So the same question that sought us out on Good Friday seeks us out today. Whom are you looking for? What do you seek? We’re drawn here on Easter morning, looking for joy, love, light. Each of us longs for something to connect to outside of ourselves. But we might not yet see that Jesus, the challenging, self-giving Jesus of the gospel stories, is what we’re looking for.

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We’re all looking for something. Seeking and questing is what’s got us here today, part of a community of people trying to worship God and follow Jesus. Some blurry desire for meaning and rootedness, some need for structure and clarity in a confusing life, some good news in our suffering – something draws us into church in a time and place when most of the world around us isn’t bothering anymore. We are looking for something, or someone. We’ve come to see.

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It’s a lot of story to take in in a short space of time – and it’s a lot of emotional ground to cover. Jesus looks very different from the first act to the second – in the first, he is telling his disciples exactly what to do and looking authoritative; in the second, he is silent except for two enigmatic answers to the high priest and Pilate. In act one he chooses action, and the crowds like that: the powerful ruler, coming to be their king, fighting all the forces aligned against him. In act two, he chooses not to act – and the crowds don’t like that at all.

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I almost think that Martha’s faith in this moment is the greater miracle in this story. We have heard this story before, and we know that Jesus will indeed raise Lazarus from the dead. But Martha doesn’t know that. All she knows is that her family’s best friend, their best hope, let them down terribly. Her sister can only weep at Jesus’ feet. How can Martha believe that this is not the end?

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We get clouded with the wrong things and see with the lenses of this world: bound up by the rules with which we live our daily lives, or by what the voices of culture and marketing tell us is possible or acceptable. The good news is that the healing of our sight is always offered to us, has indeed already been offered to us. The Light of the World offers us enlightenment – literally – and opens our eyes to see what we could not see before.

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That water is what satisfies us when nothing else can. It is what sustains us in the desert journey. It is what we need to really live. Yet we will go so long without it even so. It is easy to come to church regularly, be part of a Christian community, even be part of the ordained clergy, without really drinking the water. Easy until it isn’t at all anymore, and suddenly there you are, gasping like a fish out of water.

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Jesus shouldn’t have been telling Nicodemus something he didn’t already know. Jesus taught out of that same tradition that Nicodemus knew so well. But somehow Nicodemus had missed this. The life of faith can be like this – the Holy Spirit blows in to upset our assumptions and call us into new things. And sometimes it happens right there in material we think we’ve already mastered. It’s part of why we call scripture the living word of God. No matter how many times you’ve read the Bible, there is always something new to it. As is sometimes said, first you read the Bible, and then the Bible reads you. There is always something fresh in it, because it is a witness to the God who is alive and present right here with us – not just a God of antiquity and tradition. God still speaks to us, even today.

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The first practice we’ll try is something called the Prayer of Examen, a way of praying that looks back over the day to see what has happened in our walk with God. Created by Ignatius of Loyola for his fellow Jesuits to use, it’s a process of reviewing our day in God’s presence, to begin to know ourselves better in our walk with God – the good parts, but also the temptations and where we fall short. Because all of us have those temptations, ways we struggle to keep our faith and trust in God.

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But to make of Lent another chance for self-improvement is to set ourselves up for failure.  Not only will we fail at our well-intentioned efforts to make things better – you know what they say about the road being paved with those – but we fail at the most important thing of all:  our relationship with God.  For when we spend our focus and energy on ourselves and what we have done wrong, how we could improve – what many see as the point of penitence – we lose sight of where we should be focused, on God. 

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On this Sunday in the church year, we all get a little time together on the mountaintop: the gospel story of the Transfiguration takes us there. All three synoptic gospels include this story, so it’s clearly an important one. It shows the disciples (and us) who Jesus really is, a glimpse of his divinity. It also tells us something of our own response to that revelation – seen through the behavior of Peter, who’s kind of our stand-in in the gospel stories. But what we in the Western church sometimes forget is something the Eastern Orthodox church teaches: this story tells us about what God intends for us, the process that God is working in us even now. Transfiguration is not just about Jesus; it’s what God is drawing us all toward.

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Because there are times when the Bible just turns around and punches you in the nose. When it becomes clear that real people taught and wrote real words so that we would actually change our hearts and lives and live differently. And all the airy intellectualizing we are so fond of doing just turns out to be avoidance of the clear simple truth. When we hear scripture like this, then to say ‘the Word of the Lord, thanks be to God’ and to go off to coffee hour unchanged might just be one of the oh-so-many ways we have of making Jesus weep, yet again.

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I think this is why those fishermen Jesus walked by on the Sea of Galilee were so ready to drop it all and follow him. They were plenty busy with their work and their livelihoods and their families; they were mending their nets and tending to their boats and bringing in fish to sell to support themselves…and then Jesus came along. ‘Follow me,’ he said. And it became crystal clear to them in that moment what was really important, and what really wasn’t so necessary after all. The only activity that mattered was getting up and walking after Jesus, making community with one another as they went. There wasn’t anything else they needed.

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After all, what is it we’re looking for? Maybe it’s meaning, making sense of life or the world around us in a confusing time. Maybe it’s comfort and companionship, the deep love that comes from being truly known. Maybe we want to make things change in the world, bring about the beloved community we long for. I think each of us would answer Jesus’ question differently, if we were speaking honestly from our heart of hearts.

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And of course Jesus goes on over the next three years to show that unexpected truth, that as God’s Messiah he is a model of humility and self-sacrifice – not of power and dominance over others. Right there at his baptism he sets the tone for what his whole witness will be. It’s a message I think we’re still struggling to understand, this profound example of God’s strength made perfect in weakness. Even the King of kings is not exempt: this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased…and he will live and die like any other of God’s beloved children. And all of us will be called to follow him.

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The feast that celebrates the appearance of Jesus, good news to all the world, is laced with fear and uncertainty. And there’s plenty of reason for the fear. The Magi ask, where is he who is called ‘King of the Jews’? That title will next be heard when Pilate is questioning Jesus during his trial, then in the mockery from the soldiers who torture him, and finally as a sign posted on the cross over his head. The sweet story of the Christmas baby has Good Friday close on its heels.

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But sometimes our devotion can distract us from the message. Sometimes we need to be reminded: God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world to reduce to nothing things that are (1 Cor 1:27-28). Not on accident, but on purpose, God came to be one of us as a fragile child in a dark, scary place. Not as a plan B, but as the plan all along. That ought to tell us something.

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What he knew was that his betrothed was pregnant and it wasn’t his; that they were poor; that even with Mary heavily pregnant they would have to travel to Bethlehem like others of their family and clan to satisfy the regime; that when they arrived there they would find no place to stay, would be homeless at the birth; that nearly as soon as the child was born they would be fleeing as refugees to Egypt. It’s a story of hopelessness and sadness for Joseph, not anticipatory joy. His own dreams were being replaced with God’s dream, and he couldn’t understand what God was about.

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It's such a poignant moment. We don’t really know whether John the Baptist ever makes up his mind – whether he ever understands just what he was preparing the way for. Does he get a glimpse of the world transformed? Or is he forever waiting? Those two disciples walk off stage and what happens next? – what do they make of Jesus’ answer, what do they talk about with John? So it’s one of those open questions left for us to answer. We see all that Jesus did and what God can still do in this world. What do we make of it?

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Advent is a season with two faces. One face is a sweet and lovely one, preparing for the birth of a baby, a vision of peace and joy and all creation singing together. But the other face is a fierce one, with winnowing forks and fire, judgment and wrath.

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But meanwhile, in the church, Advent is happening.  We light one candle each Sunday – just one candle.  We pray for mercy and sing quieter hymns and chants in a minor key.  We hear scriptures of longing for the coming of God’s kingdom, the time of peace for all people. We do one thing: hold the space for our longing because we know we need it.

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