​Christmas Eve 2025, 9 pm
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.
 
Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
 
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
 
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them, and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.
 
 
 
I remember the very first time I ever stepped into this pulpit.  And I remember how amazed I was by the bird’s eye view.  From up here, I can literally see everyone in this room.  I can make eye contact with every person, in every corner.  And that means that I know when you pull your phones out.  I can see those surreptitiously exchanged whispers and giggles.  And that eyeroll you think I didn’t catch?  I did.
 
But of all the vantage points of all the services, the most enjoyable is Christmas Eve.  Because on Christmas Eve, I get to watch you try to stay awake!
 
Now, that is not a judgment.  It’s late for some of you.  And church is boring for others of you.  And besides all that, even if you’re a night owl; even if you love church, by this point in the season, we are all just exhausted.  We’ve been at this jam-packed Christmas thing for about a month now.  But hang on because the finish line is in sight!
 
Now, truth be told, the only reason I’m still awake tonight is sheer adrenaline and continued employment.  Because I’m tired too.  Christmas is my most taxing time of my year.  By comparison, Easter is a piece of cake.  It’s over in a week: Palm Sunday to Easter.   But Christmas – well, it just goes on and on and on.  
 
A few weeks ago, when the staff and I were working on ten different Christmas services at the same time, I hit a wall.  And I laid my head on my desk and said out loud, to no one in particular: “I’m just so tired.”
 
But that’s the thing about speaking to no one in particular.  The Lord is always around to hear it.  And I wonder if it wasn’t the Lord who whispered right back to me: “Exhaustion is part and parcel of the Christmas story.”
 
“In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.”  And that meant that everyone had to go back to their ancestor’s home, even if that was a place they themselves had never lived.  And since Joseph was descended from King David, and since King David was from Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary had make the 90-mile trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
 
Tradition says that a very pregnant Mary rode a donkey to get there, but that’s not explicitly stated anywhere.  So maybe it was on a donkey or in the back of a wagon or on foot.  But however she did it, the journey itself was arduous and exhausting.  Because the terrain was hilly.  And the roads were bumpy.  And there was danger around every corners.  
 
And Mary’s body ached.  And the baby took much of her energy.  And her feet were swollen.  And she was so very tired.  So tired, in fact, that by the time they got to Bethlehem, she would have slept anywhere.
 
In that same region, there were shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night.  That’s a nice way of saying they were on the night shift.  To keep watch over the flock meant that you took turns looking out for wolves and thieves and wandering sheep.  You ate with the sheep and slept outdoors with the sheep.  And you never had a day off.  And it was exhausting.
 
But on this night, an angel of the Lord appeared to them and announced the birth of the Savior of the World.  And then the sky filled with an angel choir singing Peace to everyone and goodwill for all.  Well, this was the most exciting thing that they had ever experienced.  And so, they got up, bones creaking and joint aching, and traveled to Bethlehem to see this thing that had happened.  
 
So, you see, exhaustion is part and parcel of the Christmas story.  It’s baked right in.  But this story has been told so often and in such a sanitized way that we barely see these people as humans.  We’re so busy placing halos on their heads that we cannot see the exhaustion on their faces.  And that means we cannot see ourselves in their faces.  And we miss the point.
 
In 1891, an American painter named Julius Garibaldi Melchers unveiled his riveting work entitled “The Nativity.”  Melchers was a proponent of “naturalism” - the idea that visual art should portray the subject matter truthfully.  And that is what he does in his stark portrayal of the Holy Family on that first Christmas night.
 
Melchers paints Mary sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, and leaning heavily on Joseph.  Her eyes are closed.  Her face is pale and almost lifeless.  At her feet there is the hint of blood - a sign of the struggle of childbirth.  The mother of the Lord is seen for what she actually was: exhausted and spent.
 
Likewise, Joseph sits in a stooped position.  His hands are clasped, and he is lost in thought, worried about his wife, wondering if this child would even survive the night.  And his own back ached.  And his mind raced.  And he had never been so tired.
 
And that’s how some of us feel.  And it’s not just about the busyness of Christmas.  It’s also the state of the world on this Christmas Eve.  It’s the anger and the cruelty of our common language.  It’s our fear about the future of this planet, and the pain in our own bodies, and the relationships which we fear may not survive.  It’s about our wavering faith.   And we are all so very tired.
 
I have always loved the carol “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” I love it because of its unflinching recognition of the state of this weary world and the crushing loads we all carry.  But I love it more for its relentless hope of a world made right, and for its gentle invitation to “rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.”
 
And maybe that’s why you’re here tonight, long past your bedtime.  Maybe that’s why you’re here tonight, unsure as you might be about any of this.  You want to hear the angels sing again.  You want, if only for a moment, to rest beside the weary road.  You want to dream God’s dream of “peace on this earth” and “goodwill for all.”  
 
 

​Matthew 1:18-25
Sunday, December 21, 2025 – Advent 4
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
 
Matthew 1:18-25
 
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
 
“Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son,
    and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
 
which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.
 
 
I caught the travel bug early in life, even before I went to school.  My parents used to call me their little gypsy – claiming that I was always ready to go – anywhere, any time.  And so, when at 17, I had the opportunity to be an exchange student to Spain, I was over the moon.  
 
Before that experience, I had never flown on an airplane before.  I had never been abroad before.  I had never seen Roman ruins or eaten blood sausage or been to a disco before.  My world view had never been challenged before.  I had never been in the minority before.  But Spain changed all of that.  Spain changed me.
 
But lo these many years later, I have discovered that not all trips are as delightful.  Not all first experiences are enlivening.  Sometimes to utter the words, “I have never been here before” is actually an expression of terror.  “I have never had a brain scan before.”  “I have never been in court before.”  “I have never lost my job before.”  “I have never made funeral arrangements before.” 
 
“I have never been here before” is something we now say every day.  It is our daily mantra, as we teeter on the verge of ecological collapse.  And class and economic and racial divisions only widen.  And the vitriol and cruelty of our political discourse rivals the days before the American Civil War.  What does it all mean?  I don’t know, because we have never been here before.
 
Once there was a man named Joseph who was engaged to a very young woman named Mary.  To be engaged in first century Palestine did not mean what it means for us today.  Back then, to be engaged was a legally binding agreement that preceded the marriage feast, sometimes lasting as long as a year. During this time, the man and the woman did not have sexual relations or live with one another.  But they were, in a very real sense, already in the first stage of matrimony. 
 
One day, Mary came to Joseph with the jaw-dropping news that she was pregnant.  The implication, of course, was that she had been unfaithful.  And in that moment, Joseph’s whole world imploded.  He had definitely never been there before. 
 
Suddenly the once happy bridegroom had to make a heart-rending decision.  He had two choices in how he ended this engagement, but it must be ended. He could do it publicly and expose Mary to the judgment of society.  If he did, according to the Law of Moses, Mary could be put to death for her supposed sexual impurity. Deuteronomy 22:21 starkly states that if a young woman, ready to marry, is not found to be a virgin then “she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you.” 
 
And even if by some chance Mary escaped this fate; even if by this point in history, that law was no longer followed to the letter, she would still be shunned for the rest of her life. No other man would ever have her. 
 
But Matthew says that Joseph, being a good-hearted man, could not bring himself to publicly divorce Mary.  Instead, he chose to divorce her quietly, without any public charges of sexual impurity.  Perhaps he hoped that in doing so he could shame the real father into marrying her and bringing up this child as his own.  
 
And so, it was decided.  Until, that is, an angel of the Lord came to Joseph in a dream. And the angel claimed that the child in Mary’s womb was not the result of unfaithfulness, but instead, incredulously, was from the Holy Spirit. The angel said that Joseph should raise this child as his own and should name him Jesus.  And that instruction is especially significant because in ancient Palestine, a naming ceremony could also double as an adoption proceeding.  To name a child publicly was to claim a child publicly. 
 
Mary was also in a terrifying place she had never been before. Although the Gospel of Matthew is told from Joseph’s perspective, the Gospel of Luke is told from Mary’s perspective.  And in Luke when the angel of the Lord announced that she would bear a son, Mary was incredulous and replied: “But how can this be since I am a virgin?”  
 
The virgin birth is one of those doctrines that causes a lot of modern people to stumble.  What are we to do with this tale of a miraculous conception, accomplished outside normal biological functions?  
 
Well, some folks just flat out dismiss it as the superstitious belief of ancient people.  Others take a more nuanced approach and consider it a very clever allegory or literary device, and one that other ancient cultures also used. Still others simply accept the virgin birth without the need to demythologize it or parse it.  After all, they say, isn’t the Bible already full of miracles?  Why should this one be any different?
 
But no matter how you view this story and its details, what we are all left with is the tale of two people who, through no choices of their own, were taken to a frightening place they had never been before. 
 
So why all this drama? Couldn’t God accomplish God’s purposes in a more natural and orderly way?  Why put these two poor people through all this stress? 
 
I don’t know.  But I do know this: that in their stress, I see my own.  In their inability to control their circumstances, we see our own inability to do the same.  And just like them, we are called to trust in the Lord, whose preferred method of self-revelation is always through messy humans like us.  God always comes to us disguised as one of us.
 
And that makes God vulnerable.  What else could an infant in a feeding trough mean?  But I don’t think that’s the kind of God we really want.  It’s not the kind of God we have been taught to believe in.  We’d much rather have a magician God, who swoops in to rescue us from all that frightens us.  But instead, what we have is Emmanuel, a Hebrew phrase literally meaning “with-us God” or as we say it “God is with us.”  
 
God is with us, in this moment.  God is with us, as we stand at the edge of a new year full of uncertainty.   God is with us, as we prepare to be taken to places we have never been before.
 
Blessed Mary was not rescued from her doubts and fears and dreadful predicament.  Faithful Joseph was not rescued from his nagging questions and heavy responsibilities.  But they would come to know for themselves what the angels first announced - that God was with them - not above, not beyond, not remote - but right there, lying in a manger.
 
Thanks be to God.  Amen.
 
 

​
Sunday, December 14, 2025 – Advent 3
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Matthew 11:2-11
 
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
 
As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What, then, did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What, then, did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,
 
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way before you.’
 
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
 
 
In the early 1960s, an 18-year-old African American man named Robert King was sentenced to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for armed robbery.  He was a troubled man and would be in and out of that same prison for most of the rest of the decade.  In 1969, King was once again sentenced to Angola.  And then in 1973, he was convicted of a prison murder.  But the murder charge he consistently denied.
 
Of course, with a record like his, no one believed him.  But in 2001, after 29 years in solitary confinement, the court did believe him and overturned his murder conviction.  The state decided not to charge him again, and in a deal with the prosecutor, he was set free for time served.  
 
Since 2001, King has lived successfully on the outside, but he has never been free of Angola.  His sight is permanently impaired because of spending so much time in the dark.  And he cannot accurately judge long distances because of spending so many years in such a tiny space.  
 
The politics around law and order are complicated.  And we all have our opinions.  But politics is not really my point today.    
 
Jesus told us to visit those in prison.  But this is a commandment that we feel free to ignore.  We mostly just lock them up and throw away the key.  Out of sight, out of mind.  But I think that Jesus told us to visit those in prison so that we wouldn’t do that, but instead would remember their humanity.  Face-to-face interactions turn statistics into people.  And relationships are the primary means of grace in this world.  
 
And it all makes me wonder: who are these people in addition to the crimes they committed?  And what about those convicted who are actually innocent?  And what about political prisoners, people like John the Baptist?
 
John the Baptist – who had once lived in the wilderness, under the sun and off the land, free to roam wherever his heart desired.  John the Baptist, that unconventional prophet who mesmerized crowds of up to 50,000 people at a time, scholars say.  
 
But now he was all alone, confined in a dark, dank prison.  In ancient Palestine, prisons were often just holes in the ground, underground dungeons, full of disease and starvation and despair.
 
King Herod had John arrested because John was preaching that a new King was coming.  And that kind of free speech made the Romans very nervous. And nervous Romans made King Herod nervous. And so, he did what all political bullies do.  He used his power to silence the opposition.  And he threw John in jail.
 
So, there John was, all alone, except for his swirling doubts and fears.  There John was, with all the time in the world to ponder his life and his message.  What had it all been about?  And what about his cousin, Jesus?  
 
You see, by this point, Jesus really perplexed John because Jesus didn’t turn out to be the rabble-rousing Messiah that John, and everybody else, expected.  Instead of preaching like John did about the proverbial ax at the root of the tree, and threshing floors, and unquenchable fires of judgment, Jesus healed the sick and accepted the outcast and fed the hungry and visited the prisoner.  
 
So, it was all very confusing.  And John needed to know: was he in that dungeon awaiting execution for nothing?  
 
Crucibles make everything urgent.  And suddenly we need to know what we do not know.  And suddenly we long for reassurance and comfort.  And we want it right now.  And so, John sent one of his disciples to ask Jesus: “Are you the one, or are we to wait for another?” 
 
And Jesus answered: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”  
 
In this answer, Jesus used a patchwork of verses from the book of Isaiah regarding what the Messiah would do in the world.  It was an answer to John’s question, but it was a rather cryptic one.  And in the crucible, we don’t want poetry.  We want straight talk, a definitive “yes” or “no.”  
 
And yet, it has been my experience that any significant spiritual growth that I have ever had did not come to me in a simple yes or no answer.  Instead, it comes in silence and struggle of a crucible.  The 16th century Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross, famously called this “the dark night of the soul.” 
 
We have all known them.  
 
For John the pressing question was “Are you the Messiah?”  But for us it might be “Does God really exist?” “Does God answer prayer?” “Why am I suffering?” “Why does evil so often seem to win?” “Is death the end?”  
 
And we want a “yes” or “no” answer.  Our desire for certainty is ultimately about control.  Because the world so often seems out of control.  But faith is not about certainty.  Faith is about trust in uncertain times.
 
Jesus’s answer to John’s question was just enough to entice John to trust what he could not prove.  It was enough to give John hope, at least on that day.  And so, he took the next step.
 
I was about 28 when I experienced my first real dark night of the soul.  And it happened while I was busy being a young pastor.  All I really wanted from God in that moment was a simple answer and some relief from my nagging questions.  But instead, God was silent.  Even so, I did not give up right away.  I persisted.  But after a year or so of trying to believe what I no longer could, I was angry and at the very end of my rope. And so it was that one night, I did my best to send God away forever.  Oh, the things I said!  I railed against that God.  And then I rolled over and went to sleep, exhausted.  
 
When I woke up the next morning, I was surprised to be alive.  But I was alive and so I got up, and took the next step, and got on with my life. I got up and kept moving.  Now nothing spectacular happened when I did.  But over time, with each step, as my trust grew, my faith was reborn in marvelous new ways.  And I’m still here trusting in the Lord.
 
Faith is not certainty.  Faith is a journey of trust.  And it is, in part, about disillusionment – that is the loss of those illusions we have mistaken for the truth.  Faith is the discovery, through the hardships of life and from the prison cells of our days, that we are not abandoned.  For we have a Savior who has promised never to leave us; never to forsake us.
 
Thanks be to God.  Amen.
 
 

Sunday, December 7, 2025 – Advent II
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Isaiah 11:6-9
 
The wolf shall live with the lamb;
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
    and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.
 
Romans 15:7-13
 
Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the ancestors and that the gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,
“Therefore I will confess you among the gentiles
    and sing praises to your name”;
and again he says,
“Rejoice, O gentiles, with his people”;
and again,
“Praise the Lord, all you gentiles,
    and let all the peoples praise him”;
and again Isaiah says,
“The root of Jesse shall come,
    the one who rises to rule the gentiles;
in him the gentiles shall hope.”
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
 
 
 
“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”
 
Years ago, Marcos and I and some American friends hiked to the top of a Brazilian mountain to catch a bird’s eye view of the colonial village below and the Atlantic just beyond it.  At the top of that mountain there was an old fort.  It was closed that day, but strangely the gate was open and so we decided to go have a look.  
 
While exploring, we noticed a very large bird circling overhead and having no idea what it was or what it wanted, we asked Marcos, but he wasn’t sure.  About the same time, two other people arrived.  So, Marcos decided to ask them about the bird.  But when he turned, his foot got caught in the large stone outcropping upon which he was standing.  The next thing we knew, he was flying through the air and crashing to the ground below.  And once we got to him, it was clear that there was something wrong with his arm and shoulder.  
 
The two strangers rushed to our sides.  And before I could understand what was really happening, Marcos was on the back of their motorcycle and on his way down the mountain to the tiny village hospital below.  The rest of us followed on foot as quickly as we could.  
 
Inside that simple hospital, afraid and relying on my limited Portuguese, I struggled to find out what had happened to him and where he was.  But soon enough, they took me back to see him.  
 
The fall had dislocated his shoulder and fractured a bone.  And Marcos was in a great deal of pain.  But the doctor was at lunch and so, all he could do was wait.  When the doctor returned, Marcos was taken to x-ray.  I followed as far as I could.  But even in the hallway with the door of the x-ray room closed, I could still hear his pain.     
 
There were seats there and so I sat down.  And that’s when I noticed her: a little girl of about 8 or 9, all by herself in another seat.  Marcos would cry out.  I would wince.  And the little girl would watch me.  Finally, trying to distract myself and not to frighten her, I smiled and said hello.  She smiled and asked me if that was my friend in the x-ray room.  “It is,” I said.  She nodded her head to acknowledge that she understood, because after all, if she was in that hallway, then someone she loved was in one of those closed-door rooms too.  
 
And then this little girl did a most extraordinary thing.  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a box of orange-flavored Tic Tacs.  She smiled and handed the box to me and said: “Maybe some candy will make you feel better.”  Well, it did make me feel better.  A lot better, because in that moment I understood that I was not alone, and neither was Marcos.  
 
In the years since that difficult day, I have sometimes pondered the little girl’s meaning to me.  I have always assumed that her kindness was an extension of the grace of God; a simple but powerful reminder that we are never alone.  But as I considered the lectionary texts for this week, it also struck me that this little girl was more than that.  She was also an agent of welcome.  I was an outsider, and it was obvious – by the way I looked and the way I spoke.  I was not home, but she was.  And so, with a box of Tic Tacs, she welcomed me into her world.  She made room.  She took me in.  
 
“And a little child shall lead them.”
 
In the first five books of the Bible alone, we are commanded to welcome the stranger more than 36 times.  Welcome and hospitality are the foundations of true religion.  And Jesus underscored this dictum when he said to us: “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”[1]
 
Sometimes I think that if the church could just get this one right, then maybe God would forgive us for all the other things we have screwed up so badly.  But welcoming strangers is hard work.  It’s far easier and more expedient to fear them and scapegoat them and use them for our own advantage.  
 
And welcoming strangers was hard work for the early church too.  Remember that most of the first Christians were Jews, who saw in Jesus the fulfillment of the Messianic promise.  But as the Gospel spread around the Roman Empire, more and more Gentile strangers began to respond to the Jesus story.  And as they did, established customs and comfortable norms were challenged.  New ideas and customs were introduced.  And what had been a rather homogeneous group became a salad bowl of human difference.  
 
And nowhere was this clearer than in the church at Rome.  It had been founded by Jewish followers of Jesus but in the years since its founding, had had a large influx of Gentile converts.  And so, the church confronted the same old question: should these Gentile outsiders observe Jewish customs in order to be truly Christian?
 
 Now, we might expect that Paul, an observant Jew and a Pharisee, might insist on observing Jewish laws and customs.  But he doesn’t.  Instead, he makes the bold claim that the Christian faith is far broader than most of us could ever imagine; and that welcoming strangers remains a foundational idea.  Paul wrote: “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you...”  
 
And then Paul implies that a by-product of welcoming strangers is HOPE.  And isn’t that odd, in world in which we have been told that HOPE can only be found in conquering the opposition?  HOPE can only be secured by winning and by dominance.  
 
But of this welcome that gives birth to HOPE, Paul writes: “The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles (also) shall hope.  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  
 
In two short verses, Paul punches the word HOPE three times so that we will not miss the point that HOPE is nurtured in welcome.  Hope springs from difference and diversity and making room for all.  
 
And I think that this is exactly what happened to me in that small town hospital, so far from home. That little girl had every reason to be suspicious of me.  How many times had her mother told her not to speak to strangers?  But you see, she hadn’t yet learned to be cynical.  She hadn’t yet learned to wear her anger like a badge of honor.  She hadn’t yet learned to make a fortress of her opinions.  Instead, she saw need.  She saw me.  And she welcomed me.  And the result was hope.  
 
And in that little girl, all those years ago, the words of the prophet Isaiah were fulfilled: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”
 


[1] Matthew 25:35