Scripture Reflections

We’ve done it! We’ve made it through Advent, Christmas, New Years, and now Epiphany (the day, that is—the season continues for a few more weeks). The end of the year always feels so jam-packed with gatherings, shopping, cooking, and planning that we struggle to keep in step with the slow rhythms of the Church calendar and to allow ourselves to sit in the gift of it all one step at a time. For starters, it’s hard to slow ourselves down in Advent—to actually sit and anticipate and prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ. And with the way our culture hypes up Christmas, it can be hard to allow the significance of that day to truly wash over us. We’re then immediately surrounded by pressures to create New Year’s resolutions in order to better ourselves and make each year an improvement on the last. And for those of us who didn’t grow up celebrating the 12 days of Christmas, it’s tough to allow ourselves to wait 12 days before celebrating the arrival of the Magi at the birthplace of Christ on Epiphany!
 
It often feels like this season is a season of striving and working and busyness. But so many of the scriptures designated throughout this season speak not about our striving but rather about God’s striving and fighting on our behalf. Isaiah 2:4-5, for instance, was part of the Old Testament passage on the First Sunday of Advent. It reads, “He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD.” Isaiah 52:12, from Christmas morning, states, “For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.” And just this past Sunday, we read Psalm 89:18, “The LORD is our defense, the Holy One of Israel is our King.”
 
As this often-busy season comes to an end, I pray you allow yourself to take a moment to sit in the truths of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. Our God is not a God who calls us to overwork ourselves. He is a God who calls us rest in the fulfilment of his promises just as Mary rested after the birth of Jesus. He is a God who calls us to come, as the Magi came, and sit in the presence of the Word. He is a God who foretold the birth of his Son, offered that same Son up for our sins, and has promised that His Son will return someday to free us for good. Let us rejoice in this God! Amen.

Tori

The Feast of the Epiphany

Friday, January 6, is the Feast of the Epiphany. This feast celebrates God’s revelation of himself in the person of Jesus Christ to a world blinded by sin. In particular, the feast celebrates not only that God has revealed himself to the Jews through Jesus, but has also revealed himself to the Gentiles. This is why the ordinary reading for January 6 is the story of the Magi, who were the first Gentiles to worship Christ.

It is startling that from his infancy, Jesus Christ received the worship and prayers of Gentiles. There were other incidents along the way—a Roman centurion, a Canaanite woman, and a group of Greeks all sought Jesus for one reason or another. The disciples had a hard time with this, and it took time for them to understand what it meant that salvation was not just for the Jews, even if it was from the Jews (Jn. 4:22). Acts 10 and 11 reveal Peter’s struggle to accept this, and Acts 15 is a record of the church’s wrestling with how to incorporate Gentiles into a Jewish church. Paul calls this inclusion of the Gentiles a “mystery” (Eph. 3:6), which demonstrates how stunning it was to the Jews that Gentiles, who were not recipients of the promises given to  Abraham, were included in salvation.

We now take for granted that we have been included, so much so that we are rarely amazed by the fact that God has revealed himself to us. But Epiphany is our once-per-year reminder that what we take for granted is actually startling—we did not deserve it and we were not promised it, and yet God still revealed himself to us! We, who were blind, lost, and dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1), have been shown the “light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Cor. 4:6). This should bring us to our knees in wonder. God has revealed himself to us!

Steven+

Scripture Reflections

In our Gospel lesson on Sunday, we heard Jesus respond to John the Baptist’s doubt over whether Jesus was the Messiah by saying, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.”
 
This statement includes phrases from both Isaiah 35 and Isaiah 61, two passages that describe the restoration of Israel. Both passages envision Israel returning from exile over a magnificent highway in the wilderness, rebuilding ruined towns and cities in joy, and living in peace and security in the presence of the Lord.
 
When we read these passages (read them this week as a part of your devotions!), it is natural to assume that they have not yet come true. They seem to describe what things will look like in the end, when Jesus returns and all is healed and made right. They are simply too good and beautiful to be true at this point in salvation history, so they must be about the future. And yet, on more than one occasion, Jesus quoted these passages and claimed that they were coming true during his earthly ministry. He treated them as coming true in the present.
 
For those of us who feel that there is still a lot of work to do before “the ransomed of the Lord…come to Zion with singing…and sorrow and sighing…flee away” (Is. 35:10), it can be easy to forget that the restoration pictured in these passages is both present and future. Neither reality negates the other. There is real restoration to come; yet that restoration has already begun.
 
Advent is the right time to remember this dual reality. Jesus Christ has brought restoration to us—we do not have to wait! And yet, there is something to come that is worth waiting for! Let the reminder of what he has begun and the hope of what he still will do strengthen your heart this season.
 
Steven+