Last Sunday we heard about Housing Initiatives of Princeton (HIP)’s great work and were invited to their Spring Gathering in May. Nassau is proud to partner with HIP to prevent the eviction of our neighbors and provide transitional housing to stabilize families and individuals as they experience housing disruption.
More information: housinginitiativesofprinceton.org
9:30 a.m. | Assembly Room
The call of the Gospel has always been to the impossible: resurrection. Resurrection presupposes death. It also dares to believe that death does not get the last word. A central question of this series, then, is this: In our moment, what might need to pass away so that the abundant life of Christ’s resurrection might be known?
Be linked in for Lent: each week small groups will study the same texts from a more personal and contemplative point of view, and Pastor Davis will preach them in Worship. Join us each Sunday morning as Nate Stucky leads the discussion in the Assembly Room.
Audio recordings will be posted below each class description.
Nate Stucky serves as Director of the Farminary Project at Princeton Theological Seminary. He grew up on a farm in Kansas where his love for Christian faith and agriculture first took root. After earning a BA in Music from Bethel College (KS), Stucky spent six years doing ecumenical youth ministry on the eastern shore of Maryland, and two years farming back in Kansas. After farming, Stucky earned an MDiv and a PhD (Practical Theology, Christian Education and Formation) from Princeton Theological Seminary. His scholarship explores questions of land, ecology, theology, agriculture, justice, joy, and Sabbath as they relate to theological education. He is the author of Wrestling with Rest: Inviting Youth to Discover the Gift of Sabbath. Ordained in the Mennonite Church (USA), Stucky engages Farminary work as integral to his calling to teaching ministry. Nate and Janel along with their children Joshua, Jenna, and Isaac, have been worshiping at Nassau Church since 2016.
Seven-Day CreationSeven-Day Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:3) During Lent our church community will journey together through Linked-In Learning, where adult education, small groups, and our preaching life intertwine. This week, we are reflecting on the very first story of the Bible, the story that started everything. What does it mean to reflect on creation during Lent, a traditional period of grief? Further, what does it mean to reflect on the creation story in the midst of ecological devastation, as wildfires and floods cause displacement and chaos? Perhaps the story may bring us to lament, to cry out for the abundant goodness we have commodified and extracted from the earth. Perhaps it will lead us to act, to make new resolutions to protect the holy greenness of this world we share. Whatever this deeply generative text brings us this week, we will remember that there is no creation without rest. As the land rests this winter, and as the soil lies fallow before producing new growth, let us treat our bodies gently as we learn from the creative God of rest.
📷 “Seven-Day Creation” by Lin Henke, from a photograph of The Farminary Project of Princeton Theological Seminary ©2025. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Creation, Take 2During Lent our church community will journey together through Linked-In Learning, where adult education, small groups, and our preaching life intertwine. Our text this week gives us a different account of creation, and a new perspective on our God who plants, tends, and nurtures. The second creation account is a rich text we can use to explore our identity as humans— formed of dust, vitalized by the breath of God. But it is also a profoundly ecological text, filled with nonhuman characters such as rivers and trees. What if we read the text with newfound attention to these characters? What might be the significance of a garden full of “every kind of tree?” The garden in Eden is not just a pretty pastoral scene, but an ecologically diverse old growth forest. God plants a garden that is resilient, harmonious, and delightful in its diversity. And God puts humans there to tend and to keep the garden. This Lent, how can we live out our vocation of nurture, reflecting the example of our Creator? How can we protect mature forests and diverse ecosystems? The second creation narrative draws us into these questions, and into our calling as tenders of the garden.
📷 “Creation, Take Two” by Lin Henke, from a photograph of The Farminary Project of Princeton Theological Seminary ©2025. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The Garden Story ContinuesThis week’s reading is a tough one. From our previous stories of creation and harmony we now see Eve and Adam, and later their children Cain and Abel, as they leave the garden and navigate being human in a complicated world. For the first time, feelings of scarcity, jealousy, and resentment are a part of our story. And these fears impact not just the human characters, but the nonhuman as well. The mature forest of Eden is replaced with thorns and thistles, sure signs of annual agriculture and thin topsoil. Soil itself shows its ability to cry out to God when it is soaked with Abel’s blood. These difficult passages invite us to sit with feelings of grief about the darker sides of our human experience. They may bring us closer to the ground, to listen to the cries of injustice that permeate our world. And yet, as we honestly face our grief, we can also find God in our midst, sewing us garments to keep us warm, and listening attentively to the voice of the soil. How might we meet the God who is both tender and just as we reflect on these stories?
📷 “The Garden Story Continues” by Lin Henke, from a photograph of The Farminary Project of Princeton Theological Seminary ©2025. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Israelites in the Wilderness“Gather as much as you need.” It’s an old, old lesson, and it seems as hard for us as it was for the Israelites in the wilderness. In our story this week, God provides an abundance of food for the Israrelites as they travel through the wilderness in their exodus out of Egypt. As we reflect on manna from heaven, we might slow down and look for the gifts God has given us in our own lives, especially as plants begin poking up from the ground. Our land will once again bloom with more than enough food for all— will we store, or will we share? Will we learn the lesson of our God, and the lesson passed down by those indigenous to this land, to practice an honorable harvest? This week may our reflections lead us to gratitude, and may our gratitude lead us to generosity.
📷 “Israelites in the Wilderness” by Lin Henke, from a photograph of The Farminary Project of Princeton Theological Seminary ©2025. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Jesus Sends the TwelveIn this week’s reading, Jesus sends the twelve out into the villages, to proclaim and to heal. By asking the twelve to take nothing with them, Jesus calls his followers to courageously trust the communities they enter. Through this Lenten series, as we have reflected on stories from the garden of Eden to the Israelites in the wilderness, we have repeatedly encountered humans who refused to trust in the abundance of God. We know how hard it can be to trust our neighbors, to trust strangers, to trust that there is enough. But by answering Jesus’ call to go out with nothing, the disciples take on a posture of dependence, both with their fellow humans and with the more than human world. This week, how can we lean into our dependence on others? How can we let ourselves be nourished by the God of soil and rich harvest, the God who asks for nothing in return?
📷 “Jesus Sends the Twelve” by Lin Henke, from a photograph of The Farminary Project of Princeton Theological Seminary ©2025. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Remember me. We’re nearly at the end of our Lenten journey, in our sixth week of reflecting on the relationship between resurrection hope and God’s beautiful creation. As Jesus holds up the bread and the wine at the last supper, we might remember all we’ve witnessed along the way— the abundant fruit of the garden, bread in the wilderness, God’s call again and again to move into interdependence. We might remember all the ways we’ve failed to heed this call, from Abel’s blood crying out from the soil all the way to Judas, poised to betray. The Last Supper invites us into grief, and our grief lives close to hope. When we remember Jesus, we remember a long history of land and food, a history soaked in blood and blooming in possibility. Where will this remembrance take us? What is possible when we let ourselves be moved?
📷 “The Last Supper” by Lin Henke, from a photograph of The Farminary Project of Princeton Theological Seminary ©2025. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Sundays, 9:30 am, in the Assembly Room, unless otherwise noted
Audio recordings will be posted below each class description.
Our bodies are instruments tuned for praise, singing with the Spirit and understanding, proclaiming the redeeming work of God, and carrying the Gospel into our homes, community, and world. Come for a hymn sing that celebrates songs of welcome in the midst of exclusion, courage in the midst of fear, hope in the midst of despair, love in the midst of hate, and light in the midst of darkness. Lord, make us instruments of thy peace!
Due to the interactive nature of this class, no recording was attempted.
Noel Werner has been the Director of Music at Nassau Presbyterian Church since 2006. Prior to this position, he was the Minister of Music at Central Presbyterian Church in Summit, New Jersey. Noel holds degrees from Westminster Choir College, Indiana University (Bloomington), and Christian Theological Seminary (Disciples of Christ) in Indianapolis. His wife, the Rev. Wendi Werner, is the solo pastor of First Presbyterian Church at Dayton, New Jersey. They have two daughters, Sophie and Emily.
The word “unprecedented” is often overused these days. The reality is that U.S. democracy has often been imperiled and that constellations of power in this country have often been deeply unjust. In this session we’ll delve into some examples of how those who have gone before us have engaged faithfully in dangerous times. Far from suggesting that things never change, their example underscores the stakes of even the smallest efforts for a better church and world.
Dr. Heath W. Carter is the Associate Professor of American Christianity and Director of PhD Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. Carter is the author and/or co-editor of 4 books and is finishing another entitled On Earth as it is in Heaven: Social Christians and the Fight to End American Inequality. He is also an Editor at Large for Eerdmans Publishing Company and the senior co-editor of the Journal of Presbyterian History.
Despite centuries of Christianity in Ghana (Gold Coast in 1471), Ghanaian Christians continue to struggle with what it means to be Christian while maintaining their respective family relations and cultural identities. With ethnographic interview data from an ongoing Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC) research project on “The interplay between Christianity and indigenous religions in Ghanaian Christian funeral rites,” I wish to share with you some of my findings on how contemporary Ghanaian Christians negotiate their dual/multiple identities whether in the homeland or diaspora.
Rose Mary Amenga-Etego (PhD) is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Department for the Study of Religions, University of Ghana. She obtained her PhD from the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, after her BA and MPhil degrees in Religions from the University of Ghana. She is a Research Associate of the Research Institute for Theology and Religion, University of South Africa, Ghana’s Representative of the African Association for the Study of Religions and a member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians. She is also an Extraordinary Minister of the Holy Eucharistic and a catechist, teaching and learning the faith together with adult English-speaking catechumens of the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Chaplaincy in the University of Ghana campus. She is currently one of the OMSC Resident Scholars at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Learn about liberation theology in Latin America. Barreto will introduce concepts from his forthcoming book Base Ecumenism: Latin American Contributions to Ecumenical Praxis and Theology (Augsburg Fortress, Feb 2025).
This class was not recorded.
Raimundo C. Barreto is an associate professor of World Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he has been teaching since 2014. He holds a bachelor’s degree in theology from Seminário Teológico Batista do Norte do Brasil, an MDiv degree from McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, and a PhD in religion and society from Princeton Theological Seminary. Before coming to Princeton, he taught at various institutions in Brazil and was the director of the Division on Freedom and Justice at the Baptist World Alliance. Barreto is the author of Protesting Poverty: Protestants, Social Ethics, and the Poor in Brazil (Baylor University Press, 2023). He is the co-editor of the Journal of World Christianity and a co-covener of the Princeton World Christianity Conference.
Founded by the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, the WorkWell Partnership provides life skills and job training to people in Mercer County who have been released from prison, or whose lives have otherwise been affected by the justice system. WorkWell Executive Director Jeannette Rizk will give a short presentation, along with a board member and a WorkWell graduate, followed by a Q&A. Equipping people from underserved communities with skills, enabling them to take charge of their own destiny, removing walls—all this lies at the heart of WorkWell’s mission. Some of our most dedicated volunteers come from Nassau Presbyterian Church, which has also generously provided financial support.
Jeannette Rizk, the executive director of WorkWell, grew up in Egypt and earned an MA in anthropology from the American University in Cairo. After a series of adventures in the field of international development: helping launch a media-production NGO, assisting in the creation of a docu-drama series on HIV awareness in the Middle East, and teaching a directing course in Sudan and Morocco, she took a job with the European Union to set up an ecotourism company for the Bedouin Jabaleya tribe in the south Sinai. This was followed by jobs in which Jeannette developed strategies to turn Egyptian women’s handicraft skills into genuine business ventures.
John 1:1-16
December 24
David A. Davis
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I have told you before, and some may remember my description of the manger scene outside the Methodist Church a few miles from where we lived in south jersey. I drove past the Chews United Methodist Church almost every day for 14 years. Every Advent and Christmas the creche was staged right next to the church sign just off an intersection that had a stoplight. It was simple manger scene. A sort of barn-like back drop, some hay strewn around, with a manger that looked a bit like a fireplace grate. The only characters were Mary and Joseph and the Babe lying in the manger. No animals. No shepherds. No Magi. Stopped at the red light in December year after year, I sort of watched Mary and Joseph age before my eyes. Their bright clothes started to fade. Their faces started to chip. Their pious gaze started to look tired. They looked weathered in more ways than one. To be honest, they looked more like big lawn ornaments. I assumed since they were about waist-high, they were meant to be kneeling. But then during one red light, I realized they had no legs. Interestingly, over the years the Baby Jesus never got older or any bigger; never seemed to fade for that matter. He was always tucked in that manger.
One morning after a stormy, windy, snowy, night, I sat at the light and saw Mary and Joseph knocked over. It was a sorry sight. Mary and Joseph like turtles turned on their backs who couldn’t get up. The hay was all blown away. Part of the barn top was flapping just a bit, waving at the morning commuters. But Jesus, Jesus was there in the manger oblivious to the chaos of the night or the absence of his adoring, watchful parents. It was when my inspecting eyes turned to the Infant Holy, Infant lowly asleep but not on the hay. I made an unfortunate discovery. I found out why Jesus had not been disturbed from sleep by the storm. The baby was secured to that fireplace grate with a chain wrapped around his ankle. Chained and padlocked the baby was. That baby wasn’t going anywhere. That Jesus was never going to leave the manger.
You know, and as you heard, there is no Baby Jesus in the manger here in the Gospel of John. No “Do not be Afraid; for behold, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.” No “let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.” Here in John, all the pageant stuff is nowhere to be found. No angels. No shepherds. No Star. Not even a Mary, or a Joseph. No babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Instead of “Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger” in John “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” Instead of “So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying the manger” in John it is “He was in the world”. John’s version of the babe swaddled in the manger is this: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word became flesh. The Word that was with God and was God sheltered among us. God took sanctuary in the flesh. The Word became flesh. Flesh as in flesh and blood. Flesh as in what it means to be human. Flesh as in humankind. “We have seen God’s glory…God’s only son, full of grace and full of truth”. God’s glory is not in the heavenly host. Not a glory shone all around. No, the light of God’s glory is revealed in the grace and truth of Christ Jesus.
If you have not read David Brooks’s recent essay in the New York Times, you should find it and read it this Christmas. The title is “The Shock of Faith: It is Nothing Like I Thought it Would Be”. Brooks tells his own story of coming to faith as an adult and only in the last 10 or 15 years. He writes in a refreshingly personal and honest way. As he tries to find the words to describe both his faith and his journey to faith, he drops in quotes from scholars and theologians. But it was his own words at the very end of the piece I found most compelling. Brooks comes to the conclusion that for him, “faith” just isn’t the right word. He writes, “The word “faith” implies possession of something, whereas I experience faith as a yearning for something beautiful that I can sense but not fully grasp. For me faith is more about longing and thirsting than knowing and possessing.” Brooks continues “Sometimes I feel pulled by a goodness that seems grand and far-off, a divine luminosity that hovers over the far horizon. Sometimes I feel pulled by concrete moments of holy delight that I witness right in front of my face — the sight of a rabbi laughing uproariously as his children pile over him during a Shabbat meal, the sight of a Catholic priest at a poor church looking radiantly to heaven as he holds the bread of Christ above his head. I’ve found that the most compelling proofs of God’s love come in moments of radical delight or radical goodness — in the example of those who serve the marginalized with postures of self-emptying love. Some days this longing for God feels like loneliness, separation from the thing desired. But mostly it feels like a venture toward something unbelievably worth wanting, some ultimate concern.”
Yearning for something beautiful that can’t be fully grasped. Longing for a goodness that is not just on some far horizon but a goodness revealed in concrete moments of holy delight right in front of our face. Compelling proof of God’s love in the example of those who serve the marginalized with postures of self-emptying love. Postures of self-emptying love. Use the word faith or not but it sounds a whole lot like a life of following the gospel that comes from the lips of the Christ Child lying in the manger tonight.
Another preacher once suggested that many seem to prefer the Jesus of the manger because he hasn’t said anything yet. Cute and cuddly is always safer than touching a leper or serving the poor or taking on the religious or forgiving a sinner or turning the other cheek or announcing a kingdom or dying and rising. Cute and cuddly is always safer than allowing your flesh to be transformed by his and knowing deep within his love for you is forever and seeing the world through his eyes and not yours. Cute and cuddly is always safer than holding the light of his glory up to the world’s darkness and then bearing witness in how you live to the wonders of his love. His love yearns to make of this old world, a new own in and through those who are his hands and feet.
Many seem to prefer a Jesus bound to the manger. When the earth aches for peace and people in far too many places in the world can’t remember a silent night, you can’t keep Jesus in the manger. When a heart somewhere near you is broken or forgiveness has become a lost art in a family or a lost soul is longing for home, you can’t just leave Jesus in the manger. When grief among those you love is real and raw, when the frailty of our humanity hits you like a truck, when death’s shout threatens to drown out resurrection hope and promise, you can’t leave Jesus in the manger. When people you love are afraid, when strangers around you live in fear, when so many aren’t sure who or what to trust, you can’t leave Jesus in the manger. When the shadows of hatred lengthen and blinding fear is stoked and the darkness of bitterness once again threatens the light, you can’t settle for a Jesus bound to the manger. When the empires of this world have run amok on power, serving the richest and most privileged while trampling on the weak and most vulnerable, those in power would of course prefer that Jesus and his gospel teaching be left shackled and drawn there in the manger. The powers and principalities of this world prefer a Baby Jesus in the manger who hasn’t said anything……yet.
But Jesus can’t be kept in the manger. Yes, the call of the light of God’s glory at Christmas is to stand and look into the manger and be overwhelmed, forever changed, by the Child’s fullness. Full of grace. Full of truth. And to be forever moved and transformed by his enduring love that will not let you go. Full of his grace. Full of his truth. Full of his love. Kneeling at the manger tonight, earning for something beautiful that can’t be fully grasped. Longing for a goodness that is not just on some far horizon but a goodness revealed in concrete moments of holy delight right in front of our face, crazing postures of self-emptying love. As you kneel at the manger tonight, never forget that God’s call on our lives is the call to unbind Jesus from the manger and turn to change the world with the shine of his love, the glory of his love.
Luke 2:8-20
December 22
David A. Davis
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Last week as I watched the Christmas Pageant on livestream, I was struck by how our young people sort of matriculate through the pageant to different roles as they grow older. Mary and Joseph (Adeline and Pierre) were both high school seniors. They were likely angels and shepherds years ago. I had a similar thought after we finished our Wee Christmas flash mob pop up pageant a few weeks ago. The last few years of Wee Christmas, members of the youth group help out with the littlest ones as they transform into Josephs and Marys and angels and shepherds and animals and wise ones. Wee Christmas has been around long enough that many of those youth group members would have been participants back in the day. I wish I remembered the kids who were shepherds several years ago. Actually, it was 2018. Some of you were there. Some of you have heard about what happened to the shepherds that day.
In 2018, I thought it would be a good idea to shake things up for Wee Christmas; to try something different. Of course, the script can’t really change. I thought we could introduce a bright shining star. I asked Edie Estrada if he could dig out one of his work lights that he uses for various projects around here and help me with Wee Christmas. As I led the shepherds around sanctuary with their stuffed sheep under their arms, we stopped here at the top of the aisle and I pointed to Ed who was standing on a small step ladder over near the piano. As I said “a angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them”, Ed flipped the switch on the small work light that he was holding up high. Well, I should have checked how bright the small work light was going to be. I think we temporary blinded the shepherds. I didn’t get to the part in the pageant describing the shepherds in fear covering their eyes because the poor shepherds had already hit the ground and covered their eyes. I guess I gave the angel line, “for see, I am bringing you good news of a great joy for all people.” That was unfortunate because the angels couldn’t see anything. It was likely the best year for the shepherds being terrified.
“The glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I am bringing you good news of a great joy for all people”. As the choir will sing in just a few minutes:
Glory to God in the highest,
and peace on earth
to those of good will.
Rejoice in God, all the earth;
serve the Lord with gladness.
Glory to God in the highest…
Come into God’s presence with joy.
Daniel Pinkham is the composer of this morning’s Christmas Cantata. “Glory to God in the highest. Come into God’s presence with joy. Glory and joy
This is a bit of an awkward thing to say on the fourth Sunday of Advent, but there is not as much “great joy” in the gospels as we would tend to think. I mean the phrase “great joy”. It only occurs three times in all four gospels. Here with the angel and the shepherds. In Matthew, it’s Easter morning when the women run from the empty tomb with “fear and great joy”. And then the only other occurrence of the words “great joy” comes again in Luke. It’s all the way at the end. After the empty tomb, after the Emmaus Road, just after the Risen Christ ascends into heaven, Luke records that the disciples “worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” That’s sort of it when it comes to “great joy”. The birth of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the ascension of Jesus…..and a whole lot of gospel in between.
As for “Glory of the Lord”, well, that’s pretty much an expression in the Hebrew bible Exodus, Moses, Mt Sinai, and the pillar of fire, the cloud. Exodus is full of “the glory of the Lord”. The “glory of the Lord” is pretty much the prophet Isaiah’s go to. “Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed”. (Is 40) “The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard” (Is 58). “The glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (Is. 60). The glory of the Lord and the Old Testament, like hand and glove. “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”. (Habakkuk 2:14)
When it comes to the New Testament and the “glory of the Lord”, not so much. To be sure there are plenty of examples of praise and adoration being offered to the glory of the Lord. An act of praise, a doxology offered to the glory of God, the glory of the Lord. But that’s a bit different than “the glory of the Lord shone all around”. The Apostle Paul asserts that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” But that’s not the same as blinding eyeful of the God’s glory.
Luke front loads the glory of the Lord and the great joy. The glory of the Lord and great joy bundled together. It comes here with some lowly, vulnerable shepherds in the middle of the night. Glory and great joy hovering in the sky over a birthing room that had to have been a life and death moment for both mother and child. On night when sheep, shepherds, mother, child were all at risk. Glory and great joy there at his first breath, the first cry. Glory and great joy paired not at the end but at the beginning. And the accent on glory forever shifted. The definition of glory shone forever changed. The gaze of on glory forever turned. “You will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” It is as if Luke is standing there with baby in hand, rocking the child, pointing with his head because his hands are full, cradling glory. As the choir will sing,
What a great mystery
and wondrous sacrament,
that the animals should behold
the new-born Lord
lying in a manger.
Glory. Joy. Mystery. And Wonder.
The glory of God come all the way down. The mystery and wonder of the Incarnation is the fancy way to say it. From the hosts of angels that served as a tent to those shepherds living in the field, a tent of God’s glory, to the child Jesus nursing at his mother’s breast. The glory of the Lord came down. Not just in the Child there in the manger, but God’s love made known in the flesh, in his life….in this life…..in this blasted life of ours. In his life, his teaching, his tears, his suffering, his death, his resurrection. Witnessing glory in his touch of sinners, welcoming strangers, caring for the sick, raising the dead, challenging power. Forgiveness unrestrained. Boundary lines crossed. The hungry fed. The oppressed lifted. The rich challenged. Widows and orphans tended to. Lepers touched. In the mystery and wonder, glory shines.
I checked in with New Testament Professor Eric Barreto about glory and great joy in Luke. Dr. Baretto pointed out to me that glory and great joy might not flow all through Luke but one theme that does is fear. Those terrified shepherds aren’t the only ones in fear in Luke. Fear is not only to angel appearances but to healings and miracles all through the gospel. For the shepherds here in chapter two, the angel of the Lord speaks of great joy smack in the midst of their fear. As the shepherds witness the glory of God made known not just in the heavenly host but in the Child Jesus there when they get to the manger, the light of God’s mystery and wonder leads them from fear to glorifying and praising God for ALL they had heard and seen. The shepherds own experience of joy in the mystery and wonder never that far from their fear. Terrified there in the field and still joy comes.
Think of the disciples at the end of the gospel when great joy comes back. They dropped their nets to follow Jesus and by any earthly measure, it didn’t go so well. Hollywood and Hallmark and call it the greatest story ever told. That’s not how to describe the storied lives of those 12 disciples. That’s not how to describe all that they witnessed along the way with Jesus. There was very real-world stuff along the way where the darkness was pulling ahead. They stood by as the crowds gathered for his torture and his murder. What Luke describes as a “spectacle”. You remember the two walking along the Emmaus Road trying to process it all before the Risen Christ comes alongside. They were walking along full of a grief most of us can understand. Amid all the fear of Luke’s gospel, still joy comes. Amid all that the darkness had to bring, still joy comes. Basking in the light of the mystery and wonder of his resurrection and ascension, great joy makes a comeback in Luke. A joy that is resistant to the word’s darkness.
I don’t need to remind you that we don’t live in a Hollywood/Hallmark world either. Amid all the real-world stuff of our lives, when darkness seems to be pulling ahead again and again, when the world shakes, when all that we witness and experience seems so very distant from the world God intends and the gospel we have learned from the lips of Jesus, still great joy comes in the resurrection hope and promise of God. God’s gift to us at Christmas, is that like the shepherds, we get to go to the manger and bask in the mystery and wonder of God’s love come all the way down. But as we stand here, by God’s grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can see all the way to the great joy that comes on the gospel’s far side as well. Amid all the real life stuff that comes in between, the mystery and wonder of the Christ Child, the one who is Risen indeed, is that great joy still comes in the here and now. Or as the choir will sing
Glory to God in the highest….
Know that the Lord is God:
it is God who made us and not we ourselves.
Glory to God in the highest…
Alleluia!
Cathy and I have a Christmas tradition of attending a performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto’s each year. Every year the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center offers a performance through McCarter Theater behind me at Richardson Auditorium. We attended the performance last Monday night. We have been to the Brandenburg’s a lot, more than I can count including one year at Lincoln Center. I also listen to classical music when I write my sermons. What comes first on my play list is the Brandenburg Concerto’s. I sat there on listening on Monday night realizing the beauty of the music has been the soundtrack of my sermon writing for twenty years. I think Monday was the most beautiful performance. The rather long performance of all the concertos seemed to pass so quickly. The exuberance of the musicians touched me in a fresh way. The connection of the incredible work of art to the weekly grind of sermon writing. It warmed my heart. What I am describing is that Monday night was an experience of joy.
I am guessing that technically, musically, aesthetically, these particular musicians didn’t play Bach any better or any different than all those other performances we have heard. But when darkness seems to be pulling ahead again and again, when the world shakes, when all that we witness and experience seems so very distant from the world God intends and the gospel we have learned from the lips of Jesus, finding just a bit of the mystery and wonder, the beauty and goodness in life, well, it brings such great joy. God’s gift of joy to a weathered pastor on just a Monday night. Looking for the light of joy in the world’s darkness. A bit of joy and a taste of resistance amid the real-stuff of life.