The scripture reading this morning, the first Sunday after Christmas, comes from the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, verses 22 – 40. It is a significant reading in our liturgical year because it is through the lives of these two old prophets, Simeon and Anna, who we will read about here, that we are finally and totally released from our Advent theme of waiting. Our waiting has been fulfilled.

The season is upon us. It’s that frantic time, the time longed-for and dreaded, a time for watching and waiting…it’s the season of high school reunions.

The Scripture reading this morning comes from the Book of Isaiah chapter 40, verses 1 – 11. It’s a classic Advent text and, no doubt, you’re going to hear why for yourselves as we read it. It’s full of the promise of new things, a new way, a voice in the wilderness, salvation from the old judgments, and a gentle shepherd who will come to feed his flock. For centuries, we Christians have interpreted this text as a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. But the text also has an original meaning for the people it was first written for. The original prophet Isaiah is believed by scholars to have written the first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah. They are a collection of his writings from over the course of many years. He was warning the people of Judah and Israel (the two Jewish kingdoms at the time) to turn themselves over to the care and protection of God. Instead, the leaders of the two kingdoms gave themselves over to the care and protection of warring empires which eventually saw both kingdoms invaded and destroyed or occupied by the Assyrian Empire. After the original Isaiah’s death, things got even worse. The Babylonian Empire rose up to defeat the Assyrians, they sacked Jerusalem because it was now an Assyrian territory, knocked down its walls, and utterly destroyed the Temple. Then they took many of the people of Jerusalem into captivity, exiling them away to Babylon in order to maintain political control of the region. This was the ultimate judgment that the prophet Isaiah had so forcefully warned about. But Isaiah also spoke of the ultimate salvation that would always come from God, and in the generation after the exile there was still room for hope. There were whispers of the rise of the Persians, challenging Babylonian power, and a possible road (maybe we could even be so bold as to call it a highway) home to Jerusalem. Political powers would come and go like the seasons and like the flowers of the field, but the Word and hope of God stands forever. A second prophet Isaiah, in exile, maybe a student or a follower of the original Isaiah’s school picks up the Isaiah scroll and begins to write where the first Isaiah had left off about this new hope for the people in captivity and about the steadfast promises of God. Hear now the word of God: Isaiah 40: 1-11.

The story of the sheep and the goats is the last story Jesus tells in the gospel of Matthew. From this story, he went to the cross, then to the tomb, then to the sky. We have no body to show for Jesus’ years of ministry among us, but we have this story, echoing across thousands of years. This is his body, opened for you. Read Scripture.

Matthew’s parable of the talents is one of those stories that is tempting to skip over altogether. It is the kind of story that brings up our religious PTSD because it confirms the idea of the angry, vengeful God some of us grew up with, and all of us, in our bad minds, still sometimes believe in, despite the evidence, or maybe because of it. It is natural, when life gets hard, to want to hold someone responsible, and God is as good a scapegoat as any. But then we’re perhaps stuck with that God we believe in. We can’t have it both ways.

A little while ago I preached to you about the drinking culture of my college, Dartmouth College. Now that I’m about to be a senior minister again, I guess I’m entitled to some senior moments, which means repeating myself in sermons.

Since you’ve found your way to this place today, it’s likely you know a little something about the United Church of Christ, the denomination of which we are a part. You might know that we are non-hierarchical, and that we have a progressive theology that takes personal experience and conscience into account as well as scripture and tradition.