According to the Roman Catholic Church, we’ve now left behind what might be called seasonal time, and we’ve returned to Ordinary Time, that time of the year when we’re not celebrating any particular season of the Church’s year, a time that’s also known as the ‘green season’ because it’s a time of the year when the clergy wear green vestments. For the Church of England though, we’re now in the season of Epiphany, and for me, it’s the Church of England which has got this right.
Epiphany, as I’m sure you’ll know, is a word that means ‘revelation’ or ‘realisation’. So the Feast of the Epiphany, which we celebrated in Church last Sunday, is the day when we celebrate the revelation of Christ to the Gentiles, because in the visit of the wise men to the Christ child, the non-Jewish world realised who Jesus is. But as we go through these next few Sundays, our Gospel readings are full of revelations of who Jesus is and so this time of year is, in fact, a season of epiphanies.
If we think about it, it’s not surprising that our readings should be concerned with epiphanies, with revelations about Jesus, at this time. We started our year with Advent when we looked forward to Jesus’ birth, and we celebrated his birth at Christmas, so it’s only natural that we should then move on to say something about why we’ve made such a fuss of Jesus birth; to say something about who Jesus is that makes his birth and Jesus himself so important.
And so we start with the Feast of the Epiphany when the wise men’s gift of gold tells us that Jesus is a King. Their gift of frankincense tells us that he’s God. And their gift of myrrh tells us that he is the one whom Isaiah prophesied,
‘…he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.’
We also hear at this time of year the story of Jesus’ baptism, and this again is a story of revelations because it tells us that Jesus, although he’s superior to the prophets, nevertheless submits to John the Baptist in order to ‘fulfil all righteousness’. So Jesus is someone whose purpose is to do God’s will. The descent of the dove as Jesus comes up out of the water tells us that this is someone on whom the Holy Spirit rests. And the voice from heaven tells us that Jesus is God’s own “beloved Son,” with whom the Father is “well pleased.”
Because we use both the Roman Catholic and Common Worship lectionaries in this benefice, today we have different Gospel readings in church, but nevertheless, they’re both concerned with epiphanies. At St Mark’s this morning we hear John the Baptist proclaim to his disciples that Jesus is ‘the Lamb of God.’ That’s something John had already called Jesus when, during the version of Jesus’ baptism in St John’s Gospel, John the Baptist calls Jesus,
“…the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
This again draws our minds to that prophecy of Isaiah, but also to Jesus as divine because only God can forgive sin, so who is Jesus that he can take away the sin of the world?
We also hear Jesus first disciples calling him “Rabbi,” ‘Teacher’ and that’s something we hear too in the Gospel at St Gabriel’s this morning. This Gospel reveals Jesus to have great wisdom and spiritual insight because he knows the kind of person Nathanael is simply by observing him, and in response, Nathanael says to Jesus, and of Jesus,
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
So we hear too, in these stories about Jesus calling his first disciples. And over the next few weeks, as we move through the season of Epiphany, we’ll hear stories of the ‘signs’ Jesus performed, healings and other miracles that drew people to him and brought them to faith. And really, that is what these stories are about; revealing things about Jesus so that those who hear the stories will realise who Jesus is, come to faith and follow him as his disciples.
We who are here today, have already come to faith, or are at least somewhere along the road on the journey to faith; we probably wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t the case. But nevertheless, it’s important for us to hear these stories and be reminded of who Jesus is because, no matter how much faith we have and no matter how deep and strong our faith is, we’re all still only somewhere along the road to true discipleship. That’s because none of us follow Jesus as closely as we should, nor indeed as closely even as we could. And in this respect, we can fail in so many ways.
We acclaim Jesus as our King and our God, as these Epiphany season Gospel stories say he is. But we know that we don’t always treat him as such. As I said in my sermon last Sunday, we don’t always pay Jesus homage, that is, we have a tendency to privatise our faith for the sake of an easy life rather than proclaiming our faith publicly, as we should for our King and our God.
If we acclaim Jesus as our King and our God, we should obey him and keep his commandments, but we know too that we don’t always do that. In fact, we probably don’t do that anywhere near enough. And one of the ways we can fail most often and most spectacularly in this respect, is through our attitude towards sin.
Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart and soul and mind, and the second is to love our neighbour as ourselves. He said that the whole of the law and the prophets depended on these two commandments, in other words, the whole of the Jewish faith depends on these two commandments. And we must always remember that the Jesus on whom our faith depends, was himself a Jew, a very good and faithful Jew who taught the Jewish faith, so our faith depends on these two commandments too. And yet what is sin other than a failure to love both God and our neighbour as we should, and as Jesus commanded us to? But when we sin, what do we do? Do we confess our sins and humbly ask for forgiveness, as Jesus said we should, or do we get on our moral high horse and pretend that we’ve done nothing wrong? Far from being humble enough to admit our sins, how often do deny that we’ve done anything wrong and / or try to hide what we’ve done wrong? And even if we have to admit our sins, how often do we try to shift the blame for them on to someone else by saying something along the lines of,
“Well, yes, I admit I did that. But I wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t done this to me first.”
Have you ever noticed that in any argument of this kind, as far as both parties are concerned, it’s always, always, the other side who drew first blood?
As we heard his disciples do in this morning’s Gospel readings, we call Jesus ‘Teacher,’ but very often, we don’t pay proper attention to the lessons he teaches us do we? Even if we are think we are the injured party in a dispute, does that justify us in taking revenge? And that’s exactly what sinning against those who’ve sinned against us is.
Didn’t Jesus, our Teacher, say that we shouldn’t take revenge? That we shouldn’t adopt an eye for eye, tooth for tooth approach to these things but rather forgive one another, even those who sin against us?
We believe that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, but I sometimes think that many Christians take this to imply that it doesn’t really matter too much how they behave. They may admit, at least to themselves, that they’re sinners, but think that doesn’t matter too much because, after all, Jesus paid for our sins on the Cross so as long as we say we believe, we’ll be forgiven, and we’ll be OK. But is this really what Jesus, our Teacher, taught us? Is this really what it means to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and to love our neighbour as ourselves? Didn’t Jesus actually teach something quite different; that,
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
And that,
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock…. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”
Do we want to be taken for wise, or for foolish? In particular, and regardless of how we think we are in our own eyes, do we want to be taken for wise or for foolish in Jesus’ eyes and the Father’s eyes?
These revelations about Jesus that we hear in church at this time of year are a reminder to us of who Jesus is. We might say we know that already, but it’s important that we are reminded of who Jesus is so that we can come to a deeper faith, so that we’ll take what he says more seriously and so come to understand the lessons he teaches us more fully. So that we can become better disciples of his, wise people who hear Jesus’ words, and put them into practice.
Amen.
Propers for the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Epiphany 2) 14th January 2024
Entrance Antiphon
May all the earth give you worship and praise, and break into song at your name, O God, Most High.
The Collect
Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives,
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
1 Samuel 3:3-10, 19
Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-10
1 Corinthians 6:13-15, 17-20
John 1:35-42
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
1 Samuel 3:1-20
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-18
Revelation 5:1-10
John 1:43-51
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 