Loving God, you continue to be the source of new life and resurrection.  As the Word is proclaimed and the meal is shared this day, open our hearts and minds to your Spirit, renewing us in love through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

    Today is a day of new beginnings.  It is the First Sunday of Advent - the first day of a new church year.  It is a day for baptism - a new beginning in anybody’s life, and a time when God gives new life and rebirth.  It is an anniversary day that marks the new beginning of St. Luke’s Zion in 1997.  It is the day of resurrection - the first day of the week.  And, it is a day when we have heard about a new beginning in the history of God’s people - all because they re-discovered the book of the covenant.  Oh - and today is also something known as “Grey Cup Sunday” :-)

    With so many new beginnings, it is hard to know where to start.  Let’s begin by trying to understand what is going on in our main reading today from 2 Kings.  Over the past number of weeks we have been hearing about various kings and prophets who are all part of the history of God’s people.  We have been hearing about them in chronological order up until today when we hear about Josiah.  By this time, it is almost 400 years since Josiah’s ancestor David was anointed king in Israel.  Some of the kings are described as good and faithful leaders, and others not so much.

    In Josiah’s case, his grandfather Manasseh is described as one of the worst kings ever, who shed lots of innocent blood and encouraged the people to worship idols.  Josiah’s father wasn’t much better.  Yet, somehow Josiah’s heart is turned towards God, and from a very young age he wants to do what is right.  Thus, he sends Shaphan to the Temple to make sure that it actually gets repaired for the first time in years.  And it is during these repairs that they discover a dusty scroll which is part of the Torah - the book of the law.

    Apparently nobody has been reading the Scriptures.  Shaphan, and King Josiah, and everybody else seem to be hearing this book for the very first time.  And as they hear it, the power of the Word is unleashed.  They hear about loving God with their whole heart and soul and mind.  They hear about having no other gods and about remembering the Sabbath.  They hear about faithfulness in marriage and loving their neighbours as themselves and speaking well of others.  They hear about justice and mercy and the dangers of greed and self-centredness and sexual promiscuity.  They hear about how to live with others in community in such a way that it is life-giving for all.

    What follows is basically a reformation, directed for the most part by King Josiah.  The places set up for idol worship are destroyed, the prostitutes are kicked out of the Temple, and the Passover is celebrated for the first time in years.  Josiah seeks to turn over a new leaf in the land, and we are told that the people also joined in the renewal of the covenant that God first made with them at Mt. Sinai in the time of Moses.

    At the same time, today is also about new beginnings for us.  We heard today about the covenant that God makes with us in baptism.  In this covenant, God says to us, “I have saved and redeemed you through my Son Jesus.  Your old, self-centred self has been buried with him through baptism so that you might rise up and live a new life.  Therefore, become who you are - a precious child of God created to live in love for God and for one another.”  God says this to us when we are baptized and every time that we remember our baptism and renew our baptismal covenant.

    For most of us, this need for renewal and a fresh start happens many times throughout our lives.  Sometimes we make bad choices and get ourselves into trouble.  Sometimes we slowly allow a whole bunch of things to creep in and take over our lives, until pretty soon our relationship with God has been squeezed out of the picture.  Sometimes we simply fall into habits that aren’t working for us any more and that draw us away from the life that God intended for us.  At each of these times we need to stop, listen for God’s Word, and renew our commitment to live in God’s Way.

    One of the things about times of renewal and new beginnings is that often our hearts and our minds are transformed so that we see things in new ways.  Over the past number of years, leaders in the church have increasingly been paying attention to the Book of Acts in the New Testament.  The reason for this attention is the glimpse that Acts gives us into the life of the early church.  At the same time, some have observed that the world we live in is more and more like the world in the first century after Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.  In other words, Christians are becoming a minority in a society that is often hostile to the Christian faith.

    As a result of delving deeper into the world of the New Testament, we have been challenged by a number of different church leaders to change the way that we think.  For example, do you go to church, or are you the church?  In the world of the New Testament, we are the church.  Along the same lines, where does God hang out?  Is God confined to church buildings, or is God out in the world, hard at work, waiting for us to join in?  Once again, in Acts those who followed Jesus were directed where to go and where not to go, in order to find those who were ready to receive the good news about Jesus.  In other words, God had prepared the way for them.

    Now, you’ve probably heard that it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and it’s just as hard for us to change the way we think and to imagine how we might be part of God’s mission today.  However, as we heard in both of our readings today, God is quite capable of opening minds and hearts.  The power of the Word can quite literally set our hearts on fire as our eyes are opened and we recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread.  At the same time, the Word has the power to touch our hearts and minds in such a way that we are led to renew the covenant that God has made with us.

    Let us give thanks today for new beginnings and for God’s living Word, who is Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Advent 1 (NL 2)                            2 Kings 22:1-10; 23:1-3
November 29, 2015                        Luke 24:30-32
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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