Manifesting the reign of God

Sermon by Pr. Michelle Sevig on the Third Sunday in Advent + Sunday, November 24, 2024.

Earlier this week as I was listening to the evening news, I heard the anchor say, “Cambridge dictionary is putting a premium on the power of imagination. It chose the word manifest as its 2024 word of the year.” My interest was piqued, because I know that word, manifest, as a “churchy word,” one reserved for hymns and scripture. So I leaned in to learn more. 

“It has multiple meanings, but the one driving this choice is ‘to use methods such as visualization and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want and believing that doing so will make it more likely to happen.’” Then the weatherman told a brief story about how he told his wife a year ago that one day he would be working at CBS 2, he ‘manifested it to happen,’ and look at him now sitting at the desk with the other anchors. 

Cambridge says the word “manifest or manifesting” was looked up nearly one hundred and thirty thousand times this year. Interest surged as famous performers, athletes, and entrepreneurial influencers talked about manifesting their lives, their dreams, their vocation. Coaches and psychologists too encourage people to visualize the success you want on the field or court, boardroom or dating scene and it’s more likely to happen. 

Whether or not you believe in the power of manifestation, manifest has come to symbolize the pursuit of turning dreams into reality. What are your dreams? What do you seek to manifest in your life, in your communities…in the world?

I’ll be honest with you, my dreams/hopes are for more peace, and less conflict;  for democracy to persevere in America; for acceptance and love to rule instead of fear and ignorance. I pray that we’d collectively be motivated to manifest a new political reality where leaders would lie less and lead more. I want Christ to reign in our hearts and our lives, so that we’ll manifest God’s kingdom of love and grace and forgiveness here on earth now, as it is in heaven. 

Last weekend at a retreat with the youth group, Rachael Kurtz, the musician and retreat leader, sang a prayer that our swords would turn into plowshares–that weapons of violence would become tools of peace. She powerfully sang this prayer, and as she did, tears flowed down my cheeks and the youth were mesmerized too. 

I pray that your body gets all that it needs

And if you don't want healing, I just pray for peace

I pray that your burden gets lighter each day

I pray the mean voice in your head goes away

I pray that you honor the grief as it comes

I pray you can feel all the life in your lungs

I pray that if you go all day being brave, that you can go home, go to bed, feeling safe

I pray you're forgiven. I pray you forgive

I pray you set boundaries & openly live

I pray that you feel you are worth never leaving

I pray that you know I will always believe you

And I pray that you're heard

And I pray that this works

I pray that this prayer is a plowshare of sorts

Praying this prayer, and our own prayers too, is one way to welcome the presence of Christ in our lives…to manifest the reign of God, to envision and lean into the ways of God that are contrary to the ways of this world. 

In times of crisis - amid increased gun violence, environmental collapse, housing shortages, white supremacy, and so much more- how do we manifest the reign of God? Are we clear about who we worship and pray to? Do we have the courage to declare our allegiance to the One standing in Pilate’s court being questioned about his authority?

In this season of waiting and anticipating the coming of the Christ Child, we are summoned to Pilate’s court and hear Jesus being questioned about his authority and kingship. This king is like no other ever experienced before. He comes in the most humble and vulnerable circumstances–a baby in the manger, the one with a soft spot on his head and Mary’s milk on his breath – and he is none other than the Almighty God. 

Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world–not from the world of violence and contempt, but rather from God's world of grace and peace. His is the kingdom of servanthood  and neighborhood, of serving and loving our neighbors as ourselves. 

In the midst of today’s political unrest, along with threats of parties and politicians whose power seems unmatched, we are called to manifest the reign of Christ in our lives and in our world. Our ultimate allegiance is not to a political party, or even a Christian denomination, but to Christ. Our worship belongs not to worldly rulers, but to heavenly powers. Our lives are entrusted not in the hands of a president or a congress, but only in the hands that were pierced on a cross more than two thousand years ago. 

The popular definition of manifest used by today’s influencers and life coaches is different from the one I was more familiar with before Cambridge declared it the word of the year. Another way to use the word manifest means “to show something clearly, through signs or actions.”

God manifested long before it became popular with influencers. God showed something clearly through signs or actions in giving us Jesus. Jesus manifests God’s grace and mercy as he welcomes the last, the least and the lost. The reign of God does not come by our own doing, by our own wishing or manifesting for it to happen, but God has already manifested–already shown us–the way to live most fully in this world that God so lovingly created. 

As the author of Revelation reminds us, Christ is our beginning and our end, the alpha and the omega, the one who is, who was and who is to come. Because of Jesus’  manifestation of God’s greatness, we are grounded in that greatness and called to let Jesus’ light shine in all that we do. We are called to manifest God’s reign of love and peace, God’s reign of connectedness and servanthood, God’s reign of generosity and hopefulness. 

Each week as we gather around this table, God’s love for us is manifest–made known. Wine is poured and bread is broken. The Holy One takes all of our longing and despair and comes among us to reign as the one who forgives and blesses. God in flesh made manifest. 

So let us sing together, “Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our fears and sins release us; let us find our rest in thee.”