Words of Welcome

John 1:1-5, 14-18 Rembrandt's Jesus -- DIA The Psalmist asks: “Who is the King of Glory?” The answer: “The Lord of hosts, He is the King of Glory” ( Psalm 24:10 ).  These past few weeks we have been asking the question: How do we speak of God?  We’re asking this question rather than who is God, because God’s essence remains a mystery to us. But, if we speak of God we do have some idea about God’s identity. Of course, as Christian Piatt reminded us on several occasions last weekend, whatever our conceptions of God, we should hold them loosely. Instead of seeking certainty we live by faith.  The Gospel of John begins with this declaration:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  John later tells us that this Word “has become flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son” (John 1:1, 14). So, “who is the King of Glory?”  It is, John believes, the God revealed in...

Matthew 2:1-12 You thought that Christmas was over, but here in the church the Christmas decorations remain. There’s a reason for this. We have one more thing to do – we have to put the wise men into the story. As everyone knows, a complete manger scene needs wise men. A complete set has Mary, Joseph, shepherds, angels, a few animals, and of course three kings. There’s only one problem with this set up. Luke doesn’t have magi or a star and Matthew doesn’t have a manger or shepherds. On Christmas Eve we heard one story, now we hear the other, and as we listen to this story we transition from Christmas to Epiphany. Matthew really doesn’t have a Christmas story, instead he tells an Epiphany story. An epiphany is an appearance of God and such an appearance is often a moment of enlightenment. Since the magi represent the east, maybe we could use a Buddhist term here: – a word like "mindfulness." The Buddhist writer Thich Nhat Hanh defines mindfulness as the "kind of energy th...