Bethlehem Bound...Arriving Soon

 

We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Parent, like Child,

 

Tonight, we behold and we will be held by a love that has us.  We gaze into the eternal eyes of the One who is the light to our lives, church, community, and world.  We stand in silent awe of a love that never lets us go.  So, come all ye faithful.  Come and join the angels from the realms of glory.  Listen as Hark! The Herald Angels sing on this O Holy Night.  That in the Little Town of Bethlehem all this took place.  That once in royal David’s City, a canticle of turning and the first gleam of Christmas shone bright.  For away in a manger it (hope, peace, joy, and love ~ God’s very presence) came upon a midnight clear.  This, this is Christ our Lord born on this silent night.

 

Please join us in worship at 4, 7, and 10 p.m. ~ 7 p.m. service will be livestreamed. 

 

May God’s hope, peace, joy, and love enfold and hold you.  Amen.   

Bethlehem Bound ~ Christmas Eve Eve...

 

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

 

God-next-door is the holy invitation of life.  Jesus’s succinct summary of the gospel ~ ^“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”  Christmas helps open us to the holy part of humanity.  We sense connectedness and joyfulness, as well as the afterglow of laughter at parties.  And then just as the mystery of this moment slowly starts to make a difference, we blink, and suddenly the stores deeply discount the inflatable Santas…to make room for Valentine’s Day…Christmas vanishes around us and within us.  And yet, it doesn’t have to.  You have a choice to let the lingering truths of this season guide you and ground you in the New Year.  You can decide to stubbornly cling to hope as Jesus did.  You can practice peace by pausing between the stimulus (what someone says) and your response (what/how you say), because honestly, no one is keeping score of your snappy, sarcastic comebacks.  You can hold love as what has power, even when the external evidence objects as you read the paper or scroll online.  You can sing out joyfully, not because everything is perfect…but if we wait until the world reflects God’s realm…we might never find “reasons” to rejoice.  In fact, maybe singing, “Joy to the world” might just send a ripple into the universe.   So much of the Christmas story sounds foolish to modern-day cynics and critics…a baby born in a barn is God?  Shepherds as your PR team?  A young teenager as the womb God breaks forth?  While some may sarcastically laugh, my soul longs for the truth.  This, this is Christ my Lord, who reorders my life and reorients my soul to be about living love for God, the other, and myself as the way of faith and full life.  May it be so for you today as you stroll around your neighborhood gazing at Christmas lights and wonder as you wander how God’s love is here and now.  Amen.  

Bethlehem Bound...Almost There

 

We inch closer to the stable where love’s pure light shines bright.  We tentatively, reverently, and with open hearts cross the threshold into the humble barn where Jesus is born.  We stand in the scratchy straw next to earthy-smelling shepherds, and our souls feel their worth.  Hold the word for Advent that has brought you this far…and once again read these words from John 1, slowly savoring each word.

 

The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing! came into being without him.  What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out. There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light. The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light. He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn’t want him.  But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten. The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Parent, like child, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. John pointed him out and called, “This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word.”  We all live off his generous abundance, gift after gift after gift. We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, This endless knowing and understanding— all this came through Jesus, the Messiah. No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Parent, has made holy plain as day.

 

A vulnerable infant, we proclaim amid a world drunk on power, is one-of-a-kind God-Expression.  

Wait, re-read that sentence for our contradictory counter-culturalism.  A baby ~ weak and dependent ~ is God?  

Jesus exists at the very heart of the Parent made holy plain and in the flesh.  Jesus reflected God’s presence with a brilliant boldness and belovedness that awakens our souls to live differently.  Jesus sparked a flame of hope, peace, joy, and love within us ~ lighting the way to this holy week.  Jesus' birth is not just some historical event from the past, but it is still part of your life right here and now.  

How have you prepared a manger-size place for Jesus this Christmas?  

Please do not read that question with any shame or dripping with not enough-ness or drenched with shoulds and oughts.  You are where you are.  If God can find space in a drafty, dusty barn, God can make a space in your soul today, even if you are racing around still trying to find a gift for someone.  God can find a space amid the burnt sugar cookies, the words spoken in exhaustion to a clerk, to the less-than-warm-and-fuzzy thoughts you had in traffic yesterday.  

Jesus’ birth isn’t about our perfect preparations, but our willingness in this moment ~ here and now ~ to say, “O come, o come Emmanuel.”  Say and sing those words with me, “O come, o come Emmanuel.”  Because as soon as that word, “Emmanuel,” falls from your lips, it becomes reality ~ God with us (that what Emmanuel means).  God with you, right now, in the beautiful brokenness in the eternal incompleteness.  In the holy holes of our lives that look like a moth-feasted-on garment.  You are God’s beloved.  There is already a manger in your heart, just see it, step close to it, and kneel before the One who helps your soul feel alive.  May God’s hope, peace, joy, and love guide you this week and every week in 2026.  Amen.

Bethlehem Bound

 

Who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

 

The Gospel of John loves a good puzzle stuffed inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma!  John loves nothing more than to confuse you.  In chapter three, Nicodemus, who was a scholar, religious leader, and learned man, goes to see Jesus.  Jesus, in turn, tries to tell Nick that he must be born again…or it could be translated born anew…or could be translated born from above.  What Jesus is saying here is really hard to translate!  Even the words are confusing, so no wonder Nick scratches his head, stupefied and stunned!  This Word of God made flesh, John is saying in the words above, is both human and divine.  This is true not only of Christ but of you and me.  Yet, like Nick, we get confused.  We lose the divine part of our ability to see the face of God in another.  Our hearts become clouded and souls stormy, so we cannot engage the world through God’s hope, peace, joy, and love.  There is a reason why we light candles at Advent ~ they are to help us see differently.  We look for hope and seek to embody hope.  We engage in peace and want peace to begin with me.  We laugh with joy and invite others to join the dance.  We love, because God forms us with love from the top of our head to our pinkie toe.  You are not a glorious accident; you are a beloved of God.  You are not some prisoner to the politics or powers that be, but a beloved of God.  You are not defined by your worst mistake, but forgiven to let loose your light and let God’s prayer shine through you.  Take your word that has brought you thus far on the way, out into the world to be one way God can be experienced through you this day.  And may God’s love enfold and hold you as we round the corner and a stable comes into view on the horizon.  Amen.  

Bethlehem Bound

 

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.

 

You are beloved.  If you hear nothing else this Advent season, know that you are God’s beloved.  If you carry any promise and prayer from Advent into 2026, hold onto the truth that God’s love has you and holds you.  To be sure, God’s love is not bubble wrap.  It won’t stop the stumbles, bumbles, heartbreak, and soul ache.  God’s love is not a money-back guarantee or promise of the “good life”.  Living as God’s beloved doesn’t mean that it is all pony rides beside a chocolate river in the Willie Wonka Chocolate Factory. 

Nope.  

Some storms drench us.  Some floods sweep us off our feet.  There is pain that no amount of binge watching, screen staring, spiked eggnog consuming, or shopping sprees can save us from.  We numb ourselves because sometimes the ache is too much to bear.  We numb ourselves because it is a culturally acceptable way to deal with the hurt.  We numb ourselves in our attempt to find what our restless hearts long to encounter ~ which is love.  To be sure, there is a gap between our proclamation of God’s love and our experience of that holy affection.  Sometimes what gets in the way between us and God is our own busyness and stubbornness.  Sometimes the obstacle between us and God is societal ~ the strains of trying to make ends meet, or getting kicked off your health insurance, or medical issues that confound the doctors who too quickly leave the room because they cannot cure you.  

Hold this.  

To believe in God’s love is not to say that everything will be roses, but it is to lean into a promise that Divine love is at work in us and through us and seeking us every day.  God so loves the world, John 3 proclaims, that God came in the flesh on earth.  This is scandalous!  God, who is holy, enters this bruised, broken, beautiful world to walk with us.  Not just in a barn two thousand years ago, but again and again and again every day in your life and mine.  Faith is a pair of eyeglasses that helps us focus on God’s arrival in our ordinary lives.  The word you are carrying to the manger is meant to be a magnifying glass to observe this ordinary life.  May you open your heart vulnerably, as God vulnerably came to earth, to find afresh and anew today God’s love has you and won’t ever let you go.  Amen.

Morning Meditation

 

He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 

 

What a powerful, heartbreaking sentence!  Christ comes to the world, and we mistake, misunderstand, and maim God’s hope, peace, love, and joy in the world.  Not just two thousand years ago, but again and again and again.  We reject Christ when we use our words to hurt and harm each other.  We reject Christ when we bully and blame others.  We reject Christ when we let racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, economic elitism, classism, agism, and all the other ways that we are jockeying for position in this world lead us rather than Christ.  When I put someone down on social media, I am rejecting Christ.  When I gossip behind someone’s back to make myself feel better, I am rejecting Christ.  When I talk about “them” and “those” people, I reject Christ.  We are playing a dangerous game in our world ~ one of violence (weapons and words and some imaginary scoreboard politically), but there are people in Cuba, Gaza, Israel, Sudan, Darfur, Jamaica, Ukraine, Russia, China, Sarasota, and across our communities who are Christ here and now.  I know that living God’s hope, peace, joy, and love is difficult and demanding.  I get that trying to love our enemies when they wield weapons that hurt too many people can feel foolish and deadly.  I get that being a Christian is not an easy way to feel safe, secure, or seen.  Rejection is part of our human life.  Humans are beautifully broken, both in Jesus’ time and ours.  Who do you struggle to accept today?  Please remember that acceptance doesn’t mean affirmation or affection.  Acceptance means that I recognize the humanity and the God-image of another.  Doesn’t mean I understand the other.  Doesn’t mean I can change the other.  To accept is to pray for peace, health, and love to be with that person.  So, today, think of someone you struggle to love.  And pray, “God, may _______ (fill in the person’s name) know peace, health, and love.”  You may say that with a clenched jaw and tight shoulders.  You may say it but realize you don’t mean it.  Your words matter.  What you speak into the universe creates a ripple and riff.  May you and I be God’s prayer this day through our words, and may the word you are carrying to the manger this year be a blessing to you and those you encounter today.  Amen.

Bethlehem Bound

 

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him.

 

There is a great quote, “the more I learn, the less I know.”  

The more I experience this mysterious world, the more I am baffled.  

The more I interact with fellow featherless bipeds, the more I realize we are all just complex contradictions walking around.  

Each day, there is something that causes me to scratch my head in both amazement and prayer.  Growing up, I would hear adults say, “Welp, I am not surprised.”  As though this person has so cognitively conquered the world and understands all mysteries that they know all the tricks and tips.  I think people would say that to appear superior, but honestly, we are all bumbling and baffled bipeds trying to make our way.  

Sometimes when I lament, “They didn’t teach me that in seminary.”  Of course they didn’t!!  There is no way seminary or any school can teach you everything, because the world is the classroom…

your life is the curriculum…

your experience is your lesson every day.  

The question is not what we know, but are we willing to be taught?  

The question is not, did I earn an “A” (life is not about the grade), but am I willing to stay open and curious about this strange life we are all living?  

The question is, are we willing to let the Word, God’s expression in the flesh and breath of your life today, help expand as you explore the unfolding of the universe?  

God is the composer still writing the symphony.  God is the author, still editing the story.  The word you selected sixteen days ago is one doorway for you to enter the stable and stand in the scratchy straw this Advent.  That word in all its beautiful incompleteness is one window into your soul and is preparing your life for Christ to enter.  So may you and I let loose with our word and light and presence through which God is still entering the world that God might be known/encountered through you and me and we today.  Amen.