Year C First Sunday after Epiphany, 12 January 2025
St James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA
“Here and Now”
Collect: Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Isaiah 43:1-7
Thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.
Because you are precious in my sight,
and honored, and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
nations in exchange for your life.
Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, "Give them up,"
and to the south, "Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth--
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made."
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
Looking at the last week, the concept of Baptism is a bit ironic. Some of you were not able to bathe for days this week over water issues, and our whole region was paralyzed over our first real snow in years and the accompanying power then water outage.
But this is the week of the Baptism of our Lord, and the proclamation that accompanied it. When the Holy Spirit came down in the bodily form of the dove and the Vox Dei, the Voice of God, declared Jesus: "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
Friends, in his obedience, Jesus pleased God. He was already the Beloved, and he pleased God. He was not the Beloved because he pleased God. It was not causative. God is not into transactional relationships. Grace does not work that way.
God’s whole point in this, Life, the Universe, Everything is for us to be in relationship with God. God desires the Universe to be Redeemed and he came up with a solution which would solve the whole shebang once and for all.
And this is where that story begins. The Epiphany is the declaration that God’s Plan has begun. The Wise Men witnessed the outset, but it had decades before there was proof. Today we begin with those public displays of who Jesus was.
Jesus’ ministry began when he was about 30 years old. And that journey began with him going out to his cousin, John the Baptizer, to receive a Baptism of Repentance. In years past I spoke about how we do not understand why Jesus needed that, but he did it “to fulfill all righteousness” as the Matthew version of this story tells us. Luke puts it this way…
…when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.
In art we often see this scene. Jesus and John standing in the waters of the River Jordan. A dove is seen coming down. Then, up in the clouds, we see an eye, or maybe a hand, or often an old bearded man. All of them symbolic for God the Father. A dove is pretty, but not proof. That comes from the Voice…
And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
I have always loved that word, Beloved. Love is an action. Beloved can be an adjective. You are beloved. But here, and in the Greek, by the way, there is a definite article. ‘Ho agapetos. The Beloved.
Let that sink in.
Everything we think about and talk about and act upon as Christians has its foundation in this. Jesus did not come to show us how to act so that we might be good.
Jesus did not come to hold his nose amongst all us sinners long enough to pay a sacrificial debt and then go running back to heaven before the taint of sin or the wretched stink stuck on him.
Jesus, the Beloved, came to tell us that we are the Beloved, too. And that we can start living into that and acting in that right now. The Kingdom of God is here and now.
Now let that sink in.
Jesus is THE Beloved, and you are the Beloved. Already. Right now.
Epiphanies are revelations. It is about seeing with new eyes. This year has had a rough start. Fires and Terror Attacks. Rough conditions and isolation. And there are thousands of things just in this room we know nothing about. As writer Ian Maclaren said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
The message of all our Belovedness is more needed now than ever before.
It is a sign of our times that people so readily believe the worst instead of the best, or at least to give the benefit of the doubt. I may sound naive or pollyanna-ish, but in our jaded age, when trust seems to have flown the coop, but I believe that we can live in love and trust.
We are God’s, and God holds us in the palm of his hand. As Isaiah prophesied in today’s reading:
Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, "Give them up,"
and to the south, "Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth--
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made."
We were not made for shame. We were not made for suffering. Though we may have to walk through both, we were made for Glory, God’s glory. And every so often we are able to catch glimpses of that.
The last few weeks have been a source of great joy for me, having both my kids under our roof. The other day we all went down and voted in the special election. Both my kids voted. I started to feel a bit more gray in the hair. But also, I reveled in how good they are, and how far they have come. Sitting with Steph the other night, it struck me, and I said how happy and proud it made me for them both to be doing so well. I gloried in them.
Multiply that by a million, and it still would not come close. God, to whom “all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid” still loves you, wants to be in relationship with you, and glories in you. And no matter how far you have roamed, north, south, east, or west, he welcomes and wants you home.
The Holy Spirit working in you can bring the love of God into this hurting world. I heard of our folks caring for one another. For bringing water this week. For calling and checking in. For so much and so many things I know nothing about.
While the times might be screaming “Fear, fear, fear” we hear the voice of God whispering, “Fear not.” That still, calm voice whispers because we are given the choice to believe it or not. They call it Faith for a reason.
This week we laid to rest a man who lived his faith to the best of his ability. He worked for peace when people said peace was impossible. He loved those who needed help and built homes for the Unhoused. He taught Sunday School when he could. He had such a strong faith, he refused to have worship services in the White House because he so strongly believed in the Separation of Church and State. At his Funeral was sung Imagine by John Lennon, his favorite song it was reported. This song may seem cynical, but it talks about the Kingdom of God without a heaven on the other side, but a world living as one right now.
The final verse end this way:
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
Jimmy Carter may have had a better concept of God’s Kingdom than most of us.
Beloved, we fear not, and we arise and shine, because the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, is more about life Here and Now than about life [point up] There and Then.
His grandson, Jason Carter, shared this in his eulogy:
He was the same person, no matter who he was with or where he was, and for me that's the definition of integrity. That honesty was matched by love, it was matched by faith, and in both public and private, my grandparents did fundamentally live their lives in an effort, as the Bible says, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with their God.
Most people are not aware, but Jimmy Carter led his Carter Center to eradicate a disease, the guinea worm disease, which has affected the “least of these,” the impoverished since the beginning of time. When his efforts started there were 3.5 million cases a year. Last year there were 14. 14! Not 14 hundred. 1. 4. 14 total in the entire world. Jason goes on…
…in those tiny 600 person villages is an army of Jimmy and Rosalyn Carters, who have demonstrated their own power to change their world.
And that is a fundamental truth about my grandfather: It begins where it ends. When he saw a tiny 600 person village that everybody else thinks of as poor, he recognized it. That's where he was from, that's who he was. And he never saw it as a place to send pity. It was always a place to find partnership and power, and a place to carry out that commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.
Essentially, he eradicated a disease with love and respect. He waged peace with love and respect. He led this nation with love and respect.
To me this life was a love story from the moment that he woke up, until he laid his head. [Source: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a63383050/read-jason-carter-eulogy-jimmy-carter/ ]
Speaking of Imagine, imagine a world where Christ’s Church and his followers were seen to give love and respect first, and that was our hallmark. What a different world that could be. And it can be. Will we do it?
Friends, as we look to Jesus, Jesus looks to us. Behold, this is my Beloved in whom I am well pleased. Be that Jimmy Carter, or be that you when you share a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name.
May you be the Epiphany in someone’s life this week. May we all. Amen
