Isn’t baptism truly about community? Because that is what St. Luke is, a community of Christians, young, middle aged, old, worshiping together, supporting each other through a very confusing time, and doing our best to follow the teachings of Jesus to love our neighbors.

The Epiphany is about when something suddenly comes into view—like a star in the sky, or an act of cruelty, or the threat of oppression—and making the choice to value love, to value truth and goodness and justice, above the accepted norms of politeness, beyond the traditional boundaries of knowing, above our desperate desire not to rock the boat, sometimes even beyond the law itself.

If you’re feeling devastated or confused or powerless or afraid or insignificant, Jesus is looking for you. That’s what Linus was telling Charlie Brown. Jesus is ready to arrive. To give splendor to a sad stick of a Christmas tree, to give comfort to every lonely soul, to give flesh to our skeleton hopes.

My joy this Advent is layered on top of my grief. When I reflect on the past few years, I remember the high points and the low points. The times when I needed others to be a sign of God’s presence. Through today’s scriptures, we see the way God sits with us in those low points. God sends us signs – whether through our dreams or through our friends – reminding us – Immanuel, God is with us.

“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us.” -Henri Nouwen

Real peace happens when repentance happens, when lives and hearts change. Real peace happens when we take responsibility for not only ourselves, but for one another. It’s when we own the suffering in our world and vow to change our hearts and lives—to create justice—in order to alleviate that suffering.

Instead of dreaming of wars and the end of the world—of all the ways God might swoop in dramatically to fix things—we must light our single candle of hope in every encounter we have, giving us just enough light to take another step, and to wait as each week a little more light comes.

When we share our light with each other, our light shines it’s brightest. Not only do people realize they have light too, they also now shine and together, we shine brighter. I think that’s what Jesus was telling us.

The Rev. Mark Stanger shared in his sermon that hope, not optimism, is the faithful response to a broken world.

Do you know the etymology of the word sacrifice? It’s Latin deriving from sacra, which means “holy, sacred,” and facere, the verb “to make.” So sacrifice is the act of making something sacred.

I think that our biggest sins often stem from trying to do everything on our own. In fact, I believe that faith, boiled down to its very essence, is the deep knowledge that we can’t do any of this life on our own which then leads to the profound trust in something beyond ourselves. For us, that’s God. That’s the Body of Christ.

Luke's Jesus is concerned for the salvation of people in this life, in their present circumstances.

To plant gardens and to build families even in scary, uncertain times of exile is to embody hope. Not just with your thoughts and prayers, but with your actions, with your lives.

The older I get ~ the more I am becoming a child. A child of God. This old woman exchanging the weight of this life, for the wonder! Slowing down, paying attention. Seeking for less stuff, less pretense, less worry about reputation, more “seeking” the simplicity of St. Francis..... and “finding” the hope and evidence of things NOT seen – and no one hopes better than children.......and talking animals!

In the end, Jeremiah’s trust in God and his humility bear fruit. Not on his timeline. Not on King Zedekiah’s timeline. But on God’s timeline. The Judeans do return. A few generations later, houses and fields and vineyards are again bought in that land.

Hope is kept alive by doing hopeful things. Over and over in the Bible, hope translates as action.

We are called to search tenderly for those who are lost, the way Jesus searched for sinners and tax collectors. The way God searched for Israel, for Paul, for us.

We are called beyond the safety of loving those who are easy to love and who easily love us back and into the challenge of getting uncomfortable, risking reputation and rejection and ridicule, so that we may bring healing, liberation, and love to those who need it most.

We witness this baptism so that we can remind Stevie as she grows that she belongs, no matter what, just as God created her, and that Jesus’ love will always be there, no matter what. That’s our job as the Body of Christ.

For Christians, the spirit of the law is always love. When we prioritize certainty and order over love and liberation, then we’re no longer worshiping Jesus, we’re worshiping power.