Living Life After Death

My work as a hospice counselor often provides me with very intense moments between absolute, tangible, gut wrenching grief to small tears slowly coming down a silent face now wrapped in a look of "long time coming" relief.  These moments often challenge me to truly stay centered and non-anxious.  After all, how does one maintain a calm demeanor when you are the one crying more than the family you are with?  I learned long ago that to establish a sense of calm, I need to just breathe and let the moments around me unfold.  This is not to say I am not thinking about what I am experiencing, rather it is to let go the need to intervene in every second of what's going on.  I know too many people who feel they have to somehow make everyone else feel better by "doing something."  They only make themselves feel better because they perceive they are needed.  Let's face it.  We all like to be needed, but the question becomes, to what degree?  When I am called to a crisis, I tend to ask why.  I want to know what I am walking into.  It makes sense if you think about it.  Yet, what I know to be true is that there are always going to be those moments that cannot be defined or assessed.  

Such intense grief soaked moments are often difficult to put words to.  These moments cannot be limited just to human language as they can be thickened with feelings, emotions, silence, and everything in between.  I can honestly say that being with people in the very epicenter of a crisis simply is an exercise in in the management and availability of my own empathy and compassion for others.  This is not easy.  My own emotional availability might be concerned about what's genuinely my own life.  The real world tends to not want to wait around for me to "feel" like doing what I am trained to do.  Yet I plug away at it.  Sometimes the most simple of moments is being with someone in silence as they kiss and hug their loved for the last time before being taken into the care of a loving funeral home.  It is a beautiful moment, yet the sadness stings for the one who is left to make a new normal for themselves.  The Beatles once sang "Life goes on."  Life does go on, but life has become redefined by the absence of the one who has died.  Perhaps life feels foreign, alien, or strange without the familiarity of the deceased to give comfort, snuggle up with, or say "I love you" one more time.  

I can tell you, I have learned more about grief and loss in this past year alone than I have ever known in my lifetime.  It has been an intense year for me, and for others.  I walk with others who feel the sting of death awaken their pain to cry and weep, to ask the question, "why," to feel cheated out of what was supposed to be, to exist with a nameless hole in the chest, and perhaps to live without any regrets at all other than to hear the voice of their loved one, just one more time.  This is grief.  Grief is this strange and uncomfortable stranger that enters into our lives without warning, without an invitation, and without the possibility it will leave on its own.  Grief takes time to move through.  It will always exist somewhere deep within the heart who has experienced it, and it will lessen its grip as time goes on.  Yet, like a terribly cold day, grief will bite the exposed feelings only to leave them numb and hurting at the most unexpected moments during an average, ordinary day.  Perhaps we are reminded of our loved ones in death by way of actually seeing them or we are reminded of their own experiences being welcomed by celestial beings this world simply cannot see, yet those who are close to leaving this world, truly can.    

I cannot begin to tell you how many people share what they experience when their loved one is dying who may have "visions."  These may be visions of angels or other worldly beings who somehow beckon them to cross over and be welcomed into the destination they are going to.  I was once with a dying man who only had less than hour to live (I didn't know that at the time).  After introducing myself to him, he said something really soft to me.  I leaned in close to hear him.  He said, "Chaplain, do you see them?"  I asked him who he saw.  He replied, "Angels.  They are standing in each corner of this room, and they are asking me to come with them."  I asked him how this made him feel.  The man said, "I feel welcomed."  The look on his face told me he was going to die with the deepest sense of peace he could feel in that living room where his hospital bed now occupied the space his good chair used to reside, where he would sit and yell at the Brewers when they were blowing it again.  I have heard many similar stories from both patients and families who often tell me hushed tones of their other worldly experience.  I tend not to question these stories any more nor do I possess any sense of skepticism when it comes to actually believing them.  Who am I to judge whether a person is "right or wrong" when it comes to what their now deceased loved one experienced.  I have seen too many people and experienced too many incidents to convince me that there is indeed a transition point when we do actually leave this world for another.  Whether or not we actually get there is another question.  

I like to think that we all make it wherever we are going.  Did we expect to get there?  Is it all we had hoped for?  We all have to take that journey on our own someday, yet for now, we are here for others in theirs.  We experience the painful release of someone we loved so very much in this world only to hope they are indeed in a place of peace.  We hope for them, and we hope for us.  Our hope is in the days ahead.  Strength and resolve will return.  Maybe the hole that no one sees will begin to fill back in ever so slowly.  Maybe we will cry less.  Maybe we will laugh again.  Maybe we will find it easier to tell stories and memories.  Maybe our lives will recover from the brutal tailspin of having experienced death without warning.  Maybe our lives will be reframed to see the meaning within them.  Maybe death opens our eyes to see the sacred around us and be thankful for the moments, the beauty, and the silence given to us.              

Regret, Redefine, Reborn

I never meant to be a fat man. But I ignored me. Yes, I paid attention to myself by putting unhealthy food into my body for years. For years, I bullshitted myself into believing that I could change on my own terms. My own terms were just a mask to cover the reality that I was angry at my body. I was angry at my past. I was angry at all the voices in grade school, junior high, and high school who made me feel like the outsider I really was. I kept hearing voices of disgust and teasing as I was in the locker room or shower. These were the voices that held my attention for almost 25 years. Today, they are dead. The people that own those voices are very much alive, but their voices are muted and pushed off my shoulders into the past where they should be. These are the voices who were mean with their words and their presence. Forgiveness you ask? How do you forgive voices? Voices have hurt and compressed my anger to the point that I was eating myself into their expectations and musings. These were the people who made me feel worthless and excluded. It's not easy to forgive the voices much less the people who own them.

I was becoming something more than that though. I was becoming a dead man. I was eating myself into an early grave. My doctor recently said, “If you continue to eat the way you do, and not exercise or do anything about it, you will die in ten years.” I was eating to make me feel good when deep inside I was nothing but miserable. I was hurt by my past and my present wasn’t any better. Yes, we all feel some sense of alienation when growing up, but I had and continue to have a very sensitive heart for people. All I wanted was to be included by people. And I experienced this at times. There were some good moments of feeling included. Yet even within the profession of being a pastor, parishioners who claim to be friends, are not really, because they do not include, offer words of care, and more or less exclude by their silence. They have preference and it hurts. I thought as adults, we would stop such behavior. I was wrong. This is why I am sensitive to those who find themselves on the periphery of existence. I want to include those who are seen as disposable and expendable. When humanity is responsible for slicing and dicing people into those who fit and those who do not, it makes me sad. I do not see people through eyes of preference or false claims.

I am saddened by how society treats people of size. I am one of them. Yes, I chose to be here. But I no longer am going to be held down by such a category. I am worth more than words of category or words held deaf to the past. I am worth more than eating myself into feelings of hurt, betrayal, and frustration of those left behind who seek to make sense of my death. I am worth living a long life. I am worth living a life on my terms. I am worth living a life without the voices of the past cornering me into a place of self-hate and self-disgust. I am worth giving myself respect and dignity when I have denied myself those very things. I am ashamed by how a lack of love, control, and worth equals excessive weight. I am tired of living without concern or care.

I am going to love myself enough to treat my body as a beautiful creation. I am going to love myself so that I can love others even more. I am going to love myself because I respect myself. Food no longer has control over me. I have gripped food around its greasy neck and squeezed the hell out of it. No longer will I be held captive to the choices I have made and the fast food nightmares my body has endured. No longer will I eat without thought. I will eat to see tomorrow, next year, ten years, fifty years. I want to survive and live. For years, my body was screaming for attention, and now it has it. I am watching it, and watching what I put into it. I have no choice anymore. I want to live and I am going to do it, because life is a gift that I choose each day. I am doing it. I am living for the first time. I am reborn and it feels damn good.

God Is Done Whispering...

I realize that I have not blogged in a while. Simply because I lost interest. I had a great call to a great church. I did not feel the need to really air my hurt and disgust at the church anymore simply because I was in a place of healing and repair. It was a reciprocal process. The church needed me as I needed it. I can honestly say that if my ministry ended completely, at least I served a church that was indeed, trying to BE the church. So, to bring you up to speed. I left that call to pursue my passion of professional chaplaincy. It has been a wonderful, eye opening, and self-revealing process and experience. One that I am forever thankful and grateful for, as I feel I am being reborn all over again. It is at once, a beautiful and painful process of self-discovery in terms of knowing who the hell I am, where I come from, how I behave, what motivations are there, understanding teaming, etc. It is full of parallel process. I see patients everyday who make me think of something in my own life. This has been one of the most challenging aspects of this experience for me. No one really likes to look into a mirror to see what's really revealed. In this case, when I see others, it is at times, like looking into a mirror to see a reflection of who I am, and what I am.

Not long ago, I was paged to a Code Blue. A code blue is when a patient is all of a sudden unresponsive meaning the heart has stopped, the patient is not breathing, no pulse, etc. I arrived to the room, only to see around 18 people working as hard as they could to revive this man. I stood outside the room as I was told only medical people were allowed in the room. This was the first time I felt "out of place" by an MD. But I respected the situation and chose to be a presence on the side. When all was said and done, I accompanied the patient down to ICU with the cardiologist and RN. The patient was wheeled into a room, medical people did what they had to do to settle him into the surroundings, and I was there alone with him. This is where I looked into the mirror. The patient was a large man, pushing at least 450. He was in his mid-50's, not married, no children or family present. Here he was hooked to tubes and wires, was intubated, and all I could see was myself. I thought to myself, "If I continue to eat and not exercise the way I have been doing all these years, I will end up like this guy." This is the purest definition of parallel process as it gets. Although he really didn't have family, I felt so much compassion for this man. It is the sad part that when the MD tried to contact the one emergency contact, he could not be found.

The next day, my colleague was on call and was paged to come to ICU. The patient that I had prayed for and saw myself in, died. The heart attack was so severe that the only was he was kept alive was through machines. Once family had been contacted and brought in the patient's advanced medical directive, it was found that he did not want to be in his present state of being kept artificially alive. This man was extubated, wires and tubes removed, IV gone, and left to die a natural death where his heart would just stop. The next week, I found his obituary online and it was fairly small, no back story or family mentioned. Name, age, time of death, funeral and burial information were the only bits of information offered. I was sad to see such a few words to speak about this man who obviously had a story, but perhaps someone did not feel it was important that it be at least mentioned to celebrate his life.

Last Wednesday morning, I woke up at about 0430 with chest pains. They were severe enough to get me out of bed. I got dressed, packed the man-child and dropped him off, and went north thinking I was heading into work. Instead I took a detour into St. Mary's. By this time, my chest was hurting. When you go to the ER and say you have chest pains, it does not take long for people to surround you and get you on telemetry and take an EKG. I was also given some meds to open blood vessels and oh yeah, calm me down. They moved me into a heart observation area by the ER where I am fairly sure RNs play cards to see who will be on shift for these rooms. I still have no clue who my nurse was for the night I was there. Long story short, I took a physical stress test which did not last too long. I was then given a nuclear test (chemical test) to stress my heart that way. Let's say it was one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced. They then took pics of my heart under stress, and the plan was to keep me overnight and take pics of my heart in the AM of my heart at rest. They did both. In the morning the MD came in and I quote, "Well, the bad news is that the cardiologist thinks he may have found something on your heart. He cannot say for sure because it might be what's called an artifact (a blur) or it could be a blockage." I immediately stopped listening to what the MD said next. It was like listening to the Charlie Brown teacher. She left and I sat on the bed and cried. I was scared. My mind immediately went to, "On my God, I am going to die." I was all alone in that moment and all I could think about was my wife and kids. It was a moment I will never forget. I am going to see a cardiologist to talk about options. I might need to have an exploratory procedure done to see if there is a blockage. If there is, they can stent it. I am still scared and yet this has forced me to change my lifestyle right NOW.

You know, this whole experience of being in a clinical residency where I get to be a student of the soul is both revealing and affirming who God is making me to be. There are moments of revelation that are not pleasant because then I have to confront my growth areas. These are the moments that as painful as they are, I am thankful for them. It means that I am changing, I am evolving, and I am transforming into a better man of God. I work in a place that reminds me that life is a gift. Life is precious. Death can occur at any moment of our lives. If there is a reminder I see at the hospital weekly, is that there is a fine line between life and death. People who continue to smoke, eat anything and everything they want, remain addicted to substances, or continue to ignore the MD's orders to simply take their medications; these are ones who ride that fine line. I want to expand that line from life to death as far as I can because I am worth it. My friends are worth it. My family is worth it. I have more life I want to live. And by God, I am going to be conscious of being a healthy person who takes care of himself because from here, new life is possible.

Christmas Eve 2009

Welcome The Gift Who Arrives
Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)

TJ was big for his age – seven years old. He was awkward in his mannerisms and his speech, kind of a slow learner. Everyone in TJ’s class wondered what role the music teacher would give in the upcoming Christmas play. Maybe she’d let him pull the open the curtain. When the parts were finally assigned, to everyone’s surprise in the class, the music teacher gave TJ the role of the innkeeper. The boy was overjoyed to get the part. After all, all he had to learn was just one line: “There is no room for you here.” He studied that one line and committed it to memory. The big night finally came. Every seat in the theater was filled.

Cameras and video cameras were at the ready, the house lights went down, and the audience went silent. The classes all entered singing “O Come All Ye Faithful,” as they took their place on the risers. When the set was wheeled in just left of the singers, Mary and Joseph entered and walked to the front door of the inn. Joseph knocked. TJ opened the door, and Joseph said, “Please sir, do you have any room for the night? My wife is… TJ was supposed to interrupt him with his line, but he hesitated. “There is…” He had practiced the line all day and now he forgot it. TJ started over again. “There is…” And again his mind went completely blank. Some singers behind him snickered, but TJ just didn’t know what to do. Joseph wanting to move on, took Mary’s hand and started walking away toward the stable down-stage. Seeing the young couple walk away disappointed, TJ out of desperation said the only thing he could, “Wait, there’s room at my house.”

When we scan the characters of the Christmas story, we recognize their roles, we are familiar with them, and we have grown close to them over the years. We hear about the perseverance of the far eastern astrologers who made the long trek, bringing with them the rare gifts fit for a true king. We think about the ever vigilant young men tending to their sheep on the outskirts of town, and why this group of people was the first to tell of the coming of God among them. They are the heroes of the story.

Yet, when we think of innkeeper, our immediate opinion of him is not so positive. It’s as if we see him standing there in the doorway of the inn, yawning from his disturbed sleep, giving Mary and Joseph the evil eye, and with the long day behind him, the inn full of nagging guests in their rooms snoring away, from an unwilling attitude to help, he says, “Take the stable out back and leave me alone.” We’d like to think that the innkeeper was a little more understanding, but maybe at that hour, after welcoming so many into the inn, fielding the many concerns and questions of his guests about the census, and maybe the final straw was running out of clean towels and vanity soaps, the innkeeper’s fuse was shortened because of the long day.

Yet, regardless of what was said to Mary and Joseph by the innkeeper, the hard reality of that night, was that there was no room at that inn to be found for the young family expecting their first child. It was if the very first message Jesus ever received from the earth he came to was one of rejection: “there’s no room for you here Jesus.”

Looking back at any situation offers a 20/20 perspective. Had the innkeeper known who was knocking at his door that night, would he have been overjoyed like young TJ was, to offer the young holy family his own room? Would he have welcomed the baby Jesus into his own his own home, into his own place of business, and more importantly, into his own life? Would the innkeeper having looked back and realized who he could not welcome into his life, would it have changed his perspective about this desperate young father and mother to be? How would his life have changed had there been room enough for Jesus to come on in….not only into his home, but into his heart?

I can’t blame the innkeeper. Because the innkeeper is us. It’s easy to not pay attention to the unannounced knocking of God in our hearts, when we are too preoccupied to welcome Him. Everyone of us in some way, shape, or form, has simply gone on with our own business, adding to the chaos of a blurry world of activity, schedules, and deadlines, blatantly oblivious to the signs of the holy around us. We thank God for coming, but we’d rather live by our own priorities. Maybe we can squeeze God in only when we determine there’s room enough for Him. Maybe we give God only room enough to come to us when we assume we know how much space He requires. And, yet without question or second thought, as we sing the mighty song “Joy To The World” at the top of our lungs, we proclaim “Let every heart prepare Him room.” When the arrival of God is treated as another thing we have to find room for, it’s not really a gift is it? Don’t we sense that our lives are worth more than just adding to the emptiness within? Don’t we sense there could be so much more in us than just another year of disappointments, empty promises, or regrets? Don’t we sense the best gift is welcomed into our hearts, right here tonight?

The baby Jesus comes so that all people will experience the fullness of God’s presence in their lives, in their jobs, in their families, and in the very center of what gives them life; people will experience God in their hearts. God comes to each of us tonight, so that we might be filled with His very life; a life that began in the soft beauty of a baby. Isn’t this the best gift we can receive?

Receiving this gift as we do reminds me of a story I once read that I’d like to share with you.

We were the only family with children in the restaurant. I sat my infant son Erik in a high chair and noticed everyone was quietly eating and talking. Suddenly, Erik squealed with glee and said, "Hi there." He pounded his fat baby hands on the highchair tray. His eyes were wide with excitement and his mouth was bared in a toothless grin. He wriggled and giggled with merriment. I looked around and saw the source of his merriment. It was a man with a tattered rag of a coat: dirty, greasy and worn. His pants were baggy with a zipper at half-mast and his toes poked out of would-be boots. His shirt was dirty and his hair was uncombed, matted, and unwashed. His whiskers were too short to be called a beard and his nose was so varicose it looked like a road map.

We were too far from him to smell, but I am sure he smelled. His hands waved and flapped on loose wrists. "Hi there, baby; hi there, big boy. I see ya, buster," the man said to Erik. husband and I exchanged looks as if to ask, "What do we do?" Erik continued to laugh and wave at him. Everyone in the restaurant noticed and looked at us and then at the man. They all kind of gave us staring glares as if to say, how dare you bring your baby here and make so much noise while we’re eating, and with your baby giving attention to that man who doesn’t deserve it!

The old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby. Our meal came and the man began shouting from across the room, "Do ya know patty cake? Do you know peek-a-boo? Hey, look, he knows peek-a-boo." Nobody thought the old man was cute. He was obviously drunk. My husband and I were embarrassed. We all sat there and ate in silence; all except for Erik, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring skid-row bum, who in turn, reciprocated with his cute comments. We finally got through the meal and headed for the door. My husband went to pay the check and told me to meet him in the parking lot.

The old man sat poised between me and the door. As soon as I saw the situation, I immediately prayed, "Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Erik.” As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back trying to shield Erik, but Erik leaned over my arm, reaching with both arms in a baby's "pick-me-up" position. Before I could stop him, Erik had propelled himself from my arms to the man's. Suddenly a very old smelly man and a very young happy baby met in a beautiful relationship. Erik, in an act of total trust, love, and submission laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder.

The man's eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime, pain, and years of hard labor--gently, so gently, cradled my baby's bottom and stroked his back. No two beings have ever loved so deeply for so short a time. I stood speechless.

The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms for a moment, and then his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a soft gentle voice, "You take care of this baby." Somehow I managed, "I will," from the bolder in my throat. He pried Erik from his chest--unwillingly, longingly, as though he were in pain. I received my baby, and the man said, "God bless you, ma'am, you've given me my Christmas gift." I said nothing more than a muttered thanks. And with Erik in my arms, I ran for the car.

My husband was wondering why I was crying and holding Erik so tightly, and why I was saying, "My God, my God, forgive me." I had just witnessed complete and unconditional love shown through the innocence of a tiny child who saw no sin, who made no judgment; a child who saw a soul, and a mother who saw a suit of clothes. I was a follower of Jesus who was blind, holding a child who was not. It was as if God was asking-- "Are you willing to share your son just for a moment?"--when God shared His son for all eternity? The ragged old man, unwittingly, had reminded me, "The best gift is given out of love.”

Isn’t that the true picture of Christmas tonight? We are that old man; dirty, grimy, hungry, stuck in the truck stop of our daily lives. And Jesus is the baby who giggles at us, waves to us, and when he is close to us, leaps from God’s arms, reaches out to us, and embraces us. We are the ones who hold Jesus for ourselves. That’s when we feel the tears swell up as we close our eyes, gently treasuring this moment as if it’s the gift we’ve always been waiting for. This is the gift that fills our hearts, occupying it to its fullest capacity. This is God’s beautiful gift given to us tonight.

My friends, peace always be with you. Amen.

3rd Week Of Advent

The Voice Invites Us
Luke 3:7-18

In a 1959 speech given in Indianapolis, President Kennedy said, “When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters – one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.” The tone of John the Baptizer’s words tonight/this morning is one of immediacy. The people of Israel are in crisis even if they aren’t fully aware of it. John’s words have all the signs of danger where judgment is possible. And yet, his words also take on this sense that opportunity has arrived and people are invited to respond to it. Within the urgency and integrity of John’s message was judgment, but in the judgment was opportunity, and opportunity was proclaimed to the people in the word “repent.”

Our gospel text says that John “went into all the country around the Jordan and, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Immediately for some, this was incredibly good news. In repenting, people no longer had to be defined by their past. People no longer had to be captive to their failures, their choices, or their inadequacies. The people could repent. They could move on. They could be given a new slate. They could start over.

“Wouldn’t you be untrusting of a world where repentance wasn’t possible? What if there was no chance to repent and start over? Some might even define hell as being that place. Hell is a place where there is no possibility of repentance. There’s no way out, no chance to get rid of the past, no chance to start again. Hell defines you by your past.” Repent is a word that is loaded with so much potential. “It pays us human beings a sublime compliment, because it says that you and I can do something about the course of life we are on. Animals don’t get that luxury…they live by the instincts demanded of them.” Human beings, you and I, have the ability to make course corrections. If we are on the wrong train of living, we can get off and get on another one that moves in the direction of our integrity and character. If we are headed down a path of self-destruction, we can make a 180 and choose a path that leads to life.

This doesn’t always mean that our past is wiped clean from us even if we do repent. Sometimes our past is needed to remind us where we’ve been. But that past does not have to determine where we are going. “Yes, we may not be able to change what we’ve already done, and we may not be able to fully escape the consequences of those past choices.” But we do not need to be on any sort of destructive path. The path that we are on determines the direction we are going, and when we repent, we change directions because we’ve changed our intention to go somewhere else. We can repent, make a 180, and start the journey over. John’s words call people into this gift of repentance, this very gift of God for those who really want it, for those who really see the potential to a new beginning, for those who see nothing but hope in front of them. “His words might have been sharp and penetrating but he led the people to a door, to an opportunity, to a way out from their sinful lives and accept the gift of God to start over.”

With his words, John attracted all kinds of people. There were those who were honestly seeking this gift of repentance; this opportunity for a new life. And then there were those who were seeking an easy way out. John warns them of superficial repentance saying, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”

For John, the message is clear. Each generation has to decide for themselves if they are going to be the people of God or not. No generation can assume to ride the coattails of their ethnic heritage in order to receive salvation. God will not be dependent on the physical descent of Israelites in order to accomplish His redemptive work. If that was God’s choice, God could certainly act with sovereign freedom to produce other children to Abraham out of the very lifeless stones in the desert. And because there wasn’t a shortage of stones, God was unlimited to make the numbers He needed to accomplish His redemptive work with or without the people of Israel.

As if it couldn’t be any more disappointing for people seeking an easy superficial way out, John adds that those who believe their actions as individuals bear no consequence on them as an entire people, the ax is already at the foot of the tree. If the people of Israel fail by their actions to produce good fruits of repentance, the ax of God could easily swing, uprooting the entire nation, falling by the judgment of God. If these people are not interested in being the people of God, how is God able to bring redemption to them unless they repent for all the right reasons? How will the people respond?

For any generation who seeks to be the people of God, redemption takes place only when the people own up to their own failures, their own greed, or their own indifference to others. When people have repented of their choices, there is room enough for redemption to enter in. This is the voice of John, preparing a way for the Lord, making straight paths for him, telling people the time has come to repent of the past, to make different choices today, to live a new life, because the Lord is coming and bringing salvation with him.

In being a redeemed people, it is right John says, to practice ethical reform, to show that those fruits of repentance really matter. It is right to show the evidence of a changed repentant heart. It is right to give out of one’s abundance. As Jesus will remind the people, “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be expected.” It is also right to refrain from exploiting people for personal gain either by overtaxing them or extorting money from them. To carelessly do either one was not living a repentant life.

This was John’s advice. “As incisive as his words were, this advice was practical as he spoke in terms the people could put into practice that very day.” People could decide for themselves that day to make a 180, turn around, and live as changed people, people willing to be the people of God. Or they could stay on the same course of life their on and assume they know better than John, trusting in their own understanding of salvation first.

John’s question set before the people is the same as our question today, will this generation be the people of God? Will this generation seek to go it alone when there is so much that is promised before us? Don’t the people know, that God is coming to be with His people? The prophet Zephaniah is quick to say, “The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in His love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.” For Zephaniah, the future is the same one John calls the people to prepare for: a future where the people of God will be eyewitnesses to God’s salvation.

These people will be redeemed. And when John asks the tough question, “will you people live that redemption,” people are left to decide for themselves if they will receive the one who is more powerful than John, “the one who will baptize all people with the Holy Spirit and fire?” Will they seize the opportunity to be the people of God, witnessing to God’s salvation among them?

Receiving John’s words is an opportunity to change ones outlook. It is to understand that God will restore His people, and the one who comes after John will be the very means for that restoration. As Professor Mark Kolden from Luther seminary says, “Jesus is both the one in whom God saves us and the model of the godly life for us; such salvation will thoroughly change us and it will be good for us and for others. Our lives are to be realigned toward God’s future salvation, right down to our daily work, our possessions, and our behavior. The Holy Spirit and the fire that come with Christ’s baptism are God’s way of changing us. If we hear this only in religious terms, we miss the biblical force of these words: “Spirit” is the same word as “wind,” and in this context perhaps it is more like God’s whirlwind, God’s tornado, which, along with the fire, turns everything upside down and gets rid of all the unessentials. The judgment must come; that is only good news in the sense that after the judgment comes the kingdom. After the threshing and burning of the chaff the wheat is gathered. After repentance comes forgiveness. After crucifixion comes resurrection. There is no other way, this gospel is telling us, than God’s way. And this is good news, for it is into this way that we and all flesh are invited.”

What an amazing opportunity you and I are invited into. “As we listen to the words of the Baptizer standing knee-deep in the cold waters of the Jordan,” there is no better time than now to prepare for the celebration of Jesus coming, to repent of our past and look forward to our future, to celebrate the arrival of God with arms raised high in expectation that the Lord is coming with mercy and grace enough for all of us. This is the time to be the people of God, to seize the opportunity witnessing to God’s salvation among us.

This is the time to be the people of God. This is the time to meet the advent of our Lord’s coming, where we the people of God stand in the waters of baptism rejoicing together and as one people, we say the words of Isaiah together, “Surely God is our salvation; we will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is our strength and our might; He has become our salvation.”

My friends, peace always be with you. Amen.


"Since using Blogger/Facebook is impossible to footnote and give credit due, I want make sure that those sermons and people are recognized for giving me inspiration for my own sermon. Even though my original sermon typed out has all the proper footnotes, unfortunately, here it just looks like random quotes. Please feel free to check these sermons/articles as they are well crafted and well worth the read." JMH

"The Divine Opportunity." J. Ellsworth Kallas
"The Birth of Jesus Never Saved Anyone: The Lucan Advent Texts." Professor Mark Kolden
"What Then Shall We Do?" Rev. Dr. William Willimon