Father Snort

In Jesus' baptism, his old life died, and a new life began...the same happens for us in baptism, whether immediately or after years. Our lives can begin again many times, saying goodbye to the ghosts of the past.

In the Gentile Magi coming to visit Jesus, we understand Jesus to be savior for all, Jew and Gentile, and realize God is over all the tribes of the earth.

God didn't say, become divine that you may know me. God became human that we might know him.

Mary and Elizabeth were ecstatic over the coming brith of Jesus. They were rejoicing at the coming of the Messiah, and they were likely wrong about who they thought the Messiah would be.

Like them, we see in a mirror dimly, and our hope is in God, for something even great than we can imagine.

How long must we wait for God to restore creation? When acts of violence like the shootings at Sandy Hook happen, I have difficulty waiting patiently. What are we to do in response? How can we hold on to hope?

John called people to repent and make straight the paths of God. We're called to tidy up the mess of our lives, asking God to help with our mess so that we might serve each other as priests, praying for each other, and helping each other to grow as disciples of Jesus.

Doomsday predictions have become very popular, but they miss the hope that is primary in Jesus' second coming. As Episcopalians, we need to reclaim the stories of the second coming, of the end times, and tell these as stories of hope.

The perfection of Jesus' kingdom can be daunting, something to which we cannot live up. So what? We needn't be perfect. Living in and striving for Jesus kingdom is not about perfection but about living beautifully with God's help, seeking correction and forgiveness, and living again with mistakes along the way...like making music.

We're waiting for the final restoration of creation whic Isaiah describes. While we wait, we don't know with certainty that our faith is not in vain. We can't know. We don't get to see God or our loved ones who have died so that we might believe in God and the resurrection. Rather, we believe in God and the resurrection and allow that belief to be real enough to change our lives, seeing joy, hope, peace, and love in the world.

Our faith tells us God will one day restore all of creation and wipe the tears from every eye. We believe that, and we have times of doubt which can lead to despair. Of the two wolfs within us, the one with hope and the one without hope, which one will we feed? In which world will we choose to live?