you have to lose

you have to learn how to die / if you want to want to be alive

A sermon on the magi's incident:

A happy new year to you all!

I pray this new year falls afresh upon you. I hope this new year is utterly bursting with opportunities for you. And I wish that the newness of this new year will last you all year, too.

That’s a lot to ask, though, I know. The actually new is incredibly rare. It’s hard to come by anything truly novel.

Perhaps that’s why we’ve all grown a bit apathetic to new years’ resolutions. We’ve all learned the unhappy lesson that the smart money is on the way things already are. We’ve surmised the best we can do is just adjust ourselves to life’s cold hard facts.

This is a malaise I, for one, fall into all too easily…

Interestingly, though, it was by attending to the steady movements of the heavens that led the magi to notice the rising of a new star on the world’s stage.

Our translations call these folks wise men. But the word is “magi.” As in, magician. They were astrologers. Probably from Babylon. So while we call them wise men and kings, the original audience would have known them as pagans, plain and simple. 

What the magi’s visit means, if nothing else, is that, in Christ, God is reconciling all the world to himself. Christ is not just for insiders. No, Christ is for those who insiders like us consider outcasts and misfits. 

And wouldn’t you know, these infidels’ experience confirms what orthodox theologians have been saying for ages, too. The old slogan goes, “Scripture completes what nature begins.” In other words, while you can get a sense of a creator out there in the great outdoors, you’ll never suspect this Creator looks like Jesus Christ.

This is precisely how it goes for the magi, too! The heavens proclaim God’s handiwork, indeed. However, the magi still need the Bible to tell them where, exactly, to find this child who has been born king of the Jews.

…Once they meet this child, though, something peculiar ensues. Warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men leave for their own country by another road. Having encountered the Christ-child, the magi are no longer bound to their previous arrangements. They are freed from their former routes. They leave for their own country by another road.

Sounds good. Doesn’t it? Another road. A new path. An alternative course of action.

Martin Luther called this freedom. And he said it’s the sum of the Christian life. Moreover, he said it’s the only business the church has. 

If the church isn’t busy proclaiming the work of God that parts the Red Sea and rolls away the stone of Christ’s tomb, then it’s derelict in its duty. In fact, whatever else such organization may be, if it’s not about that Gospel phenomenon, it’s not really the church. 

The mission of the church isn’t to improve the world. The role of the church isn’t to shape up our flagging morals, either. And the job of the church—sorry, IRS—isn’t even to make good citizens out of us. 

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with such things. And they may even be side-effects of the church’s business. However, that’s by no means a guarantee, either. 

But, no, the only business the church has is this work of Christ that opens NEW roads and frees from old arrangements. 

…I remember when this was driven home for me with particular force. It was after my first year of seminary. And as many of you know, that’s when all the shiny plans I had made for my future came careening to their demise. 

My summer as a chaplain had not panned out as winningly as I had expected. And above all, was the fact that in the crucible of that summer, an engagement I had entered into in earnest had ended in failure. 

I didn’t return to seminary that fall as a confident pastor-in-training like the rest of my classmates. No, I felt more like damaged goods. In fact, I wasn’t so sure I was cut out to be a pastor.

*All of you who aren’t so sure, either, can just go ahead and keep quiet! ;-)

*NOTE*

One day in chapel, though, the preacher spoke of their experience in chaplaincy. Now I’ll admit, I dragged myself through those chapel doors that day mainly because it was an expectation. But I’ll tell you, I’m so thankful the seminary had the wisdom to presume its students ought to attend worship often. 

Anyway, the preacher talked about how they had gone into seminary thinking they would help people. So when they began their chaplaincy, they thought there were just where they needed to be! In fact, they boldly told their advisor they were there to help people. 

But the advisor was a time-hardened old pastor who knew better. So the advisor told this person to have at it. And then, they assigned the preacher to the geriatric ward. 

The preacher spent their entire summer with folks who were decidedly not getting better. In fact, those who didn’t die outright were often sent to care centers to while away their remaining days. The only bright spot was faithful Mrs. D. Whenever the preacher would visit her, she’d be reading her Bible and happy to talk or pray, too.

When, at last, the summer came to an end, the preacher went to say goodbye to her. Upon entering her room, she could tell she was a little upset. After some small talk, the preacher asked her if anything was wrong. 

She told him that she had just found out her eyesight was failing. That she was going blind. 

And that was just too much for the preacher. Here was this woman who had lost so much already. What’s more, she had handled it all with such grace. And now, she was being rewarded by losing the only thing she had!

Gutted, the preacher didn’t know what to say. But then, as so often happens, the minister became the one who was ministered to! “Don’t worry," good ol’ Mrs. D said. “When I am weak, that’s when God is strong FOR me.”

…Sitting there in the pew that day, I was just hanging by a thread. And I didn’t need any advice. And I didn’t need any religion, either. No, I needed a preacher. 

And thanks be to God, the person who stood up in the pulpit that day knew it! The preacher understood they weren’t preaching to potential professional Christians. No, they were preaching to people who had washed up on the rocky shores of life on this side of Eden. 

Listening to this person I admired drag their corpse up there for all to see opened the possibility of life on the other side of my dashed hopes. And that’s not all, either. No, it also let me know that this person was someone I could trust to bear my bedraggled self to, too!

After chapel, I cornered this person and asked if we could meet. They said, of course. And then, in another brilliant piece of pastoral care, they set the meeting for a few days out. By their calm, this person witnessed to me that the calamity I was so afraid of wasn’t so dire. 

And then, when we met, and I finally dared to tell someone at seminary I had failed to craft a picture-perfect life, this person didn’t even bat an eyelash! In fact, they said something very similar happened to them! And then, after assuring me that Christ didn’t need my perfection anyway, this person helped me navigate the choppy waters of handling this sensitive information.

By the time our meeting was over, a whole new world was opened to me! Nothing had changed. And furthermore, nothing I could do would change that, either. Nonetheless, in Christ, NONE of that had the power to seal my fate, either!

My future stood as wide open as Christ’s empty tomb. My path was as cleared as the Red Sea. It turned out fate was something held securely in Christ’s wounded hands! And when it all slipped out of mine, I learned the hard way that there was nowhere else I’d rather it be, anyway!

…Now I pray none of you are staring down anything so traumatic. But I’ve also come to learn that more of us ARE more often than not. Aren’t we?

And when we wash up on these rocky shoals, we don’t need improving, be it moral or religious. Do we? 

No, we don’t need any of that because all that just keeps us marooned on the same old path. Sure, some advice and religion might offer a slight improvement. But in the end, they leave us with the same old limitations and, ultimately, the same old dead end.

No, what we need is saving. What we need is a savior. What we need is a God who’s not too high and holy to wade into the murky waters that have been battering us all week. What we need is God who’s willing to do something as ungodly as take our ragged lives into his everlasting arms. 

And that’s why Luther was exactly right! Unless the church is about the business of that sort of God, the church has nothing to offer you and me! And dear fellow pilgrims, it’s my joy to tell you that, for Christ, it’s child’s play to open NEW roads to you and me!

What’s more, in the waters of your BAPTISM, that’s the promise you’ve already been sealed with! Truthfully, promise is too trifling a word! In your baptism, this has already happened to you!

In your baptism, the church, in all its wisdom, has gone ahead and thrown you into the deep end of the worst life can throw at you. And there, in those turbulent waters, Christ attached himself to you! He became your corpse! And in turn, he gave you his resurrected life! His resurrected life that not even death can destroy!

In Christ, you’ve already died! And so, you can no longer die! Not really! In Christ, your fate is sealed! And it’s sealed in a love than knows no end! A love that nothing can destroy!

Today, by coincidence, is January 1. 1/1. But in Christ, it’s a new year every time the church gathers! 

And NOT another new year, either. No, this is a categorically NEW new day. A moment that comes TO you from the other side of eternity! A new epoch that isn’t bound to or defined by the past! But rather, a new existence that’s created afresh and opened anew by Christ and his resolution to open another road to you!

…We all have places where we feel stuck, trapped, even doomed, and worst of all, cursed. But you should know, on the cross, Christ became the curse! Christ has emptied the power of the curse! And all that stands before you today is the open path to him he has opened for you!

Now I’m not about to pretend it’s pleasant when life has us against the rope. But, the rock-hard GOSPEL truth is those places are nothing less than ground zero for Christ to craft a fresh start out of your life! You already have everything Christ needs to give you, not just a new year, but a whole new beginning! 

And all this comes not by all your resolution for the new year. No, it comes from the wreckage of this last one. For it’s right there that Christ has resolved to give you a new existence in him! 

Today, Christ is busy making something new out of you! He’s busy rolling away the debris that would seal your fate. And he’s tucking your past into his tomb. And in place of all that, he’s giving to you himself and the new life he always brings along with him! 

Indeed, Christ is the way! He’s your new path! He’s the open gate for you to go home by another road today. 

A road not bound by the past. A road not limited to the future, either. But instead, a road paved with the stones of Golgotha. Golgotha, that rocky ground Christ transformed into the sure and certain path to eternity itself!

…Happy new year, sisters and brothers in Christ. And this new year isn’t new on account of any turning of the calendar. No, it’s new on account of Christ, who, by his birth, has turned the page on history itself! 

Today, in Christ, a new eon dawns for you! An age not defined by Sin and Death. But rather, an eternity carved out by Christ! 

And so, on account of all that, and so much more, may YOU, like the magi, go home by another road. A road not defined by your past or your resolve to make a better future. Instead, a road carved by Christ and his sure and steady resolve to have you for all eternity.

You have a resolution this year. Only it’s not yours! It’s Christ’s! And his resolution is not new by any means. No, it’s as old as Eden itself! And it’s as ancient as eternity. And that’s the only resolution that matters anymore! But best of all, it’s all yours right now!