Epiphany

by Sharon Marr

(Based on Luke 3:15-17, 21-22)

After being daunted seeing there were over a million sermons and commentaries on the wonderful www to peruse this story of John’s baptism, I reached gratefully to the Journey with Jesus website and brother Chris Ison’s writings for encouragement, and Sister Joan who says simply, “It’s all about love”.  

On this first Sunday after the Epiphany (the revelation of the Christ child to the ‘wise men from the east’), we find ourselves at the edge of the River Jordan with Jesus and his cousin, John.  It wasn’t that long ago we as a church family gathered at the edge of our river for the baptism of Archer, Lincoln and Kiki, just “the other day” for many of us.  It is a day we will remember, misty rain, dripping umbrellas, when Sister Joan reminded the three, their baptism joined them to Christ and to his whole Church, in every part of the world, in the past and in the future, on earth and in heaven. She continued saying, “Even before today, God began his work in you, but it will take the whole of your life to complete that work, with God’s help. There will be moments when the journey ahead is a delight and there will be times when it is hard, but you will never be alone.”
Can you too remember the joy, tinged with excitement, as they joined into the family of Christ?

Today we hear of Jesus being baptized by a reluctant John. [“I am not worthy to untie your sandals.”] But Jesus insists, receives John’s baptism of repentance, and experiences a moment of divine revelation as he comes up out of the water and “saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ ”
The word “epiphany” comes from Greek, meaning “appearing” or “revealing”.  However, not all baptism immersions bring about such divine revelations.  At a wedding, a couple of years ago now, our then four year old granddaughter accidentally ended up in the frog pond in her new frock and shoes, but rather than becoming a revealing moment, it became a story which she firmly said, “we had no need to discuss any further”. So we won’t. At least, not with her present.
But discuss the baptism of Jesus, the early church certainly did; in fact, the story is found in all four Gospels.  And the church, we see, continued discussing and exploring this extraordinary event throughout the New Testament. And we still do today.    

During this brief liturgical season between Christmas and Lent, we’re invited to leave miraculous births and angel choirs behind, and seek the love, majesty, and power of God in seemingly mundane things.  Rivers. Voices.  Doves.  Clouds.  Holy hands covering ours, lowering us into the water of repentance and new life.  
In the Gospel stories we read during this season, God parts the curtain for brief, shimmering moments, allowing us to look beneath and beyond the ordinary surfaces of our lives, and catch glimpses of the extraordinary.  Which is perhaps another way of describing the sacrament of baptism – one of the thin places where the ‘extraordinary’ of God’s grace blesses the ‘ordinary’ water we are baptized with.

In receiving baptism, Jesus doesn’t set himself apart from us; he aligns himself with us.  Now that is a truly breathtaking statement.  Jesus identifies himself with all of humanity.  Baptism in Luke’s Gospel story is about solidarity.  About joining.  

According to Christian historian John Dominic Crossan, Jesus’s baptism story was an “acute embarrassment” for the early Church, precisely because of this joining in.  Why would God’s Messiah place himself under the tutelage of a rabble-rouser like John the Baptist?  Why would God’s incarnate Son receive a baptism of repentance?  Repentance for what?  Wasn’t he perfect? Why on earth would he wade into the murky waters of the Jordan, aligning himself with the great unwashed who teemed into the wilderness, reeking of sin?  Worse, why did God the Father choose that sordid moment to part the clouds and call his Son beloved?  A moment well before all the miracles, the healings, the exorcisms, the resurrections?  A moment long before Jesus accomplished a thing worth praising?

Why, indeed?  And yet this is the baffling, humbling, awe-inspiring story we’ve inherited as Christ’s followers. Unbelievable though it may seem, Jesus’s first public act was an act of joining into his humanity in the fullest, most embodied way.  “Let it be so,” he told John, echoing the radical consent of his mother, Mary, who raised him in the faith.   Let it be so at the hands of another, he decided, as he submitted to John the Baptiser, because what Jesus did and still does with power is freely surrender it, share it, give it away. Let it be so here, he said, in the Jordan River, rich with sacred history.  In other words, in this one moment, in this one act, Jesus joined into the whole story of God’s work on earth, and allowed that story to resonate, deepen, and find completion.          

So.  What part of this story is hardest for you to take in?  That God appears by means so unimpressive, so familiar, we often miss him?  That Jesus enters joyfully into the full messiness of the human family?  That our baptisms bind us to all of humanity — not in theory, but in the flesh — such that you and I are kin, responsible for each other in ways we fail too often to honour?  That as Christians we are called into radical solidarity, not radical separateness?  That we are always and already God’s Beloved — not because we’ve done anything to earn it, but because God’s very nature, inclination and desire is to love?  

To embrace Christ’s baptism story is to embrace the core truth that we are united, interdependent, connected, one.  It is to sit with the staggering reality that we are deeply, deeply loved.  Can we bear to embrace these mind-bending truths without flinching away in self-consciousness, cynicism, suspicion or shame? 

Baptism is all about joining in, all about surrender, all about finding the holy in the course of our ordinary, mundane lives within the family of God.  Which means we must choose Epiphany.  Choose it, and then practise it.  The challenge is always before all of us to look again. Look harder.  See freshly.  Stand in the place that looks utterly ordinary, and regardless of how afraid or jaded you feel, to cling to the possibility of a surprise that is God.  Listen to the ordinary, and know that it is infused with divine mystery.  Epiphany is deep water — you can’t dip your toes in.  You must take a deep breath and plunge, so hold onto Jesus. He’s the one who opens the barrier, and shows us the God we long for.  He’s the one who stands in line with us at the water’s edge, willing to immerse himself in shame, scandal, repentance, and pain — all so that we might hear the only Voice that will tell us who we are and whose we are in this sacred season. There will be moments when the journey ahead is a delight and there will be times when it is hard, but we will never be alone.

Listen.  We are God’s chosen.  God’s children.  God’s own.
In these very uncertain times we are in, even in the deepest, darkest water, perhaps even a frog pond, let us remember we are the Beloved.

Amen.

Magical Knowledge

by Liz Young

(Based on Matt 2:1-12)

We’ve said goodbye to 2021. It’s time to leave our regrets behind for all those mistakes and undone things of 2021, and think of our resolutions for the New Year. Before I open up discussion on that, I want us to think of the Gospel of today: the journey of the Magi (‘Wise Men’?) to worship Christ, whose birth led to our redemption for all time. Their mathematical and astrological knowledge was amazing. Knowledge lost over time by recurrent invasions from the east, Huns followed by Mongols, into Europe.
Nowadays knowledge and seeds are stored safe from invaders. Intellectual knowledge came to Rome from the Greeks, and later to Madrid from Moslems, and then Western European knowledge was added to in the 18th and 19th centuries by France and Britain, searching for knowledge overseas, and then spread to everyone who had a computer in the 20th century. But other knowledge acquired by quiet study has been lost since the start of Christianity, during wars between differing factions of Christians, The libraries in Alexandria, the Reformation of the monasteries. History has many examples of governments and their armies fighting for power, for economic gain, and destroying libraries. This fighting has only dimmed in the last century with the invention of the nuclear bomb: when we realized that mass destruction would leave no arable land behind. But wars still continue, especially local wars in Africa, and wars of independence from overwhelming tyranny. When will we learn that we are all one in the eyes of God?

The Magi were experts in the interpretation of omens, and Herod was a great believer in omens, so would have had his own magi. But we have natural portents that we find easier to interpret than omens, such as new buds forming on trees heralding spring, and today’s weather forecasts are increasingly accurate. But  we still haven’t learnt to share earth’s resources equally.  When will we learn the advantages of sharing the earth’s gifts, amongst all of humanity equably? At least at the latest COP meeting richer nations were able to agree that we need to help the poorer countries develop protection from climate warming.  But when will we minimize over consumption, when will we say goodbye to fashion? And how can we minimise our non-compostable rubbish?

It is possible, as the small town of Raglan has shown. I’ll never forget being offered my coffee in a reused jam jar, insulated by string wound round it.
Many of us will remember that some experts predicted that we would run out of food before the end of the 20th century. But we developed grains that yielded more. In fact we can produce enough food now to feed the world, but it does have to be stored safely and distributed fairly. When will we build safe storage from floods and famine for every one? Bangladesh is constantly at risk from floods. When will we minimize our over consumption? More than half the food prepared in restaurants used to be thrown away: one good result of this pandemic is that this food in Auckland is being distributed to the hungry. So much waste occurs because we, the consumers, want perfect fruit. We need to teach our children not to turn their noses up at natural blemishes on fruit. We want to be protected from germs so everything is packed in plastic bags, while at the same time our children have more allergies because they are not exposed to enough dirt after the age of four months. Are we barmy or batty?

To return to Knowledge: intellectual knowledge is not the only form of knowledge. The wise men sought the Saviour of the world. Religion has been part of human society for over 10,000 years and God’s love for us was revealed in Christ over 2000 years ago. Initially religion was about appeasement. There were, and are, so many potential dangers in the world that God’s benevolence needs to protect us from. Men have offered sacrifices all through the ages for protection from danger and for good harvests. But safety and sufficient food is not everything. How we live together and care for each other is important too. The Magi knew that Jesus was the chosen one. They who were kings’ advisers came to worship a new born baby lying in a manger in a stable, because they foresaw that his teachings would benefit all mankind. Would the millionaires who’ve just been launched to the edge of our atmosphere do that? They might.

Let us pray that God gives us the best minds for the job of helping us downsize our personal expectations so all can be fed well, and each family live in a healthy home. Each one of us can lower our personal consumption. (My husband makes me give a garment to the Op Shop every time I buy a new one!) But we frequently fail to follow God’s principles, and in many different ways. We sin at any time. Jesus came to redeem us from that sin. The Magi came to honour him.

New Year Resolution

I think the New Year deserves a pome – a resolution pome (with a sometime rime).  Something about focussing on others as the best antidote for loneliness and feeling sorry for ourselves.  Signalling service and volunteerism and any other tactical intent of others-before-me.  As we’ve languished within our four walls for extended periods, Covid and so many other ills have caused us to feel isolated, abandoned, or just fearful and unfriended.

It’s time (especially with Omicron at the gates) to replace fear with hope and get out (electronically or actually) among those who feel anxious with a friendly word or a selfless offer. Chances are you’ll be alleviating the mental health crisis of our time and maybe you’ll get something in return.  But reward or validation is not the aim.

So, yeah, here’s my pome.

“Ring out the old and ring in the new.” (Lord Tennyson, 1850)
Look we forward without further ado.  (Not Tennyson)
Shake the dust off 2021,
And reach with hope for the new year begun.
The old one hurt us; we rue and bleed.
But here comes the new, rolling at speed.

How many years have rolled up behind,
Only to sour or fade in the mind?
But how many joys yet must lie ahead
To tease us with hope and promise instead?

Carry we all our burdens and grief,
But let’s admit that 21 was a thief!
It had no mana, no licence to be
A killer of peace or our joie-de-vie.

So, now, here they come – rising to you
Possibilities looming in 22.
Let’s gather our skirts and step out again:
No time to dwell, no gain to complain.
And here’s a tip to give you a start:
Subordinate self to the challenging art

Of loving and serving and caring for others …

Yes, ring out the old and ring in the new
And embrace what the new year is asking of you.

It’s a new day.  Go for it.

Ken F

Anticipation

by Bruce Gilberd

(Based on Luke 1:39-45; Micah 5:2-5; Hebrews 10:5-10)

Today we are completing the church season of Advent and are poised for Christmas. We wait in anticipation for a birth of ultimate significance.

How extraordinarily accurate was the prophecy of the Old Testament book of Micah.

  • The reference to Bethlehem
  • Israel subject to “enemies” – read “Roman Empire”
  • The Coming King is alive from everlasting ages, and “greatly honoured all around the world”
  • There will be a spiritual rebirth
  • The King, the Good Shepherd, will feed his flock – yes, and he still does

How enlightening and accurate all that was, and is!

Then the New Testament reading from the epistle to the Hebrews reminds us that the old system of sacrifice in the Temple was totally ineffective in deleting Israel’s sin.  It was a mere faint shadow of the reality of Christ’s self-offering, his cross and resurrection, that dealt with sin, once, and for all nations and people.  Only this re-establishes God’s undying relationship with humanity.  Jesus’s own words sum it up: “Here I am.  I have come to give my life.”
This Hebrews passage focusses even further Micah’s prophecy.

Now we go to that touching scene in Luke of the cousins meeting – Mary and Elizabeth – both now pregnant.  Purposeful pregnancies of great and ultimate significance.  John and Jesus, second cousins – cuzzie bros – will bring joy, perplexity, tragedy and, finally, triumph to their mothers.  And for many down the centuries to now.

Elizabeth’s and Mary’s sons would both die turning the world upside down.

There is in this intimate scene of the meeting and greeting of Mary and Elizabeth, above all, anticipation.  Something altogether new is imminent!

So, as we ponder the transit from Advent to Christmas we ask ourselves,

  • Do we have a disposition of anticipation in our church and in our lives; of God doing something entirely new?
  • What new and transforming reality, truth, is being birthed in us?

I have had two conversations recently on what Jesus came amongst us to do.  We covered many reasons for his coming.  I offer a few here this morning:

  • To offer forgiveness and liberation to all.  It is always possible to make a new start.
  • He taught us how to pray, and, amazingly, address the living God as Father.
  • He was really clear that discipleship is costly.  What happened to him can happen to us – and does in some countries.
  • He shows us what God is like – undying love.
  • He shows us how to live.  Truth, and love of God, and others, are absolute priority.
  • He initiated his Kingdom – his reign of healing, forgiveness and transformation among us.
  • He founded his church, his community of believers, to bring in his reign of love.
  • He overcame death and dwells amongst us as our wounded risen brother and friend.

All this we both embrace and anticipate.
Perhaps you can add to these reasons and outcomes of Jesus’s birth and life among us.  Above all, let us ponder and embrace these many faceted expressions of the love of God in Christ, as the future unfolds in a turbulent and uncertain world.

As with the lives of Elizabeth and her son John, Mary and her son Jesus, there will be joy, there will be perplexity, there will be sorrow.

But, finally, there will be the triumph of: Hope and Love, Joy and Peace.