The Flickering Light of Epiphany

As the winter yellow grass holds up gray-black branches, silently testifying to the annual season of death, we make our way with the flickering light of Epiphany. We still hold one arm around unconsolable Rachel, whose arms are empty and whose tear-filled eyes are looking back over her shoulder. Another arm is wrapped around Mary, whose arms are filled with the fragile promise of new life, and whose hopeful eyes are looking ahead. This journey into Epiphany is made slowly, for neither Sister Grief nor Sister Promise can walk quickly.

Christmas proclaimed the presence of the light. Epiphany calls us to spread the light on the journey. Epiphany means "manifestation." We see the light of Christ as it is manifest from the crib of Jesus in Bethlehem to all the nations. "A light for revelation to the Gentiles" (Luke 2:32) is the Bible's shorthand way of saying that Christ's mission is to the whole world. Epiphany stories reach out to the world through the coming of the Magi, Jesus' baptism by John, the call of the first disciples, and the beginning of Jesus' ministry.

The welcome mat is set out. The front porch light is left on to welcome foreigners, local fishermen, city priests, Roman soldiers, and Greek tourists. There are no limits placed on this love born at Christmas.

Nancy Hastings Sehested was pastor of Prescott Memorial Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee when this article appeared.

January 3: A Love We Can Touch 

Jeremiah 31:7-14, Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18, John 1:1-18, Psalm 147:12-20

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God" (John 1:1). If only the Word could have stayed a word, then we could have completely controlled it with a doctrinal statement or a theological assertion. If only this Word had stayed a word, then we could have encased it in a book and guarded it as holy.

But no, this Word took the unmanageable turn of becoming flesh. It is embarrassing. Polite people do not talk about the flesh in public. Screaming preachers pound pulpits and yell scary words that the flesh is a source of temptation. The words "sin" and "the flesh" have so often been joined together that it has not been easy to see the word "flesh" associated with "grace and truth." Too many have learned that our flesh is a hindrance to knowing full communion with God's Spirit.

Historically, the church has always been tempted to lean toward thinking of Jesus as Spirit. It has been too close for comfort to think that Jesus really was human. After all, so many of us are, too.

Since the beginning, God has paced the corridors of heaven, burning with the hope that we would see the world as God sees it. God made gardens. We did not get it. God sent floods. We did not get it. God sent prophets. We did not get it. God sent laws. We did not get it. Finally, finally, God sent flesh, God's own flesh, so maybe we would get it.

Through the body of a woman, in the body of a man, God sent God's own son. For God so loved the world--this crazy, messed-up, haven't-gotten-it-right-yet world--that God's Word became flesh and moved into our neighborhood to live among us. Surely God thought that now, now we would get it. Maybe now we could understand a love we can touch, so full of grace and truth.

This was all part of God's master plan, "for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on Earth" (Ephesians 1:10). And what did God's own flesh do while dwelling among us? He touched broken bodies with healing. He fed hungry bodies. He hugged children's bodies. He led rejected bodies back into community. He laughed. He wept. He sacrificed his own body. And he left us with the words, "This is my body, broken for you."

In Beloved, Toni Morrison's words are, "Here, in this here place, we flesh, flesh that weeps, laughs, flesh that dances on bare feet in grass, love it. Love it hard."

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

January 10: Drenched in God

Isaiah 42:1-9, Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 3:13-17, Psalm 29

In my Texas Baptist Sunday school class, several of us third graders surmised that Jesus was a Baptist because John the "Baptist" baptized him. Such an assertion fit well within a religious ghetto that encouraged the claim that we Baptists were the best of all the rest. What further proof did we need than for Jesus to be one of us? Years later, my enlightened seminary education confirmed my earlier Sunday school insight. Jesus' baptism was a sign that he was "one of us" all right. He was one of us Gentiles, an outsider to the faith.

Jesus was a full-blooded Jew. As a Jew, his baptism by John carried significant political implications. Long before John, baptism was practiced as a ritual cleansing for Gentile converts to Judaism. John the Baptist blustered on the scene with a prophetic word that all God's people, Jews and Gentiles, needed the baptism of repentance. For Jesus to be baptized by John was a sign that declared the tearing down of the walls of religious nationalism and elitism. Jesus was one of us, one of us Jews and one of us Gentiles, who was baptized into God's movement of peace and justice for all.

With Jesus' baptism, his public ministry began. The event acted as his service of ordination and installation. Jesus received affirmation as God's beloved, God's chosen one. He also received the call and commission to his prophetic ministry empowered by the Holy Spirit. With one sweep of the holy hand, Jesus was touched with divine approval and appointment. His baptism was not a private act for private purification or private devotions. It was public, publicly recognizing and affirming immersion in the historic family of God.

Immersion is the preferred method for baptism among the Baptist branch of Christendom. I know that it is not the amount of water that is the saving grace. However, I must admit that I favor the excess of water among Baptists.

To be seized as one of God's beloved sons and daughters is to be drenched in God. Baptism confirms our chosenness as well as our vocation, buried with Christ in the likeness of his death, and risen with Christ in the likeness of his resurrection. It is grace that propels us to fulfill our vocation as Christ's resurrection people. As baptized believers, we follow the Christ who "does not fail or get discouraged until justice has been established in the Earth" (Isaiah 42:4). Baptism is an intimate sign and wonder that God has not yet given up on us or this world.

January 17: The One in Whom to Trust 

Isaiah 49:1-7, 2 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-34, Psalm 40:1-11

Every pastor needs a pastor or two themselves. One day I met one of my pastors for lunch. I needed some comforting from my periodic affliction that comes from working as a missionary in this foreign mission field called "church."

My pastor friend is nearing retirement from his 50 years of pastoring churches in the South. He grew up in the Mississippi Delta, long before civil rights were granted to his community. He has walked the rugged terrain of toil and trouble, but he walked holding the light of God's promised hope. The depth of living has left him a man who is full of grace and truth.

As we sat at table together in a local restaurant, I asked Rev. Parks how he kept his spirit up after all these years in the pastorate. I asked him what he did when he got discouraged. I even asked him what he would do if more than half of his deacons did not come to a church business meeting. Rev. Parks said, "Why, I'd lift up a prayer of thanksgiving."

It was not long after the violent eruption of the Los Angeles riots. I said, "We seem so far from racial reconciliation. We have not come very far at all." Rev. Parks replied, "Well, now, we have made a little progress. It would not have been too long ago that I might have been lynched for sitting here eating in a restaurant with you. There have been some changes along the way."

Then he picked up his coffee cup and held it mid-air as he continued his words. "You know, I used to be like you, when I was young. I used to think that I could do something with the church. Then I realized that I can't do a thing. Jesus Christ is head of the church. Jesus Christ is building the church. It is not Rev. Parks' church. Life for the church will take nothing less than being washed in the blood of the Lamb."

This sounded like gospel good news to me. I have acted like God could not do a thing unless I planned it. I have lived with the idea that my sound theological training, coupled with my dynamic preaching and winning personality, could transform the church. Buck up, God! Here we preachers come to save the day! I have always wanted to do something big for God; haven't you?

John the Baptist and Rev. Parks know the truth. John could testify from his experience of epiphany as he saw the Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove at his baptism. John knew that here was the hope for the world. He knew who to put his trust in. John proclaimed his hope: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).

January 24: Followers of the Light

Isaiah 9:1-4, 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, Matthew 4:12-23, Psalm 27:1-6

It was the custom of the day in first-century Palestine for great teachers to have people coming to them, asking to be their disciples. The students chose their master teacher. Jesus, on the other hand, was one who did not allow tradition to get in his way. Not long after his baptism, he went about recruiting his own disciples. He extended a call to join up with his movement. Four fishermen were the first to receive the invitation.

In the scanty story we have available, we learn that Jesus simply said, "Come, follow me." It does not seem like quite enough, does it? From what we know of the unfolding story, perhaps Jesus should have been more discriminating in his selection process. What kind of qualifications did those fishermen have after all? Had they been to seminary? Did they possess superior moral character? Were they regular attenders at the temple? Did they tithe?

Jesus should have known better than to put two brothers with the names "Sons of Thunder" with any working group. The only qualifications the first disciples seemed to possess was the ability to step behind Jesus when he said, "Come, follow me." Jesus' call of Simon and Andrew, James and John, appeared to be on an ordinary day. It did not even occur at the temple with an invitational hymn beckoning in the background.

God's epiphanies like to find their way into the places where people are living and working and sitting in the darkness. For those sitting in "the region and shadow of death," light is a dawning of hope out of a vast darkness of despair. When the choir is singing and the spotlights shining, it is harder to see the light of God. The manufactured moment is not God's preferred time to make an appearance.

Epiphanies beg a response. For four fishermen, the response was a leaving of their nets, their livelihood, and their families. It sounds like they left their senses, too. They were blinded by the light, a light that compelled them to let go of old allegiances, repent, turn around, and pledge full allegiance to this "kingdom of heaven" that was now "at hand."

Maybe they followed out of curiosity. Maybe they were tired of the fishing business. Maybe they did not make a choice for all the "right" reasons. But these who had sat in darkness now stepped into the light and followed Jesus.

Jesus the Christ wants today what he wanted those long years ago in Palestine--people. People with ears to hear and feet to follow. Jesus never did want admiring faces and fan club memberships. He called out for people with open hands and walking feet toward a new heaven and a new Earth that is making its way here. Jesus still seems to think that we common folk have something to do with this reign of God breaking in. Jesus still issues the call, "Follow me, I will make you fishers of people" (Matthew 4:19).

January 31: The Church in the Cracks

Micah 6:1-8, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, Matthew 5:1-12, Psalm 37:1-11

We have read the Bible for so long and with so little at stake that we often read it as if it were tame and reasonable. We have read Jesus' words for so long and with so much familiarity that we often think that Jesus' messages are a nice contribution to improving social relationships. The beatitudes offer us in poetic verse the untamed and unreasonable teachings of Jesus.

While we say our prayers with every head bowed and every eye closed, Jesus is on the hillside with his eyes wide open to the blessings of God before him. While we beseech God for blessings, praying, "God bless our church; God bless our sick; God bless America," Jesus identifies the ones who are already receiving God's blessing. The favored of God are those who are the unfavorable ones: the mourners, the meek, the poor in spirit, the persecuted.

When we start looking for signs of folks being the church, the beatitudes give us some clues for where to begin the search. Forget looking at our church programs, our good deeds, our goals, our numbers and how we are managing it all. The beatitudes tell us to look between the cracks. Look in the places where life is falling apart. Maybe there, or perhaps only there, will we get a glimpse of the reign of God breaking in.

On a back road in the mountains of North Carolina, my friend and I found a bed-and-breakfast inn to stay the night. Walking into a small living room filled with antique furniture and a crazy patchwork quilt on the wall, we met Lily. It did not take long to realize that Lily was mentally ill. With a coffee mug in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Lily immediately began telling us about her 13 dogs. Her story had no beginning and no ending. She stopped talking as abruptly as she had started.

The next morning we learned that Lily had been living with a guardian in the Midwest. But the guardian was nearing 80 years old and could no longer care for her. So now Lily was staying with her stepbrother, Ron, the 45-year-old owner of the inn. Ron said he was the only one left to care for her. Her alcoholic brother certainly could not do it. I said, "You are very generous to open your home to care for Lily." "Oh, no," he said. "It doesn't have anything to do with being generous. I just don't want to see her mistreated."

The meek are getting ready to inherit the Earth. "And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8).