In Wednesday Morning's Quiet

 It's Wednesday morning and the house is quiet.  Shortly, I'll be setting out to physical therapy.  I'm caught by a melancholy this morning that feels a bit like Stevie Nicks' song, "Landslide".

Reflections in Holy Week -- Holy Saturday

 

The Harrowing of Hell - Fra Angelico c. 1430's

  This morning, much of the Church is observing what's known as Holy Saturday, a reflective interval between Good Friday and the Pascha, or Easter Sunday.  While Scripture seems to be silent on today, it's been recognized since the dawn of the Church, known to us in Latin as the Descensus Christi ad Inferos , where the Christ "Descended to Hell" as attested to in both the Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds.  To say Scripture is silent on this is not entirely accurate because Saints Peter and Paul speak to this event and its purpose in their epistles.

  This descent is unlike any other thats been recorded within or outside the realm of time.  Lucifer and his fallen angels were violently cast down into the underworld and  the unredeemed are by nature compelled to descend there, Jesus did so willingly and obediently on His continuing mission from the Cross to the Throne.  Quantitatively, He spent little more than a day in this region of the dead in what was essentially gathering the first fruits of the atonement into His eternal presence.  From this moment onward the Just, or those who lived their lives by faith in The Almighty would never have to experience this descent into the abyss but rather, immediately enter into the light and presence of The Father.

  Saint Paul spoke to this moment in his letter to the Church at Ephesus where he declared:

(In saying, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) - Eph 4:9-10 ESV

  Saint Peter further speaks to this in his first epistle:

For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. - 1Pe 4:6 ESV

    The theological impact of Holy Saturday is monumental, yet the day serves to teach a lesson thats closer to our everyday lives.  Let's consider the lives of Christ's remaining eleven Apostles and his other disciples.  Yesterday, they witnessed the horrific slaughter of their master who breathed his final breath naked, bloodied, and impaled upon a Roman cross.  The day had been darkened either through a total solar eclipse or some supernatural agency.  Their city was rocked by an earthquake and there were reports of paranormal activities with sightings of the dead.  Then, their master was sealed into a tomb and under Roman guard in a seeming cold finality.  Now, on the morning of the seventh day they rested, wrestling with grief, shock, disappointment, and a plethora of questions and emotion.  Yet within the next twenty-four hours, their lives would be seismically and irrevocably altered.  

  Holy Saturday teaches us that no matter how dire or final a situation may be, our stories are still being written by the Master of time and eternity.  While we see moments, he has already seen the our outcome.

  Let's rest in this truth. 

Good Friday. -- Tetelestai!

 

It is Finished.

Good Friday -- Reflections

 From the Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today's Gospel passage is extremely long, recapturing the Passion narrative that was read at All Saints' this past Sunday.  I'm sharing a portion of that large passage to accompany our thoughts in this moment. 

While I'd certain no one those reading this today has actually witnessed a Crucifixion, yet most have seen one or more theatrical or cinematic dramatizations of the event. Many of these dramatic recreations are relatively sterilized while some are extremely graphic and visceral.  But the bloodiest depiction fails to capture the horrors of a roman crucifixion, an execution engineered to inflict one of the worst terrible deaths a human may endure.  The Gospels capture a sense of this in their description of how the Roman execution detail broke the legs of two of the sufferer's in order to accelerate their end.

Our portion of Saint John 19 captures the Christ, in the moments leading to His death upon the cross:

"When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), "I thirst." A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." John 19:26-30 (ESV) 

It was approaching 3:00 PM in Jerusalem.  It could likely have been 68 Degrees Fahrenheit or 20C and fair on any given day, but this was an afternoon like no other.  Three hours prior, an unnatural darkness enveloped Jerusalem that held the city in the grip of twilight.  In this gloom, each breath taken by the master took the full measure of his strength as he strained against the nails to fill his lungs.  No doubt, he was dehydrated and in shock from being beaten and awake for 33 hours.  For all of this, the Christ WOULD NOT die until his mission was complete.  

In these moments, Jesus scans the perimeter, and sees his Disciple John Bar Zebedee with Mary, his Mother.  He commends his mother into John's care while comforting his mother that John would care for her.  Now, his thirst slaked by the sour wine, Jesus was able to cry out in a loud voice that the redemption of the Creation was complete. His words captured the sense that our sin debt at that moment was now paid in full.

The Emmaus Moment

Processing the events of the past three days. (Vv.13-16)

Let me take you back 20 years.  I want to apologize in advance if my words are triggering because that’s not my intent. Imagine for a moment, that today is September 11, 2001.  We’ve witnessed the most horrific attack on our Republic in our lifetime.  Earlier we saw towers attacked, and crumble into clouds of debris shortly afterward.  In our own back yard, we saw another plane plow headlong into the Pentagon while yet another plane cratered into rural Pennsylvania.  Our lives, as we knew them were forever altered.  Now, in the afternoon as we travel to our homes in our car or van pools, our minds still trying to come to grips with the horrors witnessed earlier. We begin to talk among ourselves.    

I’ll quickly concede that this is not how homilies in Eastertide typically open, yet in meditation and prayer over this morning’s Gospel reading, the thought seemed to jump right in front of me.

Like all of us who were of understanding on 9/11, Cleopas and his companion were no doubt overwhelmed by a similarly traumatic and rapid succession of events that had occurred over previous 80 or so hours.  During the Seder, they learned a dark conspiracy was unfolding.  They witnessed the betrayal of their master.  The pair witnessed the brutality of Christ’s death, suspended between heaven and earth.  Now this morning, a few hours earlier, a group of the women in their band burst into their presence with ecstatic words of Angels and empty tombs, going as far as stating that the Master was alive. 

So now, in the early afternoon of a Spring Sunday, the pair set off for their village of Emmaus. They would want to be off the road before sundown and away from the dangers hidden in the darkness.

Who were these travelers? The Bible Expositor R Kent Hughes suggests that the traveler mentioned by name in this passage (Cleopas), could also be the Clophas mentioned in Saint John’s Gospel, who was the the husband of Mary mentioned in John 19:25.  If this were the case, these travelers were actually the maternal Aunt and Uncle of Jesus. It would’ve inserted an additional level of pathos into the scene as it is now a middle-aged couple discussing their Earthly nephew.  As the couple continue on their trip, we see Jesus entering into the scene in a way that Father Adam Rick, the Anglican Chaplain of Hillsdale College seem to be almost playfully coy at times.

This moment presents a few questions going forward in the story: How did the followers of Jesus fail to recognize their master who just placed himself into the moment?  And how, given Saint John’s words of how we’ll be known in the resurrection, did they not recognize him?  Luke’s words speak to this fact in v. 16 in describing this phenomenon using the Greek work Krateo, where for the moments, their vision was divinely subverted.  As if a filter were placed on a lens, the Holy Spirit had control of their perception of reality

Jesus interposes Himself into the conversation (Vv. 17-24)

While we can only conjecture what it may have looked like: Jesus in his resurrected body was free of the constraints of mortal flesh and inserted himself in a position where he could begin a discussion with the two travelers. His question was met with a mix of sadness and incredulity.

Cleopas’s answer to Jesus’ question was telling on a few levels.  It seemed to infer that the events of the previous 72 plus hours were widely known by those pilgrims who’d come to Jerusalem for the Passover. Unlike a secret arrest where the victim is secreted away to be executed behind closed doors.  

In spite of Cleopas’ initial response, Jesus presses the issue.  It well could have been that Jesus was wanting to hear him verbalize his grief.  Not for Jesus’ sake, as Jesus already knew the burden Cleopas was carrying.  He also knew (as we know), that bottled up/unexpressed grief has a caustic effect on both the soul and body.  So, responding to Jesus’ continued questions, Cleopas spills his guts.

Cleopas responds to Jesus:

[Luk 24:19-24 ESV] 19 And he said to them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."

`

Jesus Delivers the first Easter Homily (Vv. 25-26)

Now, the LORD who knows all things already knew the heart of Cleopas.  He knew that the words flowing from that heart were those of heart-crushing grief.  Like Peter and the remaining eleven, many left everything behind to follow Jesus and did so at a cost that had financial, social, and familial costs.  But unknown to Cleopas in this moment, he was now speaking with the Great His Priest of Hebrews 4:

[Heb 4:14-16 NASB] 14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as [we are, yet] without sin. 16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hearing the sad lament, Jesus responds to Cleopas in words that sound much harsher in contemporary English.  In the original language, it was if Jesus was saying: “Look, you’ve completely misunderstood what has transpired.  Have you forgotten all that the prophets spoke concerning the Christ?”

It was here that Jesus begins to proclaim what is ostensibly the first “Easter Sermon” as he walked the pair through the Old Testament’s teaching of how the Christ would be the “suffering servant.  While the text is silent as to the specifics of Jesus’ teaching, we can imagine what Jesus shared that afternoon.  Perhaps, Jesus began with the Protoevangelium in Genesis:

[Gen 3:15 ESV] 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." 

He could have easily stepped intro Deuteronomy as Moses spoke of a “coming Prophet”:

[Deu 18:15 ESV] 15 "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers--it is to him you shall listen…

As the band pressed onto Emmaus, Jesus may have wended his way through the Psalms, Isaiah, Micah, Zechariah, and even the words of John as he proclaimed his message of repentance along the banks of the River Jordan.

Jesus reals Himself in the Breaking of the Bread (Vv. 28-33)

Cleopas and his companion were now approaching the end of their journey to Emmaus.  Jesus, however, feigned to be traveling onward.  Clearly, this illusive traveler had become a friend in these few short hours.  Given the approaching nightfall and the dangers a lone traveler might encounter on the road, Cleopas encourages Jesus to spend the night with him and the companion traveler.  Jesus agrees and joins them around the table.  Around the table that evening, Jesus took the bread, blessed it and gave it to his companions. It was now time for the Holy Spirit to move a second time that afternoon.

In a blink, the identity that had been supernaturally cloaked was revealed in an instant, allowing the companions to see the resurrected Christ with them there in Emmaus.  Then, just as quick, Jesus left their presence.  In the reverberation of the moment, both remarked how on the road, Christ didn’t merely quote or cite scripture, he opened and explained it in a way that stirred them, setting their hearts ablaze.

 Today’s Takeaway

This morning, as we’ve considered the Emmaus moment we’re able to perceive that like Cleopas and his companion, we too are in a situation that’s not unlike theirs.  The COVID-19 pandemic  has affected the axis of all our lives.  This is borne out in the fact that between you at home and me in this pulpit is an empty church that bears stark witness to the reality of the moment.

Yet, the same Great High Priest who availed himself in that moment of need, sits ready in our time as well. We may never personally experience an Emmaus moment in our lifetime, but in our intentional and focused reading of God’s word and pressing deep in prayer, He will make his presence known. As He makes his presence manifest in our hearts, it will cause our hearts to burn afresh.

Forty Day Reflections -- Lent 2020

Lent 2020 has passed under the light of a waning Gibbous Moon.  And in the words of a mime spinner, "This was the Lentiest Lent he'd ever Lented".  No doubt, this was quipped with the Wuhan pandemic in view.  And, but by Divine miracle, we'll wake tomorrow in the grip of this virus as Easter breaks across Suburbia Majora.  With all of this, I want to share how the previous lenten season touched and stretched me.

Lent began in the Dark.  Literally, for me Lent began at 4:45 AM on Ash Wednesday as I rose to prepare for the 6:30 & 8:00 AM Observances at All-Saint's. On that day too, I would encounter another type of darkness after arriving at work and discovering that in a Post-Christian world, far too many have absolutely no knowledge of Ash Wednesday. I was met with curious stares until one woman asked "what's that on on your face?  Did you forget to wash this morning?'  Trying to keep it light, I smiled and said I bumped up against my own mortality.  "Ohh, did it hurt?" she replied in a tone of concern.  From here I knew she had now context for the ashes on my forehead and it opened a door to share the season of Lent with her, explaining how may followers Christ observe this season as a time to fast, pray, and reflect in these weeks leading to the Easter season.

Lent in Lockdown.  At Lent's onset, the COVID-19 was on another Continent and effecting "other people".  Little did we know, that in two short weeks our Republic would seize up and grind to a halt.  Many were now watching their retirement portfolios evaporate as Stock Markets around the world cratered.  People were compelled to self distance and stay apart.  Churches ceased to gather for corporate worship.  March 15th saw our final public gathering and inwardly, I grieved for the saints who were being placed under interdict by reactionary public officials and denied the comfort of the Sacraments and the benedictions of their priests. A bright light in this darkness was being part of a technology-gifted parish that was able to employ existing technical resources in order to either prerecord or livestream the Holy Week from All-Saints.  In fact, tonight I'll be watching myself in the Easter Vigil.

You can't pursue a Holy Lent in your Own Strength.  Of all the takeaways from Lent 2020, for me this was the greatest.  All my attempts at this in years past we abysmal failures.  Like Charlie Brown, I'd run headlong towards the football only to have it yanked away.  Simply put, you'll find yourself incapable of ever doing this in your own strength.  Experientially, I was reminded in this season, the deeper one leans on the Spirit, the easier this pursuit becomes.

On the Fist Sunday in Lent II

The Audio.  Apologies in advance for the "UH's". I'm working on it...

https://www.allsaintswoodbridge.org/latest-sermons

On the First Sunday in Lent -- Walking the Via Christi

From the pulpit of All Saint's Anglican Church this morning:

Five days ago, many followers of Christ set off on their Lenten journey, but this wasn’t always the case for the Church.  In the earliest days of the Church, Lent would have started tomorrow. This observance existed until the sixth century, when in the west, the start of lent shifted backwards to the preceding Wednesday. In this, Lent would consist of forty weekdays.  Interestingly, our Eastern brothers and sisters continue to begin their “great Lent” tomorrow. Much has changed in the millennia following its inception.  Today, for the irreligious, Lent has become the fodder for crass jokes and banal humor. For much of Western Evangelicalism, Lent is dismissed outright as something “Catholics do”.  Mockers will continue to mock this season of Lent.  Yet for all of those who name Jesus as their redeemer, in their dismissal of the Lenten season, rob themselves of a great blessing.  This season of Lent is integral to our spiritual lives as Anglicans, allowing to take forty days of intentional devotion to our Lord.  Within our Prayer Books, we see an unambiguous call to this proactive consideration to a Call to a Holy Lent.  In this, we read of the purposeful activities that the greater Church engaged herself with.  It was a time when Catechumens, those desiring to become children of the Almighty, received instruction in the faith they were preparing to profess.  While others, those who had committed grievous sin, underwent church discipline and awaited reconciliation as they bore fruits of true repentance.

I have, in years past, set out with the best intentions of pursuing a holy lent only to see those intentions cater off the edge of the runway.  This can be laid at the feet of attempting the Spiritual through the agency of the Flesh. Being a slow learner, I’d dust myself off and try again next Lent.  Now, given a popular definition of insanity, that being repeatedly following the same steps while expecting different results on the next go, I was doomed to failure.  Yet, what if we were to consider something novel, something that has been right in front of us all these years? What if in following the example of Christ Jesus in his forty days in the desert, we could see that in that example, he blazed a path, a Via Christie of sorts, where we might also reap the fruits of a Holy Lent. Its from this than I’ve titled these thoughts, “The Via Christi”.

Led by the Spirit.  Jesus was led by the Spirit into the Desert for a forty day Fast.  Scripture speaks to the purpose of this type of fasting, so even though scripture is silent in this case, we can confidently believe that this fast was a time that allowed him to set self aside for the purpose of hearing from God the Father. There is scriptural precedent to believe this was a period of Divine Communion as witnessed in the life of Moses captured in the Book of the Exodus:

[Exo 34:28 ESV] 28 So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

I accept the Scriptures intentional silence of what occurred on those hot days and cold nights in the Judean wastelands.  We can glean that he was exposed to cold nights as whatever warmth from the day disappeared under clear desert skies.  In this primitive setting, Jesus waited, watched, and prayed.  At the end of forty days, Jesus was hungry.   Though there’s an impulse to consider this an understatement, I believe its quite the opposite, pointing to the absolute humanity of Jesus the Nazarene.

Its in this moment that we can hear our call to enter into our call to a holy lent.  While the call to pick up our cross and follow Christ is a Daily one, the Lenten season creates an intentional space for us to do this, both as individuals, but to do so in community.  Families, small groups, and the entire parish is called into this season.  Its also reinforcement in the notion that looks at the walk of faith as an “communal event”.  While its absolute truth that we come to the faith as individuals, we’re called to live out that same faith in community.  Some faith communities, the NALC in particular, has the practice of coming together for “Lenten Soup Suppers”, a time for a modest meal, worship and prayer.  But this is just one of many examples of saints answering that Call to a Holy Lent.

The Temptation of the Expedient.  As westerners, we’ve been historically (until rather recently), taught to not sit around idly waiting for something to happen, but to dive in and take care of whatever obstacle besets us.  We learned this at a tender age when learning of Franklin’s Epistle to the Yankees where the sage declared that the “Lord helps those who help themselves.”  There were no apparent limitations that would have prevented Jesus to command the stones to become warm nourishing loaves.  Recall how at Cana, he changed dishwater into a fine wine.  Twice along the shoreline, he fed a total of 9,000 with baskets to spare.  A hot loaf of bread would have been nothing at all. Now, I did earlier say that there was No Apparent reason but the reason becomes clear in Christ’s first response to the Tempter.  As Christ was experiencing this stomach-chewing hunger, he was identifying with Israel and the hunger they experienced in the Sinai as they learned to trust Yahweh in his speaking manna into existence.  This truth was contained in his response:

[Mat 4:4 ESV] 4 But he answered, "It is written, "'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"  

Like Moses, Jesus had been in the presence of the Almighty for nearly a month and a half, all the while being preserved from starvation.  Like Abraham before him, he knew his Father as Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides.  With his will in complete submission to his Father’s, there was the perfect bond of trust that when it was time to eat, the Father would ring the dinner bell.

While clearly, not all expediency is sinful.  Yet we must always strive to avoid sinful expediency. The mindset that would say, “I got this Lord” can potentially lead to spiritual disasters.  Just in the same manner that we’re called to be faithful in small matters, we’re called to trust God in all things, including the “small stuff”. In our call to a Holy Lent, we too are called to fast as one of the six disciplines cited which include self-examination, repentance, prayer, acts of mercy, reading, and meditating upon the Word of God.  Each of these allow us to not only encounter the mind of God through the reading, meditating, and “inwardly digesting” His word, but to become His heart and hands extended to the world around us.  Too, in these, we’re learning greater trust in the one who redeemed us.

The Temptation of the Presumptuous. The tempter spoke a second time to Jesus with a more complex proposition:

[Mat 4:5-7 ESV] 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, "'He will command his angels concerning you,' and "'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'”

Christ finds himself now seated on the highest point of the Temple.  Far below him might be Priests, Levites, and the faithful.  R.G. Tasker suggested that this may have occurred at the time of the evening sacrifice where one may not have been as visible as in the daytime.  From the standpoint of a mortal, this was a precarious point where one misstep would result in a quick plummet to a certain death.  

This wasn’t as simplistic a temptation as the previous one as now, reminiscent of the temptation of Eve, the adversary adds a flourish in inserting the words of the Psalmist, though wildly wrenching them out of context.  The implication was clear.  Surely, if Jesus were indeed the Christ of God, then God would be obliged to intervene and save him from peril, even dispatching the Holy Angels to fly swift to his aid.

Once more, Jesus offers a swift rebuke as he “Quotes Deuteronomy to the Devil”:

7 Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

Christ would have no part in anything that would force the Father’s hand in intervening to “clean up” an act of willful disobedience. The fact that the Father had promised divine protection for the Messiah was not only a matter of Old Testament prophecy, it was seen played out in the Nazarene.  As a small child, he was supernaturally protected from the megalomaniacal Herod as he dispatched a detail to murder, not only the Christ Child, but all the toddler boys of Bethlehem.  Early in Christ’s public ministry, Saint Luke recorded an instance of this divine protection in a moment that has some interesting similarities to this moment on the Temple pinnacle:

[Luk 4:29-30 ESV] 29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away.

While proclaiming the words of Isaiah on a Nazareth Sabbath, an enraged mob sought to throw Jesus down to the bottom of a cliff. Yet he simply walked through them and onto his next appointed stop in Capernaum.  This was according to the Father’s will, a will that will never be thwarted.

In our forty day pursuit gives an opportunity to pause in reflection and self-examination, asking have we acted presumptuously in the presence of God?  Do we find ourselves grumbling over unanswered prayers or unmet expectations? We must understand this; unchecked presumption spawns unchecked entitlement. Unchecked entitlement places us in a spiritually precarious position.  If through self-examination we find we’ve slipped into this rut, we can through repentance and prayer, make a right beginning.

The Temptation to override Divine Decree.  The Adversary, in the last in this round of temptation, presents a vision of all the kingdoms of humanity in a moment.  My mind boggles considering the possibilities of what all Jesus saw at that moment.  Satan offers a “modest proposal”; take a knee and I will and them over to you. In another temptation steeped in utilitarianism, the Word of God, the one who saw Lucifer fall from heaven is now asked “bow”.  If ever the end justified the means?  No pain or suffering, no humiliation or dying like a common criminal. But at what cost?

Had Jesus buckled under temptation and took a knee, the cost would have been devastating, going far beyond the loss of Divine honor, it would have resulted in the loss of His Bride the church.  In other words, had Jesus taken the easy way out, we would be left without a redeemer; and without hope of redemption. It was at this moment that Jesus delivered a withering rebuke, once again paraphrasing the words of Deuteronomy:

[Mat 4:10 ESV] 10 Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written, "'You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'"

As the echo of that rebuke reverberated in the Judean wilderness, the Devil departed and at once, Christ was attended to by His holy angels.

I can promise you; as you endeavor to keep a Holy Lent, our adversary will do his level best to throw out distractions, squirrels and shiny objects in an effort to take our minds off of Christ and the Via Christi.  When this happens, we’re called to stand up and prayerfully press on. 

The First Sunday after Epiphany (2) -- To Fulfill All Righteousess

From The Gospel. according to Saint Matthew: 

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."Mat 3:13-17 (ESV)

I wanted to share the audio from last Sunday's homily.  

"To Fulfill All Righteousness" -- January 12, 2020