Epiphany

Christmas is over. The presents are all unwrapped and in use. The wrappings have been disposed of and the tree, which was gaily decorated a short while ago, is either now packed away, if it was artificial, or it has been discarded with the trash if it was real. In the stores,the Christmas merchandise has been taken away though there may still be a few unsold items that are offered at big discounts. The racks that were once filled with Christmas cards are now holding Valentines for the next commemoration. We are finished with Christmas for another year. In the Church we have moved on from Christmas to the season of Epiphany, the next season in our yearly cycle of devotion. The emphasis now has been shifted with approximately a thirty year jump in time. We have moved on from the Virgin Mother and the baby Jesus to the grown man Jesus standing beside the River Jordan, listening to a preacher from the desert. Now it is the time of the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ, the event with which Jesus began his public ministry. We are no longer concerned with the child but with the man and we are concerned with the mission to which his life is dedicated.

Christmas is over for another year. Or, is it? Certainly for the world around us Christmas is a yearly event, a celebration of giving and buying, a celebration of parties and decorations, a celebration of good cheer and good will. And that has passed. For us as Christians, Christmas is, and certainly should be, all of that but it is more. The More of Christmas is something that cannot be packed away, it cannot be forgotten with the decorations. The More of Christmas is something that simply cannot be just ignored for another year. The More of Christmas is concerned, not just with that event, but with the implications of that event. The More of Christmas is concerned with who it is who was born in that stable in Bethlehem. And so it is toward the More of Christmas that we turn in the next season of our yearly cycle of devotion and reading of the Holy Scriptures. It is the More of Christmas that illuminates and gives reason to our lives as Christians. For you and me, as Christians, Christmas is not just an event, it is not just a celebration. But rather, Christmas is, for you and for me, a beginning. It is The Beginning. It is the beginning that marks the dividing line of all human history. You and I as Christians divide history into two sections. We divide it into B.C., before Christ; and A.D., Anno Domine, the Year of our Lord. Christmas is the Beginning! The beginning of what? What is there about this event, this birth that justifies our making this claim?

So, whose birth is this anyway? Certainly as you and I look back through 2,000 years of Christian devotion, the answer to this seems easy and it seems obvious. But, I wonder if it really is easy and obvious? The Child was born. The angels sang. The shepherds and the wisemen came to worship and adore, then there was silence. For about 30 years, nothing more happened. The angels, the shepherds, the wisemen, they all went away and life went on as usual. It was a little bit like our celebration of Christmas today. It was all packed away and life just simply went on. The Gospels, as we read them, are very little help on this. Apart from one rather sweet story about Jesus in the Temple at the age of 12, there is nothing more. So, why was all this fuss made? Why was this event so important? Above all what right do you and I, as Christians, have to make the claim that this is the pivot point of human history.? What the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, called, “The Hinge of History.” What right do we have to claim this?

Who is this person? Who is this man? Throughout the Gospels and down through history, this same question has been asked again, and again, and again. It has been asked in many ways. It has been asked in wonder. It has been asked in cynicism. It has been asked in anger and it hasbeen asked in hope. Who is this man? Time and again the disciples, those who were closest to Jesus, would turn to one another both in wonder and in consternation and ask again, Who is this man? Who is this who can heal the sick and can raise the dead? “Who is this who even the waves and the sea obey?” (St. Matthew 8:27) While they followed him and were with him day after day, still the question, Who is this man? Then the Scribes and the Pharisees, the leaders of the people, they were condemned in his preaching and were confounded by his wisdom. But even as they opposed him, they knew that there was something different about him. They found in him a kind of power and of authority that transcended anything they were accustomed to. Even as they plotted to get rid of him, the nagging question kept coming; Who is this man?

From that day to this, the devout and the not so devout, in writing and debating; in the myriad of the books and the pamphlets, in the learned dissertations and in the popular novels, the same question is asked; Who is this man? The answer to this question, or better, the many answers to this question is what is meant by the More of Christmas. The answer to this question makes Christmas, not just a lovely event, but it makes it a beginning. It makes it The New Beginning. It makes it that pivot point around which human history turns. It makes it the “Hinge of History.” Now, for us in this season of Epiphany, our thoughts and devotions are turned toward this question. We are turned in Epiphany toward the “Showing forth” of Christ as that is what the word Epiphany means. We are asked to explain why all the fuss? Who is this who is the focus of so much attention? Who is this for whom such extravagant claims are made? Who is this man? Jesus is born. Ah yes, Jesus who? Who is he?

Some thirty years later the child who had now grown to manhood, came to the Jordan River bank to hear the latest preacher, to hear John the Baptist, that stark and mysterious figure from the wilderness who came like the ancient prophets of Israel, with a message of warning and a demand for repentance. He summoned people to repent and to be immersed in the River as a sign of their repentance and as a symbol of a new beginning in their lives. John had everybody stirred up. As Saint Luke’s Gospel says; the people were in expectation. (St. Luke 3:15) The phrase I like better is “the people were on the tiptoe of expectation” as it is translated in the New English Bible. It is difficult for you and me today to fully appreciate the atmosphere of expectation and hope that was running through the Jewish people at that time. Here were a people looking for a Messiah, expecting a Messiah; looking for a deliverer. Looking desperately for someone who would free them from foreign domination, someone who would restore to them the ancient Kingdom of David and Solomon. Restore them to their proper place, as they believed themselves to be, God’s Chosen people, and who now had become simply a small part of the pagan Roman Empire. When we see the hopes and expectations of the people of that time, it really is a universal longing. It is the hope and expectation of subject people everywhere. That things will change! That God will intervene! That things will be better! We have seen it in our day and time in people in different situations. Look at the democracy movement in China a few years ago. The feelings that ran among so many people. The breakdown of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe just over 10 years ago, which filled people with some of the same kind of hope and expectation. The people were on the Tiptoe of Expectation, and with this attitude they came out and listened to John the Baptist, hoping that he promised deliverance. Hoping that he might be the promised Messiah; that he might be the Christ sent from God. They responded in expectation by submission to the rite of baptism. Jesus came and was baptized by John at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.

The story of Jesus’ baptism is something that is surrounded by a great deal of questioning and a great deal of controversy. What does it mean? What really happened there? Was the dove; and the voice of God some kind of subjective internal experience of Jesus or was it something that was heard and witnessed by John the Baptist and others at the riverside? If we read the differing accounts of this event in Matthew, Mark, and Luke it is possible to have a number of different interpretations of it. In St. John’s Gospel, John’s witness to Jesus as the “Lamb of God” and John tells of his experience of the Spirit descending upon Jesus like a dove (St. John 1:32) but the fourth Gospel doesn’t actually say whether Jesus was baptized. In other words, the exact nature of the event is not clear but what is clear is that Jesus began his public ministry; Jesus began his preaching and teaching and healing with a clear affirmation of who he was. Thou art my beloved Son. With thee I am well pleased. (St. Matthew 3:16-17) In Eastern Orthodox Christian devotion, they place on the Epiphany a somewhat different emphasis and they place on Jesus’ baptism even a greater mystical significance. They say this is the first appearance of the Holy and Blessed Trinity. The first appearance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together on earth in Jesus’ baptism. Certainly we can see that at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, the identity of the authority with which he spoke was established. Jesus is the Messiah, he is the Christ. Jesus is the beloved Son of God. Who is this man? “My Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Now we enter the Epiphany season and the direction of our thoughts and devotions moves from the birth of Jesus to the manifestation of Jesus as the Christ. We move to the showing forth, the proclamation of who he is. We do not put Christmas away and forget it. We do not pack it up in the attic with the decorations. Rather, now we dwell on the More of Christmas. With the baptism by John, Jesus began his public ministry of preaching and teaching and healing. Even more, Jesus began His journey to Calvary and to the Cross.

Jesus who? Jesus, the beloved Son of God. Jesus the one with whom the Father is well pleased.

Advent

Christmas is coming. This is very obvious to all of us as we look around at all the decorations in the stores and on the streets and in people’s homes and the Christmas Carols that we have been listening to for the past several weeks on the Radio and on the T.V. selling everything from toys to perfume to computers. Then there is that load of catalogues that comes to all of us in our daily mail. Santa Claus is posing with children in almost every Department Store. Christmas is coming! That is very obvious, except in the Church. We in the Church are involved at the present time in the season of Advent. This season of Advent is one which tends to be a plain and penitential time. We use dark purple hangings on the Altar and on the vestments of the clergy. In our worship, in our hymns and in our prayers there is little or nothing about Christmas and Christmas joy. In fact, if you consider what the traditional themes of Advent are they say very little about Christmas or anything to do with it. There is a very old custom, fortunately not much followed any more, that the invariable sermon topics for the four Sundays in Advent were to be, in this order, death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Interesting that Hell came right before the celebration of Christmas. This does say something of the tone of this season upon which we are embarked.

The word Advent means “toward the coming.” Advent is the season of preparation for the coming of Christ. But it is the season of preparation, not for the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, not to celebrate that but a preparation for Jesus’ second coming. It is the preparation for that which you and I invariably declare when we recite the Nicene Creed: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” This season of Advent, which you and I are now in, does not look back. It looks to the future. For that reason alone it is as Fleming Rutledge tells us , “Advent is out of phase with our times.” Because it goes against all the usual rounds which we know all about and are very much involved in, of pre-Christmas cheer. There is none of the warmth and excitement generated that is going on in the world around us at this time as our world looks back over the years to a long ago birth. But, Advent season provides a very necessary counterpoint for us. Without Advent and without what it is concerned with, Christmas would be little more than a lot of warm fuzziness with little or no substance and little or no significance to it. You and I need this sobriety of this season of Advent, because it gives us a firm anchor in reality, in God’s reality, for Christmas and all that follows. What you and I need in this Advent season is this reminder of what we might call God’s unfinished business with us. Certainly our redemption in Christ Jesus was finished once and for all on Calvary, but God is not through with us yet, and so He will come again. The Bible ends with the business of God in Christ unfinished. The last words in the Bible are; “Surely I am coming soon!“ To which the believer responds; “Amen! Come Lord Jesus.”(Revelation 22:20) The scriptures tell us that it is not over with; there is more to come.

Then there is in Advent this dominant Biblical personality, the personality of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was not a particularly pleasant or likable person. What we see of him in the Gospels is that he is a sort of throw-back to those fierce prophets of the Old Testament, men who had not been seen in Israel for some 200 to 300 years. John was a hermit, he was a recluse. He lived alone in the wilderness, as many so called solitary religious people did at that time, it wasn’t a particularly unusual thing. Many men would abandon worldly life in order to get closer to God, to live a life of prayer and contemplation and conversation with God. They would communicate with God frequently, but seldom would they communicate with people. Actually, today there are still many of this same kind of religious hermits. In fact many of them living in that same forbidding wilderness that John the Baptist lived in, the caves in the lower part of the Jordan River valley. But for the most part, they lived, then and now, quiet out of the way lives; they lived and died without anybody paying much attention to them. But, John was different. John came suddenly out of the wilderness and he came with a dynamic message. He came preaching reform and preparation. John, we are told in an early part of Saint Luke’s Gospel, (St. Luke 1:5-25) was born for one purpose. He was born to announce the coming of God’s chosen Messiah. John in his preaching found, at least at first, a very receptive audience. Because John suddenly appeared on the scene at a time when, as Saint Luke tells us, the people were “on the (I love this phrase) the tiptoe of expectation” ( St. Luke 3:15). Can you see what that kind of expectation is? Sort of like the expectation among both Democrats and Republicans that somebody is going to get elected. The people were on the tiptoe of expectation. They were expecting and they were hoping desperately hoping for God’s deliverer. Particularly, they were hoping for deliverance from the heel of the Roman conquerors. So John came and John was a dynamic preacher who quickly got people’s attention. He attracted to himself a great many disciples; but he also attracted a great deal of disapproval. The religious authorities were very concerned about John, the minute he appeared because they were afraid he might stir up some kind of a rebellion and this would bring quick retribution from the Roman authorities, something which had happened fairly frequently in their recent past. John quickly gained the animosity of the local rulers, particularly Herod, the Tetrarch. Herod jailed John because John had insulted him. Told him he had no business marrying his brother’s wife. Eventually, Herod had John beheaded as a reward for a dancing girl. (St. Matthew 14:3-12)

On the Second Sunday of Advent we are introduced to John. “The Word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (St. Luke 3:2-3) If you look at this whole Gospel passage, the beginning of the third chapter of Saint Luke’s Gospel, it really is a kind of curious second introduction to the Gospel. If you go back and look at the first two chapters, they recount for us essentially the Christmas story and all the wonder and all the loveliness around it. Also the birth of John the Baptist. Those first two chapters end with the story of the child, Jesus, at the age of 12 in the Temple. Then Luke sort of starts all over again. He jumps ahead thirty years or so with no explanation, no transition, no discussion of anything that might have intervened, And then he gives us essentially a political introduction. He lists all the political leaders of the time when John appeared, beginning with the worldwide and down to the local. The Emperor, Tiberius, the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, those local puppet rulers under the Emperor, then those two Jewish High Priests, Annas and Caiaphas, who ostensibly were religious but actually they were mostly political. Notice there is nothing particularly holy or religious about the setting into which Luke places John the Baptist. It contrasts greatly with the strongly religious and holy overtones that we see in those wonderful stories in the first two chapters. The leaders who he lists were generally opposed to Jesus; Pilate and Caiaphas together were responsible for his crucifixion some three years later and by in large the political leaders opposed Jesus and they opposed the early Christian Church. You see Luke puts John the Baptist and thus the beginning of our Lord’s public ministry, not in some great religious, nor in some great spiritual setting; but he puts it right down in the real world. He starts right out saying, this is going on in the secular world, it is going on down where there are rulers and politicians. It is in that setting that the Revelation of the Love of God in Christ comes. It is in that setting that our Redemption is played out.

Luke connects John back into the heart of the Old Testament; back to the words of that unknown prophet in the second part of the Book of the prophet Isaiah where he speaks of “the voice of one crying in the wilderness; prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Isaiah 40:3). Luke finds in John’s message of repentance and preparation some of that same hope and expectation that was expressed by the prophet, in the imminent approach of God’s caring Love for His people. The writer of Second Isaiah, whom he quotes, was writing at the end of the Babylonian exile of the Hebrew people. They had been carried away by the Babylonian conquerors from Jerusalem to Babylon in the year 586 BC. Then, some 75 to 80 years later, with the rise of King Darias of Persia and the fall of the Babylonian empire: (all in politics, you see), the possible return of God and God’s people to God’s Temple in Jerusalem. The prophet issues a call for preparation and a call for a Highway; for a route for God and God’s people to return to God’s promised land. What he is really calling for is not a physical highway but for an opening; an opening in the heart for God to act.

We see this same thing, in the writer of the Apocryphal book of Baruch . Some 100 to 150 years before the Birth of Jesus was when he was writing. He was writing in another time of great turmoil and great trouble and distress for Israel. They were under the heel , at that time, of a different conqueror, the Syrians. Yet here, this writer comes up with this same wonderful assurance of God’s love and care for Israel. He uses that same wonderful illustration of that highway in the wilderness. God has ordered that every mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God. A highway to God. A highway for God. This, a continuing theme . A highway built for God to enter into the heart and the soul of his people. (Baruch 5:5-9)

And so it was that John the Baptist was preaching his repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and baptism to those accepting his message, this symbol of death to sin and rebirth to new life. Luke saw in John and his message, this preparation of the people for the coming of the Lord through repentance and baptism. It would be a preparation of a highway to the heart. A filling of the valleys of despair; a bringing down of mountains of pride; a straightening of crooked paths of evil desires; and a smoothing of rough places of wrath. The preparation for the coming of God’s Messiah. For Luke this was, of course, the coming of Jesus. Luke was looking back to all of this through the perspective of Jesus’ resurrection. Luke was certain that Jesus was God Incarnate; that he was the Christ, the Messiah of God.

So you and I, as Christians, observe this season of Advent with all of its looking forward. We are observing the season of Advent as the world around us is frantically preparing for Christmas. Actually, outside, where we live most of the time, you and I are involved in that same frantic preparation. It is a preparation that is focused on the past. It is a preparation that is looking back; looking back to a wonderful event in the past. But the problem is, if we only focus on the past, however lovely that is, it has little staying power. If we only focus on the past, without recognizing God’s continuing involvement and his ultimate involvement in the history of mankind, then this is something we do for a short while and then pack it away in the attic for another year. So, you and I come to Christmas, but we come to Christmas through Advent. We come to Christmas, that wonderful action of God in Christ in that birth in Bethlehem, through the perspective of the future, knowing that that future, our future, is in God’s hands. That enables us to celebrate, with unrestrained joy the beauty and the wonder of that long ago birth, not just as nostalgia for the past but as hope for the future and promise for the future. The promise that God is not finished with this world, that God is not finished with us. That there is more to come. So, as we celebrate with joy the birth of Jesus some 2,000 years ago, we also look forward with expectant joy to the future sure of God’s loving care in the coming of that same Jesus. With the writer of the book of Baruch, we can speak, as he did with wonderful confidence in the future. “God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.” (Baruch 5:9)

WHERE DO I STAND !

When I retired from teaching at Longwood College (now University) in 1997, I decided to find a way to get back to Parish Ministry which I had missed and from which I felt that I had been unfairly pushed out. (that is another story for another time) and I made myself available for interim parish work in the Diocese of Southern Virginia. I found myself in a Church which was very different from that in which I had been brought up and which I thought I had known in my parish ministry before 1972. The whole situation was very disturbing and upsetting to me. I had paid relatively little attention to the inner working of the church as I was fully occupied in teaching and research into Geography and the Earth Sciences for some 25 years prior to retirement. So in February of 2000 I sat down and asked myself just where I stood in the whole matter of the Christian Faith as I had known it and where I stood relative to what was going on in the Church and particularly in the Episcopal Church to which I belonged and of which I was still a Priest in good standing. Reading over what I had written at that time I find that it still expresses how I feel so, with a little updating to December 2009, I have written it out again and decided to put it on my blog this time. So, here goes!