Sometimes a full moon looks so big, so close, that it seems as though we could reach out and touch it: so beautiful, so close. Sometimes it is actually closer, but mainly it’s the atmosphere acting like a magnifying glass. But of course, we cannot touch it.  But a few people have. The first, of course, was Neil Armstrong’s “One small step” from Apollo XI. 

The world watched and everyone remembers exactly where they were in that moment.  Those of us in central Florida during the 1960’s had a front row seat. We could see the launches. If you went to Titusville or Cocoa Beach, you could feel the whole world shake.  I remember my parents getting my brother and me out of bed to watch Armstrong walk on the moon on TV.  It was exciting and is generally regarded as the greatest human technological achievement of all time.

But it wasn’t just a moment.

We learn almost everything in two ways. Our senses tell us about the world around us and we think about what our senses tell us. Now we can extend our senses with technology, sensing things we cannot see or hear, and we can extend our thinking using computers. But the harder we look, and the better we get at analyzing and thinking, the questions grow faster than the answers.

For example, we can look into a night sky and see far too many stars to count. We can see more in the winter, when there is less humidity. We can see more when there is no light pollution. We can see even more from a high mountain out west, where it is really dry and clear. The stronger the telescope, the more stars we see. The best telescopes are in space. They have no atmosphere, no light pollution.

This past week, our landscaper, Kevin, and his crew began to restore the plants that had been killed by our recent freezes, and trim back the burned portions of the ones that survived. Kevin does beautiful work. I wonder if he realizes how biblical it is! Adam and Eve’s initial job description is to till the land in the garden of Eden and keep it, just like Kevin.

Being created in the image of God means Adam and Eve are capable of seeing things as they are, imagine how they ought to be and then bring that vision into reality. A garden isn’t just nature. It’s nature tended with purpose, shaping nature, improving upon it.

In the Bible, most often we see God’s Word shared through patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or prophets like Elijah and Isaiah, or through the authors of the Psalms, Proverbs or Ecclesiastes. We note their authority in our service when we say, “The word of the Lord...Thanks be to God.” The witness is usually brought to us through divine inspiration: inspired human witness, inspired human writing, inspired choice of which writings to include, and inspired human translation.

Along with divine inspiration, we recognize its truth because it has also stood the test of time. God’s Word holds up. It applies today, to our own times and circumstances, thousands of years later, as it did for the writers in their own time.

But the way God spoke to Moses and Israel in this morning’s passage from Exodus is not that. Everything about this witness and the larger story from which we’ve nipped out these seven verses, is a whole other thing.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday.  Any Patriots fans here? Any Seahawks fans? Any “anyone but New England” fans? And “I don’t care”? Be nice.

By 10:00 or so, one team will win the trophy, many of them will quickly put on hats and t-shirts. Soon, they’ll get rings. Usually the entire organization, players, coaches, support staff and front office people, get rings. They are the team behind the team, after all.

The fans will buy their own keepsakes. I was eleven when the Dolphins went undefeated in 1972. I bought a book about that season. I got a jersey with my name on it. That’s what fans do, if you’re into that kind of thing. I saw an Indiana shirt here a few weeks ago after they won their college championship. Fans become walking advertisements for their teams.

Or, you might say, we become salt and light for our teams. Some fans are a bit saltier than others. Some shine more brightly than others. Note how that loyalty and visibility come easily to people. Now let’s look at how Jesus instructed his followers in the Sermon on the Mount.

When our oldest son was in Scouting for 10 years, I volunteered to do some fundraising for the Gulf Ridge Council.  I’d go to local businesses and say something like:

“I believe that one of the biggest problems we have in society today is young men.  Many of them are essentially lost.  They fill our courts and prisons, leave unwed mothers stranded and alone, and those problems get compounded over and over again.  Scouting works directly on that problem by helping to shape young men who will be responsible citizens and good fathers.”

It worked because it’s obviously true. Scouting is not as popular today as it once was and it has had its own controversies and changes with which I have not kept up. But who would argue against the Scout Law?   

Our annual meeting invites us to reflect on the prior year and look ahead as best we can. I began to think about all of the repairs, renovations and remodeling Good Shepherd has done over the last ten years.

When Meg and I came for my interview, the nursery had been fairly recently remodeled and refurbished, and we loved it. It said a lot to us about the commitment the church had to the babies and toddlers you had, as well as the ones yet to come.

Remembering that, I took a mental walk through all of our buildings and grounds, starting with our reception area and working through the office wing into the parish hall, kitchen, educational wing and into the main church. Then across the street to the Kenney Youth Building, the nursery, the Campbell building, our apartments and then downtown to our Thrift Shop. I made a list. Every building and all of our grounds have been remodeled and/or renovated in significant ways.

Today’s gospel from Matthew brings us from the birth of Jesus to confront the very difficult truth of why we needed Jesus to come into the world.

Our relationship with God has been fundamentally broken from the beginning of human consciousness because we use our freedom to choose against the Lord’s will. Not everyone all of the time, but everyone some of the time. Somehow, some way, sometimes, we all do. Paul wrote this to the Church at Rome, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) John put it more confrontationally, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)

If you doubt that, think of it this way: what other creature on this planet routinely chooses to act against its own best interest and/or that of its community? We chafe against laws, rules, homeowners’ association covenants. We chafe against our own self-disciplines like diets. Sometimes we even chafe against our needs, like medication.

Jesus, a threat to our way of life.

Jesus threatens our illusions of happiness.

I suspect and I hope that when I make these statements something sounds wrong, perhaps even offensive. 

After all isn’t Jesus supposed to make me happy.

Yet for many of us, the moment we encounter the real Jesus, we feel unsettled, disrupted, and even threatened. Not because Jesus is unkind, but because He challenges our deepest assumptions about what happiness truly is. The problem is Jesus does not come to improve our lives on our terms. He comes to redefine life itself. Because of that, we can be threatened. Jesus does not threaten joy. He threatens false happiness. When we meet Jesus, we cannot help but to be changed.

We’ve been blessed the last few weeks to have a couple of pieces of art on display in our parish hall. Both are by our member Paul O’Neill. One is a working model of the mural he painted on our Thrift Shop’s eastern wall. The other is an arresting image of Mary holding baby Jesus. If you have not seen these paintings in the parish hall and the Thrift Shop mural, you should.

I described the Mary and Jesus painting as arresting because every time I walk into or through the parish hall, it arrests me. Often that’s as I walk in from our office wing. It’s just on the edge of my peripheral vision and makes me think someone is there. When I’m coming straight at it, it pops out and dominates the view. And I find that its beauty and depth change with the light. It’s quite different in very low light, but you have to be here pretty early or pretty late to see that.

Its iconic style captures the intimacy of Mary’s love for Jesus and reflects the intimacy of his love for her. That is at the heart of the Christmas story. It is at the heart of our pageant. It is at the heart of our Christmas hymns. It is at the heart of God’s desire to draw us into the most intimate of relationships with him through Jesus.