Luke 1 17 

Dec 7, 2025

Make Ready

God, as we rejoice in this season of lights and carols and cookies, we ask that you would help us to follow your ways so that we can be righteous and wise. Help us to remember that it is not the material things that matter. Our love for you and for each other is the goal of life. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen

            If you’ve looked at the December calendar, you will see that we are not doing our normal routine. We are doing more worship services during this month. We have the Blue Christmas and Christmas Eve services. They require us to prepare differently than we do the rest of the year. These decorations are vastly different from the simple ordinary decorations for the other seasons. There is something about Advent and Christmas that creates in us a desire for beauty and extravagance. We search the world to find the good things. We donate to charity because hope is blooming with the poinsettias. We are kinder to one another because joy is in the air. We leave our routine and prepare ourselves to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Our emotions are vulnerable during this time. We feel pain more strongly. We feel the mystery and holiness of this time.

            Zechariah was serving in the temple. I have read that because there were so many priests that one would get to celebrate this temple ritual only once in his life if that. It was a special time. I am sure he was a little bit nervous. This week was my ordination anniversary. I remember very clearly when I went before the committee on worship to run an example of a worship service. I did ok until the benediction. The typical words for the benediction are “And may the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with you.” I stood in that little room set up as a small sanctuary walked to the front and proudly said “And may the Love of the Spirit, the Grace of God, and the fellowship of Jesus be with you all.” I could see the face of my mentor. Her eyes were wide in disbelief that I had said the wrong thing. I knew that my candidacy was at risk. The committee had grace, and I was deemed ready to enter the search and call process.

            I imagine Zechariah had practiced what he was supposed to do. It was a very special privilege, and he wanted to do it correctly. And, as soon as he walks in the sacred space-boom-there is an angel standing there. Can you imagine? You have rehearsed this so many times and the moment you begin, the whole thing changes. You can’t do what you were told to do because all the rules of the ceremony changed when he saw that angel. He certainly couldn’t light the candles and bask in the glow of the holy space. Nope, this was extraordinary. This was one of those new things God is always doing.

            And God never leaves things to routine expectations. The normal flow of society would be that the oldest son would be the most important in the family. God repeatedly chose the youngest son to receive the blessings or do the work. The normal way of life was that people had children in their youth. Over and over again, God gives children to older couples. Abraham and Sarah didn’t have Isaac until they were very old. Zechariah should have remembered this while he was standing in that holy place speaking to an angel. I’m not sure I would have remembered that looking at an angel who had interrupted the ceremony I had practiced my whole life for this one opportunity.

            The angel tells him this miracle child would have the spirit and power of Elijah. This was an awesome prophecy. There was no greater prophet in Israel’s history. Elijah prayed that it would not rain and it did not rain for three years. Elijah sought out a widow with a son during the drought. She told him that she was going home to make their bread with the last of her oil and flour. Elijah said her flour and oil would last and it did. Elijah stood against the prophets Baal and called down fire from heaven. Elijah was a big deal. To be told that not only would he have a son, that son would have the power and spirit of Elijah had to more than he could comprehend.

            The angel doesn’t stop there. The angel is talking about John the Baptist. John was well known for calling people out on their sin and urging them to repent and be baptized. The angel was kind enough to deliver this news in soft words saying  John would come before Jesus “, to turn the hearts of parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

            The angel was really saying that John would proclaim the sin of the people of Jerusalem. He would live a life on the edge of society encouraging everyone to examine their lives, to recognize where they were off track, to be humble enough to repent and to submit to being baptized. This is how he would turn the hearts of parents to their children and the disobedient to righteousness.

            We did not read the rest of the story. After the angel says all of this, poor Zechariah still dazed from the angel and all those words about his son asks “How can I be sure of this? I’m old and so is my wife.

            I don’t know if the angel hadn’t eaten that day or maybe he hadn’t slept well but he jumps back at Zechariah with I am Gabriel. I hang out with God. If I tell you something you better know that’s what God sent me to tell you. And since you didn’t listen to me, I’m going to shut your mouth until that baby is born.

            Most angels aren’t so forceful in their messages. I don’t really know why Gabriel goes off on Zechariah this way. It seems a bit much. Maybe it was so people would believe he saw an angel. Maybe he had an annoying voice. I don’t know and Luke doesn’t tell us. That will have to be classified as a mystery to ponder. There are many mysteries to ponder, things we don’t understand about how and why God does what he does. We see our hopes and dreams being changed regardless of how we envision them.

            We want our lives to be a beautiful ceremony lived out in a script we create. We dream of a life and sometimes, God takes that dream twisting it until it looks nothing like what we had envisioned. Like Zechariah going into the holy place, we assume our lives will be routine even when we have these holy experiences. Like Zechariah we go into our lives not expecting to see angels, not expecting our lives to be altered, not expecting a miracle.

            But friends, miracles abound. God is not off far away in some distant castle in the sky. God is here. God is a baby born in unremarkable circumstances who grows up teaching us how to be righteous, how to live in the world, how to be the people God will have us be. God, in Jesus, accepts torture and death at the hands of the powerful. Jesus dies and sets us free from death. God raises Jesus to new life and in doing so transforms not only our world but the whole of creation. Our God does not stay six feet away from us, watching us go through our lives. God is here with us as close to us as the air we breathe. God is in the space between the atoms that form our bodies and our world. God has chosen to be with us in this time and in this space. God performs more miracles that we could ever imagine or even acknowledge.

            We do not have to see an angel to know that there is a magnificent God. We know it in our hearts. We know it when we see the moon over the fields. We know it when we see the one we love. We know it when we taste and see that Lord is good. We know the very real presence of God in all of our comings and our goings. And if you do not know this magnificent God, if you do not feel the majesty or hear the voice, there is hope and a way to reach it. Through the life and love, the death and resurrection of Jesus we see the very real, very powerful, very kind, love of God revealed.

            Beloved, as you prepare for Christmas, prepare your hearts, minds and souls to receive the good news that we are dead to sin and alive to Christ. We are alive and as George Bailey reminds us it is a wonderful life. And it is for this that we can say, thanks be to God. Amen

Luke 22: 28-30

November 23, 2025

Thrones of Humility

Rev. Jennifer Dawson

“You are those who have stood by me in my trials, 29 and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, 30 so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel

God, open our eyes to see the beauty of the kingdom that you have conferred on us. Help us to know that the thrones are thrones of humility and not of pride. Give us ears to hear your word and hearts open to being remade. Amen

            Scripture is difficult. I feel like this has become my mantra while reading through the Gospel of Luke this year. The lectionary, our guide to reading and preaching, is kind in that it leaves out some of the troubling parts of Jesus’ story. This passage is read on Palm Sunday. Well, not really. This passage is for Passion Sunday. Passion Sunday is all about what happens after Jesus arrives in Jerusalem. It is what happens after the parade, after the shouts of hosanna, after Jesus and the disciples come down off the mountain and enter the valley. Those mountain top experiences of God are addicting. We want to feel that joy and that elation and yes, in following Jesus, we are rewarded with mountain top experiences. We get to fall in love and rejoice in the beauty of earthly success. We have moments when we pray for a good parking place and we get the best one. We have times when the gas tank is so low and the gas station is so far that we pray the gas will last and it does. We have times when we pray for our sibling in Christ that they will be made well and their illness is miraculously healed. But those times are remarkable because they are rare.

            More often following Jesus is like this passage when the disciples who have followed Jesus so closely for these few years, who have walked with him and witnessed so many miracles, who have even had the ability to heal others through his power, who have had the dirt washed off their feet by this man they call master, when those same disciples allow Jesus to feed them and then betray him. Judas is the first one to betray Jesus. Judas sets in motion the events that will lead to Jesus being arrested, tortured and killed but the others are just as complicit. Peter will deny knowing Jesus because it is too dangerous to be associated with him. Peter could just as easily be capture and tortured and killed so he stays by the fire and protests that he does not know Jesus. And the others flee. They hide in their houses like rabbits scattered to their burrows. To know Jesus is to be persecuted. They are not willing to lay down their lives for others. John tells us that Jesus said “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” The disciples are gripped with fear that they will be required to do just that so they run and hide. Most of the disciples will forsake Jesus as he hangs on the cross with the crown of thorns cutting through the thin skin of his head and face, his body destroyed by the violence of the torture.

            But, after witnessing all of that, after seeing Jesus executed for his refusal to be like the ruling powers of this world, after seeing how God resurrected Jesus and in this resurrection God destroyed the power that sin and death held over people. After all of that, the disciples went on to stand firm in their faith.

            Peter became the head of the church proclaiming his love of Jesus to everyone he met, preaching on Pentecost the message that could and eventually does get him killed. Seeing Jesus endure that death and return victorious inspires Peter to understand that love is greater than death. Love is what will set us free. Love is the most powerful force in the world and when we love one another we find the strength to serve one another in humility.

            How different this is from the way our world works. We come to this place and we give our time our talent and our treasure. We toil in the garden and in the kitchen and in the meetings, so many meetings. And our reward is not money and fame. Our reward is growing in our relationship with Jesus and with one another. We are rewarded with crosses to carry and the ability to help our siblings in Christ carry their crosses. We are given strength to pray for one another when our lives are falling apart and we are given strength to learn how to rebuild our lives in the likeness of Jesus and Jesus’ kingdom.

            Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last day of the church year. Next Sunday, we will enter Advent when we wait expectantly for Jesus to be born. We wait and we celebrate because it is the miracle of Jesus’ birth that set in motion all of this. God began our salvation though a young woman giving birth to a baby in a barn. And it was through the resurrection of this baby who grew up to love and serve others that our salvation was made complete. We are those who have been given authority to live just as Jesus commands us. This is not an authority like the world gives. It is the authority of service. It is the authority to work for the well being of one another and of the world. It is the grace to let go of our fears and failures. It is the mercy to let others make mistakes and love them anyway. It is the grace to find a way to love those who despise us. It is everything. Love, the kind of love we encounter in Jesus is everything.

            It isn’t much of a sales pitch to say Jesus has called us to suffer, to carry our crosses, to be slaves to one another. I guarantee that if I sold a transactional gospel, if I told you week after week that if you give all your money to the church, you would be rewarded with mansions here on earth. If I told you that all God wants of us is to sing praise songs and care only for those who look like us and speak our language we would see every pew filled.  And, I will not lie to you, the anxiety that keeps me up some nights, that evil thought that we should change our message, tempts me to do just that. But the God I serve, tells us that we are to love one another. That we are to serve one another. That we are to lay down our lives for one another even if it means our death.

            I will not lie to you and say this road is easy to travel. I will not sell you a quick fix. I will only share the deep abiding love that Jesus has shared with me and with you. I will tell you that there is a power greater than all the leaders of this world. There is a hope more tenacious than any fear. There is a king of the universe who does not rule with threats and torture. There is the king of love who chose to sit with those who would betray him. He chose to love them knowing what they would do. He chose to feed the ones who would give him over to the authorities of his day and time. He chose to allow the torture he faced because it is in giving his life that our salvation was accomplishes. And, Jesus commissions us to serve in the same way. Loving with abandon. Caring for the least of these. Giving our time our talents and our treasure not to earn a place in heaven but to make life here on earth a little better for those around us. And it is for this we can say. Thanks be to God. Amen

New Beginnings

Matthew 1: 20. Advent 1

Rev. Jennifer Dawson

20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit

God with us, as we begin this Advent season, let us grow in awe of the wonders you have done among us. Let us look with new vision and see the beginning of something whimsical. And may the words of my mouth and the mediations of our hearts be acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the Word was God.  This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about. God is all about beginnings. Even at Jesus’ death. God began a new world through the resurrection. And each time a baby is born a new life begins. Every time an accident permanently changes our lives, a new life begins. Every time we face the loss of a loved new life begins. Every time we fall in love a new life begins. You have heard it said that nothing is certain but death and taxes. A better phrase might be nothing is certain but endings and beginnings. And there is beauty in both beginnings and endings.

          Genesis is the Greek word for beginning. It is used first in the story of creation. In the Genesis, God created the heavens and the earth. In the Genesis, the Word and the word was with God and the Word was God. Matthew uses this theme of beginnings to make it clear to the reader that God is doing something that has not been done before. God is beginning a new thing. A whole new world because with Jesus on earth, everything is different. When God shows up and walks around turning water into wine, the world is fundamentally changed. And when we surrender our hearts and wills to Jesus our new world begins.

          The Christmas story is familiar to those of us my age and older. Fewer and fewer younger people seem to know the story. Our world has changed so much over the years. People my daughters’ age tend not to go to church. Their understanding of Christmas is vastly different than ours. Listening to children who don’t go to church describing Christmas is revealing.

          Christmas is a time to get presents. Christmas is a time that celebrates Santa. Christmas is movies about love and miracles and lives transformed. So much of our world has forgotten about Jeus. Which is interestingly proper in light of Jesus life.

          The new world began with a very ordinary engaged couple. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about them. They lived like everyone they knew. The Romans and the Jewish elites were annoying because they held all the power and most of the money. Normal people had to work hard to maintain any quality of life. Not terribly different from today.

          In the way things happen, the engaged couple encountered a problem. Mary was pregnant. Joseph was sure that she had messed around on him. He wondered what he should do. It was a bad situation. He didn’t want to raise someone else’s kid. He was a good man and thought that Mary just made a mistake. He would quietly release her from the engagement. No need to bring in all the authorities who would punish her severely. Just as he makes up his mind, an angel appears.

          Most of us think of angels as beautiful men dressed in robes with wings on their back. God doesn’t deal in soft angels. God creates angels that are terrifying. You may have seen pictures of biblically accurate angels. They look more like some kind of monster than beautiful creatures. I imagine Joseph paid attention to the angel because he was afraid he would be destroyed. It is a reasonable fear. Angels dropping by means that you will have to change your life in one way or another.

          That was certainly true for Joseph. The angel told him that his soon-to-be wife was pregnant with the Holy Spirit’s baby. The angel told him that he would be named Jesus. And in that holy moment Joseph accepted Mary’s baby as his own adopted son.

          The little family had a new beginning. No longer thinking he had been betrayed, Joseph jumped into supportive husband mode.

          Matthew tells the story from Joseph’s perspective. The angels talk to him. He is the one who must protect the family from danger. Those in power are always threatened by anything that would take away their power. Power is addictive. Power is seductive. Power over others creates in us an unhealthy view of the world.  Powerful people do not want a new beginning. They want to hold on to every bit of power they have.

          But God isn’t like that. God doesn’t need to coerce us into giving over our hopes and our fears. God approaches us gently. God comes to us singing lullabies. God awakens in our hearts a desire for something more. Something greater than this world with all its problems. God comes to the earth not like an avenging war lord. Jesus comes to the earth as a baby. A quite ordinary baby with two parents and a bunch of questions.

          I enjoy the way Matthew tells the story with Joseph as the center of attention. Mary has to deal with a lot too, but Joseph faces his own fear. Joseph is supposed to have faith enough to believe what an angel tells him is true. I mean, an angel shows up and provides an alibi for your soon-to-be-wife? What is that about? Maybe Mary had slipped something in his drink so he would have this vision, and she and the baby would be safe. And everyone would either know she had cheated on him or they would think both of them were sneaking around before the marriage.

          The angel tells him what angels always tell people. Do not fear. Do not fear because God is doing something here. God is doing a new thing and we don’t understand it. We look at the bleakest of winter, the loss of our dreams and we see tragedy. But beloved, everything that happens-all the good, the bad, all of it is redeemed in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. We cannot even begin to tell the story of Jesus without witnessing all the terrors he faced.

          Jesus was born to parents who were ill equipped to handle such a mystery. They were just average people. Probably on the lower end of wealth spectrum. They were being persecuted by the wealthy and the elite, the Jews and the Romans. They were the little people, the hoi polio, just ordinary. They stepped out in faith that God had something in store for them. They fled from their homeland to Egypt. They would rather have gone anywhere else. I don’t know if they had appropriate paperwork, but I do know they had a baby.

          There are days when it feels like nothing will ever be right again. There are nights so beautiful it is as though the stars are reaching down to wrap us in their light. There are moments so holy that they cannot be described as good or bad. They are simply holy. Simple. Ordinary. Average. Holy.

          The holy rarely shows up in the form of a terrifying angel. The holy shows up in children’s books. The holy is revealed watching a woman decorating the house or the church for Christmas. The holy is revealed at the dinner table set with paper plates or set with China. The holy comes to us as we wash the dishes. The holy is with us when we struggle and when we rejoice. All of it. All of our lives. All of the times God begins a new thing in us. All of the days we walk with Jesus in faith. All the new things come from God, a God who in Jesus joined us and walked the earth with us and danced at weddings, blessed babies, fed the hungry. Jesus our Immanuel is coming. Just as he did as a baby. Jesus is coming and Jesus is here and Jesus will be in the fullness of time and we, beloved, we can sing and dance because Jesus loves us, us ordinary humans doing the extraordinary work of loving one another. We get to live this one beautiful ordinary life dancing through the slings and arrows and waltzing through beauty and hope. We are so fortunate beloved. So fortunate and so well loved. And it is for this that we can say, thanks be to God Amen