Epiphany 2 -- St. Paul's, Monroe

 

Epiphany-2c-homily

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi2_RCL.html

Season of Light

This year especially the seasons feel out of sync. The church year is centered, as we have noted, around Easter. We have just celebrated Christmas, but oh what a strange Christmas it has been.

The church season transitions now in January to a season of light. Epiphany.

But this January feels so off kilter. COVID-19 and its omicron variant blistered us at Christmas time. Invariably in my experience January and February are among the coldest and dreariest of months. Though the days are supposed to be getting longer it seems at this time of year that things are getting darker. Bob Dylan sang a song that rang in my head all this past week: It’s not dark yet.

Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
...
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Season of light. Epiphany. That’s not Dylan’s song, but the opposite.

Our prayer today makes clear that it may not be light yet but it’s getting there.

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth;

The season of Epiphany unfolds week by week the steady and irreversible growth in the manifestation of Christ as the light of the world.

For hundreds of years in this season we have followed the manifestation of Christ from a star shown to the magi and onward out of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan we find one sign after another pointing in the direction of God‘s ultimate Epiphany.

Water into wine. The wedding at Cana.

In the gospel of John this is the first of the great signs. The first major part of John’s gospel is devoted to a progressive series of signs that lead from what we have heard today in John chapter 2 up through the raising of Lazarus in John 11.

• Changing water into wine at Cana – ( John 2:1-11)
• Healing the royal official’s son in Capernaum – (John 4:46-54)
• Healing the paralytic at Bethesda – (John 5:1-15)
• Feeding the 5000 – (John 6:5-14)
• Jesus walking on water – (John 6:16-24)
• Healing the man blind from birth – (John 9:1-7)
• The raising of Lazarus – (John 11:1-45)

But in the Epiphany season we don’t just hear from John’s Gospel and in the Episcopal tradition the season of Epiphany culminates in Jesus transfiguration on the mount where he is manifest to his three closest disciples in glory.

James Joyce wrote a little work titled The Epiphanies. I only know that because in my college years when I was shelving books in the library I came across an autographed first edition of the book. We pulled it off the shelves and put the volume in our special collections room.

Ever since then I’ve had a keen sense of how our lives are filled with big and llittle epiphanies, some of them sacred some of them just life-giving. One remarkable thing that I’ve learned from this little volume is that the experience of “epiphanies” is everywhere throughout our life.

A sudden insight or realization that changes our understanding of ourselves or our comprehension of the world.

Though it may be cold outside and uninviting, we are invited this epiphany season to grow deeper into our understanding of who we are and whose we are.

It is through such questions that the basic call of discipleship is built. Jesus asked of his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” As we grow from Epiphany to Epiphany we are better equipped to answer with Peter and all the disciples ever since, “You are the Christ.”

Epiphany wants to equip us to confidently answer, "Yes, Lord Christ, I am yours."

The first of the signs

John's gospel begins: The Word became Flesh. That's how John begins his gospel. Then, as in each of the 4 gospels, John the Baptist is introduced as the one who precedes Jesus, baptizing with water where the expected one baptizes with water and the Holy Spirit. Baptism. It was the highlighted theme last week when the bishop was here for confirmation. Then the first chapter of John's gospel concludes with the calling of disciples. Jesus tells them, "Come and see." They came. They saw. And they gave their lives to him. Simon Peter, Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, they are able to say, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus responds to them, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." Then, as if to illustrate that, we hear of Jesus and his mother at a wedding as chapter 2 begins.

The one who prepared the way. Jesus' closest friends. Then his mother. These are the ones who witness and give testimony to who Jesus really is. He is the one who transforms what had been into what shall be. From water into wine. And not just any wine, but the best. That's the kind of thing the Word become flesh does in the world we live in. First we are persuaded to come and see. What we see is marvelous. What we see is glory.

I am here today because I have encountered glory in big and little ways throughout my whole life. I have known miracles on a baseball field when I was a teenager. I have known glory when I have witnessed my friends transformed. They have helped me to recognize in the slow unfolding of my life how I, too, have been transformed. Water into wine. And not just any wine, but the best.

This season of Epiphany calls us into new light, a new life, a new way of being. It calls us to recognize, usually among those who are closest to us, how the working of God in our world, in our lives, results in the revelation of God's glory. Come and see, Jesus said. We owe it to him. See for yourself. "Jesus Christ is the light of the world: may you be illumined by Christ's Word and Sacraments, and may you shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth..."