Enter Bartimaeus. He is blind. He is a beggar. His story is the closing bookend to the big passage, the traveling and teaching passage. And, while he cannot see Jesus, he can very much hear Jesus. And he can very much speak to Jesus. Which is to say, yell. A lot. Loudly. So loudly and insistently that his friends are hushing and shushing him and trying to get him to calm down, go away, be quiet, be docile. But he will not. He insists...

It is through touch that we are connected to one another. It is through touch that we experience our common humanity. And it is through touch that we learn what it is to be connected to God.

That’s the leap, right there. Do we believe, truly, that everything we are, and everything we have, is God’s? Do we believe that giving, even, in God’s name, for God’s purposes, is something we are truly called to do? This is one of the most profoundly challenging areas of spiritual growth any of us will ever engage in, because it cuts to the heart of a culture that is telling us exactly the opposite—that the accrual of wealth is our goal, that the one who dies with the most toys wins, and that we are all on our own, full stop.

What, I wonder, could children have to teach us about welcoming Jesus?

There are many things, I think. But for today, for this reading, I want to focus on children’s ability to be present—to be wherever they are, really, really present. Awake. Experiencing things. Understandably, when things are painful, we aren’t so interested in experiencing them. I get that, and I do that. But the disadvantage to going away is that life ticks by… this terminal diagnosis runs its course… and there is a chance we have spent much of it not actually being alive. Not actually smelling the fragrance of a bonfire or a hyacinth, not actually feeling the weight and fuzz of a ripe peach in our hand, not actually hearing the complexity of sound created by the bow being drawn slowly across the string of a cello, not actually seeing the 25 different shades of pink and purple in a particular sunrise, not actually tasting the grain and the yeast and the honey and the orange peel that make up this piece of bread, right here, right now...

Jesus has become incredibly well-known—rock-star Jesus—and now, with his name on the tongue of people in power, dangerous people who very reasonably and correctly see Jesus as a threat to their power, Jesus turns to his people, and asks a pointed question:

“Who do people say that I am?”

Some names were floated last week; now we hear them again.

John the Baptist.

Elijah.

One of the prophets.

I imagine Jesus nodding, and pacing before he asks the next, even more incisive question:

“But who do you say that I am?”

This is Peter’s big moment...

Prophets are in the business of telling the truth. That is who they are, and what they do. In that sense, any of us can be prophets. But remember: In the words of Joe Klaas: “The truth will set you free, but first it will [tick] you off.”

We have tales of prophets today, and they bookend our passage. First, we have Jesus and his experience of returning to his hometown. Last, we have a flashback to the terrible fate of John the Baptist, who pays for his truth-telling with his life. And in the middle of these stories, Jesus sends out disciples, two-by-two...

I followed, I followed, partially, because… that’s where I was going anyway, the home of Rivka and Jairus. And I followed as part of this great crowd of people who seemed determined to go where these men were going. And I followed, too, because I had finally come to understand who this man was. This was Yeshua ben Joseph. It was the healer, Jesus...

If Jesus is preaching the “good news,” why all the secrecy?

“The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God has come near; turn around, change your thinking—and believe in the good news.”

Those are the very first words Jesus says in the gospel of Mark.

God is doing something big, it is happening, Jesus says, and it is happening now. In order to be part of this amazing God-thing, you’re going to have to change how you think. But trust me. It is good. Beyond good.

And yet, in our passage this morning, Jesus specifically says that parables, the very tools he is using to teach, are meant to confound, confuse, and befuddle...

I want to give you a gift.

I’ve been inspired, since we’ve just heard a story about three Wise Ones, traveling a very long distance, to bring gifts to a child whom they consider to be a king! And the gifts they brought! Costly gifts! Gold… a gift fit for a king. Frankincense… a gift fit for a god! And Myrrh… an aromatic resin used for everything from skin ailments (like diaper rash) to pain relief (you might, for example, place it in wine, and offer it to someone as they were dying). Myrrh… a gift fit for a human being.

I’ve been inspired by the other gifts we’ve read about this morning… the gifts given by Jesus in our other reading.

To the man who had an unclean spirit: freedom.

To the woman who had a fever: relief.

To the man with the skin disease they called leprosy: healing.

To those who were sick, or possessed with demons… more of the same. Healing. Relief. Freedom.

I want to give you a gift.

The unknown years of Jesus comprise the period between age 12, when he gave his parents such a scare by staying behind in the Temple, and age 30, when the gospel of Luke tells us, he began his public ministry.

This gap in storytelling has perplexed and frustrated Christians these last two thousand years. Karoline Lewis, a preaching professor from St. Paul (Luther Seminary) writes, “We cannot focus on Jesus as a baby and then fast forward to Jesus as Lord as if nothing happened in between.” We know something happened, but what?

It is such a familiar story. And we all can conjure up the scene: the stable, lit somehow, by soft flickering lamplight; the fragrant hay, offered up by the gentle cow for a bed; the protective father bending near; the mother in blue—always blue!—cradling her precious newborn baby. The whole scene is bathed in a holy glow. The music rises: Silent Night, Holy Night! Christ the Savior is born!

We can see it. We HAVE seen it!

And yet... it is a strange story, isn't it? Taking into account stories told in two gospels, a columnist in today’s Washington Post wrote, “Infertility, divorce, shame, mass murder, astrologers, injustice and doubt: these are a few of the topics that appear” in the story of our Savior’s birth. His advice? Don’t sanitize it....

Characters in the bible are known to burst into song from time to time, and the birth or even promise of a child often provides the context. Hannah sings in the Hebrew Scriptures, Mary and Simeon in the New Testament, and now, Zechariah, Temple priest, who has had a long time to sit and think in silence about all the events swirling around him...

What does it look like, the rebirth of hope?

Here, it begins with a boy king and the persistence of his goodness. It continues with the discovery, the recovery, of the law, the covenant between God and people. It culminates in all the people, from the smallest to the greatest, vowing to do everything, heart and soul, mind and strength, to do the right thing, from now on, no matter what.

We have two kings before us today; one, whom the prophet Isaiah knew well; one, whose words we have come to understand as the warm breath of the Holy Spirit, informing us of a king still to come.

Welcome to the world of Hosea, the prophet whom God invites to dwell in the emotional world of rejection, betrayal, and abandonment. Hosea is the prophet whom God invites, insofar as any human can understand it, into God’s own inner turmoil. God looks at the covenant people, God looks at Israel, and all God sees is unfaithfulness, and violence, God’s own children hurting one another, God’s own children killing one another.

Just because no one is erecting altars to Ba’al (at least, I don’t think they are), doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of false gods and little idols vying for our attention. The problem for us is, they aren’t as easily identifiable as the altar to Ba’al or the Asherah pole. They masquerade as helpful devices (tell me, should I be concerned that last week I had a dream about an iPad?). They convince us they’re about what is best for us (this particular job, that one perfect diet). They call to us to envision a self that is immaculately contoured and clothed, perfectly airbrushed, and, in the end, entirely beyond our reach… without that particular magic product. The thing we need. The thing we turn to when everything and everyone else has let us down. There are gods competing for us, alright. They just have really excellent disguises.

I actually think this terrible story is a wonderful story about discernment. How do we make decisions? Who or what guides us? How do we listen to one another, and respond to one another in ways that are just and loving?

What if we were to look at the world with the assumption that God wants to please us? That God wants to give us joy—the kind of delight that can lift us out of ourselves, even when we think there may be no joy left for us? How might that affect us? How might it change us? How might it open doors in our hearts and minds with a new sense of wonder?

What is the point of our faith? Why are we here today? In particular, why join with a church, be baptized? These questions surely won’t be adequately answered in the next several minutes. But they are good questions, and definitely the kind we should ask ourselves now and again. We’ll at least begin pondering together.