"It came to pass"

Brother Jack Scott has reminded me of a long-time favorite phrase that the King James Version of the Bible used 470 times, but in more recent translations has been completely dropped. "It came to pass".
Many years ago as a student I heard an African American preacher spin those words through a sermon, but he added a new twist to them that has stuck with me ever since. The addition: ..."it didn't come to stay."
As a new year begins it's a good way to frame our perspective. "It came to pass...it didn't come to stay. Whatever our experience in the past year, whether good or bad, it's over.
Did your business collapse in 2009? It came to pass;it didn't come to stay. Did a relationship go south? It came to pass; it didn't come to stay. Or do you look back from a more positive angle...Did you hit the jackpot in the lottery? It came to pass; it didn't come to stay.
In the course of human life, is anything really here to stay?
I suspect we all would name some important events or relationships that survive. A couple that you know has been married over 60 years; I know someone who has stayed with the same employer for over 40 years. In my work, in fact, I see it daily...there are church members who have lived faithfully for decades; they are reliable beyond comparison and every faith community has them. Luke mentions one such person when he talks about the prophetess Anna who was present in the Temple when the infant Jesus was blessed by Simeon. She may have been the first to preach about Jesus (Luke 2:36-38). Luke tells us "She never left the Temple..." and these folks come to mind when I read those words.
And yet...there is truth in the scriptures. It is the nature of things to pass on. Death is woven into the fabric of human life so that none of us will escape it. Death, both physical and relational, happens eventually.
So what is there that is eternal? What is it that we can count on that will last longer than we will?
It is the covenant of God with creation. For while it is the nature of things to die, it is also the nature of things to begin again. Nothing comes to stay, including death.
In every death there is life. In every end, a beginning.
Now 2009 rolls into 2010, and depending on how you count it is either the last year of one decade or the beginning of another. Find someone else to argue with -- I don't really care. The truth is January offers an end and a beginning. You know the name of Janus, from whom the name of our calendar's first month comes -- you know that the image faces both forward and back. So be it. It came to pass; it didn't come to stay.
Wherever we find ourselves on this first day that has arrived and will soon be gone, may we seize the day and the year as opportunities to trust in God's promise to go ahead of us. Whatever our lot in life, there will be good and bad. Only a fool thinks otherwise. But what we can count on is the God who never leaves us, who stays. Always.

Where Did the Baby Go?

Where Did the Baby Go?

Luke 2:41-52

If only babies would stay babies…don’t you want to ask that question sometimes?

If only puppies and kittens would never grow up.

Yeah, right.

Do you suppose Christmas is prone to this kind of thinking too?

If is possible that we want to keep Jesus in the Bethlehem manger rather than face the reality of him as a grown up?

I sure do. We say at our house that Christmas is visible in the magic that unfolds when the young ones unwrap their gifts, and we get see the expressions of joy on their faces and the glee in their voices.

In fact we have a young one who is 32 and still brings that kind of moment to our Christmas mornings. We hope she never grows out of that.

And yet…

While celebrating Christmas day will always hold that special flavor, when it comes to honoring the One whose birthday it is, let’s face it…it’s not his birthday that has kept the Christian faith alive; it’s his life, death and resurrection that lay the foundation of our faith tradition.

The history of Christianity isn’t based on a story about his birth; rather it exists in the stories that surround his teaching, preaching and healing, and probably most notably his death and resurrection – the event that got his first followers in no small amount of trouble.

His impact on the world has not had much to do with being born in a barn, really. His impact is about the justice, mercy and grace he brought to life in his life, the way he lived as he interpreted the law and prophets in his time; and, like it or not, his impact is due somewhat to the controversy, the conflict that followed closely behind him. That began if you remember, even as a baby when Herod decided that all Hebrew male children under the age of two should die so that none could threaten to take the throne from his own family line. That’s what is called a stormy beginning.

So I think Luke wastes no time in telling us that to keep him in the manger too long is to miss the whole point of his life.

However holy is the night on which Christ was born, if that’s where our faith begins and ends, we have made that night an idol.

So what does this mean for us?

I think it has something to do with the church being the body of Christ – the incarnation of his life in our time and place.

· Even as God entered into the human condition in Jesus Christ, so can the church put human skin on justice and mercy and grace in society, everywhere we can go, from across the parking lot to across the world.

· Even as the teachers in the Temple taught and listened, interacting with Jesus to shape his wisdom tradition, so can the church be a place that recognizes the importance of learning for all who come to the faith communities for study, for support, for spiritual nurture; the church ought to be the best there is at teaching character and morality – bringing the ethical dimension into every facet of our culture – business, politics, education.

· Even as Joseph and Mary raised their son under the influence of the Temple, so can the church share the responsibility for parenting - not only those who live under our roof at home, but the children of all who happen to worship under this roof. Every time we baptize a child we promise to do that. The churches in our land ought to be the most supportive environments available in our communities for helping parents cope with raising children.

· And even as Jesus taught us to love all people, not merely our friends, so can the church deliver God’s love in the world so that all can know the meaning of grace where it is needed most – in the lives of those who - like us – don’t appear to deserve it.

Where did the baby go? The baby became the embodiment of God’s unconditional love for sinners. And that’s some of us all the time, and all of us some of the time.

Jesus would not have made it in the Cell phone business. He became the savior not because he was savior for friends and family; he became savior because his life was the light of all people.

Where did the baby go? He grew up to be us – the body of Christ in the world today.