Think this Christmas morning about the new thing God might do in your life in the days ahead, remembering that in our worship we recognize a God who makes all things new.

Finally, light brings with it a sense of joy. The psalmist put it this way: Weeping may spend the night but joy comes in the morning. This Christmas, if you happen to sing “Joy to the World”, reflect on how the arrival of the Christ child can lead you to a deeper experience of joy.

Blessings on this holy day. In all the celebrations, presents opened, feasts prepared, take a moment to reflect on the light of Christ in your life, with a spirit of thanksgiving and hope.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Jesus’ Job Description. And Ours.

If it’s true that you get only one chance to make a first impression, what do you imagine was the impression Jesus made when he read from Isaiah 61? He did so at his first sermon in his hometown of Nazareth, a sermon which got mixed reviews, to put it mildly. You may have heard that same reading from Isaiah yesterday (a portion of which is above) on the Third Sunday of Advent.

As a good preacher, Jesus knew how to keep it short, so he didn’t read the whole passage, just the first verses, which he claimed had been fulfilled in his presence, his advent. In fact, as far as we know, the sum total of his sermon was the following: “Today this has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (You can read the whole story in Luke 4.) Would that current preachers (including this author) could model such succinctification.

As we prepare for the arrival of Christ (One week away, folks), in this last full week of the season of expectation called Advent, what kind of Messiah are we expecting? What are we looking for? What clues do we get from this Isaiah reading?

According to Isaiah, the expectation is for one who is anointed to bring good news to the oppressed, healing to the brokenhearted, liberty to captives, release to prisoners, comfort to those who mourn. That is what the Messiah will be about. That is what Christians believe Jesus is about. How does that square with your impressions of Jesus?

We can take that job description literally. In Jesus’ time, as in ours, there were plenty of people who were oppressed, brokenhearted, captive, prisoners. Many people were in mourning. Jesus’ ministry is filled with moments when he brings healing to those situations. And the question for us then becomes how we will continue that work as part of the Jesus movement, as part of the body of Christ.

Our baptismal promises call us to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being. Pete Buttigieg, a faithful Episcopalian, gives us a place to start, as he speaks in a movie to be released in January, a movie called The Case for Love. It’s inspired by Presiding Bishop Curry’s focus on the way of love. Secretary Buttigieg notes his many encounters with people who disagree with him wholeheartedly and even treat him with disdain, not uncommon in our current political climate. He says in the movie that he is called to remember that God loves his opponents just as much as God loves him. Keeping that in mind is a good way to begin to fulfill this Isaiah reading.

I’m wondering specifically how we might live into Isaiah’s vision in this Christmas season. There are plenty of opportunities to strive for justice and peace in our broken world. There are great needs for healing. Who do you know who is feeling broken-hearted, who is gripped with grief? The holidays can be especially difficult for those who bear that burden, whether the loss is recent or happened a long time ago. Who do you know who is held captive, by resentment or a sense of injury, by addiction or compulsion, by hatred or fear? Meeting those needs is the work we are given to do as members of the body of Christ, as his hands and feet in the world.

As you ask God to show you ways to be a healing presence, reflect on the wisdom of Howard Thurman, who wrote a poem called The Work of Christmas. Here it is:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.

Let this poem guide you in the celebration of this season.

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule.  Sign up now!!

Learn more in our digital brochure.

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Ah, Wilderness

A favored, savored New Yorker cartoon depicts a woman in business attire, a tiny, lone figure out in the wild, in the middle of nowhere. The title: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, the caption: “Get me the hell out of the wilderness.” We all know something about wilderness. For many, it’s a place from which we’d like to escape.

“Get me the hell out of the wilderness!”

The Advent season takes us to the wilderness, as noted in the reading from the prophet Isaiah, which you may have heard in church yesterday. Wilderness imagery shows up in a number of places in the Bible. Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness watching sheep before he heard the call from the talking burning bush. The children of Israel wandered for 40 years in the wilderness after their deliverance from Egyptian oppression. Elijah made his way to the wilderness when he thought the world was out to get him. The children of Israel living in exile knew that if they were to find their way home, it would mean traveling through wilderness. John the Baptist chose to offer his ministry in the wilderness. Jesus began his public ministry with a time of testing in such a place. Throughout the history of the church, people of faith have found themselves in the wilderness, by choice or not,

The wilderness is undoubtedly a place of challenge, where we are tested. It can be a place where comforts are stripped away. It can be a place of loneliness. For many in scripture, the wilderness could be a fearful place, filled with menacing beasts. For some the greatest fear was that it was tractless. No clear roadways. No clear sense of direction. No way out. No way forward. I suspect we all know something of experiences like that.

At the same time, the wilderness is a place of formation. In the meandering of the children of Israel over those forty years, apparently walking in circles, they were formed as a people. Jesus’ time in the wilderness strengthened him, equipped him for the public ministry about to be launched. Distractions removed, it can be a place where clarity increases. People of faith over the centuries have attested to the fact that the wilderness is a place where they have come to know what really matters, a place where God’s presence and power in new ways.

Reflect this morning on your own wilderness experience. Maybe you’re there now. Acknowledge that it’s a place marked by challenge. Know that people have faced the challenge before and come out on the other side.

And see what can be learned in the moment, how you might be experiencing formation. Advent as a season reminds us that we are not always going to be in the wilderness, that there will be a way prepared, with rough places plain. But it also tells us that there can be learnings as we wait. My hope and prayer in this Monday offering is that your time in the wilderness, whatever that looks like, will prove to be helpful in that way.

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule.  Sign up now!!

Learn more in our digital brochure.

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The potter and the clay

It’s an image that comes up in several places in scripture. The Lord is the potter. We are clay, ready to be shaped into something useful, maybe something beautiful. According to this image, we find our identity as God’s creation, or as the letter to the Ephesians puts it, we are God’s workmanship created for good works which God has prepared to be our way of life (Ephesians 2.10).

The prophet Jeremiah used the image, as he reflected on the inexplicable hardship being visited on his people. St. Paul used the image as he puzzled about why some folks had faith and others didn’t. And the image pops up in the reading from the prophet Isaiah (above) a reading you may have heard in church yesterday on the first Sunday of Advent. Let’s just say it’s an interesting way to start the church year.

In that reading, Isaiah addresses the Lord and basically asks: Where have you been? You used to show up for us, but lately you’ve been absent. It’s similar to the question posed in Psalm 22: O God, why have you forsaken me? That question is echoed on the cross. Is it a question you’ve ever asked?

In this reading, it sounds like Isaiah may even be blaming God for ways that the children of Israel have messed up. After all, God had been absent. (Because you hid yourself, we transgressed. V.5) Some of that blaming of God goes on elsewhere in scripture. When the Lord confronts Adam in the garden, noticing that he’d been snacking on forbidden fruit, Adam says to the Lord: The woman you gave me made me do it. When Aaron was brought up on the carpet because he made a golden calf, he said he did it because Moses and God were off on the mountaintop having a 40-day conversation. It was their fault. It underscores that human tendency to look for anyone to blame, anyone but ourselves. It’s the tendency to dodge responsibility, to dodge accountability.

At the same time, we also acknowledge the human tendency to imagine that we are in charge, that we call the shots, that we have a better idea of how to run the universe than God does. We imagine that we are the potter.

Peculiar sort, we human beings.

In the end, there’s one critical word in Isaiah’s passage. After Isaiah gets through with his complaining, he says: Yet. Yet, O Lord you are our father. You are the potter. We are the clay.

What’s the lesson for us? I struggle with the image of potter and clay, mostly because I want to be the potter, thank you very much. I want to be in the driver’s seat, the one shaping things. Which is why it is important to remember that in the history of God’s relationship with us, starting in the book of Genesis, we are not the star of the story. The church is not the star of the story. God is the star of the story.

That could be tough to swallow if separated from the promise that the one who is the potter is also the one from whose love we can never be separated, one whose creative energy is shaping us into a beautiful vessel to be filled with God’s spirit and to be used for God’s glory. That’s probably not a bad message for us as we begin a new year. As the year unfolds, and as our world seems at times to spin out of control, can we trust in the one who is shaping us with holy and loving intention?

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule.  Sign up now!!

Learn more in our digital brochure.

RenewalWorks – Digital Catalog