"Daring To Hope." A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent

"Peaceable Kingdom," by Edward Hicks.

"Daring to Hope"

Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12

Here we are, in the second week of Advent.  For a lot of people, there’s so much to do, at home, at church and everywhere else.  There are gifts to be purchased and wrapped...cards to be addressed...cooking and baking to do...the house to clean... and decorating to do.  

            In the background, we have the news feed of our lives.  Mass shootings. Another child accidentally shooting himself with a gun he found in the house. Thousands of migrant children separated from their families and housed in cages. A migrant teenager dying from the flu. Impeachment hearings. Environmental degradation. Huge economic disparities between the uber-rich and those who struggle to provide food and basic shelter for themselves and their families. The list could go on….

            In the midst of all of this, Advent invites us to turn our thoughts to what it means that God came and lived as one of us in our world to show us God’s way?  Advent invites us to wait… to pay attention… to prepare the way of the Lord… and to live in hope. 

           In the Hebrew scripture lesson, we heard the prophet Isaiah singing a song of hope 700 years before the birth of Jesus, in a time when things seemed hopeless.  His message must have sounded as unrealistic then as it does now.

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie with down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them. . . .
They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain…

            The prophet Isaiah was probably writing in the period of the Syro-Ephramite war, when the dynasty of David seemed like a mere dead stump, compared to its enemies.  The nation had been defeated and humiliated by another national power.  Their government was weak and ineffective, and the people were dejected and demoralized.  In the midst of all that, how do you live in hope?   Isaiah’s words must have seemed terribly unrealistic—as unrealistic as Isaiah’s words seem to a lot of people today.

           Enter the Spirit of the Lord; a new shoot is coming out of the dead stump of the monarchy.  That’s what the Spirit of the Lord does—it brings life where things have been dead.  The Spirit brings forth new green shoots of life.

  

          Isaiah sings of a new kind of king—a king upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rests.  God’s Messiah will use his gifts to serve the people with equity and righteousness. What will the reign of the Messiah will be like?  The enmity that dominates the world is transformed into peace. 

   

         A great theologian of the last century, Reinhold Niebuhr, once wrote: “Do you want peace in this world?  Then work for justice.”  Until there is justice for everyone, there will be no peace.  For even a defeated enemy remains an enemy.  The only hope for peace is not the building up of more power to defeat and control—but power to make our enemies our friends. 

  

          Advent invites us-- dares us-- to wait in hope for the coming of a different kind of King, who will use his power to “rule the world with truth and grace” and transform creation into a world in which every creature can live without fear. 

  

          Can you imagine a world without fear?   No fear in Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan or Yemen…  no fear in Bethlehem or Jerusalem…  no fear in South Sudan.  No fear in homes from an abusive parent or spouse. No fear in our neighborhoods where innocent children have died to gun violence.

           “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”   This is the promise and hope of Advent.

            But hope is a fragile and fleeting thing. 

            Fast forward seven hundred years or so.  Two hundred years had gone by since the people of Israel had had a prophet in their midst.   They’re living under occupation, with the Roman army enforcing the oppression of the Empire.

    

           Suddenly, John shows up in the wilderness, looking and sounding a lot like Elijah, who was expected to return to prepare the way for God’s coming Messiah.  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” he says.  “Prepare the way of the LORD.  Make his paths straight.”  

            John’s call to repentance and preparing the way is a call to turn around and look for and hope in God’s future, which is breaking in on them.  It’s a call to commit to see our world as God’s world    and our future as God’s future, because that’s what repentance is about.  

            And yet, more than 2,000 years later, amid the moral, religious, and political crises our nation and world are facing, we are still waiting and longing.   

            Every Advent John the Baptist shows up, because God loves us enough to hold us accountable to be who and whose we.  We are living in a broken, hurting world.  The people of Palestine still live under occupation in a conflict that looks hopeless to a lot of us.  Children in Flint and their families continue to deal with the long-term effects of lead poisoning.  In our own communities and communities around our nation, a parent can work 40 hours a week and still not be able to afford nutritious food and other basic necessities for their children. In our nation, consumerism and individualism rule. Our political system is broken.  The gap between the very rich and the poor continues to widen.            

            And so, we still long for a time of righteousness and justice and peace. 

            For a long time, I’ve felt drawn to the images painted by Edward Hicks, a Quaker preacher and artist, who was so inspired by the vision in Isaiah 11 that he painted at least 66 “peaceable kingdom” paintings.  

            A “peaceable kingdom.” Can you imagine it?  A time when broken creation becomes the completely harmonious creation God intended.  Predators-- wolves, leopards, lions, and bears will live in harmony with the domestic animals like lambs, calves, goats, and cows.  Lions will eat straw like oxen, and a little child will play over the holes of poisonous snakes.  The earth will be filled with the “knowledge of the LORD.”  

            Jesus has come to live among us, full of grace and truth, and called us to follow him, living God’s way of love.    

        

So… how are we to live?  How are we to live as a community of faith?  Do we give in to hopelessness and despair?  

            Do we dare to hope?  Can we trust in God’s promises?  Can we imagine a better world?  Can we believe in the possibility that injustice and oppression can be overcome, with God’s help?

            Jesus came and “proclaimed the reign of God: preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.”[1] 

            To those living under the oppressive regime of the Roman Empire, Jesus taught and embodied a different way of being in the world that allowed even the marginalized and the poor to reclaim their identity as children of God.  To people whose identities had been shaped by centuries of living under exile and oppression of conquering empires, Jesus demonstrated that the empire doesn’t have the power to define who you are.  

            What Jesus proclaimed as a transforming message of hope has been spiritualized and individualized and distorted.   Jesus didn’t come to be a personal savior for individuals, but to be the way, the truth and the life, to show us all a way to live into God’s dream for all of God’s people. He taught us to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven. 

            When we repent—when we turn away from the ways of the world and the empire-- and turn toward God’s way of righteousness and justice and peace, we find our lives changing.    As our lives are being transformed, we can no longer be content to exist under the old ways of the world.   

            Our faith teaches us that God’s intention is for us to live in Beloved Community together, in righteousness and justice.  But we look around, and we see there is still a gap between the vision and reality.  

            We wait and hope for the time when God will fully bring in the Kingdom… the kin-dom.   In the meantime, we live into the Kingdom of heaven—the kingdom of justice and peace, as we work for a better world that more fully embodies God’s dreams.

            Sometimes it’s hard to see how things can be different… or how the little things we do can make a difference.   But sometimes new life emerges from the most unlikely places, emerging as a tiny green tendril out of a stump that looked dead. 

            We live into hope in big and small ways when we change the life of a family by providing them with a goat or a flock of chickens with a gift to the Heifer Project.   When we shop ethically and buying locally as much as possible and stop using single-use plastics, we make a difference in peoples’ lives and the environment.  Making choices to care for the environment and giving to aid global and domestic causes all make a difference, and they witness to our hope.  

            When we engage the powers and principalities by contacting our elected officials about issues that matter, we are daring to hope that we can make a difference. When we volunteer in our local schools, when we tutor a child or teach an adult how to read, we are living into hope.

            We live into hope because the Christ’s reign is among us now as we live into God’s dream for us, working for justice and peace for all of God’s beloved people.

            In this season of waiting, God comes to us and nudges us: “Look! Look -- there on that dead-looking stump.  Do you see that green shoot growing?”

            Can you see it?

Rev. Fran Hayes

December 8, 2019

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[1] “A Brief Statement of Faith” of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).    https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/oga/pdf/boc2014.pdf

"What Should We Do?" A Sermon on Luke 3:7-18 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Third Sunday of Advent.

John the Baptist (an icon from the Orthodox tradition)

"What Should We Do?"

Luke 3:7-18

The third Sunday of Advent has traditionally been known as Joy Sunday.   That’s why we lit the rose candle today and heard the apostle Paul urging the church to “Rejoice always and in everything.”

            Yet, as I meditated on the scripture passages for this Sunday, I kept remembering how painful a season this can be for many people-- people who are lonely, people who are grieving the loss of a loved one, people who are struggling with illness and wondering where God is in the midst of it all…  people who are depressed, people who are trying to maintain their sobriety during a season of parties… people who are too poor to be a part of the festival of extravagance the merchants would have us believe is what Christmas is all about. 

            There are people who are hungry or food insecure...or who are worrying about how they’ll pay their bills.  Then there are terrible events that have filled the headlines in recent weeks. The list could go on and on. 

            We grieve that there’s so much wrong in the world.  We’re still waiting for the kingdom of God, and we yearn for it.  We wait and hope for what we can’t yet see.

            During the weeks of Advent, we’re in a conversation with the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptizer.  In the scriptures, we hear words of consolation and of challenge.   Today, we hear John the Baptist saying to the people who came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”               

            What do we make of this blunt talk?  Where’s the good news in it?     

            Apparently, a lot of the people who came out to hear John the Baptizer’s message did hear his message as good news.  Gospel from God.   Some of them even started to wonder whether John was the messiah they’d been waiting for. 

            Things were terribly wrong.  The people were living under the occupation of the Roman empire, and at the mercy of tyrants like Herod… or dishonest tax collectors.  Things were wrong, but they were hoping God was going to do something about it.  

            One of my colleagues suggests that when John compared people to a brood of vipers, he was saying they are like snakes curled up in hiding inside a pile of logs.  When the fire of God’s judgment comes near,  when the light of truth exposes us, we try to slink out from under God’s gaze.[1] 

            “Hey, don’t look at me!  I didn’t mess the world up!” we protest.  “I’m okay.  After all, I’m a child of Abraham.  It’s those tax collectors and Pilate and Herod that are to blame.  It’s those criminals and greedy corporate honchos and crooked politicians… or immigrants…  or [fill in the blank].  It’s those other people who are to blame for this mess-- not me!” 

            We make excuses and look for others to blame precisely because, in our heart of hearts, we know that we are not clean.  We, too, have contributed to the mess.

            I think John the Baptist is right.  “This means you,” he declares.  “Don’t even think about relying on the fact that you’re a child of Abraham…or a good Christian…or whatever, to exempt you.”

            So…how can a message like this be good news?

            I’m grateful to Richard Rohr for some new insights on John the Baptist I found in his book,  Jesus’ Plan for a New World.[2]   Father Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest, suggests that John the Baptist is probably far more important than we have realized.   The beginning of the gospels tells us that John appeared and preached in the wilderness, “proclaiming a gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” 

            John “cries out in the wilderness,” radically questioning the very legitimacy of the existing religious order, and showing how religion needs to constantly reform.  The keepers of the religious status quo kept sending people out to question John.  

            When John preached a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins, it was revolutionary.  Jews were supposed to follow the Law—the Holiness Codes of Torah. This upstart was making it too easy to get God to love you and forgive you. 

            The people were filled with expectation.  They were questioning in their hearts, whether John might be the Messiah they were looking for.  But John was pointing to the One who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and Fire. 

            Luke's gospel tells us that, when Mary found out that she was pregnant with the Son of the Most High God, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth.  When Mary spoke, Elizabeth's child leaped for joy in her womb.

            That child grew up to be John the Baptizer.  God called him to be a witness to the light of God, revealed in Christ.  John knew that a lot of things get in the way of receiving God's love and joy.   That's why John was preaching about getting ready for the more powerful one who was coming.   Prepare the way!  Repent! 

           

            In Charles Dickens' play, "A Christmas Carol,"  Ebenezer Scrooge is London's most notorious miser.  He's a mere shadow of the joyful person he was created to be, hunched up against the world...  stingy and suspicious.  When the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge his own grave, the reminder that he will die breaks through all the defenses and helps to put things into perspective.  He's overwhelmed with a piercing sense of remorse for how he has been living.  He repents!

            Seeing the light of truth after living in the darkness for so long can be scary.   But what follows his rebirth into new life-- is joy!

           

            This Advent, John the Baptizer comes to us, telling us that we need to change our ways.

            The message of Advent is that God in Christ is coming into the world.  In Jesus, God's Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.   What came into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

            Edward Hicks was an American sign and stagecoach painter in the early nineteenth century.  He’s known almost exclusively for his many paintings of the Peaceable Kingdom. 

            One of these, entitled “The Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners,” was painted during a time when tension and separation had split American Quakers into two groups.  In the background is a cluster of very somber-looking people.  But in the foreground is a depiction of the peaceable kingdom:  a leopard is lying down with a lamb.  A little child is embracing a lion. 

            Those somber-looking people in the background are connected to the peaceable kingdom by a banner that declares, “Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy.”  The sinuous ribbon with its beginning in the mists of eternity weaves its way through and among them, braiding them together.

            Our Christian joy and faith aren’t based solely on the evidence we see in the present-- but on the hope of the future.  Our Christian joy comes to us in our experience of God’s presence.   So, how are we called to live?

            Three times in today’s gospel lesson…  “What should we do?”   That’s a question for us today.

            What should we do, as we yearn for God’s peaceable kingdom?  What should we do, to live more fully into the reign of God? 

            I don’t have any simple answers for you today.  But I think our faith is calling us to move beyond the simple answers on either side of important issues, to listen to one another’s perspectives, and to pray together and work together, and open ourselves to the Spirit’s leading.

            One of the challenges we face today is our desire to live in safety, while responding faithfully to the needs of our neighbors near and far.  It isn’t uncommon during an electiAon season for us to hear political rhetoric that plays on our fears.  But we need to learn from history... and be guided by our faith.

            During Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, too many religious leaders and others were silent.  When fear and xenophobia prevail, there can be terrible consequences.

            Over the past few years, some of us have been thinking about historical parallels between the current debate over refugees—from Syria and now from Central America—desperate people seeking safety and refuge in the United States   and the plight of European Jews fleeing German-occupied territories on the eve of World War II. 

            Among the many who tried-- and failed—to escape Nazi persecution were Otto Frank and his family, which included his wife, Edith, and his daughters, Margot and Anne.  The Frank family visa application documents were discovered in a New Jersey warehouse in 2007. 

            As historian Richard Brietman wrote, “Otto Frank’s efforts to get his family to the United States ran afoul of restrictive American immigration policies designed to protect national security   and guard against an influx of foreigners during time of war.”[3]  And so Anne Frank and her family perished in concentration camps. 

            In contrast to those who were silent and passive during the horrors of the Holocaust, an entire town in occupied France sheltered 5,000 Jews at great risk, in a “conspiracy of goodness.” 

             In occupied France, collaborators delivered 83,000 Jews, including 10,000 children, to the Nazi death camps, and only 3,000 returned.  But the residents of Le Chambon and the surrounding area quietly took in and saved as many Jews as their entire population, who came to them for shelter and refuge. 

            The people of Le Chambon were Reformed Christians, descendants of the French Huguenots.   Motivated by their faith and remembering their own history of persecution, they welcomed the refugees and housed them in private homes, on farms, as well as in local schools.   You can read about this in the book, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed.[4]

           

            What should we do?   What do the “fruits of repentance” look like?

            Our scriptures say in various ways that we are to orient our lives to do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

            This Advent, God is ready to be born in the cradle of our hearts and lives, either for the first time or as a renewed birth, as God-with-us reaches new depths within our very souls.  And this, my friends, is reason for JOY! 

            Do you remember what Ebenezer Scrooge was like when he was re-born that Christmas?  He couldn't keep his joy to himself!  He was filled with the joy of new life...   and he just had to share his joy with others!

            When we receive the JOY of Jesus Christ, we're called to proclaim the light that outshines all darkness.  We're called to carry the light out into the world    and be witnesses of the light. 

            God calls us out of darkness-- into the Light that overcomes the darkness.  Our job as we wait for Christ to come again in power and glory is to proclaim the good news of Jesus, who is the light of the world… the Christ who calls us to live lives that reflect his light!  

How shall we live?  We are called to feed the hungry…and minister to the sick… to show God’s mercy and justice in our lives.   In Matthew 25, we hear Jesus saying we will be judged by how we feed those who are hungry, how we give those who are thirsty something to drink, how we visit those whose who are imprisoned, how we welcome the stranger.”[5]   

In the words of one of my favorite hymns, we are called to “live into hope-- of captives freed...  of sight regained...  the end of greed.”[6]  We are called to live as God’s blessed peacemakers.[7]

            On this Third Sunday of Advent, there is good news—joyful news.  No matter how dark things look, we know that darkness does not have the last word.  Jesus, the Light of the world, has come and shines in the darkness.  The darkness does not and will not overcome it.

            So--  let us rejoice always.[8]  Let us live prayerful lives-- lives that show gentleness to all we meet... and embody God’s love for those who are lonely and hurting.   Let us pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything…  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us.

            The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

            Come, Lord Jesus!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

December 16, 2018

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[1] Mary Harris Todd, in a sermon at www.goodpreacher.com.

[2] Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount.  (Kindle Loc 1668)

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/24/anne-frank-and-her-family-were-also-denied-entry-as-refugees-to-the-u-s/ 

[4] Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed:  The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There.  Harper, 1979. 

[5] Let it be noted:  there were responses to the “fill in the blanks.”  The people at Littlefield Presbyterian Church are well acquainted with Matthew 25.

[6] “Live into Hope.”  Lyrics by Jane Parker Huber.

[7] Matthew 5, in what we know as “The Beatitudes.”

[8] Philippians 4:4-7

"Witnesses to the Light." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Third Sunday of Advent

Edward Hicks, "A Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners," 1829-30

"Witnesses to the Light"

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; John 1:6-8, 19-28; 1 Thessalonians 3:16-24

            I love the season of Advent-- the invitation to quiet reflection and expectant waiting… the eschatological hope for justice through God’s realm on earth.

            The Third Sunday of Advent has traditionally been known as Joy Sunday.   That’s why we lit the rose-colored candle.  Joy is a theme in most of the scripture lessons we heard today.  In the epistle lesson we heard the apostle Paul urging the church to “Rejoice always and in everything.”

            Yet-- during the past few days, as I've meditated on the scriptures, I've been thinking about how painful a season this can be for many people. Some are lonely.  Some are grieving the loss of a loved one.  Some are depressed.  Some are too poor to be a part of the festival of extravagance the merchants would have us believe is what Christmas is all about.  Some are hungry. Some are homeless.

            In our nation, parents of millions of children are worrying about how they will pay for their children’s health care if the CHIP program isn’t re-funded.

            Every day, someone in our nation dies due to gun violence. Opioid addiction keeps claiming more victims. Forest fires continue to rage in California.

            More and more women have been breaking the silence and accusing those who have sexually assaulted or harassed them--many of them powerful men from the entertainment business, or politicians or journalists, who used their power and privilege to oppress women and to assure their silence. Many of us have our #Me Too stories. Most of us long for it to end so we can live and work together with respect and civility. But how?

            We live in a system in our culture where people have learned to see one another as less than fully human, as less than precious and valued, and we have adapted ourselves to this understanding, with our lives shaped by these values. Sometimes, for those who are privileged, it works to their advantage. Others live with this because they don’t know what else to do… or they haven’t had the power to do so… or they couldn’t survive the cost of losing a job if they spoke out.

            In the midst of so much bad news, we long for some good news.

           

            Today we heard the prophet Isaiah proclaim: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor, and the day of rescue of our God; to comfort all who mourn….”

            This Advent, many of us are longing for God’s justice and peace in the world.  We long for good news for the oppressed, for the brokenhearted, for the fearful, vulnerable and captive. We wonder: when will our ashes be replaced with garland?

            We could use some good news for those who mourn and those who huddle in ruined cities and devastated places. We wish that our elected officials could hear the prophet’s message from God, “For I, God, love justice. I hate robbery and sin.” 

            Surely, this is nothing new. God’s people have been yearning for the fulfillment of God’s promises for thousands of years.

            Some days, the prophet’s vision seems too good to be true, no matter how badly we want to believe that the God who loves justice is on the way. 

            Isaiah saw the injustice of the suffering of his people. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, he tells us.  And so does John, as he points to Jesus, the one yet to come.

            John comes as a witness to testify to the light, proclaiming, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said.

            Perhaps this is the beginning of the freedom Isaiah announced and Jesus brought and will bring in all of its fullness… a time when the brokenhearted are finally bound up and healed… and God’s powerful promises are fulfilled. Do we believe that God’s good news has the power to transform our lives?  I want to believe that.

            The message of Advent is that God in Christ is coming into the world.  In Jesus, God's Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.   What came into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.[1]

            In Charles Dickens' story, "A Christmas Carol,"  Ebenezer Scrooge is London's most notorious miser.  He's a mere shadow of the joyful person he was created to be, hunched up against the world...  stingy and suspicious.  When the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge his own grave, the knowledge that he will die breaks through all the defenses he’s used to try to hide his childlike soul for so long.  He's overwhelmed with a piercing sense of remorse for how he has been living. 

            Seeing the light of truth after living in the darkness for so long is painful.  But what follows his rebirth into new life is joy!

            For some time, I’ve felt drawn to the work of Edward Hicks, who was an American sign and stagecoach painter in the early nineteenth century.  He’s known almost exclusively for his many paintings of the Peaceable Kingdom. 

            One of these, entitled The Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners, was painted during a time when tension and separation had split American Quakers into two groups.  In the background is a cluster of very somber-looking people.  But in the foreground, is a depiction of the peaceable kingdom:  a leopard is lying down with a lamb.  A little child is embracing a lion. 

            Those somber-looking people in the background are connected to the peaceable kingdom by a banner that declares, “Behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy.”  The sinuous ribbon with its beginning in the mists of eternity weaves its way through and among them, braiding them together.

            Our Christian joy and faith aren’t based solely on the evidence we see in the present-- but on the hope of the future.  Our Christian joy comes to us in our experience of God’s presence.

            This Advent, the coming may be a present experience.  God is about to be born in the cradle of believers' hearts and lives, either for the first time or as a renewed birth, as God-with-us reaches new depths within our very souls.  And this, my friends, is reason for joy! 

            Do you remember what Ebenezer Scrooge was like when he was re-born that Christmas?  He couldn't keep his joy to himself!  He was filled with the joy of new life...   and he just had to share his joy with others!

            When we receive the JOY of Jesus Christ, we're called to proclaim the light that outshines all darkness.  Once we've been touched by the light of Christ, we're called to carry the light out into the world    and be witnesses of the light. 

            The God we know and trust because we have seen his love revealed in Jesus Christ calls us out of darkness--  into the Light that overcomes the darkness.  Our job as we wait for Christ to come again in power and glory is to proclaim the good news of Jesus, who is the light of the world and calls us to live lives that reflect Christ's light!  

            Our calling as the church of Jesus Christ is to mediate God’s promises and commands to the world.  We are called to live into hope-- of captives freed...  of sight regained...  the end of greed. 

            No matter how dark things look, we know that darkness does not have the last word.  Jesus, the Light of the world, has come and shines in the darkness.  The darkness does not and will not overcome it.

            So-- let us rejoice always.  Let us pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything…  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us.

May the God of peace make you completely holy and whole.  May your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ![2]

            Come, Lord Jesus!

           

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

December 17, 2017

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[1] John 1

[2] 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24