With the naïve joy of a child, we await the Christ child and with the keen-eyed view of the adult, we do the work to necessary to prepare for that arrival. In that waiting, in that preparing there is joy. Always joy.

We might not all experience the big dreams of world travel and building big buildings, but each of us has a purpose deigned by God to serve. To make each individual’s life easier by smoothing their mountains, by raising their valleys, by making straight the crooked, and making the rough ways smooth.

When the kingdom returns is anyone’s guess and the promise of that return is the blessing we seek. There is no sense in listening to false predictions when we have the hope of Christ before us. So, now we prepare, both for the kingdom and the Christ child. For the perfect and the good. For the arrival. And for the beginning. Once again.

Ultimately, Jesus is telling us, there is hope to be found in the destruction of our fondest dreams. It is hard to understand and if I do understand it, then I guess the question is why.

Great things can happen when we hunger causes us to seek out that which nourishes us. And I promise you, so many are looking to be nourished in this day and age, and they are looking to be nourished by God. Welcome them here.

So that we suffer is one thing, but there is the greater thing. God is with us. Despite our human inclinations, despite our violence, despite our sinfulness, despite our mortality, God is with us. And throughout our mortal, un-godlike lives, God is always with us.

Ultimately, the question is answered, we know which kingdom shall come to pass, the one that will last, the one to which we all aspire. Yet throughout Jesus’ ministry there is tension between wishing to be freed from human bonds and Jesus’ professing of the greater kingdom to come. And that perhaps, is a tension we continue to see.

We are almost shamed in this chapter, we almost want to cry out as Peter did, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” What more do you want? What more must I do? I’ve served the church and do not think I haven’t noticed you all serving the church. Do not think your efforts have gone unnoticed. Do not think your welcoming arms have been filled without reason, the dirt from working in the memorial garden under your fingernails is there because you served this church. We dine together, we cry together, we laugh and sing and praise God together. What more can you want, Jesus?

Because even though the kingdom promises more, our investment in our community provides graces far more than we invest. That you can look to your neighbor and see that you are loved is so very beneficial in a world being split apart by vitriol or, even worse, apathy. That we are a beacon of love is evidence of God’s love and God’s hope for the wider world, a community of love born through the love of God and God’s son, Jesus Christ. If we allow God’s love to wash over us, if we allow ourselves to feel God’s love and then to share that love, then we will become that much closer to being “good” than if we ran from God.

We give up our lives so that we might live our lives through the lens of the gospel. We take up the cross, the burden of community so that we might live. And, ultimately, we take up each other’s cross.

You see, when we are faithful, we are faithful to God’s word, we are faithful to all that we are commanded to do. When we are faithful we do not preach division and discord but love, only love. When we are faithful, we lift up the poor, feed the hungry, heal the sick, visit the prisoner and so on.

This love, this love between two human adults can expand the boundaries of one’s perspective from just a sense of self, a sense of ego, to caring for another so much that our egos recede as we become one couple, one body.

Our faith carries us home and still, we are a people of many layers. Our public selves might not always show what is on our mind, what troubles us or brings us great joy even though we remain joyful; even though we remain troubled. Yet through our relationship with God, we are promised, WE ARE PROMISED, eternal life and spiritual life that makes us full.

It can be easy to be hard on ourselves by not forgiving ourselves or claiming we do not deserve forgiveness, but the difficulty in performing the work to heal relationships and heal ourselves goes hand in hand in healing a world that might sometimes skew towards anger and disruption.

We can change, and we can change radically; we can change so much in fact that those who knew us when, who knew Jesus when he was just his mother’s son might turn away.

The kingdom is like the mustard seed because it changes us, individually and more importantly all of us collectively. We are changed by the kingdom and so we create roots that will dig deep and branches that will provide shelter.

Yet we must understand too that if in our desire to protect those closest to us from strife by denying them the ability to be who they are and who God created them to be, then we are perhaps causing more harm than good, more pain than healing, more human judgement than love.

And our prayers too, perhaps they are not always answered to our satisfaction, but I do think they are answered by our becoming closer to God through those prayers. So pray. Pray as Jesus prayed. Pray because we are in the world and sometimes, we are not of the world. Pray to realize just how close you are to God.

Though church attendance overall might ebb and flow, the love we share does not. Love is a constant that prepares us for the ebbs and the flows and Jesus prepares us for love. If we know of renewal that stirs around us, then we need not be reminded of the resurrection for we are living within the closest approximation of it that humans can comprehend.