The Epiphany Of Our Lord
Devotional
Streams of Living Water
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle B
Isaiah 60:1-6
Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms.
-- Isaiah 60:4
There is a continual theme in scripture of the scattering and the gathering. Cain is driven from his home after killing Abel. The people are divided and scattered at the Tower of Babel. Later, the Israelites will be carried off into exile. The prodigal son leaves his family home. The early followers of Jesus are driven from Jerusalem and Paul finds a hearing only among the scattered in Gentile lands. But there is also the countertheme of the gathering together of that which was once scattered. Whether we refer to the scattered as the prodigal Israel gathered in from exile or the Pentecostal experience of the multilingual people once again hearing the common, healing, reconciling message of God, the prodigal does come home.
The gathering will be not only of the faithful remnant but of the whole world. "Nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn" (v. 3). This third person to write under the name of Isaiah wrote after the people had returned from exile. When they returned, they found a land of poverty and they lived on the edge of despair. That is also the darkness of deprivation that so many people experience. But in the gathering of the future, the wealth of the nations shall serve the glory of God: "... because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you" (v. 5).
Whatever your present darkness or scattering, you are also claimed by the God who promises the gathering. As did the Israelites, so we are given courage by the vision of what God yet will do. Our faithfulness over our little area of the world is not pointless but a part of God's great gathering. "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you" (v. 1).
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's son.
-- Psalm 72:1
For Christians, this psalm becomes a prayer on behalf of Jesus. You can almost hear the wise men from Matthew 2:1-12 praying this prayer before the baby Jesus as they kneel before him. Could we ever hope for more than a leader who would "judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice"? (v. 2). Yet for Christians, as for the rest of the world, though our ideal would be a day when righteousness would flourish and peace abound, it is still a prayer for which we await fulfillment. All people struggle with a sense of justice in light of whatever oppression they experience and they pray for a leader who will bring about a world of peace and justice.
As we prepare to celebrate Epiphany, we recount the visit of the wise men from the East as the first sign of the world coming to acknowledge the wisdom of God as reflected in the birth of Christ. Epiphany is a time to recognize again that our hope rests in God. We have reason to hope that a day will come when "he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper" (v. 12). The predominant image of the ministry of Jesus was in his reaching out to the helpless and rejected and drawing them into the circle of God's love and healing acceptance.
As you prepare to celebrate Epiphany, reflect again on how you might discover signs of God's activity in bringing about peace and justice in this world.
Ephesians 3:1-12
For surely you have heard of the commission of God's grace that was given me for you, and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation....
-- Ephesians 3:2-3
Either in Paul's words or the words of a close disciple of Paul, we are hearing about a mystery that shatters normal world perceptions and commissions the church with an onerous responsibility. It is appropriate that this passage be read on Epiphany Sunday because we are dealing with a revelation of truth that includes both Gentiles and Jews. As a cautionary tale for those of us in the church, it is significant that Matthew records that the first to submit to Jesus as the Christ were not members of the believing community but pagan astrologers from the Parthian empire in the East. Sometimes it is those outside of the community of faith who instruct us as to the truth of our own faith.
In Ephesians, Paul (or the Pauline school) speaks of the mystery revealed in Christ that the grace of God was for all equally and without reference to national, racial, or social identity (see Galatians 3:28). He made this clear in Ephesians 1:9-10: "He has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." In our passage, Paul speaks of the major division within the community of faith. "The Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (Ephesians 3:6).
Because most of us come from the Gentile side of that equation, it is easy for us to get too comfortable with this conclusion. If you consider other dimensions of the divisions within our world, the message becomes more of a challenge. If God's purpose is to reconcile all things to him, then the bearer of that revelation, the church, has a significant responsibility to demonstrate provisionally such reconciliation between peoples and between humankind and the natural creation. Paul makes the extent of our responsibility clear: "So through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places" (v. 10). Our responsibility is not contained within the boundaries of the faith community.
On Epiphany Sunday we are confronted again with the scandal of the divisions within the Christian community and the radical plan of God to reconcile all the divisions that we have come to accept in our world. Our responsibility as Christians to demonstrate this radical grace is made even more explicitly in Corinthians: "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us" (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
Matthew 2:1-12
When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.
-- Matthew 2:3
There is a haunting reality to this story that exposes the shadow side of humanity even while it offers a glimpse of God's way of salvation. The setting is in the holiest city of the entire world where God's chosen people have built the temple and where God is worshiped daily. Where else would you go if you wanted to understand what God was doing in this world? The pagan wise men followed a star, but even they knew that finally you had to inquire in Jerusalem where the priests were the keepers of the faith if you wanted to know where truth was to be found. Yet, when they suggest that what the faithful community had continuously prayed about had actually happened, the reaction was one of fear. We may pray that God would visit us with a clear sign of his presence and make his will known, but what would our reaction be if that actually took place?
Even the religious of this world seek to have a measure of control over their lives. If God made his way clearly known, then we would no longer have any excuse but to obey. Further, and perhaps more frightening, we would no longer be in control but would have to trust this mystery that never fully discloses the future but keeps inviting us to trust in a God that we cannot control. The story of the visit of the wise men suggests that the secular wisdom of the world often recognizes what we resist in acknowledging. How often have developments in the secular world led Christians to recognize God's truth rather than the other way around? What might the society be trying to show the church in our era that the church is too frightened to recognize? Are we willing to encourage our church to accept what God is demonstrating to us in the larger world?
Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms.
-- Isaiah 60:4
There is a continual theme in scripture of the scattering and the gathering. Cain is driven from his home after killing Abel. The people are divided and scattered at the Tower of Babel. Later, the Israelites will be carried off into exile. The prodigal son leaves his family home. The early followers of Jesus are driven from Jerusalem and Paul finds a hearing only among the scattered in Gentile lands. But there is also the countertheme of the gathering together of that which was once scattered. Whether we refer to the scattered as the prodigal Israel gathered in from exile or the Pentecostal experience of the multilingual people once again hearing the common, healing, reconciling message of God, the prodigal does come home.
The gathering will be not only of the faithful remnant but of the whole world. "Nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn" (v. 3). This third person to write under the name of Isaiah wrote after the people had returned from exile. When they returned, they found a land of poverty and they lived on the edge of despair. That is also the darkness of deprivation that so many people experience. But in the gathering of the future, the wealth of the nations shall serve the glory of God: "... because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you" (v. 5).
Whatever your present darkness or scattering, you are also claimed by the God who promises the gathering. As did the Israelites, so we are given courage by the vision of what God yet will do. Our faithfulness over our little area of the world is not pointless but a part of God's great gathering. "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you" (v. 1).
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's son.
-- Psalm 72:1
For Christians, this psalm becomes a prayer on behalf of Jesus. You can almost hear the wise men from Matthew 2:1-12 praying this prayer before the baby Jesus as they kneel before him. Could we ever hope for more than a leader who would "judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice"? (v. 2). Yet for Christians, as for the rest of the world, though our ideal would be a day when righteousness would flourish and peace abound, it is still a prayer for which we await fulfillment. All people struggle with a sense of justice in light of whatever oppression they experience and they pray for a leader who will bring about a world of peace and justice.
As we prepare to celebrate Epiphany, we recount the visit of the wise men from the East as the first sign of the world coming to acknowledge the wisdom of God as reflected in the birth of Christ. Epiphany is a time to recognize again that our hope rests in God. We have reason to hope that a day will come when "he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper" (v. 12). The predominant image of the ministry of Jesus was in his reaching out to the helpless and rejected and drawing them into the circle of God's love and healing acceptance.
As you prepare to celebrate Epiphany, reflect again on how you might discover signs of God's activity in bringing about peace and justice in this world.
Ephesians 3:1-12
For surely you have heard of the commission of God's grace that was given me for you, and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation....
-- Ephesians 3:2-3
Either in Paul's words or the words of a close disciple of Paul, we are hearing about a mystery that shatters normal world perceptions and commissions the church with an onerous responsibility. It is appropriate that this passage be read on Epiphany Sunday because we are dealing with a revelation of truth that includes both Gentiles and Jews. As a cautionary tale for those of us in the church, it is significant that Matthew records that the first to submit to Jesus as the Christ were not members of the believing community but pagan astrologers from the Parthian empire in the East. Sometimes it is those outside of the community of faith who instruct us as to the truth of our own faith.
In Ephesians, Paul (or the Pauline school) speaks of the mystery revealed in Christ that the grace of God was for all equally and without reference to national, racial, or social identity (see Galatians 3:28). He made this clear in Ephesians 1:9-10: "He has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." In our passage, Paul speaks of the major division within the community of faith. "The Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (Ephesians 3:6).
Because most of us come from the Gentile side of that equation, it is easy for us to get too comfortable with this conclusion. If you consider other dimensions of the divisions within our world, the message becomes more of a challenge. If God's purpose is to reconcile all things to him, then the bearer of that revelation, the church, has a significant responsibility to demonstrate provisionally such reconciliation between peoples and between humankind and the natural creation. Paul makes the extent of our responsibility clear: "So through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places" (v. 10). Our responsibility is not contained within the boundaries of the faith community.
On Epiphany Sunday we are confronted again with the scandal of the divisions within the Christian community and the radical plan of God to reconcile all the divisions that we have come to accept in our world. Our responsibility as Christians to demonstrate this radical grace is made even more explicitly in Corinthians: "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us" (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
Matthew 2:1-12
When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.
-- Matthew 2:3
There is a haunting reality to this story that exposes the shadow side of humanity even while it offers a glimpse of God's way of salvation. The setting is in the holiest city of the entire world where God's chosen people have built the temple and where God is worshiped daily. Where else would you go if you wanted to understand what God was doing in this world? The pagan wise men followed a star, but even they knew that finally you had to inquire in Jerusalem where the priests were the keepers of the faith if you wanted to know where truth was to be found. Yet, when they suggest that what the faithful community had continuously prayed about had actually happened, the reaction was one of fear. We may pray that God would visit us with a clear sign of his presence and make his will known, but what would our reaction be if that actually took place?
Even the religious of this world seek to have a measure of control over their lives. If God made his way clearly known, then we would no longer have any excuse but to obey. Further, and perhaps more frightening, we would no longer be in control but would have to trust this mystery that never fully discloses the future but keeps inviting us to trust in a God that we cannot control. The story of the visit of the wise men suggests that the secular wisdom of the world often recognizes what we resist in acknowledging. How often have developments in the secular world led Christians to recognize God's truth rather than the other way around? What might the society be trying to show the church in our era that the church is too frightened to recognize? Are we willing to encourage our church to accept what God is demonstrating to us in the larger world?
