Monthly Archives: December 2018

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The Already/Not Yet Story

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a reflection on Luke 3-4

by Serena Lee

I had coffee recently with our pastor, Ken. We discussed difficult questions about pain, suffering, and darkness. We dove in the deep end of why questions, and asked about the theology that is embedded in our lives. As I reflect on this conversation that Ken and I had during this Advent season, I am reminded by the way Jesus began his ministry conveyed in the Gospel of Luke.

Ken spoke to me about the on-going cycle that we humans go through, which begins as an orientation, transitions to disorientation, and resolves in reorientation. This is a cycle we see throughout the Bible, like in the story of Israel when time and time again they are in dire need of prophets to reorient them back to Yahweh. We see this cycle in the psalms where David laments and hopes in the same prayer. And we see this in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry: Baptism (orientation), Temptations (disorientation), Declaration of Jubilee (reorientation).

What is beautiful about Jesus’ baptism is that before Jesus even began his work, God already proclaimed Jesus as beloved. That is the orientation, the foundation of all the work that Jesus did. Jesus as the beloved son of God, sharing the most intimate bond through the Holy Spirit, shows us that the work that we do does not sum up who we are. Rather, we are beloved, first and foremost loved by God, not because of what we can offer, but because of what God offers to us: love.

After the baptism of Jesus, he is led by the Holy Spirit to the wilderness and tempted for 40 days. It seems odd to me that this desert scene precedes Jesus’ ministry and follows the baptism. Jesus has just been validated by God the Father in the most obvious and tremendous way. Why would Jesus be compelled to go to the wilderness, knowing he would suffer from loneliness, hunger, and spiritual temptations? Though we might guess that Jesus, the son of God, would experience the temptations and pass the tests like a walk in the park, I think it is important to believe that Jesus was truly tempted in the way we experience temptation. We can trust that Jesus knows our human experiences, and has complete empathy and compassion on us. The desert is a place of disorientation, of pain, suffering, and hopelessness. It represents seasons of loneliness, depression, and darkness. It is where sin breeds, and the place that makes everything appear meaningless. I can’t imagine what Jesus was experiencing in the desert place, but I do know that he understands disorientation and how much it hurts.

Finally, when Jesus leaves the wilderness, he immediately goes to the temple and reads about Jubilee from the book of Isaiah. His proclamation of the Truth that all things will be made new is reorientation. Jesus declares that the poor will hear the good news, the prisoners will be free, and the blind will see because the Spirit of the Lord is upon him. After experiencing the disorienting pain, Jesus taps into the foundation of his baptism to recall the compelling Truths. God is faithful. God keeps his promises. God is love, and God loves his people.

I think that the beginning of Jesus’ ministry foreshadows Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection- another story of orientation/disorientation/reorientation. As Christians constantly going through this cycle, it can feel hopeless and frustrating to ride the waves of belief/unbelief, joy/depression, hope/lament, and peace/chaos. But, as Brenda put it beautifully in her message, God is in the business of transformation. The truth is that we are in a state of transition, the “already-not yet.” So cycles can seem like they never end, but I think those experiences actually help us practice theology in life, in that we get to participate in the meta-narrative of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. In the bigger story of God, we are currently in disorientation, waiting and praying and experiencing bits and pieces of reorientation. We are waiting for Jubilee, and at the same time encounter glimpses of Jubilee everyday.

During this Advent season, I pray that you experience hope, peace, joy, and love through a new understanding that God is transforming us. He is not done yet, but the ending of this narrative is clearly set. Will you participate in his story?

artwork: Christ in the Desert, Ivan Kramskoi (1837 – 1887)

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God’s Upside-Down Kingdom

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a reflection on Luke 1-2

by Andrew Tai

As I read the passages from Luke this week, I was struck by some of the oddity of the stories and characters that Luke has chosen to highlight thus far in his Gospel. In no other Gospel do we hear Zechariah and Elizabeth’s story, or about Simeon and Anna, or even the Shepherds (as opposed to the seemingly wealthier Magi) who come to honor Jesus at his birth.

Of course, this is no accident.  It seems that from the beginning of his Gospel, Luke wants his readers to understand that God’s plan, revealed in the life of Jesus, came about through people that have been overlooked by the rest of the world, people who perhaps no one would’ve expected to be involved in world-altering events.  

And yet these are the precise people that God chooses—and whom Luke has highlighted. In doing so, Luke challenges his readers to recognize that God does not conform to society’s traditional notions of power and glory and worthiness.  This becomes a consistent theme throughout Luke: Jesus consistently acts in ways that do not line up with our expectations.  In Luke we find that it is no longer simply Israel who will receive God’s blessing; instead, God’s love and healing work is making its way throughIsrael to the entire world, including to unclean and undeserving Gentiles. It is no longer the societal and religious elite who are closest to God; instead, God is particularly concerned with the poor and downtrodden and those who don’t think they have it all together. 

To hear Luke’s gospel today and allow it to speak into our lives requires that we ask ourselves whether we’ve (knowingly or not) simply bought into society’s ways of thinking.  In my own life, I see how I have pursued the notion of the “good life” promised by the American Dream (i.e. nice house, nice car, nice family, nice job), sometimes even without consciously deciding to do so.  I see how I’m tempted to hold tightly onto money, rather than giving generously to others in need.  I recognize how I value people differently based on how successful in their careers or charismatic they are, rather than remembering that people are valuable not because of what they accomplish but simply because they are created in the image of God.  In other words, I am the exact type of person that needs to hear the Gospel message of God’s inclusive and radical love that upends all of the world’s traditional notions. 

As we continue through this season of Advent, may we remember that this Jesus we are waiting for is not here to conform to our expectations, but continually and consistently moves us to love and serve and give in ways that reflect the upside-down Kingdom of God.

artwork: Simeon’s Song of Praise, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606 – 1669)

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Mary’s Song (Luke 1:46-55)

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by Joseph Chen

“He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.”

Luke 1:51-52

An excerpt from this week’s reading: the Virgin Mary’s iconic declaration, spoken soon after receiving the unlikely news that she was to bear a child. As I write this I’m preparing to lead the congregation in the song based on this—Mary’s Magnificat. And true to it’s name, it magnificently reflects her deep reverence for the Lord, and the upside-down way that He approaches the powerful and the humble, the rich and the poor.


Looking at both the song and the source material, I wonder how she could have come up with such beautiful writing so quickly. The scriptures tell us that the only time she could have composed the Magnificat was as she hurried to Zechariah’s house. It’s not long after she arrives that she blurts out to Elizabeth some of the most famous and often repeated words in Christian history. This past summer, Serena and I resolved to write an Advent song together, as a gift to the church. We took three months, and it’s, like, not even close to as good as what Mary came up with.


Speaking of gifted songwriters, Zechariah is also one of the main characters in this week’s readings. His very underrated song comes at the circumcision and naming of his son, John the Baptist. Perhaps the reason we don’t have as many worship songs based on his song is because of his strange back story: a righteous priest whose rendered mute because he had some doubt about an angel’s promise that his very old wife would become pregnant. Why is it that Zechariah’s voice is taken away for asking a question, when Mary asks a very similar, understandably skeptical, question of the angel Gabriel?


Anyway, a line sticks out to me from Zechariah’s song. “And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.” Though obviously the child Zechariah refers to is John the Baptist, the one who literally prepared the way for Jesus by preaching about him in the desert and baptizing him, I can’t help but hear that calling directed to the church too. During Advent, we’re again faced with the reality that Jesus has not yet made all things right. This year we’ve heard creation’s groaning in roaring wildfires, political unrest, and mass shootings, to name a few. In this day and age what does it mean for us, the church, to prepare the way for the King who scatters the proud and lifts up the humble? How is it that we can make known salvation through the forgiveness of sins to a world that seems to only know salvation through power and might?

For Mary and Zechariah, in that moment, their answer was to write elegant prose. But we are not all poets or songwriters. Just as the Spirit came upon Mary and Zechariah, may we too be filled with Spirit as we spend these precious few days of Advent preparing: for the coming of Jesus, and for the world, ourselves included, to be ready for his arrival.

artwork: The Annunciation, Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859 – 1937)