One of my colleagues has a cartoon from the New Yorker taped to his door. It shows a distinguished-looking person in cap and gown about to deliver a commencement address. With a self-congratulatory nod, he says, “I hardly know where to begin. I know so much.” This may be Nicodemus’s problem. It’s not that he can’t conceive of being transformed by a new idea. It’s just that it’s been so long since he’s heard a genuinely new idea that he’s forgotten how to get carried away. He is trying to reposition himself spiritually, hoping to figure things out, trying to find himself, which is a bit awkward for him because he is a grown-up. He’s supposed to have found himself a long time ago. Besides, he is “a teacher of Israel,” and academics do not change their minds abruptly.

“He was transfigured before them.” The Greek word is not fancy. It is the word “changed,” Metemorphothe. From which we get the word metamorphosis. We say, the caterpillar is changed into a butterfly. It is a metamorphosis.

That’s what seems to have happened to Jesus. The caterpillar Messiah who was poor and persecuted, who once said of himself, “Foxes have holes; birds have nests, but the Son of Man has [zero] nowhere to lay his head” is suddenly changed from caterpillar to butterfly. Suddenly, he is—beautiful—shining like the sun.

The Bible is a book of questions. We may prefer to read it as a book of answers, but it is both: question and answer / answer and question. Sometimes God asks the questions. Sometimes we ask the questions of God. Someone (with nothing better to do) has totaled them up in the four Gospels” Jesus asks 307 questions. In the brief portion I just read of Psalm 42, you may have heard, When? Why? and, most cruelly, Where is your God?

This simple sixteenth-century poem sums up the trust each of us has as we prepare to receive the Lord’s Supper. We believe and we receive. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But we know the controversies regarding this sacrament have made it anything but simple. What the church optimistically named the sacrament of unity has often proved to be an occasion of disunity, setting off great arguments among Christians over the status and make-up of its ordinary elements. How can a modest piece of bread be the body of Christ? What is the best way to receive the wine? Must there be wine?

We have a relative whose Christmas card arrives every year at about this time. It’s always the same. We think he loves us, but . . . it’s a severe love. Well, I have his card here; judge for yourselves.

“Dear Rick and Tracy, and family: You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Happy holidays! Love, John.”

Each year we ask ourselves, must we have Cousin John every Christmas? Can’t we skip a year? Is he really family? The answer is always Yes, but why?

Why? Because of all the ways we have of preparing for Christmas (and we have a lot), John’s method is the best.

If I told you these words are taken from a sermon, you might say, “That must have been some sermon.” And you would be right! Jesus is the preacher, and he is preaching as he has never preached before. He has come up to Jerusalem to observe Passover—and to die. But for now he is preaching—every morning in the Temple, then every evening he is crossing the Kidron Valley to spend the night on the Mount of Olives. And the people are getting up early every morning to find their place in the Temple to hear this extraordinary preacher.

And now we come to the hardest work of Christmas. What, you thought the hard work was done? You thought the hard work was finished in choosing the gifts, baking the cookies, cleaning the house, watching the diet and otherwise surviving what one journalist calls “our annual ordeal of fun.” You thought the hard work was getting yourself or someone you love through the loneliness of this season that is only magnified by its artificial gayety. You thought the hard work was re-assembling your family like a stubborn jigsaw puzzle in the hope that all the pieces would fit together and stay together if only for two or three days.

Before Advent is a word, it is a sigh. A voice crying. A mood. And never more deeply felt than in these troubled months. Advent marks both the exhaustion and the hope of God’s people, when the meaning of our lives is expressed in a weary exhalation of ordinary breath and then a sharp intake of something greater.

What I have just read is the most famous missionary sermon ever preached. A missionary sermon is by definition a sermon preached to outsiders, people who don’t know the truth and maybe never heard of it. In Acts 17 we are watching as a man, Paul of Tarsus, takes a historic first step out of his comfort zone. God is bringing the gospel from the mid-east and Asia Minor into Europe.

He is a man of the book, the Hebrew scripture, who knows from Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and the one God Yahweh. Now he is speaking to an audience of cultured despisers who know the pagan poets and philosophers, but not Paul’s scripture.

In London’s National Gallery there is a painting by the Renaissance artist Michelangelo Caravaggio. It is called The Supper at Emmaus and portrays the climax of a stranger’s meeting with two travelers on the road to Emmaus. The story is found in the Gospel of Luke. It is Easter evening; the stranger is walking with them, but perhaps because they are distracted by grief, they do not recognize him. We understand. Everything they loved has been taken away from them. Their lives will never be the same. They say (in paraphrase), “Stay with us, for our world is far spent.”