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In today’s gospel we meet interesting people. There is a king, there are high priests and teachers of the law, there is the holy family and there are the Magi, gentiles from abroad.

The king Herod had already sit on the throne for thirty seven years. He had rebuild the temple, but among the people he was foremost famous for his cruelty, his paranoid cruelty. He did not shame to kill and to murder anyone who might be or become a threat for his power. So he had murdered even one of his wives and two of his sons.

To this man, this king came unexpected magi, wise men from foreign countries. And they came with a very interesting question: they wanted to know where is the one who has been born king of the Jews. It was quit natural that they came to the royal palace in Jerusalem — it would have been the most natural place to find a child who would become king of his people. But you can imagine how the question affected to Herod as he knew that to him nor to his descendants had not been born a child recently. Was there a coup d’état in planning?

Herod got very disturbed and the whole Jerusalem with him. The inhabitants could think what the king might undertake to prevent a coup d’état. They had experienced how cruel he could be.

But Herod wanted this time first to know what this all was about. The Magi seemed to be very sure about their task to pay homage to the new born king. They were led by a star they had seen in the east. In later centuries, until our days the star has been object of calculations and speculations. For a couple of years ago there was a small planetarium build in this Cathedral. In the planetarium the star of Bethlehem was showed. But for the Magi it was first of all a sign that king of the Jews has been born.

King Herod called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law. He might have had some suspicions that one or the other of the main parties could be a part in a possible coup d’état. So he called the highest representatives of the both parties, of the Sadducees and of the Pharisees. He knew that neither of the parties liked him but now he might use them.

The chief priests and the teachers of the law knew where the expected Messiah should be born: in Bethlehem in Judea, in the birth town of David, because he should belong to the line of David. So they showed that they were able to explain the promisees and prophecies of the Scriptures. They were the true leaders of the chosen people, of the people of the Scriptures, weren’t they?

But when they heard from those gentile Magi that king of the Jews should have been born they did not do anything. They had the Scriptures telling about the king but they did not do anything. The Magi had only a star, the star. They had a sign, and because of the sign they left their homes, they undertook a long and hard journey over deserts. They were convinced that the sign they had seen had authority. So they left their homes — like the father in faith, Abraham two thousand years before them!

The chief priests and the teachers of the law answered to Herod with the authority of the Scriptures, and so with the authority of the source of the Scriptures, with God’s authority. The Magi saw divine authority in an other way. The people who waited for Messiah did not recognize his birth, and some thirty years later, did not recognize him as he was working, teaching, healing among them. The people who had read and heard all the promisees and prophecies connected with Messiah did not recognize him.

But there were gentiles who recognized him, who paid him homage already when he had been born. They gave him the title we find later over his cross: king of the Jews. They brought him expensive gifts, royal gifts.

The Christian tradition has connected symbolic values to the gifts of the Magi. Gold can symbolize the royalty of Christ. Incense, usually used in divine services, can symbolize his divinity. And myrrh, an expensive stuff from a tree found in Arabia, much valued as spice and perfume used in embalming, can symbolize his Passion and burial.

But the expensive gifts, taken with for a royal child and the given to the child in the small town of Bethlehem, can also be seen as a part of God’s plan. Through the Magi He gave the holy family financial help for the trip, the escape to Egypt, for the trip that became necessary because of Herod’s paranoia.

In the gospel of the Epiphany the Jews, in despite of their knowledge in the Scripture and of their waiting for Messiah, did not recognize the birth of the king of the Jews. In the gospel gentiles travelled a long way to pay homage to the new born king of the Jews. So the gospel shows that the child was not going to be king of one nation only, but his kingdom goes over all the borders.

But with whom do we identify ourselves today? We have the Scriptures as the chief priests and teachers of the law had. Do we read them like they did, with the ambition to get knowledge but without ability to connect the knowledge on God’s will and plans with the world around us? Or are we able to read the signs God gives us in our historical situation, as the Magi were able to? And if so, are we ready to act according the signs, as they were? And are we able to connect our knowledge with the signs and follow God’s will and act as God’s tools as they did?

Let us pray.

We thank you, our heavenly Father, that you sent your Son to be one of us.
We thank you that you led gentiles to him already when he had just been born and that you so gave a sing that he belongs to all peoples of the earth.
We pray that the Scriptures would be for us your living and life giving Word.
We pray that we would see signs of your mercy and would be ready to follow them as the Magi saw and were ready to follow.
Hear our prayers through the Light of the World, your Son, our Lord nd Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.

For some years ago I got a call from the International Meeting Point, Kansainvälinen kohtauspaikka. There is a group called The Disciples of John the Baptist in Turku needing a suitable location for their baptism. It must be running water, I was told. I suggested a location in Vähäjoki, near Koroinen. Later, just this week I learned more of them. The group comes from Iraq where tehy are also called “the Baptizers”, its origin lays in the Gnosticism and they need for the baptism water which runs into a lake.

Baptism is actually a common religious phenomena and habit. For two thousand years ago John the Baptist was by far not the only one baptizing people in the Holy Land. Some kind of baptism or ritual washing belonged to the religious habits of Jews. Archeologist have found pools for those ritual baptisms as well in Jerusalem as at the Death See, in Quamran. And there was the practice of proselyte baptism in the Jewish religion.

On those days there was also the tradition of the proselyte baptism: one willing to become Jew by his own choice had to renounce all evil, had to be immersed completely in water and then wear a cloth as a member of the holy community of law-keepers. As John requested repentance before the baptism his baptism lied in the line of proselyte baptism.

But John, the son of Zachariah, was not only Baptist. He had a message beyond the message of repentance: the One who is much bigger than he was going to come. In the Isenheimer Altar the late medieval painter Matthias Grünewald shows John the Baptist with an unnatural long finger pointing at Jesus on the cross, and beside John stands a lamb, the Lamb of God. John’s words stand written in the painting: He must become greater and I must become less.

It is this John the Baptist we meet in today’s gospel. The One comes to him and he says: Look the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! He has called people to repentance, and now he sees the One who does not only call people to renounce their sins but takes away the sin of the world!

John went on calling people to repentance and baptizing them. But what did the One who should, according to John’s testimony, baptise with the Holy Spirit? There are no records in the New Testament that Jesus would have baptized anyone. But after his resurrection he installed the holy baptism, which means more than John’s baptism.

When the gospel tells about the baptism of our Lord, it is a suitable occasion for us to reflect of our baptism, the Christian baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. What have we got when we were baptized?

I find the most substance in St. Paul’s reminder on the holy baptism to the Romans. He writes:
 For surely you know that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, we were baptized into union with his death.  By our baptism, then, we were buried with him and shared his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from death by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might live a new life.  For since we have become one with him in dying as he did, in the same way we shall be one with him by being raised to life as he was.  And we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on his cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin.  For when we die, we are set free from the power of sin.  Since we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  For we know that Christ has been raised from death and will never die again — death will no longer rule over him. And so, because he died, sin has no power over him; and now he lives his life in fellowship with God.  In the same way you are to think of yourselves as dead, so far as sin is concerned, but living in fellowship with God through Christ Jesus.

That is it. We have got for us, each of us individually, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who takes away our sins, who takes away my sins.

We have got for us his death on the cross. He carried the punishment of our sins and he so rebuilt the connection to God for us, the connection that broke because of the sin of the first man, Adam. But Christ did not only rebuild the connection, he did not only justify us before God, but he opened us the life everlasting through his resurrection from the death. Since the baptism we live that eternal life, too, even though we live still also this carnal and imperfect life.

So we have got in the baptism the justification before God and the life everlasting. But we have got even more, and here we come back to John’s testimony: the gift of the Holy Spirit belongs to the Christian baptism, and then again His greatest gift, the faith in God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are allowed to believe and to think that the Holy Spirit works in us and through us. Even when we do not see and feel his activity He is with us.

We are here today from different nations, we carry different passports as marks of our various citizenships. But there is one nation, one citizenship we share with each others: the citizenship of the Kingdom of God. We have got that in the baptism. We are  not foreigners or strangers any longer; we are now citizens together with God's people and members of the family of God.

Thanks to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

In today’s gospel the Mosaic Law, fulfilment of prophecies, and visions of the new covenant meet each others.

According the Jewish law a woman became ceremonially unclean on the birth of a child. On the eighth day the child was circumcised, after which the mother was unclean an additional thirty-three days — or even sixty-six days, if she has got a daughter. At the conclusion of this period, the mother offered a sacrifice, either a lamb or, if she was poor, two doves or two young pigeons. In addition, the first son was to be presented to the Lord and then, so to speak, bought back with an offering. This practice we might remember from the story of Samuel, whom his mother Hannah actually gave to the Lord.

In the gospel readings on the Advent Sundays and during the Christmas period we heard how Joseph was a pious and righteous man. He worked to fulfill the Law, to obey the commandments. So, it was surely no question for him, whether he would help Mary to go to the temple for the ceremony of the purification or not.  They went to the temple on the fortieth day after the birth of the Son. So, the actual day of the Presentation of our Lord, the fortieth day after Christmas, was yesterday. But since 1773 this festival has been celebrated on the first Sunday of February in the Lutheran Church in our country. In a way, this day closes the Christmas season, it is the last day connected to Christmas passed.

We meet Joseph and Mary and the child in the temple. They had not expected that someone would wait for them there, but there was someone, Simeon. He belonged to those of his people who waited for the promised Messiah and for the salvation of his people. On that day the Holy Spirit led him into the Temple, and as he was there he saw the fulfilment of the promises being brought there. He hurried and took the child in his arms. He was pleased: Lord had fulfilled the promisees, he was able to see and to meet the Lord’s Christ, Messiah.

In his joy he praised God. And in his praise he was a tool for the Lord whose Christ he had expected his whole life long: The Lord’s salvation concerns all people, Jews and Gentiles; the Lord’s salvation is a light for Gentiles, too.

The light of the world had now been recognized!  The salvation brings light to  all people. All natural men and women live in the darkness of sin, in the darkness covering the world since the Fall of Adam. But now, before Simeon’s eyes, the light shines. In the little child of the age of forty days Simeon already sees the salvation of the world. And as he has seen the light of the salvation, he is ready to die. He knows now that God has fulfilled his prophecies and promises. And that God will also fulfil the prophecies and promisees connected with the child, with the Saviour.

The light first seen by the shepherds has now entered the holiest place of his people. The light recognized by the wise men has now been recognized by someone from his own people. The light has come to Simeon and shines in his life.

An old name for this day is Candlemas. The name has remained in the Lutheran Church of Finland even though the habit to consecrate candles for sacral use has disappeared after the Reformation. The name tells about light. The name reminds us on the light of the world, on Jesus, who is the Lord’s Christ for us, too. Not only for Simeon in the Temple for two thousand years ago, but for us today. He is the one God sent to destroy the darkness of sin and to bring us into the light, into his light.

I have brought with me candles. I hope you will take one of them with you and light it every now and then during the next weeks. In just ten days from now, on Ash Wednesday we will start the Lent, the season of the deepest signs of the darkness of this world in our church year. When the candle gives its light to your room or home or house, remember the Lord’s Christ, Jesus, who is the true light of the world, the light that has already overcome the darkness of sin.

Let us pray

Almighty and ever-living God,
clothed in majesty,
whose beloved Son was this day presented in the Temple,
in substance of our flesh:
grant that we may be presented to you
with pure and clean hearts,
by your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Many of us took yesterday part in a Bible study day in Hennala. The day was led by the pastor of the international evangelic church in Helsinki, Rev. Timo Keskitalo. He made us reflect our lives with the book of Daniel. Many of us would like to have had more discussions, but one day is not a long time. So also the interesting question on the role of believers, Christians in the society and in politics he introduced in the last session was not discussed.

Prophet Daniel belonged to Jews taken into exile by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and educated in Babylonia to become a top civil servant. Daniel serves then Nebuchadnezzar and after him the last Chaldean king, and then, after the Medean king Darius. So, he served pagan kings but he remained his  whole life faithful to his God, Israel’s God.

So, once he was called to the royal court. During a banquet of the king a  human hand appeared and began writing on the plaster wall of the palace, where the light from the lamps was shining most brightly. And the king saw the hand as it was writing.  Noone was able to explain the message of the writing on the wall — what was going on. Daniel was then called, and he explained that it was a message telling, that king’s power is over. The state, actually the empire is going to be taken over by the Medes and the Persians.

God had revealed Daniel what would happen, but why Daniel did not tell his  revelation earlier and voluntarily? Or, to ask ourselves, when is it convenient  for a Christian to be active in the society and in politics?

In a modern democracy it is convenient all the time. But it is up to issues whether we should have a especially Christian point of view. A former Cancelor of Germany, Willy Brandt or Helmut Schmidt, I don’t remember which one, said once at the Kirchentag, the German Evangelic Church Days, that the Bible does not tell what would be the right price for butter, but it surely tells what is an unjust price for it.

So I see that it was for Daniel not an important issue which pagan super power would rule the world. But when the ways of ruling the world and nations are concerned, it is an issue.

It was an issue in the Third Reich in the 30's and 40's of the last century. The Evangelic Christians who were not willing to adapt their faith and church to the Nazi ideology organized an independent church. It was an issue in the occupied Norway in the early 40's as pastors of the Lutheran state church gave up their positions as civil servants because they did not want to work with the Nazi influenced Quisling administration. It was an issue in El Salvador in the 70's and 80's as ministers influenced by the Theology of Liberation  preached that the gospel must be effective in the society and started to work for more justice in the society — many of them were murdered, Archbishop Oscar Romero among them. It was an issue in German Democratic Republic in the 80's as churches opened their doors and gave  places to meet for people willing to develop their society.

But what has all this to do with today’s gospel? It has. Remember the words: “Those who love their own life will lose it; those who hate their own life in this world will keep it for life eternal. Whoever wants to serve me must follow me, so that my servant will be with me where I am. And my Father will honour anyone who serves me.”

The Christians I mentioned earlier understood that own life is not the most important. They did not only want to be Lord’s servants, but they were ready for an imitation of Christ in a way: they were ready to suffer for other people.  That was what our Lord did as he lived among us: he did not live for himself but he lived and died for others, for us.

As he was starting his way of suffers there was a sound heard by everyone telling what was going to happen: God will bring him glory again. Jesus knew that the way to Jerusalem is a way to death, his death on the cross. But he was ready for that way of humiliation because he knew that it was the way to set  people free.

So he says that he will be lifted up from the earth. In one sense he then points at his crucifixion. In that sense we can understand the words “I will draw everyone to me” meaning the total forgiveness of sins in his death, in his offering himself. The forgiveness brings people from all nations back to God who has created us to live with Him.

In another sense he points at his resurrection and ascension. For us that means  the promise and the reality of the eternal life. And that promise and reality give us, Christians, the freedom to be active in the matters of our societies and other matters of this world. And they give us strength to suffer for others so that others would not have to suffer so much. That is how God first loved us. That is how we should love one another.

The gospel we heard took place under the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus had just been up on the mountain with his closest disciples Peter, John and James. They had just seen Moses and Elijah talking with their master. It had been so good there that they had wanted to stay there. But no: it was time for Jesus to start his way to the Holy City, to Jerusalem; his way to humiliation, suffer and death; his way to setting people free. And when they came back to the other disciples and the crowd waiting for Jesus they saw and here that everything was not good.

As we heard they arrived into a tension between belief and unbelief. Jesus came into a situation he experienced many times before his death even among his closest disciples. The brightest example is Peter: he said he would follow his Master even into the death but only some hours later he denied to know him at all. What a tension between faith and unbelief!

But the tension between faith and unbelief is not just a matter for a father under a mountain hoping Jesus would heal his son, nor just for disciples who do not understand when their Master talks about his suffering and death. It is a matter for everyone who follows or wants to follow Jesus. It is a matter for every Christian.

There are many tensions and even contradictions in the Christian faith. The basic one is the of the self humiliation of the Almighty God when he becomes flesh, lives as a man among men and women, suffers and dies like a unsocial criminal; and all that only because he loves his creatures who had abandoned  him. There is the tension between being totally justified and still living under the sin, the tension Paul articulates in his letters and Martin Luther rediscovers one and half millenniums later: simul justus et peccator, justified and sinner simultaneously . There is the contradiction of Christ being wholly and totally of the same nature of God and of the man without any mixing, changing, sharing and dividing of the natures.

From our point of view the tensions of justus et peccator and of belief and unbelief are very important.

By the way, you may have read today’s gospel from the Good News Bible. If so, you should be aware that the translation of this essential sentence is not exact. The Good News Bible says here: “'I do have faith, but not enough. Help me have more!'”, but the original tells really more radically about believing and unbelief.

In good days of the life it is very easy to say: I believe. But in the same time it is very easy to forget God. One aspect of the faith is trust, confidence. And in what do we, modern Western men and women trust in? We see and know the possibilities and the development of technology and sciences. We have also tendance to think that at least almost everything can be done with the help of technology and science. But we experience that they have their limits, that all human power has its limits. No man, no woman is able to give life or health. We are able to help to health, we are able to help to live, but actually not even the most powerful of this world are able to decide over life or death — they are only able to decide over death.

If we trust too much in human capacities and possibilities technology and science give us we are in danger to lose our belief in bad days when we are in trouble and in need of God’s help. The father at the Mount of Transfiguration wanted to try every possibility to get his son healed. He had certainly heard about the miracles Jesus and his disciples had done. So, when they passed his neighbourhood, we went to them, and as Jesus was not there, he hoped that the disciples would help him. He did believe that Jesus and even his disciples had power to drive the evil spirit out of the boy. But in the same time he was desperate: he had already tried everything, and nothing had helped. And now the disciples of the man from Nazareth seemed not to have the power needed to drive the spirit out.

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” This is in many occasions prayer we need, too. In times of troubles we do not see the ways of the Lord, the ways so different from ways we have planned. But even when we do not see a meaning at all there is a meaning of life for us by God. We cannot drive the unbelief out, but God can. He leads us also in the times of unbelief. And there is not a time of total unbelief as long as we are able to pray with the father at the Mount of Transfiguration: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

One of the most famous Finnish novels, and the only Finnish novel ever filmed in Hollywood, is the historical novel “Sinuhe, the Egyptian” by Mika Waltari. At the end of the novel Sinuhe reflects his life. He had served several pharaohs, among them Ekhnaton, who tried to get his monotheistic ideas to become the official religion. Sinuhe had also made several favours to his friend, warlord Horemheb.  In his self reflection he writes: I was half Ekhnaton’s, half Horemheb’s, but I was whole hearted noone’s. It is for him the great mistake of his life: he had not been able to decide, to take sides with — neither with the winning nor with the losing side.

 The novel seems to tell about the 14th century before Christ. Of course it tells about the time it was written the late 40's, just after the World War II. And in fact, its theme is universal — we can find the same theme in today’s readings, too.

The gospel tells that many among the leaders of Israel believed in Jesus but they were not ready to tell it nor to talk for Jesus. Nicodemus was one of them, and he gave the nickname for those Frenchmen of 16th century who favoured the reformation but stayed in the Catholic church. “For they loved praise from men more than praise from God.”

For they loved their status in the society, their political and economical power, their riches, their reputation and so on. And they were afraid of losing  their status, their riches, their power, if they showed their inner feelings and beliefs and faith in their outward lives.

The other reading tells about the church in Laodicea, which is neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm. Also there the same theme: unableness to decide, to take sides with, to become involved.

We live the time of Lent. We prepare ourselves for the commemoration of the suffering and the death of our Lord, who suffered because of our sins and who died for our sake. He decided himself for us, not for staying in the glory in the heaven. He took sides with us. He became involved in the human life.

This time challenges us to reflect our lives. We could do it for example by asking ourselves whether we can be seen as Nicodemites who  love more praise from men than praise from God and as lukewarm Christians who are neither cold nor hot.

And this is how I see the faith, the Christian faith: I throw myself on the arms of God, I throw myself on his mercy. I throw myself —  not out of my own power, not out of my own courage, but because god has spoken to me, because God has called me, because God has lived, died and risen for me. When I throw myself I trust that God takes care of me.

He has first loved me, and it makes it possible for me to love other people, my neighbours. And it, I hope and I pray, makes it also possible for me to decide, to take sides with, to become involved whenever it is needed, so that I would not be partly Ekhnaton’s and partly Horemheb’s, but with my whole heart God’s.

I hope and I pray that whenever Holy Spirit calls me I trust that he also gives me courage to love praise from God more than praise from men.

Do you hope and pray the same for yourself, too?

Let us affirm our Christian faith.

For some 130 years ago a Ovambo chief asked Finnish missionaries to come to his country in the Northern parts of German South West Africa, on the boarder to Angola. He had observed the development among his southern neighbours: missionaries came first, then merchandisers who brought liquor and fire arms. He may have expected the same to happen in his country.

With what arguments can we speak for our Christian faith to those who do not know it, who are not familiar with it? If we are honest — as we should be — we cannot argue with benefits this world approves. The faith is not a general key opening all problems — problems of property, of human relations, of social and political questions. Of course, during the history there have been times when accepting the structures of the Church and becoming part of them has been a key, perhaps even the key to political influence and to property. On the other side, less than two decades ago confessing Christians were blocked out from higher schools and from any kind of key positions of their societies in some countries of this continent.

The point of the faith is not the daily bread of this world, not the daily bread of property, not the daily bread of work, not the daily bread of social status, nor the daily bread of political influence. Fortunately it is not, for if it were we might be tempted to measure other people’s faith on the basis of their property or of their status or of their influence.

Our Lord revealed the point in the discussion with people who had eaten the five breads and the two fishes after the Lord had given thanks and who followed him over the sea of Galilee. The point lays not in this world, but in the reality beyond this: what God wants us to do. It lays in the reality that God’s Son became a man in order to be the bread of the life for us. The point is that God wants us to believe in His Son. He wants us to  receive the bread of the life and to live in this world from his strength and power.

In those words there is no guarantee nor a promise of any success in this world. When we look at the way of our Redeemer in whom we should believe and who is the bread of the life for us we see it: he goes to Jerusalem, he suffers there even though he is innocent, he dies as the worst criminal. When we believe in him we take part in his death and we benefit from his death — connection with our heavenly Father.

The success our Lord had was after his death: he rose from the death as the first born among. In his resurrection he opened a new reality for his people: the reality of the eternal life. We who have been baptized in his name have got it. So, already now we live in the reality of the eternal life, too. But how to tell it to those who does not live it yet? How to sell it to them?

There is success and progress and development connected with our Christian faith, too. There is daily bread connected with our faith. It comes through the Christians. It is realized by men and women who practice their faith and share the love that has touched them.

In Namibian the first monument dedicated to a native is a memorial stone for the Ovambo chief I mentioned in the beginning. As it was released in the early 1980's, the chief of those days said: “We thank God for Finnish missionaries He sent and through whom He has made great things for our nation.”  The Finns did not bring liquor and fire arm merchants with them. But they brought the gospel, they developed the agriculture, they brought skills of medicine, they built and run schools, they created a written language, and so on.

They did all that because they believed in the One God had sent. They did all that because they wanted to share the bread of life everlasting with others. They did all that because they wanted that another people would come to Jesus and would believe in the Redeemer of the world and because they wanted that no one would ever be hungry nor thirsty.