God sees you! Practices

Luke 1:46-55 is Mary’s song of praise the Magnificat. She has just made a long journey to visit her relative Elizabeth. Although, Mary confirms her belief and faith in what the angel Gabriel has told her (Luke 1:26-38), I imagine she was filled with some anxiety and wonder about bearing the son of God. She arrives at Elizabeth’s and before she can tell Elizabeth what is happening to her, Elizabeth filled with the Holy Spirit blesses Mary and praises God.

I can only imagine the relief that must have washed over Mary upon being seen by Elizabeth and having someone join her in her secret and wonder. In that moment I wonder if that is when Mary really knew that God sees her, loves her and will care for her throughout the pregnancy, birth and as Jesus grows up. In verse 48 she begins her song of praise and gratitude with “He (God) has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” The Hebrew word that is translated “looked with favor” is one word similar to gaze upon in English. It is the kind of look that parents give to newborn children and how lovers gaze into one another’s eyes. God gazes upon Mary, sees her, acknowledges her, and loves her. Mary is valuable in God’s sight. You are valuable in God’s sight for God has remembered his promises made to Abraham. God in blessing Mary extends his blessing to all who are poor in Spirit. God sees and saves the needy.

This good news elicits a response in Mary. What is our response to this good news? Here are a two ideas:

1. Sing and pray like Mary. We are in the midst of a season of singing. Sing a hymn of faith, a carol that celebrates God’s goodness and love, or a song that draws you close to God. Pray a Psalm like Psalm 86 or Psalm 121that helps you meditate on the God who sees and saves the needy.

2. Keep a Sawabona journal. Sawabona is a Zulu greeting that means, we see you or I see you. It is a deep seeing that communicates love and value. Each day for a couple of weeks keep a journal and answer these questions: Who saw me today? How did I feel in their presence? What did that reveal about who I am? How did I experience or know that Jesus saw me today?

Advent: the arrival of a person

The Cambridge Dictionary defines “advent” as the arrival of a person. It is fitting that I am beginning as the pastor at Emmanuel during the Advent season. I have arrived, and I’m sure there was some expectation and anticipation around my arrival. Halfway through my first week, I suspect I will feel like I’m still arriving for quite a while. When you come to a new place or step into a new role, it takes time to feel as if you have truly arrived.

In some ways, this is how it is with Jesus’ Advent as well. Jesus arrived on earth over 2,000 years ago, and yet we are still awaiting His arrival. We live in the “already, not yet” of the Kingdom of God. It is here, and yet we wait with anticipation and expectation for the fullness of God’s Kingdom to fully arrive. In the meantime, we have a foretaste of the feast to come. During these high and holy days of the church calendar, we sometimes experience a thin place between heaven and earth. Our feelings and yearnings may feel a little bigger or more raw, as we sing, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight” in O Little Town of Bethlehem.

Behold the Bridegroom Arriving by Greek painter Nikolaos Gyzis (1842–1901)

Advent and Christmas can be a mix of hopes and fears as we remember and await anew Jesus’ arrival. For some, it is pure joy; for others, a mingling of joy and sorrow; and for some, it may be just sorrow. All of these are valid as we await the Advent of Jesus and God’s Kingdom, when Jesus will “wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (Revelation 21:4). Advent waiting and expectation heightens our senses of hope and yearning. Come Lord Jesus come, right every wrong, and usher in peace. Until that day, we wait like Mary and join with her in song and expectation.

Mary both rejoiced in God her Savior and experienced great suffering in her life. She bore the Son of God in her body, and we, too, in the midst of our joy and suffering, can carry the good news of Jesus in us into the world. Like Mary, we can be instruments of God’s peace and steadfast love.

This Sunday we will explore more of Mary’s story in Luke 1:39–56. On Christmas Eve, we will consider the mystery of the Incarnation and the gift of joy. Our service Christmas Eve is at 5 p.m. It is a wonderful time to invite friends and neighbors, join us for the 25th time or the first time, and reflect on God’s great love for us—a love that took on flesh in Jesus and dwelt among us.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Patrick

Advent 2017

“Pilaf, do you want to go for a walk?”  I posed the question to our dog recently right after I had pushed the button on my iphone to check the time.  To my surprise I got two responses to my question.  Pilaf got up and came toward me wagging her tail and at the same time Siri’s voice issued forth from the iphone with the answer:  “I try to be satisfied with what I have.”

It was a rare, reflective moment for Siri.  I’m not used to her commenting on such weighty matters as her philosophy of life.  She is not a big one for working with existential questions.  But here she was letting me know about a key part of her way of being.  “I try to be satisfied with what I have.”  In other words, “It’s up to you, Dave.   You can take me on that walk or leave me here on the nightstand.  If you take me, I can measure the number of steps you take on the walk, count the calories that you have burned, tell you how much travel time is involved in the various routes you might take to get back to your house and let you know that someone is trying to reach you by phone or text or email.  But whatever you decide is fine, because I try to be satisfied with what I have.”

One could hear Siri’s response in a couple of ways. There is a bit of pathos and resignation in her answer and yet also a hint of contentment. In fact, when I heard her say it, my inner Bible concordance kicked in and several verses came to mind:

“I have learned to be content with whatever I have.” – St. Paul

“So do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.  Today’s trouble is enough for today.” – Jesus

I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmedand quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother.” – David, (Ps 131)

“I try to be satisfied with what I have.” Is it slavery or light-heartedness? Of course in Siri’s case it is neither.  It’s merely the result of some programmer’s decision.  I imagine that she is programmed to respond to the question “Do you want…?” with an answer about being content.  She doesn’t really have the capacity to want anything.

But we do; and trying to be satisfied with what we have, trying to live in the moment, trying to let the day’s own trouble be enough for the day, is no easy feat for us.  Each day presents us with a huge list of wants.  Some of them are simply about survival and the dailyness of our existence.  Yet many of those wants spring from things that are too heavy for us to carry or too far away from us to grasp.  Wanting to alleviate the suffering of a loved one being treated for cancer, or end the rancor in Washington DC, or solve the national crisis of opioid addiction, or mend the broken relationship that you helped to destroy, usually just delivers us into a state of heavy-heartedness and despair.  The last thing we are in this state is satisfied, and trying to work harder at being satisfied just heightens our angst.  The burdens of past regrets and future anxieties are just too heavy to bear.

In the midst of this kind of heavy-hearted dissatisfaction and emptiness, I know of only one source of comfort.  When things are too heavy for me to hold, I need to know that I am being held.  I need to know that I belong to a story that is bigger than the one I am currently writing.  I need to know that I belong to God.  It’s then that I can move into the present and learn about satisfaction and letting the day’s own trouble be enough for the day.  Another word for this is hope, and the season of Advent is primarily about training us to live into hope.
This Advent we will be exploring the words of an Old Testament prophet who was about the work of inviting his people to live into hope. 

The words of Isaiah 40 are addressed to folks who were bouncing back and forth between past regrets and future anxieties and they, like us, needed to know that they were being held.  Isaiah’s message of comfort in this chapter is one that never grows old because we never stop needing to hear it.  We never stop needing to be reminded that we are being held by the One who made us for no other purpose than relationship with himself.

Dave Rohrer, 12/3/2017

Advent 2016

Before our daughter was in Kindergarten she attended a Christian preschool near our home.    Each year at Christmas-time the children would put on a program for the parents, grandparents, and younger siblings.  It was one of those annual “photo-op” experiences where we would enjoy our children as they sang for us and showed us their Christmas crafts.

One year during the presentation the children sang a song that had the lyric: Advent is a time for waiting, not a time for celebrating.

 I cannot remember the tune of the song, and I am probably the only one in my family who remembers hearing it sung.  I suppose I remember it because at the time it struck me funny to hear this admonition about ecclesiastical protocol melodiously announced through the voices of three and four year olds who probably had little or no idea about the meaning of what they were singing.   It was sort of humorous to hear these children dutifully advising their parents not to fall prey to the secular culture’s profane practice of celebrating Christmas before its time.

There are many Christian traditions where it is all but anathema to sing a Christmas carol in worship prior to Christmas Eve.  Like the rigid Sabbath practices of some denominations, this admonition about Advent being a time for waiting rather than celebrating felt a bit like religious finger wagging warning us not to offend God.  In my mind it was yet another example of how we Christians can, in an effort to get it “right”, make a mess of things and end up getting it wrong.  In the attempt to call us all to think about something bigger than shopping, sleigh bells, Santa Claus and snow, we were told what not to do rather than called to contemplate and anticipate the advent of a reality that is “abundantly far more than we can ask for or imagine.”

The Advent invitation to wait for the Lord and watch for God’s appearing is not to consign ourselves to a place of joyless darkness where we stop all activity, shiver in the cold of a “bleak mid-winter,” and contemplate how bad things are.  Advent is indeed about waiting, but it is also about celebrating, because it is about an active and expectant waiting.  In Advent we do not wait for an unknown; we wait for something about which we are certain.  We rise to our tip toes in anticipation and strain to see that speck of light on the horizon, that dimly burning wick, which provides the spark that ignites the light that cannot be extinguished by darkness.  The waiting we do at Advent is like waiting for the dawn.  We know it is going to come, but it always seems to take a little longer to get here than what we might desire.

Advent teaches us how to endure the wait.  It teaches us how to joyously anticipate the fulfillment of God’s promise.  The stories that frame our Advent sermon series this year are about folks who are waiting actively.  They show us how to make ourselves ready for God’s revelation of himself in our world.  As we sit with Zechariah, Mary, the Shepherds, the Magi, and Simeon this Advent and Christmas Season, they can become ourteachers.  From them we can learn how to watch and listen for the persistent invitations to life that God is sending our way.  Advent is indeed a time for waiting, but it is also a season of celebrating.  So get to your tip toes and look through the darkness for that speck of light.  Or as the Psalmist sings, “Be strong, let your hearts take courage and wait for the Lord.”

Dave Rohrer, 11/27/2016