The meditations that our Deacon, Deb, has been offering daily in this season of Lent, are based on the life and words of St. Francis of Assisi. These meditations have been a blessing to me, offering bread for my Lenten journey from a saint I, like many, have loved, but are coming to understand better in these offerings.

Careful listeners might have noticed that the final verse of our psalm today, Psalm 19, is the words I pray just before I preach, slightly altered. Psalm 19 is a single voice, an individual speaking to, praying to, singing to God. But as preaching is hopefully a give and take between us, I changed the words slightly to include you all, so that the prayer asks, that as I speak, AND you listen and meditate and wonder and question, God is with you as much as with me.

In fact, it occurs to me this prayer would make more sense alternating:

I would say: Let the words of my mouth

You all would say: and the meditations of all our hearts

Together: be acceptable in your sight,

O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Jesus is telling his friends the truth, the hardest truth, that he will, as our reading says “ undergo great suffering…” and that he will not be celebrated as the Messiah, but rather he will be arrested, attacked, and crucified.

And Peter, our friend and the reflection of our humanness, Peter pulls Jesus aside and rebukes him.

Peter reprimands Jesus, scolds him, argues with him for telling such a gloomy tale of the future, both, because Peter can only see a Messiah who is a king, and because he cares so much for Jesus.

Surprise. Megan’s computer went ka-put along with the sermon. She delivered a very short and beautiful sermon the old fashioned way using a legal pad and pen but nothing to post to the website.

Jesus and his friends are heading now to Jerusalem, the tension higher, the danger greater, the hopes and fears deeper, but all is paused for a moment away today, on the mountain top.

I love the Gospel of Mark. I love the intensity, the pace. Mark uses the word euthus (u-thoos), roughly translated as “immediately” 41 times in the text which serves to propel us through the narrative with urgency. Mark writes with drama, intentional mystery, power, much energy and more than a little hyperbole. The downside is there are often things left hanging that could use just a smidge more explanation..…as we will see here in a minute. He hurtles us through this shortest of the four gospels and leaves us breathless as we leap from place to place in keeping up with Jesus.

Now it has occurred to me that I have not preached on lyrics from Jimmy Buffett in many months. In case you have not heard me do so before, Buffett is a favorite of mine, but not for his popular songs, but for his more thoughtful and yes, even spiritual lyrics. And in case you need a better music critic than me, Bob Dylan has said Buffett is his favorite lyricist.

The clock on my car dashboard said 7:23am.

My meeting was set for 7:40am and I could already be there, except for the stop sign right in front of my car.

Today we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, recalling the arrival of the Wise Men to visit the baby Jesus. We remember the lengthy journey they took, following that brilliant star that had captured their attention and hearts.

The Wise Men are believed to have come from the East, called Persia then, today likely the area roughly encompassed by Iraq and Iran. They had a long journey to Bethlehem, and thus symbolically we celebrate their arrival not on Christmas, but 12 days later on Epiphany, that 12th day being yesterday, January 6th.

I have mint growing in my garden. It arrived when a friend dug up iris in her garden and gave some to me. Nothing is better when a friend says goodbye, then to have a bit of their garden stay with you.  Now when her flowers bloom, I think of my friend, now living faraway, but still present here in her flowers.

It was September 1990, late in the afternoon, the sun was just setting, and I was riding on a bus. With the light of day fading, shadows were gathering in the bus, but still, pools of light shone.

I was in Russia, in Moscow, on a mission trip for the Diocese of Virginia, as well as the Dioceses of Washington DC and of Maryland.

As I wrote this sermon I took a break periodically to add a few more ornaments to our Christmas tree. And I find this both comforting and heart rending. Some ornaments evoke joyous memories of travels Tim and I have taken, and places that are dear to us. And some were given to us by folks we love so deeply, and see no longer.

Advent is so brief, and so easy to miss in the world’s frantic rush to Christmas. And thus it is so easy to say, I’ll answer that invitation later, I’ll listen to Advent’s call, later. And in a moment it is gone.

The season of Advent begins today with the first Sunday of Advent, and marks a new year in the church calendar, that we will see in our gospel readings now focused on Mark, the purple on the altar, and with our Advent wreath and weekly prayers.

Jesus never viewed himself as a king but rather something we are more familiar with, a shepherd, a teacher, a friend. He lived his life as the companion and champion to the poor, the downtrodden, to those who were marginalized and considered unworthy by others, and even invisible to some. The “ least of these” are all members of Jesus’ family. Jesus saw them for all their messiness and loved everyone of them.

I grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. In those days, we still had a small shopping center a few blocks from our house that had a dry cleaner, a barber shop, an independent grocery store, a bakery, and a hardware store. The hardware store had a special place in the hearts of boys my age. We were able to ride our bicycles to the store, park them on the sidewalk, and go inside to marvel at the displays of tools, supplies, ladders, and, above all, the pocket knives that were displayed in their own wooden display box on the top of the counter.

The lighted road work sign would typically hold a familiar message:

“Caution: One-lane road ahead.”

“Alert: Accident at exit 80.”

“Caution: Work zone ahead.”

But this sign was startling in its message:

“Hold your loved ones tight and help others.”

Our Gospel lesson today tells of a conversation that took place in the final week of Jesus’ earthly life. He has already made his entrance into Jerusalem to the waving of palms and shouts of hosanna.

And the tension is high in the city, it is a tinderbox waiting to explode, reminding us sharply today of how painful and grief-soaked and complex the history of the Holy Land has been.

Our readings today are well known and yet, we might miss the numerous references to creation. While our minds hear these familiar stories we might not even notice how God’s creation is woven into so much of our scriptures. We might actually, well, miss the trees for the forest.