Snake-Spawn: Sermon on Matthew 3:7-8

Murmurs rumbled throughout the ornate chamber with the two doorways. It was the Chamber of Hewn Stone in the Temple complex, with one door to the inner court and one to the outer. Within the room, seventy-one elders in their soft, supple robes tried to hew to the rules of decorum as they argued and disputed. In the heart of their arc, high priest Yosef ben Kaiapha – 'Caiaphas' – tried to keep order among his party, while the quite older man, stern Shammai, aimed to do the same among his, with aid from his sometime rival, gentle Gamaliel. The Great Sanhedrin, Supreme Court of the Jews, wasn't always easy to keep working smoothly. So many dignitaries were there. Representatives of all twenty-four priestly courses. Elite scribes and teachers of the law. Former high priests, even, like Yosef ben Kaiapha's father-in-law, Hanan ben Seth. Those two, Annas and Caiaphas, seemed inseparable. The issue that had arisen among the court today was how to handle a particular innovator, an alleged prophet out in the desert, whose popularity was on the rise. Few in the assembly gave much credit to the likelihood of his actual validity, but more to the point was how dangerous he might be, this Johanan of the Jordan – this 'John.'

Clearly, someone needed to investigate – to gain an eyewitness perspective on the affair and report back. But deciding who to send from among their number... well, that was a harder matter. Hence the subdued bickering. For there were two factions perpetually wrestling for control of the court, and had been for over a hundred years. On the one hand were those called the Sadducees. Annas, Caiaphas – their sort. The Sadducees were aristocrats, blue bloods, dealers in the status quo. Moneyed interests, they tended to be. Sticklers for reading the law as-is – if you can't prove it from the plain words of Moses, it's inadmissible. So much of what most Jews expected after death – the Sadducees couldn't find it in Moses, so down the tubes it all went. And then, on the other side, were the Pharisees, carriers of unwritten traditions they claimed stretched through Moses and the other prophets, letting them flexibly apply the law to new situations. They loathed the status quo, under the Roman thumb, but had a vision for purging the nation. If they could build such a broad buffer around every rule in the law that following their program would preserve one from sin, and if they could persuade all Israel to join their program, then a sinless day might come, proving they at last deserved deliverance and blessing from God. All they needed was for the rest of Israel to get with their program.

Well, someone needed to investigate John. And clearly it wouldn't do to have just Sadducees go and return and give a Sadducee take on it. And clearly it wouldn't do to send Pharisees alone. So a tense truce was struck, and a joint commission – Sadducees and Pharisees, not so different from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, bickering and grasping for power endlessly – well, such a joint commission was appointed.

In time, off they went. Out of the temple precincts. Out of the city. Out through the footpaths. Out to the bank of the Jordan River. Slipping in among the crowds. They tried somewhat to blend in, to not be noticed too readily. But members of the Sanhedrin – tall, striking – well, they tended to stand out above the rest. But they had a place to watch John – who by all rights should've been accepting his priestly duties in the temple, as a son of Zechariah and thus a member of the priestly division of Abijah – watch him rave and listen to confessions and take people out across the river and bring them back through, baptizing them by... by what authority? That, maybe, was all the question.

This is where Matthew lets us in on the action. He tells us that, as the crowds from “Jerusalem and Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins,” so John one day noticed “many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism” (Matthew 3:6-7). The phrasing is deliberately different. A large group of Pharisees and Sadducees – who were rival factions in politics and religion alike, and probably wouldn't have tended to mingle except on official business – had arrived, not to be baptized, but at the site where he was baptizing others. They had infiltrated the crowd of earnest hearers, so a less discerning person – and maybe quite a few in the crowd were so – might've thought that they were there for the same purpose, with the same motive. But no.

No, these Sadducees, these Pharisees, none of them had come with any thought of actually ever participating in what John, the camel-hair-clad, locust-and-honey-eating renegade son of a priest, was up to. None of the members of this Sanhedrin delegation had a sense of personal need. They were not beggars, not supplicants. They were not seeking such a radical renewal, not out to humble themselves. They came as judges. They came to observe and evaluate, and then to go back home and render a verdict and decide whether action might need to be taken to put an end to John's career.

As we find out throughout the rest of the book, their verdict wasn't a positive one. “John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon'” (Matthew 11:18). “John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him” (Matthew 21:32). They didn't place much stock in what John was doing, these elite Sadducees and Pharisees.

Now, for most of us, if the big-shots come to see what we're doing, we might try to make a good impression on them. Might tidy house. Put on our best suit. Keep a firmer grip on our tongue. Put our best foot forward. If you're under observation, that's a common way to react. But John has other ideas. See, the first thing out of his mouth when he sees them is to call them out. These are the men who are there to perform an official evaluation of him – but John insists on giving them a harsh dose of reality.

John yells out that they're all – Sadducees and Pharisees alike, these members of the highest court in Jerusalem – that they're a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 3:7). And I'll give you a hint: that was not a gentle thing to say. If little John had said it to the neighbor boy, his parent's might've tried to wash his mouth out with soap. But the insult found its mark. And John wasn't wrong to say it – two times in the next few years, Jesus would call the Pharisees the exact same thing: “You serpents, brood of vipers” (Matthew 23:33; cf. also 12:34). Sadducees and Pharisees both prided themselves so much on being good. They both prided themselves so much on being clean. After all, priests had to maintain their ritual purity, and Pharisees anyway were obsessed with spreading strict observance of purity laws even among commoners. Both parties were focused on squeaky-clean living. And John goes and calls them filthy animals, not fit for any lawful use. Snakes were hardly kosher. Instead, they reminded everyone of the one in the garden who slithered on forbidden trees. The Sadducees were proud of their priestly ancestries, and in fact one main function of the Sanhedrin was to scrutinize prospective priests' family trees to prevent any less-than-noble heritage. The Pharisees were proud of their fathers, from whom they handed down traditions linking them, generation by generation, back to the days of Moses. But John says he's sniffed something rotten in their background, Sadducees and Pharisees alike, for it's the Snake in the Garden to whom they bear the most family resemblance. And indeed, Jesus would later say to maybe some of the very same Pharisees, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires” (John 8:44). Of the enemies of Israel, it was said of old, “their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps” (Deuteronomy 32:33). The tribe of Dan, disinherited by Jewish tradition for total corruption, was described by Jacob as “a serpent in the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse's heels so that his rider falls backward” (Genesis 49:17). And the Sadducees and Pharisees have become such poisonous enemies of God's people.

But what John called these elite inspectors was so much more cutting than that. For he didn't just say 'snakes.' He said 'vipers.' And when most people in that time thought about vipers, there was one popular rumor that always came to mind first of all. A Greek historian, centuries before, had spread a story that baby Arabian vipers were born by chewing their way out of their mama's womb, devouring and killing her in the process at the moment of their birth. So when John – and later Jesus – calls this crew a “brood of vipers,” it's one of the harshest insults there is. It insinuates that these Sadducees and Pharisees are mom-killers. They're spiritual matricides, the real murderers in the bosom of Mother Jerusalem, who devour her guts and leave a corpse in their wake. The Sadducees and Pharisees are all upstanding citizens, the cream of the crop; they have never in their lives considered themselves as having anything to do with whatever's wrong in Israel. But John accuses them of having everything to do with what's wrong in Israel. They are the violence ripping apart God's bride from the inside-out. They are the death of her. So when John comes to point the way to life, he can't point to the programs of the Pharisees or Sadducees, but away from them. For from them flows the poison that outrages God and will call down Elijah fire. Their tradition, their pretense, their pride – it's the new Baal priesthood, the new work of Jezebel, and this whole place is a Mount Carmel waiting to be scorched.

For they are the violence. They are the poison. They are the corrupting impurity that slithers and gnaws. They pretend to be so great, but they're “full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:28). And so John asks them sarcastically: “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matthew 3:7). See, showing up on Jordan's banks, filtering in among the crowds, they look the part of those who know there's fire on the way. They look like they know what's coming. But they're clueless and in denial. If they want a real clue, they need to repent and bear fruit (Matthew 3:8).

The Pharisees and Sadducees would have objected to what John called them, what John told them. After all, the Pharisees and Sadducees both aimed to follow the Law of Moses. They had different ideas of what that meant, sometimes, but they surely considered themselves as devout, Torah-observant Jewish men of the highest caliber. They weren't out drinking and partying, weren't out brawling and vandalizing. Each one was circumcised in the covenant of Abraham, each one kept to a life of moral rigor, each one was religiously scrupulous. They had the best of works just flowing out their ears! So what are all these works, if not good fruit?

But John would've seen right through that. You can have all sorts of pretty finery, you can be upstanding, you can have society-approved achievements... and it can be a pile of splinters of lifeless construction. But fruit is organic. It grows from something alive. In this case, 'repentance.' And we talked the other week about what a strong word that was for John. 'Repentance,' in his mouth, means a radical turn to God, as if meeting God for the first time as a complete outsider and then being drastically converted and brought into the Land of Promise for a fresh start. And to that end, before they could start again and regain healthy covenant standing, people in the crowd had to openly accept responsibility for Israel's problem and give a list of evidence, confessing the sins they themselves had committed that had contributed to the darkness. They had to name their own reflection as the shadow blocking Israel from God's light. And then they had to admit their estrangement, do an about-face, and let John wield the power of God to symbolically exclude and include them.

And none of that was something the Sadducees or the Pharisees were willing to do. Because they could never see themselves that way. They were too invested in how good they thought they were, how pure they thought they were, that the notion of humbling themselves to convert to their own religion was just absurd. But only from repentance, only from conversion, does the right fruit grow. The right fruit has to grow out of a heart that has taken a cold, hard look at itself; realized its desperate need; turned toward God; and called out for grace. The right fruit is the fruit of conversion. And someone who really got John's message, who stepped out and in again, would be overawed. Everything about Israel's faith and life would seem shiny and new. They'd approach everything with a dewy-eyed gratitude, because they'd see more clearly how dank and dark the alternatives are. And for that reason, none of the works of the Sadducees or Pharisees can be “fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8). Because theirs is not a life of gratitude – at least, not for the right things. For what kinds of prayers might they pray? “God, I thank you that I am not like other men” (Luke 18:11). And that's fruitless.

John invited members of the Jewish supreme court, it seems, to renounce their status and their self-conceptions, and to see themselves as the ones who should be on trial. But they couldn't bear to accept that ruling from John. They felt themselves good. They felt themselves confident. They felt themselves apart. So they were there to observe. And they were there to investigate. And maybe they might even softly approve – perhaps, after all, this message could help improve the rabble in need of its help. But they were hardly there to join.

And then we come to us. Ourselves. And too often, professing Christians have continued the legacy of those Sadducees and those Pharisees. We have seen ourselves as upstanding religious consumers who, at the most, just need some management tools. We consider the problems facing the church, or the problems facing the country, and it scarcely crosses our minds that the heart of the problem might be us. We've at times loved to see others get brought from vice toward virtue. But we consider ourselves already virtuous, hence in no need of being converted. And so it's easier for us to judge our neighbors for not measuring up to us. It's easier for us to see others out there as a social contagion – a criminal element in society, or a depraved element in society, or a simply lower-class element in society – and consider ourselves the ones innocently injured – burdened, really – by being tied to them by the social contract.

And so, when it comes to John's message, at times we can stand on the banks of the Jordan... but why? What for? Do we come as participants or as mere observers? Friends, it's so easy to come as mere observers, there to consume and evaluate. Many throughout history have done it every Sunday, after all. It's easy. Sit in a pew, watch the show, instinctively grade it, then go out for lunch. That may be our default setting.

And a Sadducee or Pharisee could manage the same thing. For that's essentially what they did when they came to John. It didn't much matter if they gave him a bad grade or a good grade. What matters is that they left unchanged. They left unrepentant. They left unbaptized. They came as observers, they left as observers, they never became real participants in what had happened. And when we encounter God's work and remain observers throughout, the same is true of us. Do we come as participants or as mere observers? Do we come chiefly to judge or chiefly to join? Are we snake-spawn in the church, snake-spawn in the country, or will we be converted into something fruitful?

It's not enough to be upstanding. It's not enough to be decent. It's not enough to be moral. It's not enough to be productive. It's not enough to show up. The Sadducees did that. The Pharisees did that. And then John called them mother-killing viper-babies in Satan's image, asked them what they were doing there as if trying to escape from the judgment God was sending on their account, and called them to be converted and come to life and bear real fruit for a change. Real fruit – not just the mechanical motions of morality, but the living texture of a life of humble gratitude, like a convert seeing the world with fresh eyes after a clear glimpse of the darkness within, newly committed to “the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23).

No, it isn't enough to come as an observer. It isn't enough to hear a thought and chew on it. “Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). We have to come as participants. We have to join and personally apply it. Or rather, we have to come to God again and again as beggars, laying nothing to our credit but what he'll give us, nothing to our credit than the cross and risen life of Jesus Christ our gracious Lord. Nothing to our credit but the good news announced to us. Nothing but the gospel of the grace of God, which comes to us as to a brood of vipers but makes us sons and daughters of God – not so that we can kick back, not so that we can become passive observers, not so that we can be religious consumers, but so that we can come as participants who stand by grace alone, who look at the world with fresh eyes, and who bear fruit from a thankful heart of true repentance. What will you be?

The Desert Life: Sermon on Matthew 3:4-6

When it came to his enemies... one down, one to go. And he hadn't really had to lift a finger. Not that he took a great deal of satisfaction in any of it. He hadn't orchestrated this. He'd only said what his God told him to, and the rest had followed. Over a year earlier, Ahab, the mighty king of Israel, had gone into battle alongside his ally, Jehoshaphat, the king of southern Judah, against the Aramean king. The prophet Micaiah had warned Ahab not to, but Ahab was not one for listening to prophets. That was the problem. And Ahab had gotten himself shot through by an Aramean archer. They'd brought him back for burial, washed his bloody chariot by a pool in Samaria, and just as he'd been warned, dogs had licked up the blood (1 Kings 21:17—22:40).

His wicked queen Jezebel was still around. But she'd become the queen mother. One of her several sons, the hapless Ahaziah, had risen to the throne. But he was loyal, not to everything that made Israel Israel, but to all the things that made Ahab and Jezebel worthless to rule. Ahaziah “served Baal and worshipped him and provoked the LORD, the God of Israel” (1 Kings 22:53). During his days, Mesha, the king of Moab, had gone into rebellion against his Israelite overlords. Served Ahaziah right. And then, one day, pagan Ahaziah took a tumble from his rooftop to the ground below (2 Kings 1:2). Broke some bones, sustained internal injuries, had to be carried into a bed. He'd sent messengers to go seek a prophet's word to reassure him he'd be okay.

But he wanted a prophet for a Philistine god, the kind of god he liked, not the kind of God that had ushered his ancestors out of Egypt or shown them love. He didn't want the real God; he wanted a fly-speckled fraud. He sent his messengers on the way down to Ekron. But they didn't make it. A man intercepted them, scolding them all for abandoning Israel's covenant God. And the man promised that King Ahaziah would die. When the messengers came back, all they could do was say what the threatening man was wearing: “a garment of hair, with a belt of leather around his waist.” And Ahaziah had been around long enough to know it could only be one man: Elijah the Tishbite (2 Kings 1:1-8).

So the injured king, angry and desperate, sent a military unit to go drag Elijah down from his hill and force him to make a personal appearance. Elijah declined. And not politely. No, Elijah declined by promptly calling fire down from heaven, which devoured Ahaziah's soldiers. So Ahaziah sent another unit. And Elijah called down more fire. And so Ahaziah sent another unit. But instead of demanding Elijah's presence like the two who came before him, the third unit captain just begged Elijah to spare his life. So Elijah turned to the nearest angel, got confirmation he'd be okay, and went with them. Just so he could give the exact same message to Ahaziah that he'd given before – nearly word for word. And it came to pass. Ahaziah died (2 Kings 1:9-17).

Not long after that, Elijah took his disciple Elisha on a road trip, as it were. Down south. First to Bethel. Then to Jericho. Then to the banks of the Jordan River. They wanted to cross, so Elijah took off his hairy outer cloak and rolled it up and wapped the surface of the water with it – and just like that, the flow stopped and parted and they crossed over, out of the Land, reversing the journey of Joshua and the Israelites long ago. And then fire fell from heaven one more time – but not to destroy. No, fire fell from heaven like chariots and horses, all ablaze, and they whisked Elijah out of sight, from earth to somewhere else (2 Kings 2:1-14).

Through the years, prophets and rabbis and sages wondered what purposes God might still have for Elijah or for his legacy. The prophet Malachi explained that, before God's return in the fires of judgment to destroy evil on the Day of the LORD, Elijah would be sent to God's people, to “turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers,” so God would see something in Israel worth sparing (Malachi 4:5-6). In coming centuries, rabbis speculated just what Elijah might do when he came back. Some thought Elijah would use his prophetic wisdom to settle all their thorny questions about the Bible that they couldn't figure out how to answer. Some thought he'd use his prophetic wisdom to judge court cases. Some thought he'd re-establish the tribes of Israel, either sorting out messy marriages or reviving the records of family lines. Some thought Elijah would come to “compel insiders to become outsiders and outsiders to become insiders.” Some thought Elijah would come to establish peace on earth. Some thought Elijah would come to invite everyone to God.

Over eight centuries after the chariot of fire came down in the desert spaces near the banks of the Jordan to pick Elijah up, up, and away, a rather younger man – maybe 32 or 33 years old – came to a place like that. And his name was John. He came as a hairy man, a wilderness prophet, in a camel-hair shirt and a leather belt. In short, he came dressed like Elijah famously dressed (Matthew 3:4). And Jesus explained that this man, this John, was the “Elijah who is to come” (Matthew 11:14) – the one Malachi talked about. John was the 'Elijah' of Malachi, sent to a wayward nation to call them back from going the way of Ahab and Ahaziah, one and all.

And, you know, John, walking the world in Elijah's shoes and Elijah's demeanor and Elijah's role, seems like he should have been an unattractive figure. Austere. Stern. Gaunt. Shabby-looking. Maybe frightening. What kind of breath do you think you'd have if you ate nothing but bugs and raw honey every day and had never seen a tube of toothpaste before? What aroma do you think you'd have if your only pair of clothes involved a shirt made of camel hair, and you were constantly getting it wet? And if a man were walking around today with that kind of breath and that kind of smell, refusing every meal that wasn't bugs and raw honey, with hair never cut and doubtfully combed, and he applied for a role preaching in just about any church in this country – how many do you think would give his application much thought before filing it in the little bin with the black disposable lining? When I was in college, there was a time some of my peers nicknamed me 'John the Baptist' – after all, I had hair past my shoulders, an austere demeanor, and a fiery and confrontational style. (I hope I at least dressed better and didn't have locust breath.) But if I truly looked and behaved like John the Baptist, what are the odds I'd be in this pulpit right now? Too often, we mentally domesticate John, the shaggy fellow preaching outdoors with a locust leg stuck in his teeth and flecks of honey stuck in his bushy beard. Who wants to listen to that guy – who wants to come close, to do anything but step to the other side of the street from him? The desert life wins no fashion contests, curries no favor, offers no opportunities for advancement.

But, Matthew tells us, John was paradoxically attractive. The crowds flooded out to him, from Jerusalem the great capital city, from the whole land of Judea, and even from Herod Antipas' dominions of Perea and Galilee. And that's very strange. There was something about John that drew people to him. I'm sure some initially went because he was a curiosity, a tourist stop – “Everybody, come get a look at the Astounding Preaching Hairball!” But then they heard his message and were hooked, like they'd forgotten what reality was, had learned to live off of simulations and counterfeits, until John force-fed them a taste of the real deal and their long-dormant appetites and tastes reactivated with a bang (Matthew 3:5).

In a world of pampered religious aristocrats, the priests and elders in their great finery, the Pharisees were well known and respected for their upright simplicity; but John was more self-denying than the hardiest Pharisee or even strict Essene. John was a wilderness prophet, true to Elijah's style. John lived fully 'off-the-grid,' as we say these days. We rely on other people, to some measure. When we want to eat, we go to the grocery store. We buy food that someone else butchered or cultivated or picked, and that still someone else shipped there, and that still someone else stocked there, and that still someone else will take our money in exchange for. Even if just in that, we rely on people – not to even mention the people who paved the roads that take us to the store that people built, using the gasoline that still other people refined from crude oil that yet other people drilled for. If we're paranoid enough, we might try to get 'off-the-grid' – get out into the woods, become self-sustaining on the land, no connections to public utilities.

But John took it so much further. So far that he wouldn't even accept food that he himself grew. Only food that no one provided but God, food that all John had to do was gather, and not a morsel more. And so, for the sake of total reliance on God and total communion with God, John gave up every creature comfort and every life's pleasure that could've been his. He never said every member of God's people would be called to such extremes of asceticism, of self-denial. But he served as a prophetic reminder of how far the range extended in that direction, how possible it is that our call is further in his direction than what we're prone to live, in our fancy connected houses with plenty on the table and plenty in the closet. And in his desert life, in his cashless existence, in his self-denial, he identified radically with the poor and the outcast. There's scarce a refugee or peasant or needy person in the world, be it city or desolate countryside, who owns truly less than John had. He lived like the utmost extreme of poverty, identifying with their pains and struggles. The prophet of the poor.

Yes, John was an ascetic amidst the pampered and the paupers. And, in a world of feel-good pieties, John was a fearless truth-teller – just like Elijah had been. Elijah hadn't cared what Ahab or Ahaziah wanted to hear. He had no interest in what message might be profitable. He took no thought for how to most gently and winsomely couch what he had to say. He was direct and to-the-point. Elijah announced harsh truths. And so did John. His was a message of judgment and repentance, 'turn or burn.' He offered hope, to be sure, but hope discovered on a rough road. Others in his day – they proclaimed messages of self-satisfaction or self-commendation. Some thought that everything was fine as it was, that the status quo was tolerable. Some thought that they had a quick and easy program for making Judea great again, through certain ritual or legal actions, and then God would act in predictable and controllable ways. But John was about the skies and the sands, the flood and the flame.

Today's religious and cultural atmosphere, at least as much so as in the age of Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate, is rife with ear-tickling pleasantries. Ours is often proclaimed as a “post-truth culture,” from the halls of power politics to the media broadcast centers to the pulpits of the mass antichristian anti-sanctuaries to the endless cycles of rumors for the rabble. It's all ear-tickling. We hear a tale that we think confirms our preconceptions about how good we ourselves are, or how bad our opponents are, and we accept that as 'true.' We hear a tale that challenges our preferred narrative, and we reflexively denounce that as 'false.' The terms, as we see them, need have no significant relation to reality. It's all about maintaining the narrative. It's all about massaging the ego. It's all about feeding the desires full of advertising and artificial emotion. That's not just a liberal thing. That's not just a conservative thing. It's an American thing. It's a global thing. You'll find it as perilous among self-proclaimed patriots as among hardened anarchists and communists. You'll find it in gossip at the local diner, and you'll find it in the saccharine siren-songs of the trendiest pseudo-church. We have plenty of pundits who deceive themselves into thinking they're truth-tellers. But we have a dearth of honest-to-God truth-tellers.

But John was such a truth-teller, speaking forthrightly about sin and repentance, about damnation and salvation, not exempting himself, not holding himself out above everyone else, but cutting away every temptation to power and making himself a slave of his message – and of the Divine King whose messenger he was. And what was John's trumpet-blast of truth? He could have called down fire, like Elijah did. Elijah seemed to be calling down fire left and right, sometimes. But John said the fire was already on its way down. He wasn't the match. He wasn't the lighter. He wasn't the ignition. He was the alarm. And loud he'd sound, loud he'd sound, 'til all Israel had just one choice to make: knowingly heed or knowingly disregard.

John came, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to issue a public invitation: Turn to God, decisively and drastically. He told them there was no other way to do it than by becoming outsiders and then insiders all over again. So I guess you could say he compelled an Israelite remnant of insiders to become outsiders, then compelled these newly minted outsiders to become insiders. And so, like Joshua and the Israelites with the ark of the covenant and like Elijah and Elisha with the rough and scratchy cloak, John the Baptist took a micro-Israel under renewal through the waters of Jordan to the banks of the Promised Land.

John came, in the spirit and power of Elijah, with prophetic wisdom to see into each person's situation and give them counsel. He told tax collectors to scam no one (Luke 3:12-13). He told soldiers to bully no one, extort from no one, gripe about their lousy pay to no one (Luke 3:14). He told the next-to-poorest peasant, a man with two shirts to his name and nothing more, to give the spare shirt to the bare-skinned fellow shivering down the road; and he told those on the verge of poverty to feed the still-hungrier with every morsel they could manage to keep alive without (Luke 3:11). And John had the credibility and moral authority to speak those words, given the desert life he led. For his desert life was a source of power.

John came, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to restore whole generations to covenant faithfulness, to a return to the Israel they should've been. He came to restore them by turning their hearts to one another, by giving them a common focal point: the God of Moses, the God of Sinai, the God of the Covenant, who was on his way to do a new thing. And so, to turn generations back to God, to restore them to healthy covenant standing, to make them ready to meet their Maker with a messianic face, he invited people to confess their sins and be baptized.

It sounds so simple. But it wasn't easy. When Matthew describes people as “confessing their sins” and being “baptized by him in the river Jordan” (Matthew 3:6), the word carries the sense of an open declaration. An act done without holding back. No reservations. No resistance. Just an honest admission that they were as guilty and impure and alienated as the most distant foreigner. Just a public statement that they accepted responsibility for Israel's problem. That they, and not the supposed 'villains' of the other factions in public life – they, and not some scapegoat they or their leaders had chosen – they, and not fate or chance or the logic of history – no, that they were what was wrong with their world. And then naming concrete ways that that was so – real things that they personally had done. Not a list of problems of their neighbors, from which the confessor could stand aloof. But their real own dirty laundry, brought into the open, displayed not with pride, not with defiance, but with true contrition. Confessing their sins. Dredging them up to the surface. And then, and only then, getting the bodily surface washed to start society over again from its birth.

In John's eyes, you see, there can be no renewal apart from vulnerability and honesty. And real vulnerability, real honesty, mean confession. Confession is what the desert life is all about. The desert life is the freedom to be unveiled, to be unmasked, to scream our shame in barren places – to hear all the most uncomfortable truths spoken aloud in our own syllables, in the most clarifying air. And so John called Israel to confess their sins. It's a wonder to me that people listened. That people did. But they did. They came to hear John. They felt the impact of his message. They encountered reality at last. They laid aside their pride and their defenses, they spurned the paths of self-satisfaction and self-justification, and they identified their own reflection as the blurry shadow blocking Israel from the light. They named their wrongs, keeping nothing in reserve under wraps, and named them as wrongs to be regretted and repented. They let John cast them as outsiders, treat them as foreign beggars, and then let John seize control and wash them clean and restore them to the Land like days of old. And if the way home meant coming close to bushy hair, disheveled clothes, burning eyes, locust breath, so be it.

And then there's us. Confronted with this wild man, this locust-breath man in the camel-hair clothes, this new Elijah for a new season of darkness – what should we do? What can we possibly take from him? We can learn to appreciate John the Baptist. He cannot be tamed. He cannot be sanitized. We've often tried to do that. But the wild man breaks through. And he points to a wild Christ. So must we. And if we have to get wilder to do it, so be it. If we have to set aside some creature comforts to better point to Christ, so be it. If we have to live more like poor and homeless exiles, so be it. If we have to live in less dependence on the safety net of society and in greater dependence on God, so be it. If we have to spend some time in the desert, so be it. Let our lives and words point to a wild Christ – wild with holy love.

And to do that, we need first to confess our sins. We need to stop pointing so many fingers at the evil out there, and start seeing our own reflection as the shadow. We need to name our own wrongs as wrong, holding nothing back, and admitting that, if we're to stand again after our fall, it can only be by grace. We need to confess our sins. And we need to recollect our baptism. Like those who heard John's message, we once had to be reckoned as full outsiders before, again by grace, we were brought through the water into the land. We had to be born again, regenerated through the washing with water by the word. There was no other way. And the Body of Christ is our new Israel; God is all our promise, and to him must you turn. The decisive act in your life was the day someone took you through the water, stood you back up as a spiritual Israelite in covenant with God through Christ, and told you to go conquer the worldwide land through the gospel. Because that, and nothing less, is what your baptism meant and means. Live by it, in the city or the desert, on the farm or on the road.

And then commit yourself to the truth. Ours is a good truth to tell, though – told well – it flatters none, least of all ourselves, but surely not those who yearn to be married to Death by the ministrations of Sin. But commit yourself to truth and only truth. See and tell, not the news of the hour, not the spin of this or that faction, but truth you've seen and known. And above all, the truth of the gospel – of Christ crucified and risen and coming again, the Christ who yearns to divorce us from Sin and Death so we can find a better Bridegroom in him. The truth, in short, that you confessed at baptism – that truth, do tell, tell always, like Elijah and John, no matter the Ahabs and Ahaziahs of the day. Only repent and live by faith in the Son of God – to him be the glory forever!

People, Get Ready: Homily on Matthew 3:1-3

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight'” (Matthew 3:3). That's how he saw himself. John, who came baptizing. Can you picture John? A shaggy man, unkempt hair and rough clothes, foraging for food in the mornings and evenings, smoking bees out of their hives for wild honey, catching locusts with his bare hands, and by day shouting his message to whatever crowds would come to him? A voice roaring loud in empty places.

He took his cues from the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her hardship is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. A voice cries: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken. … Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young” (Isaiah 40:1-5, 10-11).

The message was, God was coming. The people were in exile, the people were in need, but God was coming to take control. God would come to rule, God would come to repay, God would personally be present to be the Good Shepherd of his people, and everyone would see his real value, his glory, put on display. That's what the kingdom of God is all about: God's arrival to rule and repay and shepherd. But things needed to be ready. No one wanted the kingdom to show up and find that they weren't included. Nobody wanted their lives to be a stumbling block in God's path; for God to come to repay, and find that their repayment was payback for their sins.

John wasn't the only one out in the desert trying to live out Isaiah's prophecy. There was another group – maybe John knew them – living at Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. And in their writings, they applied the same verse to themselves that Matthew associates with John the Baptist. But when they used it, the idea was that people joining their movement would “withdraw from the habitation of unjust men,” go into the wilderness to Qumran, and devote themselves to Bible study, and that was how they'd prepare the way of the Lord – by withdrawing from society to study the Bible, and leave society to its own devices (1QS 8.13-16).

John had a different thought. He didn't want anybody to be left out – that's why he was preaching out in the open! His whole life was devoted to sharing the message. And when he heard about valleys lifted up and mountains made low, uneven ground becoming level and rough places becoming smooth, so that a straight road for the Lord would pass through the wilderness to the Land, he knew it meant that the spiritual terrain of Israel itself had to be transformed. Study couldn't do that. Sacrifice couldn't do that. Conventional piety couldn't do that. Civility and decency couldn't do that.

And so John called for people to radically turn to God, as radical as if they were foreigners hearing the story of God and his people for the very first time, as if they were strangers meeting God afresh. That's why he had them go out in the desert, on the far side of the Jordan River, and then pass through into the Promised Land all over again. John rewound the clock. And while it was customary for Gentiles converting to Judaism to be baptized, cleansing themselves of impurity, John insisted that Israel needed the same treatment – they'd become dirty strangers in God's sight, and had to be drastically converted into a New Israel, fresh as newborns, sweeping away every obstacle that might resist the kingdom.

That's what John meant when he “came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand'” (Matthew 3:1-2). The kingdom was about to start arriving, because God was about to move in, and John insisted they should receive him with honor and be ready to meet him. So they needed to repent, to return to their first love and first calling, to start with a clean slate, even if it meant acknowledging themselves as outsiders and then moving into their own home as guests and tenants instead of rightful owners. They needed to go back to the beginning, needed to undertake the hard work of preparation, needed to break their own society down to the ground and let God rebuild it. Because with God so close to moving in and grabbing the reins, who could afford to not be ready? So John preached tirelessly in the wilderness of Judea, 'til he saw the One of whom he spoke.

What about us? We know that, in John's lifetime, the kingdom of heaven did begin to breach the walls of our world. We know that God did move in. Not in the way anyone expected. He came to rule from a throne of wood and nails, wearing a thorny crown. He came to offer atonement. He came to gently shepherd all those who humbled themselves to be his lambs, forswearing their thoughts of deserving to be repaid with good. He came to begin bringing the kingdom. And now we wait for the kingdom to be uncloaked. But the kingdom hasn't withdrawn. It's just undercover, and infiltrating slowly. Jesus is continuing to move in, through his Spirit inhabiting his Body called the Church. Have we any less need to hear John's message than they did then?

For we might need to repent. To return to our first love and our first calling. To start with a clean slate, even if it means seeing ourselves, not as privileged insiders, as beacons of civility and decency, but as miscreants who need to shape up and move into our own homeland as sometimes unwelcome guests. We might need to go back to the start, to break down the calcified habits and stale traditions we've built up and let God rebuild what we mean by 'church,' what we mean by 'religion,' what we mean when we say our own name. For our spiritual terrain needs to be transformed. The kingdom of heaven is every bit as much 'at hand' now as it was in John's day. And so he says to us, “Repent … Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight” (Matthew 3:2-3).

Are we lifting up the valleys? Are we lowering the mountains and the hills? Are we leveling uneven ground and smoothing out the rough spots? Are we preparing, making ready? Are we preparing our church now, and our neighborhoods now, for the arrival of Jesus in it? Because, ready or not, here he comes. People, get ready! O church, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). Amen.

God in Unlikely Places: Sermon on Matthew 2:13-15

It wasn't a day much like today. The sun overhead was warm, without much regard to the season. The streets of Pelusium, the 'city of silt,' were bustling – foot traffic from the quays and baths, the workshops and kilns, the temples and theaters, all mixed up together as Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews roamed the city. It was the gate of Egypt, Pelusium was – a fine city, dignified twenty-five years before by the Emperor Augustus when he entered as its conqueror, having bested the armies of Cleopatra and brought an end to centuries of rule by the Ptolemies. And now Pelusium – or, as some locals called it, Peremoun, the 'House of Amun' – enjoyed the benefits of the 'Roman peace,' prospering as a trading post, littered with customs offices, glassworks, brickworks, even tanks for raising fish for making fish sauce, the Romans' favorite condiment.

In the streets of Pelusium that day, a Jewish soldier patrols – as he always does – while a pair of bare-headed priests of Zeus Kassios walk by. They laugh as they suggest he enjoy some nice pork; he jokes back and tells them he'll share it with them if he can add some onions – for the priests of Zeus Kassios infamously avoid onion and garlic. The soldier walks on, and as he does, he picks up the familiar sounds of Aramaic – not a language he hears too often here in Pelusium, with most speaking Greek or Coptic. The soldier leans against a wall and, perhaps forgetting his better manners, eavesdrops for a while.

The speakers are a man and his wife, traveling with one donkey and a toddler in tow; the donkey loaded with a few parcels of supplies or goods, the toddler clinging to his mother. The pair seem a bit on edge, this Yosef and this Miriam – fleeing trouble in the homeland. Herod's doing, from the sounds of it. The soldier isn't surprised – he knows Herod's reputation, not just as a defender of Jewish rights abroad (though he was that) but as a power-hungry beast desperate to rule 'til death and willing to kill whomever necessary to keep his crown secure from threat, no matter the collateral damage; and these aren't the first fellow-Jews the soldier's seen pass through Pelusium looking for a life beyond Herod's grasp.

From the sounds of it, the soldier thinks, the man and his wife are deliberating where to go next. Do they stay in Pelusium? They could, of course – it's a fine trading town – though without too much of a Jewish cultural life for them, other than a few soldiers guarding the road. So a prolonged stay in Pelusium is probably out. So is Migdol – not much there. They'll have to cross the Nile River Delta, but do they then curve back and head south toward Leontopolis and Memphis? They could stay near Babylon Fortress – it's not far from the Temple of Onias, a religious shrine founded over a hundred years earlier by the overlooked son of a Jerusalem high priest, who packed his bags for Egypt with some friends and settled in. But, they seem to be saying, they aren't too convinced that this second temple is legitimate: There should be only one temple on earth, they say, to bear witness that the Lord our God, the Lord is one. So maybe the land of Onias isn't for them. They're still keeping their mind open about the Babylon Fortress, though – three Roman legions are headquartered there, but there's plenty of work for a Jewish craftsman in the area. Or maybe they'll go further south to Oxyrhynchus, 'city of the sharp-nosed fish,' the third-largest city in all Egypt; they've heard there's a Jewish quarter there, and they're sure they'd fit right in. But on the other hand, they say, there are Jewish enclaves in almost every town in Egypt – they could settle anywhere.

Maybe even, if they feel like migrating west for a couple weeks, they could reach Alexandria, the jewel above all Egypt, where two of the city's five massive districts are majority-Jewish, where synagogues abound through the streets, where the Jewish community was self-governing. They knew already of the Alexandrian Jewish community by reputation – after all, the current high priest in Jerusalem, Herod's father-in-law Simeon ben Boethus, grew up there. For any Jewish travelers, and especially those of means looking to thrive in intellectual and religious luxury, Alexandria was the place to be. As the soldier listened in, the couple didn't seem to make much headway on their deliberations, but they had time – just had to stop in Pelusium for the evening to rest, and figure out the rest on the way, secure in knowing that the prefecture of Gaius Turranius over Alexandria and all Egypt was far, far preferable to the terror of the tyrant Herod.

For his part, I wonder if the father of that family – Joseph – reflected scripturally on what was happening. He'd had to uproot his family in the dead of night from Bethlehem – woke up in a cold sweat after an angelic vision, shook Mary awake, insisted they pack up their things and leave within the hour. No one was happy – not him, not her, not the boy. But they'd crept out in the stillness of night, them and their donkey carrying all they had to survive on: the valuable gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh, more than enough of a financial stockpile to see them through the next year and, when the coast was clear, to buy a lasting home (cf. Matthew 2:13-15).

It was ironic, this trip to Egypt. So many centuries ago – before Josiah, before Hezekiah, before David, before Moses – the children of Israel had gone into Egypt, seeking refuge from a famine in the land of their promise. And who had led the way? Joseph, the son of Jacob the patriarch – the Joseph who rose to grand stature in the kingdom. And now, all these centuries later, Israel's Messiah – that toddler named Jesus, who summed up all Israel's heritage and destiny in himself – was following their footsteps. And who was taking him into Egypt? His mother's husband – also named Joseph, son of Jacob. A fitting turn. And a few hundred years after Joseph led Israel into Egypt, in the days of Moses, Israel made ready in the dark of night – the night of the Passover and the slaughter of Egypt's firstborn – to flee a land of tyranny for a haven of refuge. And just so, Joseph and Mary now had to take Israel's Messiah in the dark of night – a night of slaughter, aimed at their firstborn son – to flee a land of tyranny for a haven of refuge. Only, in olden days, the land of tyranny had been Pharaoh's Egypt, and the haven of refuge had been the Promised Land. Now, the Promised Land itself had become a land of tyranny under Herod's deranged grip – leaving Egypt to offer itself as a haven of refuge for the oppressed yearning to breathe free. What a twist.

Where in Egypt did they settle, Joseph and Mary and the little boy named Jesus? Truth be told, we don't know. They surely had to pass through Pelusium – the main road from Judea into Egypt led there – but they had their share of options. Some traditions name a few places, but other possibilities are likely. Wherever they went, it may not have been for long. No more than a year at most, and maybe only a few months or even less. Herod most likely died the next March or April. Jesus' stay in Egypt, that sandy land of mystery and magic, was not a lengthy one.

And to onlookers, he was an insignificant boy led around by an ordinary Palestinian Jewish family fleeing for refuge in a strange land – another province under the power of the same empire, to be sure, but a strange land nonetheless – seeking a home and a people amidst a dizzying array of bizarre cults and dusty trails. To onlookers, this trio of travelers was a blip on the radar – one more hungry set of foreigners, hardly worth a second glance in a crowded street, hardly worth extra consideration at a booked guesthouse, hardly worth more than they could barter or trade – reduced to their economic value, judged on how poorly or well they fit in, viewed as one more sign of foreign admixture, a reason for native Egyptians not to feel quite at home in their old country anymore.

But in whatever town or city or district they settled, or down whatever street they walked or rode, there's a bold and dazzling truth no Copt or Greek or Roman or even Jew knew. And that truth was this: That, in the guise of a foreign toddler in the arms of a migrant couple searching for refuge, God had come to Egypt. No one in Pelusium or Memphis or Oxyrhynchus or Alexandria or in all the land of Egypt had the foggiest notion that, for however many months these insignificant strangers dwelt in the land, they had physically smuggled God into the country – the God of galaxies and gravity, of avalanches and atoms, actually present in such a way that any Egyptian could tousle God's hair or say to God, “Uh-oh, got your nose!” God had been smuggled, in the flesh, right into the streets and sands of Egypt. And no one was the wiser. No one in Egypt. No one in Rome. And no one in Judea, who assumed that, if you wanted to approach the presence of God on earth, the closest avenue was either the gleaming temple Herod expanded in Jerusalem, wherein the fragrant incense ascended alongside the smoke of many sacrifices, or else in the virtual temple entered by Jews studying scripture's sacred speech. But for that year, or a part of that year, the nearest approach to God wasn't where you'd expect. It was in a land of pagan mystery, among a scarcely noticed family of Jewish foreigners, in the eyes of a little boy.

The prophets had surely hinted. Isaiah had seen: “Behold, the LORD is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt. … In that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the LORD of hosts. … In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD at its border..., and the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the LORD in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the LORD and perform them” (Isaiah 19:1-21). And Hosea, reflecting on the story of Israel, sang, “Out of Egypt I have called my son” (Hosea 11:1b).

Still, no one would have expected. For the prophet Jeremiah, return to Egypt was forbidden: “As my anger and my wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you when you go to Egypt: You shall become an execration, a horror, a curse, and a taunt” (Jeremiah 42:18). For the prophet Ezekiel, Egypt was a target of judgment: “I will set fire to Egypt; Pelusium shall be in great agony, Thebes shall be breached, and Memphis shall face enemies by day. … Thus I will execute judgments on Egypt; then they will know that I am the LORD” (Ezekiel 30:16-19). And even for the prophet Hosea, returning to Egypt was a punishment for sin – a “going away into destruction” (Hosea 9:6). Who would have expected that Egypt was the place to encounter God? It was, maybe, the unlikeliest place on earth. But in Jesus Christ, we have a God who tends to turn up in unlikely places. The Pharisees would never have guessed it. The scribes would never have guessed it. The priesthood would never have guessed it. Herod would never have guessed it. The Egyptians would never have guessed it. We would never have guessed it. But there he was – God in the flesh, living incognito in Egypt.

God doesn't always turn up where we expect him. Which can be frustrating. Sometimes we tend to assume that his presence is at our beck and call – we follow our religious duties, and he'll turn up in nice, predictable ways, in just the places we've made ready for him, the places we've duly cleaned and padded and reserved for him. He does, sometimes. But not as often as we can delude ourselves into thinking. We can so quickly figure that God will show up when and where we've prepared for him to, when and where we expect him to – and then become dismayed or discouraged when that's not where he is. He isn't always in the likely places.

And God has a penchant for turning up where we don't expect him. Where do we expect to find God? Where do we expect to not? And what do we do when we have those categories nicely delineated and differentiated, and then God goes messing everything up by getting our categories all confused? Maybe one place we seldom expect to meet God is in the dangerous darkness – out in the slick and heart-pounding roads, out in the sudden falls and shadowy valleys. We don't expect to find God when we can't so much as find our own hands and our own feet, after all. But there, as we grope blindly through the mysteries of life, as we spin beyond control and lose our way, we may just unexpectedly trip over God at the midnight of our souls.

Nor do we expect to find God in the midst of our suffering. Oh, when we suffer, we may call out to God, asking him to call us away from our suffering so that we can meet him. But finding God in the suffering – that's a very different thing. Not at all our preference. Diving into the wound, where it's most painful and messy, digging around in the rawness of it all – that's hardly where we expect to find God pitching his tent. And yet, as we face what hurts most, as we reach out and embrace the torment that dogs us, as we stretch for the breath we can't catch and brace ourselves for the hit – well, we hardly expect to find God there, any more than we would have expected to meet him in Egypt. But sometimes, just sometimes, the middle of the suffering, the break in the bone and the gore of the wound, is where he's hidden himself away, waiting incognito in the pain to meet us.

Nor do we expect to find God when we're caught in our shame. Those are the moments we feel furthest from God – when all our hypocrisies are exposed, when all our secrets are laid bare, when we've messed up and made fools of ourselves, when we're embarrassed and humiliated and can't bear to lean into it; when all we want to do is run away and hide. And yet, sometimes, unexpectedly, the closest approach to God is found in open shame – not in our dignity, but when our dignity is ripped away, when we have nothing to hold onto, then, unexpectedly, does God come bounding in, maybe when we feel least ready to see and be seen, but there he is, when we're caught in our shame.

Nor do we expect to find God in bread broken and shared with the hungry and alone. People who are different from us – they may tend to bother us. The language they speak or dialect they use, the habits they've developed, the hygiene they display, the shade of their skin or shape of their features, all the man-made markers that make up the organization of our society. What Egyptian, two thousand years ago, would have thought that, by tearing bread and passing some to an immigrant family from Judea, a man and woman and child, they'd thereby be having fellowship with the Lord God Omnipotent? And today, we seldom figure that, in reaching across the political aisle, God may show up; that, in singing songs with speakers of a language not our own, God may show up; that there may be no closer approach to God than, unexpectedly, by way of fellowship with the poor and poorly, the foreign and forlorn and forgotten, the hurting and heartbroken and homeless, as with brothers and sisters and beloved neighbors. We have all sorts of excuses – the fear, the distaste, the unpleasantness, the risk – all pointing, at root, to our lack of expectation of finding God in those encounters. And yet, for all our excuses, there might God be found where we least expect him – and more's the pity when we miss the meeting.

No, God doesn't always show up where we expect him, where we've made ready for him. Sometimes, God is best found in the unlikely places, where we least expect. Even Egypt. Even the inner city. Even the trailer park and the country hills. Even the graveyard and the hospice. Even the homeless shelter and the storefront. Even the crevices of a struggling soul beneath the skin-thin self-sufficiency we all wear. What will you do to avoid passing God by when he's so unexpected you don't recognize him? What will you do when he surprises you in a place you didn't think he'd go? For he's a God who ventures to unlikely places. Don't miss him. Meet him, not where you'd like him to be, not where you feel comfortable keeping him, but where he is. Amen.

The Rootless Redwood's Jealousy: Sermon on Matthew 2:1-12

Can you just imagine the look on the king's face? There in his stone palace, as the ailing monarch in his late sixties, beset by paranoia and a notorious temper, hears the words and struggles to keep his composure? I can hardly think it. It's a look few other than the Magi saw. They'd had a long and hard journey, those Magi did. I reckon they would've set out from Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian Empire, with the blessings of their king Phraates IV. They'd seen intriguing omens in the twelve constellations above, promising beneficence and life in a king freshly born in Judea. So naturally, they'd traveled west – west to Mesopotamia first, no doubt, then I think up and around. If you were part of their caravan, where would you have expected to find an infant king? In the capital city, I figure. In the royal palace, I figure. So, after a long and tiring journey, their caravan had reached Jerusalem. They'd never been there before, gleaming Jerusalem. The palace wasn't hard to find – it was along the Upper City's northwestern wall, just look for the three giant towers looming high in the sky, and it's just south of 'em, sitting on a platform. A fine palace – not so grand as where they came from, but it'd do, they surely thought. Built from massive stones. Lots of magnificent rooms. Two wings, each with covered porches facing inward on a courtyard with tree groves and canals and, above 'em, plenty of tamed pigeons.

They'd arrived at the palace, the Magi had, and announced their desire for an audience with the king. I wonder what his royal reception room looked like. But surely he sat on a throne as he was informed some Magi from the east had come. They were notorious – astrologers, rumored (falsely) as sorcerers, known to predict the rise and fall of kings. This king on this throne – perhaps they could secure him many more years, he surely hoped. He was in his late sixties, Herod was, and very self-conscious about it. He'd taken to dyeing his hair in a bid to look younger – I doubt the Magi thought him successful in it. But he was chronically ill – troubled by fevers, pounding headaches, pervasive pain, even the onset of gangrene. For years it had been maddening him, as his self-consciousness bloomed into grim paranoia. As of the past year or two, he'd already taken to sentencing his own sons to prison or worse, if he thought for a moment they might rise up against him. But I doubt the Magi knew that. They just knew that their king's armies had fought Herod a few decades back, but now that Phraates had reached a sort of understanding with Rome, it was time to let bygones be bygones.

Surely, the Magi assumed, the signs they'd seen in the sky meant that a bloom of new life had sprouted in the family of the Jewish king. But what perhaps scarcely crossed their mind was that Herod, though king over the Jews, was barely a Jewish king. He was a descendant, not of Jacob, but of Esau – an Idumean, whose ancestors had been forced to convert to Judaism a century before. No matter the lies Herod put out, trying to convince everyone he descended from Jewish nobility, he couldn't paper over his lack of papers. The king loomed tall in Jerusalem like a mighty cedar or a redwood, but he couldn't escape the biggest problem with his legitimacy: he was rootless. And everyone knew it. And he hated that. And then the Magi had the gall to come and inquire about a bloom of new life who'd been “born the king of the Jews” (Matthew 2:2).

An innocent question, on their part. I'm sure Herod tried his best to put on a neutral face, betray no expression, as he dismissed them back to their lodging and said he'd look into the matter. Unbeknownst to them, Herod was so un-Jewish that he had to call in the experts to find out where the Messiah was supposed to be born. He had rather hoped against hope that he was the man, or at least that he could forever convince people he was – he handsomely rewarded folks who preached about him in almost-messianic terms, after all. But it took the chief priests and scribes to explain to him what Micah said: that, to find the Messiah at his birth, you'd look, not in great Jerusalem, but six miles south, in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:3-6). The rootless redwood was jealous of this fresh new evergreen sprouting up in royal David's city.

Then the Magi got their summons, for another meeting with the king – a secret meeting, with little fanfare, no doubt bringing them in the back way, maybe quietly under cover of night. Too many leaks as it was. Rumor had already gotten out that the Magi were in town, asking after a new king who wasn't Herod, saying they'd seen proof in the stars. They'd said that they just wanted to come – they'd brought gifts after all – and worship this newborn king. They hoped he might be the promised one, the one they'd been waiting for their whole lives. And they wanted to worship him. They scarcely batted an eye when Herod directed them where to go, asked them to pinpoint his house and report back, so that he, too, could come and worship the newborn king. That's all he was after, he said, the aging and ailing king. Just like the Magi... to worship the King (Matthew 2:7-8).

And as for the rest of the story, don't we know it? Two claims to worship. On the one hand, the Magi had come to worship. And you'd never expect that. They were pagans. Astrologers from the east. But when they said they had come to worship Christ, they were sincere. They came with no agenda but to honor Christ with costly offerings. They had no ulterior motives. Sought to get nothing other than just to see him, meet him, encounter him, and hope he was the one. And then there was Herod. He said he would come to worship. He was not sincere. He made a pretense of worship, used the language of worship, but it was a cloak for ulterior motives – namely, power and paranoia, deceit and death. Two claims to worship. Only one of them true.

But then, what about us? We, too, make a claim to worship, when we come here on a Sunday morning to gather as the very church of God. But when we come here, are we more like the Magi... or are we, sometimes, more like Herod? When we say we're here to worship, whom do we say it like? Because there are a lot of reasons Herod might come to church, you see. Maybe we say we've come to worship, but we've really come to be seen – to have our religiosity boost our standing in the eyes of others, to court them to think well of us, to associate ourselves in public view with what the church stands for, or at least be understood as civic minded. Or maybe we've really come to eat and drink – to be nourished and satisfied, to get a material return in our bellies, like some of the crowds who followed Jesus, hoping for the next free lunch. Or maybe we've really come just to socialize – we label it 'fellowship,' but all we're after here is to see our church friends, mingle with them, catch up and chat and shoot the breeze, and that's why we're really here. Or maybe we've really come to appease our family – they'd harp on us if we didn't get here, and so we give in and come to reduce the friction, even though we'd rather be somewhere else. Or maybe we've really come to do a religious duty – we're here because we know we're supposed to be here, someone's told us to be here, the pastor expects us to be here, God expects us to be here, so here we are, keister in pew, and... a duty's a duty, we suppose. Or maybe we've really come to see what we can get out of it – we call it 'being fed,' or even 'being entertained,' but we want 'church' as a packaged product to consume for our own enjoyment or benefit, as if we could put it in a shopping cart and keep the receipt. Or maybe we've really come to sit in judgment – to say when the experience met our standards and when it hasn't, when the preaching or the singing or the praying gets our seal of approval and, on the other hand, when that seal of approval has to be withheld, and that's what we're here for. Or maybe we've really come to barter our attendance for heavenly IOUs – we're here, so God will do things for us, or so we hope.

In surely just about every church in America, there are people present who say they're there to worship. But in truth, one or more of those reasons is a better explanation of what they've really come for. I fear there are entire churches where that's the case, from the pulpit to the back pew, or from the stage and smoke machine to the last balcony. Maybe, in that list, you had a twinge of recognition – a sense that your motives for being here today fall somewhat in line with those. And friends, those are Herod's reasons for, as we call it, 'coming to church.' If that's us, we say we're here to worship, but that's more a mask for another and deeper intention altogether. And if that's true, God help you – literally.

But then there are the Magi. You see, the Magi didn't come in pretense. They said they came to worship, and they meant it. Why would the Magi 'come to church' this morning? Why would they have walked through the doors and sat in these pews? There's just one reason, they'd tell you. To worship. To encounter Jesus Christ and do him honor. Not for what they can get out of it, but what they can give to him when they behold him. It's not Herod but the Magi we should hope to be more like in that.

We open this year, as we do every year, at the table. The table, where the Lord gives us his body and his blood for our food and drink. Where he calls us to meet him, see him, taste him, encounter him. He invites us to the table, that we might come and worship, really worship. And for all of us, that's what we say we're doing. But what gets to the truth of the matter? Is it Herod in the mirror, or the Magi? Is there something else you're here for? Or is it just to see Jesus? Ponder in your hearts nothing else but this question today: Why are you here?

The Evergreen: Our Immanuel: Sermon on Matthew 1:1-25

Pause your busy lives a moment, if you would. Take a trip with me. You're walking through the countryside. It isn't morning, nor even quite afternoon anymore; evening is starting to fall. You happen upon a village, one of the smallest you've ever glimpsed – just a few hundred people on ten acres. Less than half a mile across from east to west, and an eighth of a mile from north to south, from the looks of it. A cluster of not too many houses, none more than two stories, built of mud-brick. You pause at the gate to one and call out. A teen boy comes to the gate, sees you, invites you in, and so you step into the courtyard. They're just settling down to dinner under the awning. It isn't too hot a night, so they're sitting in a circle on the floor – a father, a mother, seven children. They rutsch aside to make a tenth spot for you, the lonely traveler. You sit down on the ground next to them.

Spread out in the center of the circle are some earthenware dishes. What looks like a congealed lentil stew at the heart of it, some cheese, olives, onions, a few fresh figs, a couple salted fish. Cups of water with a bit of wine added to kill the germs. The man of the house offers up a short prayer of blessing – you reverently bow your head – and then he lifts up a dried round of barley bread, a bit gritty-looking, in his rough, labor-hardened hands, and rips it with a crack. Says to you his wife ground and baked it herself; she casts her eyes downward in demur humility. He shares the bread with her, with you, with the older children; the younger have bowls of liquified bread like porridge. They dip pieces into little dishes of olive oil or vinegar, or in the stew, to moisten it enough to eat. Can you smell the food, taste a bit on your tongue? And then the dinner conversation begins.

A little boy – not the youngest, but not the oldest either – blurts out to his father, “Abba, tell me a story, a family story!” The others chime in. “Yeah, abba, tell us, tell us!” The man – you can scarcely believe he and his wife are old enough to have this many children – smiles, his kindly eyes gleaming, and says to them, “Now to that, I'll never say no! Which one would you like, little Joses? How about Father Abraham – how the Lord called him from his home to a land he never knew?”

“No!” cries the boy, “I already know that one, we heard about it in synagogue just yesterday. You know we did, abba! Give me a different one, please?” “Yeah, please!” implored a slightly older boy, not as old as the one who let you in. “Fine, Joses, fine, Jacob,” says the father. “Well, then, maybe you'd like to hear about David, the boy who knocked down the giant and became a king and was a man after God's own heart?” “No!” cries Jacob, “I know that one real well. Can we have a different one, a never-we-heard one?”

“Oh, so you want one I haven't told you much about yet, do you? Well, then, let's see...” And as they eat, their father tells them a story. A story from long before, about a man named Nahshon, who grows up a slave in Egypt and whose sister Elisheba marries a man named Aaron, whose brother is named Moses. How Nahshon goes out with Moses and all the people into the desert. How he went up on the mountain and ate a meal right under God's very own feet. How Nahshon leads the whole tribe of Judah, and gives gifts at the tabernacle. How Nahshon has to watch his nephews, the very first priests of Israel. Two of them make a mistake and die – those were Nadab and Abihu – but then the others, Eleazar and Ithamar, they live, and all the priests ever since had come from them. How Nahshon didn't live to make it into the promised land, but his son sure did. How Nahshon reminds them that, no matter how great the priests might seem, they should always remember that they're cousins to all Nahshon's kids – including those sitting in this poor village house.

One of the daughters pipes up. “Abba... may we have another?” “Of course, my shy Salome. Let me see, let me see...” And the family keeps eating as their father tells them a second story. He warns them it won't be a happy one. He tells them of an old man named Ahithophel, a counselor to the king. Ahithophel was very smart, so smart that it seemed like asking him a question was the next-best thing to asking God himself. Ahithophel stopped liking the king, though, after he married Ahithophel's granddaughter Bathsheba in some questionable circumstances. So Ahithophel waited until he could help the king's vain son Absalom rebel and chase his father David out of Jerusalem. But David prayed for God to confound Ahithophel's wisdom, and God made Absalom listen to the bad advice of a spy instead of the smart but mean advice of Ahithophel. And so Ahithophel knew he had lost, so he went home and made himself die. And from this we can see that it isn't enough to be smart; you have to put God first and honor what he chooses. But just the same, we also learn that God can use and redeem even the worst traitors – because God made Ahithophel an ancestor to a lot of very great people.

You're enjoying the stories, they all seem to hope. Another of the sons, little Judah, asks for another from his father. “Aren't you all just the story-hungry people today? I've barely eaten! But how can I say no to you when you ask for stories like these? Let me take just a few more bites while I think what to tell you next.” So he eats and he drinks from his cup, and then he tells another story. He tells of a king named Hezekiah, living and ruling in Jerusalem – a good king, who loved the Lord. A king who got sick, but when he prayed just once, God loved him so much, he healed him and made him live longer. A king who prayed, and God made a whole army fall outside the city to keep him safe. But a king who, when told his people would be taken into exile in Babylon, didn't care enough to pray. You see, this king didn't care what happened when he was gone. Even though, as a little boy, Hezekiah heard Isaiah tell his dad, “The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.” And Hezekiah heard Isaiah say, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” And he heard Isaiah say, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.” And when the Assyrians came and ravaged the land of Judah, he even heard news that Micah was saying, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me One who is to be Ruler in Israel.” Hezekiah didn't care about the future even when he heard these things! “Now, children,” says the father, “you must be like Hezekiah in his love for God, but you must not be like him in this. You must care about these things, which are coming to pass in our days, and you must take care to pray always and never give up.”

One of the older sons promises, “Yes, abba, I promise, I'll always pray! But may we please have another story, too?” His father, though visibly tired of talking, relents. “Yes, Jacob, another for you. Let me take a few more bites, and...” With that, he launched into a fourth story. A man born in Babylon, called 'Seed of Babylon' by his name Zerubbabel. A young man when the Persians conquer Babylon and let the people go free. Zerubbabel and his uncle lead the Jews back home, Zerubbabel becomes governor after his uncle, but years went by and no temple was rebuilt, even with the foundation laid. They were too poor, too small, too weak; Zerubbabel felt so discouraged. So God raised up prophets like Haggai and Zechariah to encourage him – telling him to put God first, to work on God's great house and not all the little houses of the people. The prophets promise Zerubbabel that he'll be like a signet ring on God's finger, that he'll finish the temple no matter how bad the odds seem, no matter how big the mountain of obstacles looms. He struggled with self-doubt, felt small and hemmed in, and wondered if God could bring any glory to this work he was doing. But by trusting in God, he did it. Just so, the father tells his children, when you wonder if any good can come from our little family or our little village, think of our ancestor Zerubbabel, who built the temple in Jerusalem.

The circle falls into silence for a while. You and the children alike try to absorb the lessons of the four stories while the gentle father gets to eat his food. As you reflect, maybe those stories sound familiar. If you've been here faithfully during the Advent season this year, you've heard three or even all four of them yourself already – they're the stories we've told and the lessons we've learned on the last four Sunday mornings. Maybe that's been challenging – so many names and dates and places. But it's no wonder, when you consider that those four little-heard stories cover essentially the entire sweep of the Old Testament. And God loves to teach us with stories.

At any rate, dinner is done, eaten. You can't say you feel full, but it isn't like they have terribly much to their name, this family – nor were they expecting you. You think to go, but the oldest son looks at you and then turns to the father and asks for one more story – a recent one, the one where he was born. The man of the house looks surprised. But he looks at you out of the corner of his eye, and says, “Alright, that one.” Some of the other children sigh. You have a feeling they might be tired of their parents' story. But the mother laughs – she rather likes it. And so the father begins.

“It all started, you see, in this village. I was a young man when I met your mother and asked her parents if I could marry her. I had to pay a handsome bride-price – I'd been saving up for years. But they gave me her hand – and I thanked the Lord for it! Oh, so beautiful was your mother – is, is!,” he corrected himself as she gave him a wry, questioning smile. “Still is, always is, always and forever is,” he whispered to her. He continued his tale. “Not too long after that, she went to Hebron to go tend to an older relative – you remember Elizabeth – for three months in her own pregnancy. Well, your mother came back, and I was astonished to see that she was going to have a child herself. Oh, sons, can you imagine how hurt I felt? I thought she had betrayed me; that she wasn't the kind of woman I'd hoped she was.

“Well, I knew I couldn't marry your mother. Laws don't let a man keep a wife who's unfaithful to him – he'd be seen as aiding and abetting adultery. But, betrothed as we were, it was a legal arrangement. I could have taken her to court, made sure everyone knew what kind of a woman she was – or, at least, I thought she was – and, for that matter, gotten not only my bride-price back, but even her dowry, to which I was legally entitled. But then I thought about it, and wrestled with it. Hurt as I was, I couldn't bear the thought of her shame. I knew I had the option of a private ceremony, with a few witnesses to cover the break of the engagement. She'd leave the village quietly – go live elsewhere. I'd be out my life savings, of course. She'd probably never have married, and I'd have had to save up for years again before I could. But I felt I had to protect her, no matter what. Even from the consequences – or so I thought – of her own actions.

“But then one night, I had a dream. In the dream, I was on my way to gather my witnesses, but then a man in white robes stood in my way, and he started to shine, and I knew he was an angel of the Lord! And he told me to not be afraid – he reminded me what family I came from, how noble our heritage. He told me to drop my misgivings about your mother. He said she hadn't done what I thought she'd done, but rather that it was a pure act of God. He said she was going to have a little boy, and he told me what his name would be and what great things he would grow up to do. All the hope Nahshon had in the desert – this boy was the boy he needed. All the sins of Ahithophel – this was the boy who could unwrite that story. All those words Hezekiah heard from Isaiah and Micah – this would be the boy they were about! All the promises Haggai and Zechariah gave to Zerubbabel – down through the years they'd fall onto the shoulders of this boy. I heard that in my dream.

“I've heard the books of the prophets before, read them myself in the synagogue. I remember what Isaiah said. How Israel's enemies were like axe in the hands of a lumberjack, hacking Israel down like a dried-up tree. Our family tree was like that, maybe you'd say – cut down, over and over again, in judgment. What are those words in Isaiah? I've tried to learn them all by heart. I think it went like this: 'Behold, the Lord GOD of hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low. He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe.' And our family tree was like that – brought low from the days of princes and counselors and kings and governors to this little village and the labor of my shop.

“But then, didn't Isaiah go on? He said, 'There shall come forth a shoot out of the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.' And that's the boy the angel was talking to me about – the shoot out of the stump of Jesse, growing to be a great big evergreen!

“Well, back to my story. As soon as I woke up, I rushed over to her parents' house – I needed to see her right away! She knew I'd been upset since she'd come back to town, but as soon as she saw my eyes, she wasn't worried anymore. I remember how gently I touched her belly as I told her my dream. And then she'd told me how, months before, she'd met the angel, too – not in a dream, but one quiet day by the village well. I could hardly believe my ears, but it just went to show me that my dream was real. I knew just then that I had to marry her, like the angel said. And I had to do it quick, before the village gossips got out of hand. It wasn't too many more days 'til I got to bring her back here to this house, children,” the father told them. “People talked, of course, when they realized she was already going to have a baby. They figured either I was supporting her in sin, or else had been rather indiscreet myself. Well, let them talk. I know what the angel said. I know what I see in your mother's eyes.

“A few months later, we heard the news about the census. I had to go back home to Bethlehem, where my folks were from, where our ancestor David was from. Didn't take more than a few days to get there, your mother and I. Knew we could stay with family, but when we arrived, my cousin had already received relatives into the guest room, so we were put on the lower level where the animals got brought in at night – speaking of which,” he noted as an aside to his wife, “dear, don't let me forget to bring them in after I finish this story.” She nodded and smiled quietly.

He went on. “We'd been there a while 'til she went into labor. Those were a challenging few hours, the village midwife in there, me pacing outside with the other men of the house. Not really allowed in. But then, they called me back in – and handed me the most beautiful baby boy. I held him in my arms for a while, she held him in hers. When they got tired, we looked around, and I wiped out the feed-trough in the floor – it's just like ours, kids – and wrapped up that baby boy nice and tight and laid him in there. And we sat together, your tired mother and I, watching the baby, when there came a knock at the gate, late into the night as we were drifting off to sleep. Some shepherds, telling of angels in the sky, news that the Messiah had been born in a house in town, so they asked around for where the midwife had been, and here they were to see the baby. I remember how tough it was to keep from yawning as I told them our own story, too. And then they went away, leaving me and your mom, kids, alone with our thoughts – and the baby.”

He clapped his hand on the shoulder of the oldest boy in the circle, the young teen who'd invited you in. “And that's where this marvelous boy Jesus was born. Great things he'll do, the angel said. Save all us people from our sins, rule on David's throne forever. Can't say I understand it all myself, everything the angel said. But I trust the God who sent him. We'll see. But that's the story. Now, visitor, I hope you won't be needing lodging for the night – I'd really invite you to stay, but we scarcely have a few mats to fit ourselves and our children. I hope you won't forget our humble village of Nazareth. Come drop in any day you like!”

After those words, you bid Joseph and Mary goodbye, thank them for their hospitality, and step back out by way of the gate. You're halfway out of the village when you hear a voice behind you, the voice of that oldest boy, the one Joseph called Jesus. A knowing voice. And he says, “See you again real soon!” And with those words on your heart, you venture out into the cool Galilean night. And step back to your own time, back to the sixth day of Christmas in 2018, back here to this sanctuary.

What a remarkable journey you've been on today. There must have been many meals like that, in that house in Nazareth. Many times when the story was told and re-told, and Jesus grew up learning the scriptures, he “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom” (Luke 2:40), he “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). And he heard the stories, and loved the stories. Maybe he remembered them in his dreams – what it was like to guide Israel from within the pillar of cloud and fire; what it was like to thwart the counsel of Ahithophel at David's request; what it was like to inspire the prophets and answer the prayers of King Hezekiah; what it was like to look down from above at the first sacrifice Zerubbabel had the high priest Jeshua offer on the foundations of the temple. I've often wondered what Jesus dreamed about. I can't say we know.

But what we do know is this. No matter how many times his family tree seemed like it was chopped down, they were never without the promise of that “shoot from the stump of Jesse.” Never without the promise that one day, God would be present with and among them in a new way – “Immanuel.” And then Jesus came. And on the stump of his family tree, he's an evergreen. “He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” (Psalm 1:3). He's an evergreen tree of life, and “the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2). So it's written. So we therefore believe.

You see, Jesus, our Immanuel here, is our evergreen. Nothing can chop him down. Not even the cross and the tomb could prohibit his produce. He's fruitful in his season, and his season never ends, it just changes from time to time. There's a lot of variety in his fruit. It's life-giving fruit, a source of nourishment forever. And in his foliage ever-green is healing for every nation, every kind of people under God's sun. No matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what ethnicity or class or gender or whatever subdivision of human you are, there's healing in his leaves for you. And no matter what you do, it will never make his leaves wither away. It will never make them inefficacious. Jesus is our Immanuel, the Evergreen of God. Come to him. Go to him. Didn't he say he'd see you again real soon? Don't start your new year in a barren place, with leafless trees or lifeless stumps. Sit in the shade of the Evergreen of God. Eat of his fruit. Be healed by his leaves. They'll never go away from you. Just sit beneath him, taste of his goodness, trust him. There's no better way to end a year – or begin one. Grace to you. Amen.

God (the Son) Is With Us: A Christmas Eve Homily, 2018

[N.B.: Two other preachers addressed the theme of 'God With Us' in terms of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.]

I bring you good tidings of great joy! There is a grand truth that in one master-stroke sets Christianity apart from every philosophy and religion of all the world. And it's this: that the God whose whisper gives electrons their energy didn't think it was satisfactory to interact with us from above. He didn't consider it good enough to talk with us from a distance, to save us from a distance. He wanted, not just to be over us, but to be with us. Of course, throughout the Old Testament, we were told already that God was with us. Pagans confessed to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do” (Genesis 21:22). Balaam the pagan prophet chanted against his will about Israel in the desert, “The LORD their God is with them” (Numbers 23:21). David the great king said to his son Solomon, “Do not be afraid, for the LORD God, even my God, is with you” (1 Chronicles 28:20). All this we, were we treading the dusty roads of Judea in the days of Herod's power, would already have learned.

But when we get to Bethlehem, we find a new story. Do you know what we find when we stand beside or kneel before the manger? For the first time, God is with us on our level. For the first time, God is with us as one of us. God is with us from inside human nature, with us to experience human life from an insider view, to see our faces through human eyes, to hear our prayers with human ears, to smell our aromas with a human nose and taste our cooking with human taste-buds. In the Son, God is with us in a touching and touchable way.

You see, the stunning truth is, God the Son found no resentment in being carried nine months in a human womb, bound to a human woman by an umbilical cord; God the Son didn't resent being born amidst human blood and human tears, cradled vulnerably in human arms, fed and reared on human milk, dressed in clothes of human manufacture like yours ad mine. God was content with nothing less than solidarity, even intimacy, from human infancy to human maturity. God the Son is with us and doesn't feel the slightest discomfort in calling you his brother or his sister (Hebrews 1:12). And so he had to be made like his human brothers and human sisters “in every respect” (Hebrews 1:17).

Which means that God the Son is with us in our temptations and our struggles, in our griefs and our joys, in our pleasures and in our pains. God the Son is with us, taking up our tools to craft our redemption, raising up our arms to fight alongside us, winning with us as one of us (cf. Hebrews 4:15). Because God the Son is really and truly Immanuel, 'God-with-us' in human flesh and human blood, then the victory of God on the cross, the victory of God in the resurrection, the victorious reign of God the Son in heaven right now at his Father's right hand – it's the divine victory of humanity itself. What we are, at our very core, is crowned on heaven's throne in the person of Jesus, son of Mary.

In our Immanuel, our Jesus, God the Son is forever with us. Forever bound to us by everything it means to be human. Forever making angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, dominions and powers drop their jaws in astonishment and awe at what you are, because what you are is something God the Son chose also to be, so that he could make you his brother or his sister. So that the Eternal Word could see what you see, smell what you smell, taste what you taste, feel your touch – and have you feel his. That's something radically new. It raises questions no angel ever asked in the age of Abraham. Behold, in Bethlehem has God done a new thing!

Never again can God not be with us. For God the Son is become one of us. One of you. Go now, in your spirit. Go to Judah. Go to Bethlehem in the still and silent night. Go see a human infant, crying in a man-made trough under a man-made roof, wrapped up in rags of human weaving. He is one of us. Thus is he God-with-us. He is our Immanuel here. Glory to him! Amen.