Father Snort

In Baptism, we are not made perfect. God doesn't need us to be. God sees and loves us, and God takes our messiness the crud of our lives and redeems it all, to partner with him in healing the world.

Matthew told the story of Jesus' life as fulfilling scripture and in many ways as reliving the formation of Israel. It was a story heard before, the story of the Gospel, the story God wove into the fabric of reality: Creation, Fall, Judgement, Redemption, Re-creation. We live out this story, asking God to redeem and finish our stories.

God is powerful and mighty, but more importantly, God is love and relationship. God came to us in the loving act of the birth of a baby. God will one day restore all of creation. In the meantime, we get to live out the love of God in Jesus.

We're not supposed to put God to the test, meaning make a bargain that if God does something amazing, then we will believe in him. We are encouraged, however, to trust in and believe in God. Put God to the test in that way; let your belief in God be real enough to bless your life.

In the Kingdom of Heaven, the rich and powerful don't kill with impunity. In the Kingdom of Heaven, those who do can be forgiven through Jesus by letting go of the selfishness and inhumanity that lets them think they can kill with impunity.

The joyous affair of asking Jesus to burn away the chaff in our lives, i.e. asking offering up to Jesus our protective covering, our fears, insecurities, masks, anger, past hurts, etc...this joyous affair is Advent. A season where we ask God to help us become love, become more fully human.

We're told to wait for Jesus' return and the restoration of all creation. Not generally the biggest fan of waiting, I find that waiting for Jesus' return is intended to be a joyous, hopeful affair. We slow down to draw near to God in prayer. We slow down to realize our hope and joy. We slow down to realize and soothe the suffering in the world.

We don't "go to church". We are the church, and we go to corporate worship on Sundays. Then, we live as the church the rest of the time...if we live with Jesus as Lord, with Jesus as Torah for our lives.

Jesus predicted that the temple would fall...not surprising given Israel's occupation by Rome - he simply saw the facts on the ground, and encouraged the people to be faithful anyway. Discipleship of Jesus is shrinking; the institutional church is shrinking. Let's go to work anyway, living intentionally as disciples of Jesus.

Like a baby can't know what life after birth is like, neither can we know what life after death is like. We trust and know that is will be really good.