Rev. Zach

Luke 2:1-20 Tonight is a night of proclamation and hope! Tonight is truly a night of expectation and wonder! Tonight is the night that we experience the pure and unadulterated joy of celebrating the birth of Jesus. And all of us have received the same profound gift. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This phrase took on new meaning for me a few years ago when I saw the play, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” I heard these words in a new way when the young girl playing the angel – who had a star shaved into the side of her head – pointed a fairy wand into the crowd and said repeatedly, “Unto you!” She did it with such urgency and sincerity that I realized that this message was for me as much as it was for her. It mattered for me to receive it, and it mattered for her to say it. She said it for the whole audience, as much as she said it to each of us. I’d like to unpack the gift of those words a little tonight. I know it’s early f

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 • Luke 1:46b-55 If you are struggling with the idea of whether to say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, especially during Advent, I’ve got a new one for you. What about Merry Almost Christmas? That is the title and the chorus of a song written by a friend of mine. It’s a song about the blessing of the time before Christmas, the time that we in the church call Advent (which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it), and it’s a song about celebrations, reunions, and homecomings. Of course, the classic of that genre is “No Place Like Home for the Holidays.” Admittedly that one has been a little tender for me this year with my household divided as it is geographically. Having my family here today reminds me that home truly is where the heart is. It does make me wonder though, what makes a house a home? With a quick search of the question, I found a survey of homeowners in the UK from 2018 which showed that about a third of those that responded think of the place they

Isaiah 40:1-11   •  2 Peter 3:8-15a   •  Mark 1:1-8 Last Sunday we lit a candle for hope, and we talked about the hope we have in Jesus that is expressed through our “God-sized dream.” This dream is an expression of our identity and an expectation about what it means to live in the kin-dom – the household and family of God – which is both present and yet to be. Today, our hope bears the fruit of peace. Amid busyness and conflict – amid wars and rumors of wars – we proclaim peace. I might even take it a step further to say that we wage peace. We are actively engaging in things that make for peace!  While that might mean creating safe spaces without conflict, I like the way Todd Parr defines it. He wrote a book for children called, The Peace Book , and it says things like, “Peace is everyone having socks to wear” and “Peace is everyone having a home” and “Peace is being who you are!”  I think we can all agree that these are things we are working on. Now, before I get too carried away wit

Isaiah 64:1-9 ; Mark 13:24-37 As we begin to reflect on God’s word, as we have received it from the prophet Isaiah and the Gospel of Mark, I am reminded of the old adage of beginning with the end in mind. At the same time, I want to challenge the notion that Jesus is exclusively – or even explicitly – talking about what many call the eschaton: the end of days. For starters, we should talk about the context of these passages that the Revised Common Lectionary has given us today. Isaiah 64 is part of a block of chapters that most scholars believe were written around the time that Jewish people, who were scattered through Mesopotamian conquests, were returning to Jerusalem and the surrounding area. It’s important to note that this was very different than the modern state of Israel, which really did not exist before 1947. The biggest difference is that our reading from Isaiah was not intended to be about ancestral lands or nation-states. It was a celebration their of identity as God’