January 7, 2007
The First Sunday after Epiphany (Year C)
Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17;
Luke 2:15-21
Last night we had a service to celebrate Epiphany, that season in the church year that follows Christmas. When asked, I would wager that most people who attend church on a semi-regular basis could tell you that Epiphany is the season when the three kings come, but probably not much more than that. Truth be known, however, other than Advent, it is my favorite season. A season when we celebrate the signs that Jesus and God used to point out that Jesus was, indeed, the Messiah and that "messiah" meant something far different from what people were hoping for.
What I like is that in Epiphany we hear stories from both the Old and New Testaments that point out who Jesus was, is, and continues to be. I like it that the signs are not usually miracles or magical. But, if they have a miraculous edge to them, they use things of this world, ordinary things, like stars, and wine, and light, and water, and other human beings to point out that the king of kings and lord of lords may reign in all the heavens and universes. It is the things of this world that Jesus uses to make his points and that God usurps as exclamation points to point out just who Jesus really is.
Last night we began with the story of the creation of the world. The Lord said, "Let there be light" and there was. Light, do we not take it for granted? Do we not get depressed in the winter when the days are too short and the light is not there to guide and feed our souls? "Let there be light," God said. In the church there was light as the trees and the ropes along the walls, suddenly all lit up in the dark church reminding us that light is not an extraordinary thing, but the a thing of this world that God uses in creation.
"May the light of Christ shine in you," we say to children when they are baptized. Light begun at creation. Light continued in the ordinary of you and me and all the baptized.
Then after prayer and song we heard the story from Exodus of Moses and the burning bush. The burning bush, how did God do that? Fire and bush, unconsumed bush, things of this world, ordinary things, but out of it a mystery and a timeless message! We might want to know God and even claim to know God absolutely and irrefutably, but God is illusive to humans. In truth we cannot know the whole of God. We cannot identify God. We can know God's voice and we can know God's power and we can know God is guiding us, but as mere humans we can only see signs that point to God, that reveal aspects of God, like a burning bush that is unconsumed by fire. That tells us something, something we can debate, something we can ponder about God, but not claim irrefutably. God is too mysterious for that, a burning bush is a sign of God's revelation.
We heard the story of the three kings going to visit with Herod and then following a star. God used an ordinary star and, give or take, three ordinary men, to point out the greatest of all babies (with the possible exception of my granddaughter, of course!) but in any case, an ordinary baby. A baby is a sign of God's revelation. Shepherds and three wise men from afar following the star are responses to the signs. They are all signs.
We heard the story we hear this morning, but from John instead of Luke. But it's the same story of Jesus being baptized by his cousin in the River Jordan. "You are my beloved with whom I am well pleased." Last night we poured the water from the pitcher into the font. I then sprinkled the holy water on the people as I will sprinkle it on you in a few minutes. Water is a sign, water, without which we could not survive. Water is a sign of God's inclusive love for us, a sign of our redemption and the power of the Spirit working. As the Spirit in the form of a dove, a common bird, was a sign of the Spirit moving over Jesus that morning at the
Then we heard the story of how Jesus turned ordinary water into extraordinary wine, a story we will hear again next week as our gospel reading. Indeed, all of the Epiphany ‘sign' stories are stories we hear sometime during the three year Epiphany cycle of readings. Last night the same pitcher that held baptismal water held communion wine from the wedding at
The final story we heard last night was the reading from John about the bread of life, ordinary bread is what Jesus used to remind us that his body and our body are intertwined. His body is the stuff of which we eat each day. And if we become what we eat, then we become the body of Christ each time we share the holy meal. Bread is a sign!
After hearing of the signs, we gathered in the parish hall for a meal of ordinary food, chicken and dried fruit, nuts and olives, bread, wine, water, juice, vegetables, and hummus, simple food, easy to eat food, natural food, ordinary food. All a sign of God's nurture!
But I would say the greatest sign of all was sitting at the table with others from this community as Jesus sat at the table with his friends and followers. For many of the stories that we hear in Epiphany are ones that make sense only because they are someone's sudden realization that the ordinary things of life, like water and light and doves and stars and wine, people are the only way we can really know God. It is through the ordinary that God is revealed and it is through the ordinary that we catch a glimpse and even sometimes receive new knowing, or an "epiphany" when we see, as if for the first time, the wonder of God in our lives.
Epiphany is a season to celebrate God in the ordinary. It is a season to trust that God will work through the ordinary and us and each other, and even those others we are not so sure of, to reveal God's self to us in new ways, that the glass darkly that constrains our human knowing is brightened and lightened by God's ongoing and purposeful revelation.
It is also a season to take to heart the wonderful words of God to Jesus, and to all of us by extension who have wondered over the signs, eaten the bread, been submerged and born again in the waters of baptism, "You are my beloved." You are God's beloved and God reveals it to you day after day in ordinary ways with ordinary signs, in extraordinary ways. Be on the look out. See. Believe.
May this season of light be filled with wondrous new awakenings to God's revelation in your life.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd