Author Archives: Anna

Sunday 12th January 2025

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“Well Pleased”  (Luke 3:15-17,21-22)

There is a story that a Presbyterian pastor tells about one of those embarrassing moments in ministry.  He was in the middle of performing a wedding ceremony, just about to lead the couple through their vows, when, all of a sudden, he forgot the name of the groom.  (I, for one, can’t imagine ever forgetting something while in worship)  Trying to cover the awkward moment, the pastor asked the groom with great solemnity “With what name were you baptized?” The groom, a bit taken aback, paused.  But then with great confidence, he responded, “I was baptized with the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!”   This didn’t help the pastor much, but at least the fellow understood the meaning of baptism!

I often enjoy asking “do you remember your Baptism?” I hear so many great stories in response.   Some people were baptized as infants and remember only what their parents told them.   Some were baptized later in life when they chose the moment they would receive the sign of grace that comes in the sacrament of baptism.  (I was holding wrong story.  My Dad’s aged yellow baptism certificate from 90 years ago.  Baptism complete)  It is wonderful to hear the variety of baptism stories, for many times in our collective worship we are called to remember our baptism, we are to recall that we are called by name and claimed by God’s love.    More than remembering the specifics of our individual baptisms remembering our baptism is to remind ourselves and refresh within us the beginning, the new life that is already underway. 

In all of the gospel accounts describing the baptism of Jesus, one question remains unanswered.  Why was Jesus baptized? Why did he needto be baptized? After all, according to John, baptism is for the purpose of repentance and the forgiveness of sins.  What did Jesus need to repent of? And what did he need to be forgiven for? Actually, when you think abut it, Jesus is to do baptizing in a fashion greater than John, and as far as we know he never baptizes anyone.   For some reason Jesus submits to baptism himself, kneeling in the mud and the muck.   It is for the same reason he is born in a manger, that he eats with prostitutes and tax collectors, that he cries and prays and sleeps in a garden, and that he dies a painful, very human death.   It is quite simply because Jesus comes to be like us, so we can grow to be like him.  Jesus is baptized into our humanity, so that we can be baptized into his divinity. 

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, those who are baptized in the same font become siblings— they are considered the same flesh and blood—they are kin with one another.  In this sense, Jesus became siblings with the crowd, all those with whom he was baptized in the River Jordan.  When we are baptized into Christ in the waters of the font, we too become siblings, with Christ and with one another.  The personal name we receive is important.  But much more important is the spiritual name we receive—Christian—bearer of Christ—brother and sister of Christ. 

The Greek word for baptism means: “To dip, to immerse, to submerge—and my favorite—to soak.” Baptism is, for all of us the bath of the Beloved, when God takes pleasure in soaking us—soaking us with water, soaking us with grace, soaking us with blessing.  When I read about Jesus’ baptism, what I understand is happening is very different than what traditional doctrines have explained.  Rather than saving us from original sin, Jesus’ baptism mirrors for us our original blessing—encouraging us to become servants of love—offering blessing and not judgment to others.  And despite the fact that we remain partial, sinful, fragile, imperfect people, our original blessing can empower us if we remember that we are baptized. 

What is most important about our text for today is how it ends.   Up until this time God would have been viewed in an ancient way, as being distant and vengeful.   But now things are different God has drawn near and everything has changed with Jesus being the Christ.   After this remarkable transformation—from thunder theology into tender theology, after the change of this abstract, awesome God into a fragile, flesh and blood God—after the Heavenly One decides to become earthly—it is then that the Creator God responds in a very particular way.   The Voice of God speaks once again. 

This Voice is warm and welcoming.  “You are my Son, the Beloved One; with you I am well pleased.” To the man in the mud, this Son who has become a servant, God speaks.  Even before Jesus has done anything noteworthy or worthwhile God praises him.  God affirms that Jesus is precious, that he is unique, and that he is loved— not for what he does but for who he is.  In this baptism scene, God echoes the divine delight and pleasure that was expressed in the very beginning days of creation.  After the creation of the sea and the dry land, God said, “It is good.” After the creation of the light and the dark, the star and sun and moon, God said, “It is good.” After the creation of the birds and the animals, the plants and the trees and the fish of the sea, God said, “it is very good.” After the creation of man and woman in God’s image, God said, “it is good.  It is very, very good.” After the baptism of Jesus, after this total immersion into the human condition, God says, “This is good.  This is delightful.  This is the Beloved, who brings me great pleasure.  This is very, very good.” So it is with each one of us when we are baptized.  We too are blessed as the Beloved.  We too bring pleasure to God. 

Each time we celebrate baptism, or anytime we reflect on and remember our baptism may we remember that we are always drenched with grace, each one of us has our original blessing—the waters of baptism that have washed over our lives.   Each one of us can be reminded of God’s Voice in our lives.  The voice that says “You are my child, the Beloved with whom I am well pleased.”

Let us remember our baptism, remember that we are blessed.  Remember that we belong.  Remember that we are the beloved.  And remember that it is a gracious God that has taken delight and pleasure in who we are and who we are becoming.  This profound gift changes us.  This profound Gift defines us.  This profound gift is what we have to share with the world.  How can we do anything else but be a blessing to others? How can we do anything else but find and name the beloved—to give to others a sense of belonging in God’s family? This is the Gift of this day.  This is the Good News of this day.  This is the call of this day.  And it is very, very good.   Amen.  

Sunday 5th January 2025

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“Here’s Your Sign!”  Matthew 2:1-12

Intro:  First a word about sermon titles.  I had a preaching prof who once said “when you name a sermon, make it so compelling that somebody riding past on a bus seeing a sign with the title will get off the bus and come in.”  Then he challenged us to think of titles that would do that.  A friend, who was quicker than I am, came up with “hey you – the bus is on fire!”  Our reading this morning is about signs, the star that the wise men saw.  Let us listen for God’s word to us. ///

 Sometimes you can be in the middle of a miracle and miss it.  A friend e-mailed a cute story a little while ago.  It is about a man who was late for an important meeting downtown but could not find a parking place. He circled his building several times: nothing. He drove up and down all the streets in the surrounding area but every spot was taken. All the parking garages had signs out front that said full. The more he drove around, the later he got; and the later he got, the more frantic he became, because he had to get to this meeting; his whole career depended on parking his car but he could not find a space.

Finally, though he wasn’t a religious man, he decided to ask God for help. Lifting his voice to heaven he said, “Lord, I know I haven’t really paid much attention to you in my life but I… I really need a parking space. Lord, if you show me a parking place I will stop sinning and start going to church. If you find me a place to park my car I will volunteer at the shelter and give to the poor — Lord, if you give me a parking spot right now I promise to become a new man!”

As soon as he finished praying a parking spot miraculously opened up right in front of the building he was going to — right in front of the main entrance… this was Rock Star parking, and there was an hour and a half of time still left on the meter. The man swerved into the spot, turned off the ignition and with a great sigh of relief lifted his voice again in prayer and said, “Never mind Lord, I found one.”

 He had certainly received a sign that God has heard his prayer – but he missed it.

In my journey of faith, and I would guess in everyone’s, there have been times when I have really wanted some sign from God to give clarity and reassurance.  Sometimes we may be focused on things of minor importance, sometimes we might be seeking guidance about major decision in life, wondering which way to go.  Sometimes we may long for a sign that God is really out there, and does care for us. In all of these times we ask and then look for some kind of response.  Years ago when I was considering leaving healthcare and entering the ministry I asked God repeatedly for a sign, not just any sign, make mine a billboard, I would pray.  I never got a billboard, we rarely do.  I think what happens is a subtle change of perception, our way of seeing the world changes, and in time answers that make sense to us appear.  

In a novel called The Final Beast, Frederick Buechner describes a young clergyman’s attempt to find some proof of God’s existence. On a visit to his father’s home just before Pentecost Sunday, he stretches out in the grass near the barn, closes his eyes and listens for some word from God, some assurance of his presence. “Please,” he whispers, “please come,” then swallowing and raising his head to look, expecting the sky to part like a curtain and a splendor to come pouring through. For a long time there in the bright spring sunshine there was nothing, and then, writes Buechner, there was this:

Two apple branches struck against each other with the limber clack of wood on wood. That was all—a tick-tock rattle of branches—but then a fierce lurch of excitement at what was only daybreak, only the smell of summer coming, only starting back again for home, but oh, he thought, with a great lump in his throat and a crazy grin, it was an agony of gladness and beauty falling wild and soft like rain.

It’s not much to go on, but for the clergyman in the story, and for Buechner himself, it was enough, because this was his own experience. On just such a day, in just such a place, he lay down in the grass with just such wild expectations. He says that he had a very strong feeling that the time was ripe for a miracle—that something was going to happen—something extraordinary that he could perhaps even see and hear. What happened was that two branches knocked together, and as I said it’s not much, but it was enough to divide time forever for Buechner into what came before that experience and what came after it.

Just clack-clack, but praise God, he thought. Praise God. Maybe all his journeying, he thought, had been only to bring him here to hear two branches hit each other twice like that, he had come in search of the Holy, and in his mind at least he had found it. God had revealed God’s self in the clack-clack of those two branches.

Isn’t this how it always is with God?  That God is never fully revealed to us, it is always in part? What we see of God is a reflection on a piece of broken mirror, a glimpse through a dark glass. To see God face-to-face would be too much for us and so God comes to us in another way.  God speaks to us in whispers. God appears to us in shadows. But by God’s grace for us, it can be enough.

Matthew says that the Magi noticed a new star in the sky, one among the billions and billions that are there, a star that wouldn’t have been noticed at all unless you were looking for it. It wasn’t much to go on—one star—but still they went, and it isn’t easy to follow a star, but they tried, correcting their course again and again by its fickle light. The wonder of it all is that they found what they were looking for, and that even then they weren’t disappointed. It was just a baby, a little boy. Not much to go on, really. If you hadn’t been following stars and searching him out you might have missed him altogether. But they found him, and for two reasons: 1) they were looking, and 2) there was someone to be found.

In our search for God, for what is Holy in the world, it is always like this. Yes, we have to look and listen, but also there is someone to be found. We are not just overworking our imaginations to find God in the knocking together of two branches, or in the dim light of a star, or in a baby’s wet smile—God is there. When we really look, when we really listen, we have to decide that either we are finding God in everything or God is, in fact, everywhere to be found. So we come to church, not to be seen by others, not to do our religious duty, but to seek and find—to be reminded again that God is with us in every moment and in all things. In silence, in the flickering light of a candle, the swell of organ music, the feel of another hand in ours, the smell of green plants, the right word at the right time, the joy of human laughter—nothing much to go on, really. No splendor crashing through the ceiling. No billboards suddenly appearing, only a glimpse, a whisper, but also a breathless kind of certainty that God is with us, that we are not alone.

I think it happened for the Magi. They followed a star. They worshipped a baby. In the end, says Matthew, “they went home by another way.” Surely he means that they took a different route than the one they had taken to get to Bethlehem. They didn’t go through Jerusalem again. But surely it wasn’t only the route that had changed. They, too, were different. They had felt that fierce lurch of excitement that Buechner speaks of, that feeling that this was only daybreak, only the smell of summer coming, only starting back again for home. But with lumps in their throats and crazy grins on their faces, and beauty falling wild and soft like rain, they worshipped. “Just a boy,” they must have thought. “Just a baby! But praise God.  Give thanks.”

And they did, and we do, and with any luck our search for what is holy today will not be in vain. In the singing of hymns, the praying of prayers, the listening for a word from God, we too may feel that fierce lurch of excitement and know that we are in the whispering Presence. With lumps in our throats and crazy grins on our faces, we too may praise him, give thanks, and go home by another way.   Amen. 

December 22 2024 “Shared Surprise” (Luke 1:38-45)

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Intro:  Last week we read from the third chapter of Luke and heard about John the Baptist describing Jesus.  At that point, they were both fully grown adults.  Today, our lesson is from the opening chapter of Luke and Luke tells us of Jesus and John meeting even before they were born.  He tells us of their mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, who are cousins, and how their lives are forever changed by God’s grace.  (Read Luke)

I’d like to start this morning with quick question.  And I would like to ask those who have had children what they remember about the day they first heard they were pregnant.  What was it like when you found out you were pregnant for the first time?  I asked that Pathways a few weeks ago, and I remember at a bible study once, there was laughter and then someone said her first thought was “well, that explains a few things!”  Someone else described an inner joy, and another said there was a feeling that an era was ending and a new one beginning.  

As Luke tells it, the Christmas story begins in a way very different then we celebrate it in our culture.  It begins in his gospel in a place of bareness, heartache, and sorrow.  It begins with a couple, Elizabeth and Zechariah, who at first glance seem fine, even fortunate in their lives, yet who in fact carry great burden of grief and disappointment in their hearts. 

Luke wants us to know right from the start, right up front, that the good news of great joy has come not to those who are already happy and fulfilled, and not to those who are content and complete in their lives.  But rather it has come to those who bear a great pain in their lives, and that is the reason for rejoicing.  For us it has come, for us who struggle with tragedy of whatever kind.  It has come to those who feel that somehow hope has been stolen out of their lives.  For us, who are plagued by despair and discouragement or sorrow and shame.  For us, the good news comes.  

Luke starts out this way to emphasize that the good news of great joy comes to the place of great need.  We should take care then not to assume that just because this is a celebration of glad tidings that everyone is happy this season, because this is not always the case.  For some, this season brings into focus some of the most painful areas of their lives, memories of loved ones now separated by death, or the absence of children who live with the other spouse, or some other reminder of how things are not the way we would like them to be.  Luke opens his gospel reminding us that Christmas begins in a barren place. 

They seem like such a perfect couple, you wouldn’t have thought they have any problems in their life.  If you weren’t one of their close friends and had not heard the lament in their lives, you would have thought that Elizabeth and Zechariah had it all.  For Jews, living in the time when Herod was king of Judea, to be a priest like Zechariah was a wonderful thing.  To be the daughter of a priest, as Elizabeth, was an even more wonderful thing.  No doubt when they were married people said you will be doubly blessed in your life together. 

They began that life, we might imagine, in great joy and anticipation.  It was back then the hope of every Jewish bride that she might be the one that would bear the child who would be called messiah, the redeemer.  So we might imagine that Elizabeth also began in marriage with hope and joy, and perhaps had a dream that she might be the one to give birth to the promised one.  She most likely had assumed that she would have children.  It probably never had occurred to her that it could be otherwise.  In a society that had little value for women, giving birth was on of those few ways that they might obtain significance. 

Today of course we see that viewpoint as oppressive and devaluing.  But in those days when Herod was king, a woman’s value was based on her ability to have children and more specifically on her ability to have a son. 

So Elizabeth assumed she would also have children.  The hope she began her married life with gave way to hurt as the years went by.  That hurt turned to despair as she moved in to the middle years of her life, until finally that despair hardened into disgrace in the twilight years of her life.  That Elizabeth could not have children was without a doubt her greatest shame, her greatest sorrow.  One that probably grew more difficult every time she heard the sound of children playing outside.  We can hear her asking God, how could it be that she would be barren? 

For Jews, to be barren would immediately be seen as God looking with disapproval on a couple.  Some even felt it was punishment for sin.  Yet Luke records what everyone had known that Elizabeth and Zechariah were upright before the Lord.  They had done nothing wrong.  It had plagued them, and it was a mystery that wove itself into the fabric of their prayers and found expression in that question we like to ask when God does not do what we like.  It was formed on their lips and etched in their hearts, the question why?  Why have you not blessed us with children?, Why have turned your face away from us?, Why has this tragedy come upon us?, and Why don’t you come and make things better? 

Those are questions that are not just restricted to the times when Herod was king in Judea.  We read about children dying of aids, we hear about wars and famine, and homelessness.  It leaves a barrenness inside us, filled only with that question of why?

That’s how Luke starts his gospel, in a barren place  But it doesn’t end there, it quickly, although for Zechariah and Elizabeth at long last, moves to the promise of hope and the experience of joy.  Luke’s point, and the point of the whole incarnation that we celebrate here in the Christmas season, is that God sends the promise of new life directly into the barren place, into the place of despair and discouragement. 

It is not coincidental or incidental.  It is at the heart of what the Gospel means.  Elizabeth rejoices and says “the Lord has done this for me, and shown me favor and taken away my disgrace.”  And then Elizabeth has a rather interesting reaction.  According to Luke she doesn’t go out and announce the good news to her neighbors, Luke says she remains five month in seclusion.  In seclusion.  We’re not told why.  We are free to guess. 

Maybe it is because the news was too fantastic to believe and there was no use telling others until she began to show.  Maybe it was because there are mysteries that happen to us that can not be shared.  Times that are too precious and extraordinary and to even speak of them is to reduce them and rob them of their glory.  Like Mary, when she learned she was pregnant, pondered all these things in her heart. 

Perhaps we have been touched in the center of our souls, in a way we can not describe yet can not deny  That may have been the case for Elizabeth.  That she choose to honor that gift of grace that had come into her life.  Sometimes it seems that no one can understand those moments and that is why we don’t speak of them, sometimes it seems that no one can understand them unless they have had a similar experience.

Which brings us to the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth, sisters of a common grace.  They are both recipients of a rare mystery.  They feel an immediate bond because they have been visited by the spirit of God, and the mystery inside of them needs no explanation for they understood.  Mary’s voice calls out, and a baby leaps within Elizabeth’s womb, and they have shared more than could ever be said by words.  There is a unity they have experienced that reaches out beyond any need to explain, and they connect.  Beneath their words, beyond their family ties, beyond their age differences, the life of God inside one touches the life of God inside the other, they discover they are sister of a shared surprise. 

There are mysteries beyond our ability to explain, and we do not have to define or defend them.  God chooses to come to us a child, to show us how to live and love.  Why is God like that?  Who knows?  We gather to celebrate the grace and gift of God.  We remember our common barrenness that cries out for the life of God.  We are all in need and in the Christmas story, we all find hope.  We are not forgotten or forsaken.  In Jesus Christ we are favored. 

We don’t have it all together, thought at first glance we may want to seem or least appear that we do.  There are places in our lives that hurt and need healing, there are places in our lives that sorrow and need comfort, places that sin and need forgiveness.  When we least expect it, we are visited and nurtured in ways we can not describe.  God does binds us in  worship as children of a shared surprise.  Happy are those who believe what the Lord has promised to them – will be accomplished.  Amen.    

Sunday 22nd December 2024

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Wishing you all a blessed and joyous Christmas, filled with God’s grace and love.

Here’s our Zoom link –

Topic: St Martin’s Sunday Worship. To Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81508696154?pwd=cnErZFM5VG5OQVhsZkxYc0dxOHdvUT09

Meeting ID: 815 0869 6154
Passcode: 712158

A very warm welcome to all who worship with us today. Please join us for morning tea following the service.

CHRISTMAS AT ST MARTINS

Tuesday 24 December 7pm

A service of Lessons & Carols

Wednesday 25 December 10am

Christmas Day celebration

Sunday 29 December 10am

Combined service at Hoon Hay Presbyterian, 5 Downing Street.

January services are all at St Martins.

On the 5th & 19th we will be joined by our neighbours from Beckenham Methodist.

Volunteers to serve morning tea on 5th January still required please.

Donations: if you would like to support the ministry at St Martins our bank account is: 03-1598-0011867-00. Please include your name as a reference.

Wednesday Walkers: over summer we will meet 9.30am at South Library – all are welcome. Check with Sonya 027 253 3397 for details.

CWS Christmas Appeal envelopes can be placed in the offertory plate on any Sunday until 26th January.

CONSERVATION – Week 12. We all know that alcohol is not good for us and it’s not good for the planet either. Like nearly everything, it has a big carbon footprint. It would be far better that vineyards grew crops for biofuel rather than alcohol for human consumption. What can you do? Cut back on alcohol consumption. It will be good for you. Instead, burn the alcohol in tractors. warren.pettigrew@raztec.co.nz

The Parish Office re-opens on Thursday 23rd January.

Come, Christmas Child

Come, Christmas Child, come again in your wonder,

changing the world with the light that you hold;

burst through the mist and the dust of the ages,

Word for our time to unwrap and unfold.

Come to be born in a comfortless cradle,

come where our cruelties keep us in chains:

Herod still hunts for our innocent children,

Rachel still weeps and her sorrow remains.

Bring us your mirror of hope and compassion,

bring us your mindset that mends and restores,

bake us the bread of new life you will offer,

knocking once more on humanity’s doors.

Come, Christmas Child, in the festival’s flurry,

come in the silence, the pain and the night,

come in the hearts that are faith-filled as Mary’s,

bringing the joy of the love you invite.

Shirley Murray

Sunday 15th December 2024 ~ Rev Dan Yeazel

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 “Vipers? Yipes! ” (Luke 3:7-18)
Intro:   Our New Testament lesson comes from Luke, in it we hear more from John the Baptist who is preparing the way for Jesus.  Within Israel, the voice of the prophets had long been silent.  Now comes one more prophet with a word for all. Let us listen to God’s Word as it comes to us.  ////

There is a cartoon I’ve enjoyed for years. Frank Ernest cartons.  There is one from a while back that shows Frank carrying a sandwich sign which said on one side “repent!” in capital letters and then on the back it said “please disregard this notice if you have already repented.”   Repenting has a bad name, I fear.  In an earlier sermon I asked you all to imagine how fast a Christmas party would clear out if you started talking about people’s thoughts about the second advent of Jesus.  Imagine doing a John the Baptist imitation and start hollering “Repent!  Repenting is about changing, and John is saying we need to change if Christ is going to enter our lives.

All four gospels lead us to deal with John the Baptist—and the lectionary brings his story to us each year in December—when the rest of the world is getting ready for celebration. John comes to us to confront us, to afflict us, to discomfort us and to remind us that most of our preparations for Christmas don’t prepare us for Christ at all. Luke’s version of the John story begins by placing this moment in history


I have often thought that John the Baptist is misnamed.  I think we should call him John the Wild Man, because he was well, wild.   His message was one that said again and again , “Repent.  “ John was a wild man and his preaching was full of challenge and confrontation.  One might say that John was one of the grouchiest preachers that ever lived. I would be grouchy too if my tailor used camel’s hair-and I lunched on locusts.  It would be enough to make anyone grouchy.  He was on a mission and we might well wonder who would want to listen to him?   But, surprisingly, the people of John’s time flocked to hear this confrontational message because they had hopes for a word that things could be different, they longed to hear a promise that things will be change. 

John called people to prepare for the coming of the Messiah, the coming of the great king, the coming of the king that was to be like the king that Isaiah dreamed of.  So when John the Baptist said, “Repent, “ he did not just mean for them to be sorry for the things they had done wrong.  What he meant was for them to change their ways, quit doing the wrongs of the past, so that the highways could be built to welcome the Messianic king.

The general crowds ask, “If the Messiah is coming, what must we do?” John says, “If you have two coats, share with the person who has none, and do the same with your food.”

Then the tax collectors came up. They wanted to be baptized and get ready for the Messiah, so they said, “What should we do?” “Don’t collect any more than the amount prescribed for you.” That is, live modestly and don’t exploit your neighbors for financial gain.

Then some soldiers came “What must we do?” John stared them down and said, “Don’t shake down any money from these people by threat or accusation, and be satisfied with the money you have.”

What should we do?  Sometimes to “repent” or go in a new direction means to stop doing one thing, and start doing another.


There is a wonderful story told of a family whose family life was disrupted
by the Second World War.  A young man went off to fight in the war and a few months after he left, his wife gave birth to their son, a son who was not to see his father for nearly four years.  During those years the mother taught the son to say his prayers each night and then after his prayers he would rise from the side of his bed and go over to the little table where there was a
photograph of his father.  He would kiss his father’s photograph and then go to bed.

The day finally came when the war was over and the father came home.  That first night mother and father went together to tuck the little boy into bed.  He said his prayers and when they were done, his mother said, “Now, kiss your father goodnight and get into bed.  “ The little boy jumps up from his knees and goes over to the table and kisses the picture and then goes to bed as his father waits with empty, open arms.  The little boy had something to learn. The little boy had some ways that were going to have to change if he were to enjoy the new reality which was the presence of a loving parent that he had never known.  Learning and repenting.  Learning and being different.  Learning and changing our ways.  That’s what John is saying to us. 

There is joy in this season—or at least the promise and possibility of joy—because, according to the Scriptures, the Christ whose compassion and justice judges us is also the Christ whose living spirit can change us and save us.  “Fear not,” said the angel, “I bring we good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people, for unto we is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.”

One thing is pretty obvious.  We are not going to experience salvation if we feel no need to be saved.  Another way of saying that is this: If we are not conscious of the somber side of Christmas, of the darkness in our own heart, in our own attitudes, in our own words and behavior, in our own country and in the world at large, we cannot know anything of the joyful side of Christmas, the possibility of becoming a more compassionate, more caring, more gentle, more generous, more loving people.  Oh, we can have a Christmas that is more fun than the routine times of the year, that has more excitement in it because of the enjoyable family and social events and church and community things which we all enjoy; but we will not know anything about the real inward joy which this season holds within it until we confront and confess our own contribution to the darkness of life and then pray earnestly



There is great tension these days within the Christian world about many
things, but nothing is more troubling than the theological tension between grace and law, between acceptance and judgment, between God as Lover and God as Judge.  How can judgment and grace co-exist in the same place? it is—a very good question. It underlines the discomfort we all have with these John the Baptist stories. If God comes freely and graciously for all of us in the full humanity of Jesus, if God is born in us whether we deserve it or not—how come we have to do something in order to receive it? How come we have to repent in order to be forgiven? How come we have to change in order to receive God? What right does John—or anyone for that matter—have to judge us, to criticize us, to assume that we aren’t okay just the way we are? Well, the answer is, John shouldn’t and he doesn’t.

The words of John the Baptist are not words of criticism. They are words of choice. John is not judging our worth; he is inviting our wholeness. He is not criticizing our past; he is offering our future. John is communicating the paradox of our faith, that the free and lavish grace of God makes no difference unless we are accountable.

The unconditional love of God cannot find fertile soil unless we first uproot
the weeds in the wilderness of our souls. God does not judge us. John does
not judge us. Nor are we to judge each other. But the truth of the gospel is
that we must judge ourselves—we must face the truth of who we are and claim the hope of who we want to become. After we judge ourselves, after we honor this call to accountability, then we can receive God, as God recreates us. This is the work of Advent. This is the work of preparation. This is the work of repentance. This is the work of turning around to face the direction of  God.  What is the result?  We will see like never before how God is one with us. Amen.