Faith - Our Divine DNA (Sermon)

 

“Faith – Our Divine DNA”

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

Romans 4:13-18

2/28/21 – Second Sunday of Lent

 

^13-14 The ancient promise made to Abraham and his descendants, that they should eventually possess the world, was given not because of any achievements made through obedience to the Law, but because of the righteousness which had its root in faith. For if, after all, they who pin their faith to keeping the Law were to inherit God’s world, it would make nonsense of faith in God himself, and destroy the whole point of the promise.

¹⁵ For we have already noted that the Law can produce no promise, only the threat of wrath to come. And, indeed if there were no Law the question of sin would not arise.

^16-17 The whole thing, then, is a matter of faith on [our] part and generosity on God’s. He gives the security of his own promise to all [people] who can be called “children of Abraham”, i.e. both those who have lived in faith by the Law, and those who have exhibited a faith like that of Abraham. To whichever group we belong, Abraham is in a real sense our father, as the scripture says: ‘I have made you a father of many nations’. This faith is valid because of the existence of God himself, who can make the dead live, and speak his Word to those who are yet unborn.

¹⁸ Abraham, when hope was dead within him, went on hoping in faith, believing that he would become “the father of many nations”. He relied on the word of God which definitely referred to ‘your descendants’.  (J.B. Phillips New Testament)

 

 

         Embattled and still in its infancy, the church in Rome must wrestle with one persistent, fundamental question: Who are we? And in a world marinating in anxiety, the early church, that wrestling is intense, passionate, and often violent. In determining its identity, the community has to decide how men and women relate; how leaders are chosen and empowered; how strangers are treated; and how those who threaten the community will be stopped, and either rehabilitated or punished. Like any other emerging community, the church must also decide how they will remember and interpret the past. What stories and whose stories will be told? How will prominent individuals and defining events be taught and remembered?

It seems to me that this very question holds a central place in our own nation’s current struggle with race. When a long-oppressed community begins to claim the beauty of its full humanity, and the power of its identity and history, those who have held influence over them and over the writing of history will, almost inevitably, feel threatened. And in a nation which has claimed spiritual/religious language as foundational, that struggle is as deeply theological as it is social, political, and economic. 

The councils that wrote the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds may have been shaping Christian theology, but they did so as much for political stability as for theological orthodoxy. At the direction of the emperor, they were deciding how, for the sake of the empire, to remember, interpret, and appropriate the enigma of Jesus, who, apparently, was not going away.

Setting up and maintaining the early Christian community became a kind of a cultural genome project. It sought to determine how the new community would be inseminated with the theological, political, social, and economic attributes of Jesus.

Forgive the somewhat graphic nature of that image, but we’re talking about personal and communal identity at the level of DNA. Who are we? And whose are we?

Every culture does this, and a vivid example from American culture is the story of George Washington confessing to his father that he cut down the cherry tree. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was in college before I learned who Parson Weems was, and how he fabricated and propagated that outright lie in order to teach children the virtues of telling the truth. Metaphors are inherent in religious language, but it’s always appropriate for a community to ask if it has strayed into the tactics of outright falsehoods.

Jesus leads his followers across the brand-new Red Sea called Resurrection.On the other side, people like Peter and Paul lead that same community into the wilderness of a brand-new spiritual and cultural identity. In doing so, they help to shape the community’s memory of not only the recent stories of Jesus, but the ancient stories of their faith. Paul pays particular attention to Abraham. And Abraham’s story, says Paul, is all about the fundamental characteristic of faith.

According to Paul, faith is the divine DNA that defines us. And by faith Paul means more than “believing in” God. He means trusting the God in whom we claim to believe, and he means loving that God by loving our neighbors with steadfast and non-sentimental resolve.

In making his point, Paul encourages the new faith community to alter its thousand-year-old understanding of the law, and, thus, of themselves. Honestly, though, I think Paul would say that he’s not really changing anything. He’s restoringthe community to its deepest and truest self. That’s why he uses Abraham rather than Moses as the standard.

To restore the people to their chromosomal faith, Paul scrapes away at all the legalism that has become a kind of fungus on their spiritual practices. Within the community, score-keeping has obscured and distorted their God-imaged character of servant-hearted trust and love. 

In an effort to pry the law from the people’s dying fingers, Paul says, “The Law can produce no promise, only the threat of wrath to come…The whole thing, then, is a matter of faith on [our] part and generosity on God’s…[And] faith is valid because of the existence of God…who can make the dead live…Abraham, when hope was dead within him, went on hoping in faith.”

Because the community’s identity hinges on their faith in and loyalty to God above all else, Paul demotes the law, and holds it in service to faith.

Having said that, let’s also acknowledge that every religion creates structures of theology and governance. We do that because all communities need structure to thrive. Even the laws of nature affirm this. Where would we be, for example, if gravity were not a dependable law? What if we had to live with the anxiety of coming untethered from the earth without warning, and floating away until gravity kicked in again, and yanked us back to earth with a splat?

I think Paul understands all of this. Still, when inserting himself into Rome’s struggle with who belongs and who doesn’t, the apostle makes the point that when Jesus-followers live as if the law represents our fundamental DNA, we inevitably do more to destroy the beauty and the wholeness of God’s Creation than we do to give thanks for it, and to steward it, and to share it. Wherever people seek to trust God and love neighbor, there is the community of faith. And if people can’t find that community in the Church, or in a congregation, they’ll leave it and create that community for themselves elsewhere. And who can blame them?

Jesus himself systematically dismantles the DNA of law-based religion. He openly flouts the law when he heals and picks grain on the Sabbath, when he fraternizes with Gentiles, prostitutes, tax collectors, and lepers. Five times in Matthew’s sermon on the mount, Jesus launches into a teaching on some holy law saying, “You have heard it said,” then he turns it inside out saying, “but I say to you.”

Jesus’ very life is the giving of a new law: The law of grace, the law by which we live in and proclaim the kingdom of God.

Paul is doing the same thing. In Romans 13 he writes these earth-shaking words: ^“The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder…[or] steal…[or] covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13:9-10)

Here’s the catch: The law of love cannot be followed by mere obedience. It takes practice and hard work. To abide by a law that says things like “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” requires the steel-toed boots of trust and the leather gloves of agape love made real by Resurrection. To abide by the law of grace is to embark on a journey. It is to go when God says, “Go,” even when a cost-benefit analysis proves the risk unjustified.

That is the journey of faith, the journey on which we rediscover our true, God-imaged selves and the eternal community of God’s kingdom of grace.

The Time Is Fulfilled (Sermon)

"The Time Is Fulfilled"

Mark 1:9-15

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

2/21/21

 

⁹In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.¹¹And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” ¹²And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

¹⁴Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, ¹⁵and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  (NRSV)

“The time is fulfilled…the Kingdom of God has come near.”

        We hear those words through ears conditioned by 2000 years of Christian tradition. First century Jews heard those words through theologically-conditioned ears, as well. However, foundering beneath the weight of Roman rule, Jews of Jesus’ day expected and even craved God’s kingdom to be a renewal and extension of David’s reign. They expected the messiah to set things right through military means. Those expectations made their culture a kind of petri dish for would-be messiahs. Men waving swords and claiming to be God’s Anointed popped up everywhere, and one after another faded into oblivion through either irrelevance or execution.

John the Baptist himself had to deflect the hopeful projections of messiah hunters. Don’t look at me, he said. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.”

Of all unlikely people, a carpenter from Nazareth shows up and begins to live a life of remarkable authority. His authority is so utterly different from the people’s expectations, though, that they only begin to imagine that Jesus could be the messiah when their concrete experiences of him begin to resurrect their spiritual memory. In particular they remember Isaiah who said: “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord…Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist…The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid.” (Selected verses from Isaiah 11:1-6)

       Mark identifies John as the voice crying out in the wilderness. He describes the coming of the Spirit at Jesus’ baptism. And he shows us wild beasts surrounding Jesus during his forty days of temptation. Through all this, Mark shapes the remembrance of Jesus as Isaiah’s suffering servant who says, The time is fulfilled.

And remember, Jesus takes years to mature into and to earn credibility as God’s offered messiah of reconciling love rather than an oppressed or a privileged people’s desired messiah of military might. For his part, though, Mark jumps straight into these connections. For him there is no reflective “What Child Is This,” no soppy “Away in a Manger,” not even any rousing “Joy to the World.” The earliest gospel writer begins his telling of the Good News not with the joyous celebrations of Christmas, but with the rigorous self-examination of Lent.

       The idea of time being “fulfilled” captures a lot of attention. Unfortunately, many people and groups associate God’s fulfillment of time with the end of time. Consumed with fear, trusting only violence, and motivated by extremely narrow world views, militant groups like the Taliban and the Oath Keepers continually grab headlines with their willingness to destroy almost anything or anyone they consider in their way. As different as such groups are ideologically, their tactics and effects are much the same. The authoritarian order they seek to create inevitably devolves into conflict, and even into chaos, because such order serves only their group. And it’s into that very dis-order that God continues to call people of faith to embody, to demonstrate, to live the reconciling love of Christ.

As Christians, we enter lives of transformational love through the Lenten discipline of repentance. To have any authority or credibility for addressing the ills around us, we have to begin by confessing the brokenness and incompleteness within us individually and within our institutions.

The very word repentance conjures up a variety of images. It evokes all manner of reactions. For many, repentance means turning from all those “bad things” sinners do. And while repentance can certainly apply to individual transgressions, biblical repentance refers to a community’s corporate turn from the overall conditions that make them feel defeated by or beholden to the seductive and destructive powers lying behind every Caesar and every Jezebel. To live inside the notion that, come what may, love will prevail in this world requires more than intellectual assent. It requires a courageous turn away from violence, greed, and fear, and a steadfast turn toward gratitude, hospitality, and justice.

Because pride and certainty are among the costs of taking up our cross and following Jesus, disciples may struggle with feelings of infidelity to groups with which they identify. But neither nationality, nor denomination, nor even goodness is the point. The point of Jesus’ call to repentance is that time is in its fullness. Even now, when anxiety and despair overflow, now is the time to choose to live according to the redeeming and humbling demands of his love.

The imperative of repentance is far more comprehensive and urgent than anyone’s need to be good so that I go to heaven when I die. Caesar and Jezebel have no problem with that kind of self-serving religion because it creates pliable subjects who are easy to influence through systems of rewards and threats. What worldly kings and princes don’t want is people who intentionally, consistently, and fearlessly acknowledge the kingdom of God as a present reality, because when they do that, they’ll do more to love their enemies than to kill them. They’ll become gadflies for justice. Their primary concerns will lie in loving God, loving neighbor, serving the poor and the outcast, and caring for the earth. That’s what a life of repentance looks like. That’s what it means to be a child of God.

“You are my Son [You are my Daughter], the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Can you hear God saying that to you? Can you embrace the timely good news of God’s radical, unconditional love for you? It can be hard to hear God’s words as words spoken directly to us. Maybe we lack confidence that we’re worth loving. Maybe we’ve even given up on love. It sounds so sentimental, how can it affect real change? Or maybe it’s hard because we know that acknowledging our own Belovedness of God means acknowledging the God-Belovedness of every other human being, even, and perhaps especially, the Belovedness of those people whom we fear, envy, or just plain don’t like.

That’s the thing about the love of Jesus, though: Only when it we humbly and gratefully share his love do we fully receive it.

If you still want to find some sort of Lenten discipline, then for the next forty days—and beyond—try greeting everyone you meet with what my dad called “ThankGodfulness.” Thank God for each person, and ask yourself, what is the most loving response to this God-imaged human being right now, in the fullness of this moment. To live our days in gracious, truth-telling love and gratitude for one another and for the creation is to live in love and gratitude for God. It is to live in the kingdom of God, which, thanks to Easter, is no longer simply “near,” but ever-present and real, even if still hidden and mysterious.

       Friends, we cannot wait to live as God’s beloved children.

The time is fulfilled. The time is now.

Baptism: The Beginning of the Journey (Ash Wednesday Sermon)

 

“Baptism: The Beginning of the Journey”

Romans 6:1-11

Ash Wednesday 2021

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

2/17/21

 

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.(NRSV)

 

         As the traditional symbol of Ash Wednesday, ashes represent the dust from which the author of Genesis says that God created humankind. Thus, does a pastor or priest say, “From dust you have come, and to dust you shall return” as she or he dips a finger into that fine, black powder and makes the sign of the cross on a worshiper’s forehead.

         We are impermanent creatures. Indeed, in the grand scheme of things, we sentient beings are a fleeting presence. “For a thousand years in [God’s] sight are like yesterday when it is past,” says the psalmist. (Psalm 90:4) So, as we prepare ourselves for the journey to Easter, ashes remind us that the road ahead necessarily takes us through the very real death of Friday.

         During Lent we also take seriously the reality of sin.  And while each of us has our individual transgressions, more concerning are the ways that we participate in the systemic sins of families, communities, and institutions. I say more concerning because the systemic sins of humankind are often things we don’t readily or fully acknowledge, like racism. Other systemic sins like greed and the glorification of violence aren’t just things we struggle to acknowledge; they become things we actually spin into noble traits. Even people who claim to be following Jesus are often quick to call personal excess “blessing,” even when that excess means poverty for someone else. Even people who claim to be following Jesus will call the spoils of brutal power “manifest destiny,” and sometimes “divine right,” even when such spoils mean exploitation of other peoples or the environment.

         Those delusions become so intoxicating and addicting that it can be profoundly difficult to extricate ourselves from the grasp of sin. That’s why Paul uses the image of being “enslaved to sin.” Our brokenness can own us, consume us. And it can all-too-easily destroy others through us. 

         On this Ash Wednesday, you’re not in the sanctuary for me or someone else to look you in the eye and remind you that as surely as you are beloved by God, you will not survive this life. But in the Christian tradition, ashes aren’t the only symbol that speaks of the reality of death. So, this year we begin Lent not by wearing the dust of our impermanence on our foreheads, but with confession and the waters of baptism. Confession and sacrament immerse us in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. “Do you not know,” says Paul, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death.”

         The synoptic gospels tell the story of Jesus’ baptism by John. John’s gospel seems to imply Jesus’ baptism but doesn’t make it explicit. It may be that the writer of the fourth gospel, like many other people, has trouble making sense of the fact of Jesus’ baptism. Why, the question goes, does Jesus submit to John’s baptism? Doesn’t John offer a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins?”

          Yes, John’s baptism was one of repentance and forgiveness. It seems to me, though, that to focus on whether or not Jesus had a personal need for such a baptism, misses the point. Through the Incarnation, God enters more than the body of one person. God willingly enters the human condition.

I have to think that Jesus knows that as a human being and as a Jewish male in the first century, he is more than an individual. He’s part of a demographic, part of a long-running story. And as a human being, he accepts not only responsibility for his individual speech and actions, he also accepts his place in the surrounding religious, political, and economic culture which has been, which is, and which will continue to be hurtful to other human beings and to the earth.

I’d be willing to bet the farm that if I asked a Jewish woman in the year 30CE how she expected to be treated by Jewish men in general, she would shake her head and give a less-than-complementary assessment of the way men treated women. That’s why Jesus’ interactions with the Samaritan woman at the well, with Mary Magdalene, with the sisters Mary and Martha, and even with his own mother are not Hallmark channel moments, but radically prophetic acts that both defy and transform human relationships, and therefore human culture.

In surrendering to baptism, Jesus does more than John can even be aware of because Jesus’ baptism has to do with more than washing away sins. In his baptism, God Incarnate takes a great leap in the process of becoming, intentionally and thoroughly, human. Jesus’ journey toward Friday and Sunday begins in earnest at his baptism. His life is the original Lenten journey.

         As we remember our own baptisms, I invite and encourage all of us to look at the sacrament as something we do not just for ourselves, but something we do in community. In baptism, and in reaffirming baptism, we commit and recommit ourselves to becoming fully human in the way that Jesus is human. We acknowledge that we are eternally, irrevocably loved by God. We’re sons and daughters of God. We’re sisters and brothers of Jesus. We’re fellow travelers with him on the road to Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernaum, Samaria, Jerusalem, Golgotha, Emmaus, and beyond.

         Through baptism, we are, as Paul says, united with Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection. In baptism, we are claimed by God, equipped by the Holy Spirit, and sent forth to be signs of God’s gracious and loving purposes in and for all Creation.

With fresh joy and gratitude, may you claim God’s promise in baptism. And with renewed conviction and hope, may you follow Jesus, God’s Christ, in a Lenten journey toward your own full humanity and toward our shared resurrection life.

Transfiguration: Prophecy and Apocalypse (Sermon)

 

“Transfiguration: Prophecy and Apocalypse”

Isaiah 40:21-31 and Mark 9:2-9

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

2/14/21

 

Isaiah 40:21-31

²¹Have you not known? Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood

from the foundations of the earth?

²²It is he

who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

and spreads them like a tent to live in;

²³who brings princes to naught,

and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

²⁴Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,

scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

when he blows upon them, and they wither,

and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

²⁵To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal?

says the Holy One.

²⁶Lift up your eyes on high and see:

Who created these?

He who brings out their host and numbers them,

calling them all by name;

because he is great in strength,

mighty in power, not one is missing.

²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord,

and my right is disregarded by my God”?

²⁸Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

²⁹He gives power to the faint,

and strengthens the powerless.

³⁰Even youths will faint and be weary,

and the young will fall exhausted;

³¹but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint. (NRSV)

 

Mark 9:2-9

²Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, ³and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. ⁴And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

⁵Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

⁶He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

⁷Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”

⁸Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

⁹As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.(NRSV)

 

       Isaiah 40 begins with the words Handel used so effectively in the Christmas portion of The Messiah. “Comfort ye, O comfort ye my people.” Isaiah 40-54, often called Second Isaiah, announces that, by God’s grace, Israel will leave Babylonian exile and return to Jerusalem. And in today’s reading, we hear the prophet calling Israel to trust that promise by remembering all the ways that God has already demonstrated faithfulness to the people.

“Have you not known? Have you not heard?” says Isaiah. “Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?” God is the Holy One, the Creator, the Sustainer, and the Source of forgiveness, deliverance, peace, and enduring strength among the people.

       In the middle of the passage, the prophet makes a distinction between God and worldly powers. “Scarcely are [princes and rulers] planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when [God] blows upon them, and they wither.” The cautionary tale of the impermanence of princes, rulers, and nations reminds Israel that God has created and called them to a unique reason for being and to very different ways of being. 

As the people of God—and even as a people whose identity is tied to Jerusalem—Israel has been called to a way of life that transcends the boundaries of geography and time. God’s purview includes all that lives and moves and has being beneath the heavens. And God has called and commissioned this specific nation, Israel, to move among the world unhindered by loyalties to anything but God. Because “the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth,” Israel is a nation of global witness and welcome.

Jerusalem may be a place of origin, a home base even, but as Isaiah illustrates in chapter 11 with the vision of the peaceable kingdom (Isaiah 11:1-9), the purpose of the Holy City is to set an example of harmony, wholeness, and belonging for all creatures. “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,” says God, “for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Blessed to be a blessing in and for the Creation, Israel’s life is an ongoing spiritual journey. Always being transfigured by God, Israel continually experiences and reveals the transforming presence of God—throughout the Creation and throughout the ages.

When Peter, James, and John follow Jesus “up a high mountain apart” from everyone and everything, they witness something apocalyptic. Modern use of the word apocalyptic has almost ruined the ancient, prophetic concept connected with that language. Apocalyptic literature wasn’t meant to terrify readers and hearers with warnings of Armageddon or other violent, end-of-time scenarios. It was written and spoken to reveal something holy and gracious, something full of spiritual energy and heat. It could be unsettling; change often is. But apocalyptic literature and speech are always meant to generate hope and to inspire encouraging, edifying, redemptive action.

During their brief apocalyptic vision on the mountain, Peter, James, and John are reminded of all that they had “known…heard…[and] been told…from the very beginning.” For there, with Jesus, stood Moses and Elijah, the greatest of the ancient prophets of Israel. And Jesus is just “talking” with them, like farmers standing around the bed of a pickup truck musing on the weather, wheat prices, and high school football.

Speechless but not silent, Peter says to Jesus, Hey, let’s stay here! I’ll build a hut for each of you, and we’ll just live in this bright warmth forever.

It seems to me that Peter wants to lay claim to that mountain. He wants to hold it and own it. He wants to plant himself on that peak the way “princes” and “rulers” try to plant themselves. But Jesus knows that when nations try to establish themselves that way, “Scarcely are they planted…[and] sown [before God] blows upon them, and they wither.”

A thick cloud gathers, and from it, God shuts down Peter’s fantasy. “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” And with that, the apocalyptic moment ends. Peter looks around and sees only Jesus, James, and John. And no more talking clouds.

Mum’s the word on all of this, says Jesus. After the Son of Man has been raised from the dead, let people know. But for now, hush.

Throughout Mark’s gospel, Jesus is secretive about his identity. It’s not that he doesn’t want people to know who he is. It’s that he doesn’t want the kind of bootlicking attention princes, rulers, and celebrities demand. Jesus wants people who are willing to listen to him and live like him, even when living as signs of God’s grace and agents of God’s love is demanding or dangerous.

Both Isaiah and Jesus are calling people to transfigured and transformational living. He’s calling them to live prophetic and apocalyptic lives. Whether in Babylon, Jerusalem, or anywhere else, God’s people belong to God before any celebrity prince, violent ruler, or transitory nation. And as disciples of Jesus, our call is to follow him. And like him, to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. (Micah 6:8)

I don’t know about you, but I’m not feeling as transfigured or transformable as I was eleven months ago. Living in isolation, bouncing between computer, phone, and television screens, not having visited family in Georgia in over a year, slogging through this wet, dreary winter, and caught up in the anxiety of a culture in turmoil—some days, I get overwhelmed. Some days I get downright discouraged. I yearn for a bright, transfiguring, apocalyptic experience. But the clouds remain heavy and silent—except for the relentless rain. I pray that you’re coping better than I am, but I know that many of us are struggling.

       Into such physical and spiritual enervation, Isaiah says, “Have you not known? Have you not heard?” Remember! God is Lord of heaven and earth, and God “gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. [And when you grow] faint and…weary, [when you] fall exhausted…wait for the Lord [and you] shall renew [your] strength, [you] shall mount up with wings like eagles, [you] shall run and not be weary, [you] shall walk and not faint.”

Waiting for the Lord doesn’t mean catatonically enduring the passage of time because you’re in the back of some line. Waiting on the Lord is more like a waiter waiting on diners in a restaurant. Holy waiting involves tending to neighbors, tending to those in need, tending to the Creation. It means living a hopeful, awe-filled faith in the moment regardless of circumstance and trusting that God, who is already present in the future, is inviting humankind toward a place and time in which we will have yet another experience of redeeming grace to remember and to strengthen us for challenges yet to come. To wait for the Lord is to engage today’s struggles and opportunities with confidence, peace, and gratitude.

Isaiah’s words to Israel are the words of God’s Universal and Eternal Christ to all humankind. Even when we feel overwhelmed with apprehension or grief, we will, by grace, “mount up with wings like eagles,” we will “run and not be weary,” we will “walk and not faint,” because God was, God is, and God will always be with us.