Tag: New Year

Jesus, Our Anchor Between

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

A new year is upon us. 2025 is now in the books; 2026 remains unknown as it stretches out before us. We are caught between letting go and taking in, wrapping up and rolling out, caught between what was and what will be. The beginning of a new year always invites resolutions and promises, some of which will be broken and others fulfilled. Somethings we can leave behind in 2025, others we will carry with us into 2026. For some of us there’s excitement as we think about all the unknown terrain to be discovered over the next 361 days; others of us may be feeling the heaviness the new year brings, fearing and worrying as we contemplate the potential for (more) loss and (more) pain to come our way.

The reality is that most of us probably have some form of all these feelings as we celebrate the new year. We are both excited and nervous, confident and skeptical, in control and not in control. So, it can be hard to feel anchored at this time between two years—one being completed and one barely started. And because we are caught between all these emotions and feelings, we can’t find our anchor in ourselves because that’s where all the instability is currently residing. So, where do we look?

Outside of ourselves. And this is the power of the Christmas season. Something new (even if the story is quite old) is born among us and to us and in us. Jesus, the Christ, is given to us anew, again. And while on Christmas Eve we were part of the rabble invited to the manger among shepherds and animals to look upon the newborn child who is the savior of the world, today we are invited to witness Jesus as tween participating in religious (and family!) life in a new way. The anchor we need at the beginning of this new year is found in Jesus the young and curious teacher and learner.

Luke 2:41-52

Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph were traveling to Jerusalem every year for the festival of the Passover. And when [Jesus] was twelve, they went [to Jerusalem] according to the custom of the festival and when the days of the festival came to an end, they returned and the boy Jesus remained in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know (vv.41-43). Every year for eleven years they traveled, as a family, to Jerusalem for the celebration of the festival of the Passover; every year for eleven years Jesus returned with them. And then, at year twelve, Jesus remains while the family leaves. Luke doesn’t give us a reason (upfront) about why Jesus decided to stay back or if it was an accident as if he was caught up in the events and the dialogues indwelling and swirling about the synagogue and in Jerusalem and couldn’t pull himself away. What is clear is that something new is happening; Luke wants his audience to see a shift in the narrative, to take note of Jesus’s self-differentiation from his family, his parents and siblings, even any extended family that may have been in the traveling company.

Luke continues the story, But considering him to be in the company, they went a day’s journey and then they were seeking carefully for him among the relatives and acquaintances. When they did not find [him], they turned back toward Jerusalem and were seeking carefully for him. After three days, they found him in the temple sitting down in the middle of the teachers and listening to and enquiring of them (vv44-46). Following Luke’s story, Jesus is missing for at least five days if not six. While it took his parents a harrowing three days to find him in the temple, he (most likely) spent more than just that moment (preceding his being found) in the temple. He spent about a week; a week is plenty of time to form observant opinions and rational conclusions.[i] Now, there is a correlation here between Jesus being found by his parents on the third day in the temple and Jesus being found on the third day after his death in resurrected glory; [ii] I’m not sure that’s Luke’s main point. Luke’s point is to make known the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry at a young age. While we know his active ministry starts at the Epiphany, what Luke is showing his audience is that the very beginning—the inception/conception—is here; for it’s here where Jesus is listening and asking, answering and debating with the very same religious leaders he will come into conflict with later when he’s an adult. It’s here, for Luke, where Jesus begins to make himself known and where Jesus begins to become aware of the toxicity of the religious situation for the people of God.[iii] Here, for Luke, God is moving Jesus’s spirit and planting the seeds of God’s divine gospel proclamation that will come.

So, after a week his parents find him and he’s teaching and questioning the elders of the synagogue. Then Luke tells us, Now, all the ones who were listening to him were amazed about his understanding and answers. And after seeing him, they were struck with astonishment and his mother said to him, “Child, why did you do this to us in this way? behold, your father and I were seeking you with suffering pain.” And he said to them, “Why were you seeking me? Did you not consider that it was necessary for me to be in this place of my father?” (v47). Not only has Jesus separated himself from his family, but he is also separating himself from the authorities of the synagogue. Their amazement at his insight and answers indicates that his comments and questions were not textbook but came from a different source, a divine inspiration, a divine, prophetic stirring. And this is what Luke wants his audience to see, to focus on, wherein to find anchor. Jesus the Christ, Jesus the child of Mary; Jesus the Son of God, Jesus the Son of humanity. It is through this one that God will challenge and overhaul the kingdom of humanity through the reign of God; it is through this one that the oppressed (spiritually and politically oppressed) will find liberation not only spiritual liberation with God but political liberation with the neighbor from the systemic oppression of the kingdom of humanity. It is through this divine child of Mary that the challenge and collision of the reign of God with the kingdom of humanity is already starting.[iv],[v] It is in and through this one that the very center of the temple[vi] will be relocated away from cold stones and in fleshy human hearts, away from cold law obedience and to warm faith wherein the law is satisfied and done.[vii]

Conclusion

As we enter this new year—with all its unknown and uncertainty, with all its mileage laying out before us and unchartered territory—we enter with a story of God for humanity guiding our way. We are given someone to walk with: Jesus the Christ, God’s son. So, we enter this new year knowing something significant and timeless: for God so love the world that God gave God’s only son to bring love, life, and liberation to the unloved, the dead, and the captive. Luke gives us a place to look, a focal point, something to allow our anxious minds and nervous hearts to focus on and find anchor. Luke gives us someone outside of ourselves to look to: Jesus of Nazareth, this man who is God. Christmas will always remind us that God comes to dwell with human beings on earth. This is God’s desire: to dwell with humanity whom God loves with all God’s heart. So, with resolutions or not, with promises or not, with intentions or not for this new year, we enter this new year with an ancient story made new to us at this moment. And in this ancient story we find the fulfillment of all we were waiting for through Advent: hope for the hopeless, peace for the peaceless, joy for the joyless, and love for the loveless.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[i] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 46. “Olivia: ‘he went to the temple to teach the teachers of the law, because these teachers knew the law by heart but they didn’t put it into practice.’”

[ii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 46. “Olivia: ‘He also did it to help prepare them. He was going to be away from them later. And once Mary and his other relatives came looking for him, and he told them that his family was the community. And then Mary lost him in death, but on the third day, like here in the temple, he was found.’”

[iii] Cardenal, Solentiname, 46-47. “…Jesus was taken to the temple by his parents, in accordance with the religious traditions that they faithfully observed, ‘as was the custom,’ as the Gospel says. There he saw the Jewish religion, legalistic pharisaical, external. He also saw the money-changers that he was going to drive out later. And then, when his parents were leaving, he went back to the temple to see if he could do something to change the situation.”

[iv] Cardenal, Solentiname, 46. “Felipe…: ‘In this Gospel Jesus appears as a rebellious kid. He’s still a child and he’s already in the temple challenging their religion, criticizing and arguing with those guys, giving them arguments they can’t answer.’”

[v] Cardenal, Solentiname, 47. “Felipe: ‘Conclusion, then: Jesus was a revolutionary from childhood.’”

[vi] Gonzalez, Luke, 44. “The temple is the sign of God’s presence in the midst of the people.”

[vii] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 43. Potential echo of 1 Samuel 2:26 in Luke 2:52. And, “Furthermore, Samuel’s connection both with the temple and with Jesus hint at the typology that sees Jesus as the new and final temple of God. For this reason, a common theme in early Christian theology was that the destruction of the temple showed that it was no longer necessary, for the temple prefigured the one who had already come.”

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Like the Magi

Psalm 84:1 1 How dear to me is your dwelling, O God of hosts! My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of Abba God; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.

Introduction

Happy New Year!

The beginning of the New Year can be a way to reflect backwards on what was to gather a plan to do things differently and improve on the version of the you that was. To be honest, I like New Years and the tangible break it offers me. Like, here’s a day—just one day—that’s feels completely different from the one before it (even though, intellectually, I know it’s just another day in the week). There’s something gracious about being given a day—as random as it might be—that offers a true turning from what was (last year) and a turning toward what will be (this coming year). Celebrating what was, welcoming what’s new, there’s something absolutely refreshing about New Years. On the 31st of December I can look back over the terrain behind me and see the mountains I climbed and the valleys I made it through; on the 1st of January I can turn that gaze forward with both excitement and a little bit of (healthy) intrepidation.

This “what was” and “what will be” pares well with our liturgical journey through Christmas tide (today being the last day of Christmas!). While we are forever listening and looking backward through stories about the waiting of the Messiah’s coming, the birth of the Messiah, and what follows, we are (paradoxically) reoriented toward what will come, to the new, to the not yet and away from the already was. While we know the story and what has happened (last year) we are now faced with how this story will play out uniquely in front of us (this new year). As well as we have known this story, there will be new ways God’s word unfolds in our lives, ushering us into new territory, calling us to follow new stars, even luring us to take a completely different route home when necessary…

Matthew 2:1-12

“When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” (Mt. 2:10-12, NRSVUE)

Our gospel author, Matthew, introduces us to the Magi and King Herod. Matthew is sharing two things with his audience. First, the reference to King Herod locates the audience with Jesus and Mary and Jospeh under tyranny.[1] According to one source, “There were three Herods…Herod the Elder, Herod his son, and a grandson Herod. Herod the elder, the one at the time of Jesus’ birth had ordered two of his sons to be strangled on suspicion of conspiracy, and he also killed one of his wives. At the time of Jesus’ birth he killed more than three hundred public servants on other suspicions of conspiracy.”[2] Knowing this, we get a sense of the anxiety and the terror of the socio-political atmosphere under the murderous rule of Herod; there is no rest under such a ruler who is so insecure that not even his own sons can live with ease, let alone the birth of the one who is considered Messiah, “The King of the Jews[3].”[4] Second, the news of Jesus’s birth is not isolated to just Bethlehem or Judea proper, but is spreading beyond imposed human made boundaries marking nations and principalities. So, into this situation come the Magi, the “Three Wise Men” from the east, who were noble men of philosophy and science, especially of the stars,[5] and religious teachers of Zoroaster. And, they intentionally head to Jerusalem (v. 1) seeking the arrival of a new king born of the Jews because the stars (planets?) had aligned a certain way in the sky and this proclaimed the birth of a new ruler (v. 2).[6]

After introducing us to Herod and Herod’s rule and the inquisitive and humble[7] Magi, Matthew tells us that it’s the inquiries of the Magi in Jerusalem that send King Herod into a fit of fear, and with him the rest of Jerusalem (v. 4)—both those in league with him whose power is also being threatened and those who are subject because when there’s an insecure ruler on the throne, no one is safe because everyone within reach is a threat and an enemy.[8] Anxious and full of fear, Herod not only consults his own chief priests and scribes (think Pharisees and Sadducees) about where the birth of the Messiah would occur, but he also “secretly” calls for the Magi and seeks information from them (vv. 5-7). Then, Herod sends the Magi to go and find the child and return to him so he can go and worship, too (v. 8). All this so that Matthew can tell us that God is not at work in the heart of the empire, Jerusalem, but elsewhere, in meager Bethlehem home not to rulers and the powerful but to people living on the fringe and the peasants.[9] Herod and his fellow leaders and rulers are being exposed in Matthew’s work; they are (rightly) already on the defensive and afraid; the imposters—claiming to rule as representatives of God in God’s name—are beginning to feel the initial tremors of the shifting of power from them to the true king of God, to the humble baby swaddled in manager. In other words, through the arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem these rulers of the kingdom of humanity are put on notice and are afraid, “…for they are linked with Jerusalem’s fear, and they are allied with Herod’s scheming (2:3).”[10]

The Magi proceeded to follow the star that summoned them from the east until it stopped over the place where the child was (v. 9). According to our text, the Magi were “overwhelmed with Joy” (v. 10), and they entered the house, found the baby Jesus in Mary’s lap, knelt, paid homage, and offered gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh (v. 11). These gifts, as odd as they may seem to us are valuable treasures at the time; they will come in handy once Joseph is given a vision that he must flee with his family out of Bethlehem and into Egypt to save the life of his son since Herod is moments away from decreeing a massacre of all children two years old and younger (Mt. 2:13-18). Gifts like gold, frankincense, and myrrh will help the family live in Egypt until God summons them back after Herod’s death (Mt. 2:19ff). When we proclaim the migrancy of Jesus’s family in these early days, we tend to picture both the scene with a very, very pregnant Mary and the scene of Joseph leading his family into Egypt in sentimental terms against peaceful and pastoral backdrops. But both events are anything but; they are events that are whipped through with fear and anxiety because they are doing whatever it takes to fight for their lives. And it’s here, for Matthew, where Jesus—the son of God, the king of the Jews—is situated deep in the human predicament and plight: in the pain of being human in an inhuman world.[11] And it is this inhuman world run by the kings of the kingdom of humanity that Jesus will, decades later, come face to face in conflict.

Finally, Matthew tells us, “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” Matthew’s story about the birth of the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus the son of Mary, begins with resistance. Worried more about the life of this child, they defy Herod’s order to return to him, and they find their way back home via a different route. Here, the Magi—wise and noble, with access to power—sided with the little one in the lap of a humble woman of color, one who was already being threatened with persecution.

Conclusion

It’s a new year. So, we are presented with a glorious many roads to take. Grateful, though, becaues our examples—our “shining guiding stars”, if you will—the Magi present to us the very clear way we must walk forward this year: aligned with the marginalized, the oppressed, those being threatened with death and met with hostility. There is, if I’m understanding the Christian story well enough, no other way than to find another way home and refuse to side with power that is so insecure it will destroy millions upon millions of lives one way or another. We like the Magi must be humble, bend our knees, adore the word of God made known to us in Christ—his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension—and bring our gifts for the advancement of God’s reign, participating in the mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world for the well-being of our neighbor.

[1] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 31.

[2] Cardenal, Solentiname, 31.

[3] Cardenal, Solentiname, 31. “It was known that the Messiah was going to be king, an that’s why the wise me arrive aksing for the king of the Jews, meaning the Messiah.”

[4] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 27.

[5] Cardenal, Solentiname, 31.

[6] Case-Winters, Matthew, 27.

[7] Case-Winters, Matthew, 27.

[8] Case-Winters, Matthew, 27.

[9] Case-Winters, Matthew, 27.

[10] Case-Winters, Matthew, 28.

[11] Case-Winters, Matthew, 29-30.

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The Wind of Love; The Word of Beginning

Psalm 29:10-11 God sits enthroned above the flood; Abba God sits enthroned as King for evermore. God shall give strength to God’s people; Abba God shall give Abba God’s people the blessing of peace.

Introduction

Happy New Year! With the start of the new year, we find ourselves at the very beginning of Genesis. It seems fitting to flow right through advent into Christmas and find us at the very beginning. Due to annual rotations around the sun, we are at another beginning of our earthly revolution; so we are, in a real sense, “In the beginning…” A new year carries so much wonderful and fearful unknown. Finally, a clean slate is here, out with the cluttered one from last year. We have our new canvas, that beloved empty page, and on these surfaces we can write whatever we want… But with all that newness, there is the demand, what will you put down, write, draw, paint? What will you do with this large expanse of anything and everything laid out before you? What will be painted on your canvas that you didn’t put there yourself, what part of the story will be written by someone else?

It’s incredibly liberating and intimidating, this wide-open space presented before us. For me, I am both excited and afraid; this year will pass by carrying its ups and downs and some of it I will foresee and others I will not—that’s how it’s gone before and, I’m guessing, that is how it will continue to go each revolution around the sun. Anything can happen! And, anything can happen… So, in the flux of the paradox of liberating and intimidating, between excited and afraid, where do we find our comfort, peace, that good, good word to still the (good and bad) storms that (could be, might be?) brewing? Well, we go back to the beginning, and listen again…

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

We do not come to Genesis looking for scientific fact. These stories of the cosmos’s start by a divine word and light born out of nothingness into somethingness are not supposed to be treated as if a textbook in a lab room, as if it would stand up under scientific scrutiny. These stories are meant to bring comfort to a people lost and wondering if God is still with them, if God cares, if they are still God’s people. If everything you know is currently thrust under the waves of chaos and tumult, it might bring comfort to remember that the entire cosmic event is nestled under the care and concern of God, the very same one who called you, your ancestors, and your ancestor’s ancestors unto God’s self. Genesis 1, from beginning to end, is very much one of those stories, crafted to bring comfort to ears longing for a good word, maybe ears longing to find stable ground after being too long caught between excitement and fear, liberation and intimidation.

Rather than being a story replete with awesome works of power and might, sending shudders of fear and awe down the spines of all who are encountered by the story, Genesis 1 opens with a rather small bang: let there be light! That’s it. That’s all. Light is born into the chaotic darkness[1] by a word spoken. This light is not the sun (created on day 4), it is of a “different order”[2] than what the darkness was that hovered over the surface of the deep. If the darkness was considered chaos, then the light is order. Into chaos, order was summoned to make room within actuality for all things new and possible. From here, the text moves forward and tells us that God “saw” the light and decided it was “good.” But the text doesn’t stop there. God then separated the light from the darkness, literally pulled the two apart and gave each a different name so confusion would never occur again. One, the darkness, was called “night,” and the other, lightness, was called “day.” Never would the two cross paths, like death and life, only one would occupy a particular space and time. By day, things will be illuminated, known, exposed; by night, they will be hidden, lost, cloaked.

Genesis 1 establishes that God is the one who speaks and when this God speaks things happen. Genesis 1 locates God behind all of it: amid the chaos calling forth order, in the tumult summoning peace, in the darkness beckoning lightness. From the depths of the deep to the peak of the summit, God is there. So, as God’s people travel in and out of various territories, at times in exile and in others in return, God will never leave them because God is in it with them—God has been and always will be with God’s people no matter where they find themselves.

Conclusion

As we find ourselves in the twixt of an old year giving way to a new year, between the excitement and fear, between liberation and intimidation let us rest assured that as much as any other time in history from the beginning of the cosmos unto this very year, God is with us, behind it all. God is in your fear and in your excitement; God walks with you in your feelings of liberation and with you in your feelings of intimidation; God is with you in your chaos and in your order, in your plans and in the events you have not planned. God is with you because God is love and love is that wind sweeping over the waters of the deep searching and seeking the beloved to bring them into the light and life of God’s divine liberation.

And later, as we look back on Christmas and ahead to Easter, let us remember that once more will God’s love hover over the waters of the deep in search of the beloved eager to bring them (back) into the light and life of God’s divine liberation. But that story is for another time. For now, there is light and that light is good.

[1] Jon D. Levenson, “Genesis,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 13.

[2] Levenson, “Genesis,” 13.

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