Epiphany

By Fr. Christopher Caudle

By Fr. Christopher Caudle, Rector of New Covenant Anglican Church, Winter Springs, Florida

Today's sermon is not just an advertisement, but it does include an invitation to help us right after service take down our Christmas decorations. This is the last service for our Christmas decorations, and so if you're able to join in right after service for us to put Christmas away, your help and fellowship would be most appreciated. But if what I do want to talk about today is related in so far as it goes like this, how do we keep worshiping once all the Christmas lights are gone, what do we do in terms of our worship, in terms of our discipleship, in terms of our witness when all the lights have gone out?

What I want to talk about today is Epiphany, in some ways, is the business end of the Incarnation. Epiphany is what we are to do with how we are to experience the fact that God has chosen to take on human nature and dwell among us in human form. Jesus coming to earth is the reality of the Incarnation, which we've celebrated for 12 Days of Christmas. The epiphany is how that unique appearance and reality of God and Man together in Jesus Christ is manifested or shown to the world. It's putting the Incarnation into gear and asking not only how it drives, but where it drives generally. The Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Christ to the nations, those who are far off, but it reveals not only Christ's identity, his character and his excellencies to those who are very far away, but also how He reveals His identity, character and excellencies, again, to those of us who have been dulled or distracted or prevented from seeing him as he truly is, up until now, and the Epiphany season began, as we talked about last week, with the arrival of the Magi.

And you sort of think of that as a pretty spectacular event, if you imagine them as I do, sort of robed in beautiful, colorful things, lots of shiny things. Sort of imagine the shepherds are sort of drab, and the Magi are sort of spectacular. They have shiny gold gifts. And no matter what kind of jars you imagine the frankincense and myrrh to be inside of, you can at least imagine that when you pop the top off one of those bottles, it smells like something other than “Ode to Stable,” right?

Epiphany season ends on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday with the Mount of Transfiguration. And what do you expect for the Mount of Transfiguration, except glory, Moses, Elijah, excitement, a voice from heaven, those sorts of things? And so the Epiphany season shows Christ's glory into the world.

It is noteworthy that this period commences with the observance of the baptism of our Lord on the first Sunday. Because in Matthew's telling of the baptism, what it tells us is that when Jesus comes up out of the water, the heavens open and Jesus sees a dove come to rest on Him, and it doesn't tell us exactly how many people heard the voice. So it could be possible, either if this revelation was given just to Christ in Matthew's telling, or whether you were far back on the bank, it could look a little bit like this. Man went down into the water, put his head under the water, and then came back up and then moved along with his day. And all of you have been to enough summer camp or to your friend's backyard pool or have been handed over into the hands of older cousins to know that there's nothing necessarily spectacular about having your head put under water and then brought back out if your cousins keep you down there too long, that becomes more spectacular, or at least more exciting, but just sort of going in the water and coming out does not necessarily seem to be the kind of thing that would cause the church to set a feast.

So what is it about baptism of Our Lord that we celebrate today? What I want us to do today is to think about in our Epiphany series on finding Jesus. Today, I want to think about how we find Jesus in His promises. And this is not just a chance to think about baptism, but I want to bring together sort of the two chief sacraments that our Church celebrates, following Christ's command and example, that is baptism and the Lord's Supper. And what I want us to hold on to is that while Jesus is being manifest, not just to Israel but also to all the nations of the world, Jesus glory is meant to be bright enough that it can reach not only Israel but also the Gentiles, anyone who's been described as other, anyone who has previously felt excluded, anyone who's been told they're non eligible, anyone who's been labeled a sinner, those who have been told you can watch, but you can't participate. This light has to shine bright enough and far enough that those who not only are sort of geographically removed, but also those who are emotionally removed, those who would say, I feel this morning here in the middle part of January, distant from God, numb to life, discouraged by how things are going, hopeless even.

I feel exposed and vulnerable, aimless. I feel like I'm grasping for my next step.

We want to find the glory of Jesus by looking at his promises. Jesus makes lots of promises in the Gospel, and some of them are the kind of things you would expect Jesus to say. So that, what kind of thing would you think Jesus would say that would be “blessed are the little children.” That's a good thing for Jesus to say, right? That's a wonderful type of thing.

A Lutheran pastor wrote that, if you look, there's sort of something that's interesting is that Jesus makes lots of promises. And in fact, in some ways, you could say he makes more promises the closer he gets to the end of his life. These are promises that are familiar. “I will be with you always.” Matthew 28: “I will send the Holy Spirit to teach you all things.” “I will prepare a place for you,” “all who come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest.”

John 6:37, if you don't know this promise, put this one in your pocket. “Whoever comes to me, I will never drive away.”

Jesus makes lots of promises in the Bible, in the Gospel to individuals and to groups. But here's what I want us to focus on today, because the truth is, it's not hard to be excited about promises, and it's not difficult to believe God's promises. If you're in the middle of the Christmas season, if someone puts on an additional string of colorful lights when you're already surrounded by colored lights, you sort of think that's really great, because when everything's already going well, the promises can seem superfluous. They can seem like that's really nice. That's a nice thought, as opposed to if all the lights have gone out. So the thing I want us to draw attention today is it's sort of interesting, and I think it can be helpful for us as we walk into epiphany season that the two chief sacraments that the Lord gives us, the two things he asks us to continually do, to remember that we belong to him and that he has been given for us, are the Lord's Supper and Baptism, both of those promises, those singular, most important promises that the church repeats to one another and to the world. Both of those promises are spoken in the context not of everything going well, but in the context of death itself.

God speaks his promissory word, not into a world that's going paradise great, but into a world that is not only just fallen apart and needs a little bit of adjustment. But both of these promises are spoken into death itself. If you've got your prayer book, that's a joke. If you've got your prayer book, you can turn with me and look on page 362

This is in the middle of the Eucharistic Prayer. You'll get a chance to hear it in just in just a little bit. Notice what it says during the communion prayer:

"On the night he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread, and when He had given thanks to you, he broke it, gave it to his disciples and said, Take eat. This is my body, and it's for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

A few paragraphs later, it says, we celebrate the memorial of our redemption, oh Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, recalling his death, his resurrection and ascension, it's in that remembrance that we offer gifts. If you flip over into the baptismal prayer, this is on page 306 if you want to look this up online, you can go to BCP online.org.

(I don't get residuals from recommending them, but it's a nice website to know).

Page 306, in the baptismal prayer. In the middle of the of the paragraph, it says in it, "in the water of baptism, your son Jesus, received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us..." Comma, (I'm skipping the middle part)

...from the bondage of sin unto everlasting life. We thank You, Father for the water of baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in His death. By it, we share in His resurrection. Through it, we are reborn by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, in joyful obedience to your son, we bring into his fellowship others who have come to Him in faith.

Notice the logic of the baptismal prayer is that we are joining Christ in His baptism, and because Jesus is who he is designated by the father, anointed by the Holy Spirit, given the role of Messiah to lead us into everlasting life. The question is, “what road will Jesus use to get us there?” And you might imagine that if Jesus has this special role and special anointing to accomplish this great and amazing eternal life goal, then this road would be paved for those who were already mostly put together, or have committed themselves to moral rectitude or doing a good job of keeping the commandments, or have distinguished themselves by good works.

But what it actually says is, is that Jesus leads us through His death and resurrection. It's actually by way of death and resurrection that we are given this gift of everlasting life. And the question is, why would Jesus have to go through death and resurrection? And the truth is, it’s because death is where we told Uber, we will have to be picked up.

If you call Uber, you have to tell them where you are if you want the car to come pick you up. And the truth is, ever since the Garden of Paradise, humanity has discovered—whether by deliberate choice or simply by letting the waves of other people’s choices wash up on our shore—that the dominoes we insist on pushing rarely lead to productivity, abundance, or flourishing. More often, the domino we tip sets off a chain reaction of things dissolving and falling apart. As Robert Louis Stevenson memorably said, eventually we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.

Isn’t it amazing, then, that Jesus does not go to death and resurrection because He is committed to death and resurrection in the abstract, but because He is committed to His people? Out of His determination to rescue us, Jesus walks the road of death and resurrection so that He can gather His people from the land of death, and, by His resurrection, bring them into the freedom that comes through trusting Him.

Now, you might think this all sounds very theological, so I want to talk about what difference it makes in our actual lives. The truth is, you don’t need God’s promises when everything is going well—because, obviously, you’re taking care of business on your own. You need God’s promises when you reach a need that exceeds your ability, your stamina, your resources, or the favors you can call in. You need them when you come to the end of yourself, or when someone dear to you reaches the end of themselves and you realize you cannot pull them out of the jam.

Epiphany invites us to recognize that the great shift we’re called to make is not simply to observe from a distance that God can do spectacular things. It’s not merely seeing God reveal Himself at the wedding in Cana, or on the Mount of Transfiguration, or in the miracles before His disciples. The shift is recognizing that Jesus does not display the glory of God primarily to deliver goods and services to our address. He reveals His glory so that we might join ourselves to Him in a relationship—one that, on our side, involves trust, and on His side, involves a commitment to display His radical faithfulness.

Here are a few examples; see if any ring true for you. If you’ve ever been stuck in a ditch, you needed someone to come save you. If you’ve ever been sick, you may have asked the Lord to heal you. If you’ve ever had more month than money, you may have prayed for provision. If you’ve been sad, you may have asked the Lord for comfort. If you’ve ever wondered what to do, you may have asked Him for guidance. And if you’ve prayed any of those prayers, you may have been praying right alongside me this week—I think I prayed for all of them. These are good prayers.

But Epiphany invites us to stretch our prayers: not only to pray for salvation, but to know the Savior; not only to experience healing, but to know the Healer; not only to have a need met, but to know God as our Provider; not only to receive an answer, but to know the Lord who guides.

Why is that significant? Because God is not primarily interested in a relationship that ensures timely delivery of whatever we need or want as we move through life. God does not simply want to heal our symptoms; He wants, in concert with us, to move us toward wholeness. And as soon as we stretch the relationship from “check this off my prayer list” to “I want to know the God who is faithful to save me day by day, moment by moment,” we enter a real relationship. Suddenly we’re not only aware that God can do all we ask—we’re learning to trust Him as we wait for His timing.

How many of you have prayed for God to relieve your symptoms, and five minutes later you still had them? Ten minutes later? A day later? Now it gets real—a year later, ten years later. If your relationship is only with a God who dispenses miracles, but not with the God who is the Healer, then every delay feels like an indictment of His character. But if you are in relationship with the One who has promised wholeness of soul and body that will last into eternity, then you can trust His timing as you move through changing circumstances and lingering symptoms. You learn that you can trust Him even when the answer does not come immediately.

How many of you have asked God to meet a temporal need? All of us. But if all you need is a cookie, you don’t need God—you can just talk to the nice, smiling person at Publix. If all you need is twenty dollars, you don’t need God—you just need someone with an extra twenty dollars. But if you want to learn, in the realm of provision, not only how to have your needs met but how to walk with a God who teaches you that in times of plenty and in times of want you can count on Him—then He can move your heart toward generosity, rooted in the confidence that the Father knows what you need. Without moving from requests into relationship, you may find yourself saying, “God, you’ve met all my needs; I’ll call again when things change.” That is not what God wants.

Jesus is manifested to the Gentiles, to Israel, and to us by calling us fundamentally into relationship. How does He do that? He goes into the worst of all situations—into death and hell itself—so that we will know that no matter what we walk through, He has walked before us and is committed to walking with us.

So here are two things to do—my challenge to you.

First, if you are here this morning with a real need—if you need rescue, healing, provision, comfort, or answers—pray. Call out to the Lord of heaven. Say, “Lord, help me.” Please pray that prayer.

But also recognize that the most fundamental prayer—and often the one God prepares us for through all those earlier prayers—is this: “Lord Jesus, help me trust You. Help me trust You with my life. Help me trust You with my eternal destiny. Help me trust You with the sins I try to hide or the sins I flaunt. Help me trust You with my brokenness. Help me trust that what You did in Your perfect life and in going into death ahead of me, You did for me. Lord Jesus, help me trust You.” If you’ve never prayed that prayer, it is as simple and as life changing as that: “Lord Jesus, help me trust You. Help me live with You and for You. Lord Jesus, live through me.”

Second, think about the needs of those around you—those praying for provision, healing, or salvation, and especially those not yet praying for salvation. Begin to pray for them this Epiphany season: “Lord, meet their needs, but help them know You not only as the giver of provision, but as their Provider. Bring relief to their symptoms, but help them know You as Healer.” As we pray this way, we become attentive to how God is moving—and attentive to how He may be calling us to be His instrument of provision, comfort, or guidance in the lives of those facing challenges.

If our fundamental commitment is to be in relationship with the God who conquered death so that we might have life—and if we are learning to trust His timing, His wisdom, His provision, and His answers—then that is the kind of prayer we can pray for others. And it will help us become sensitive to what God is doing both on the surface and behind the scenes in the lives of those who share their requests with us.

As we come to the end today, I want to offer one simple practice. Ed Welch describes it in his book Side by Side, and he says it’s one of the most simple and powerful things you can do when you pray for someone else. It’s this: you pray, and then you follow up. That’s it. You just keep doing the same thing again and again. You pray, and you follow up.

So someone says, “Would you please pray for me? I’m sniffly.” You pray for them. And then, a couple of days later, you ask, “How are you feeling?”

Maybe they say, “I feel better,” and you both say, “Praise the Lord.”

Or maybe they say, “I’m still sniffling,” and you respond, “Okay, I’ll keep praying.”

Or maybe they say, “I think I’m getting worse. I think I caught a germ from you!”

Whatever the response, what matters is what you’re modeling. This is how we care for one another. This is how we love one another. We are learning the ways of Jesus—the One who doesn’t simply drop off an answer and move on, but who meets us in our need and stays in relationship with us.

Do you see how transforming that could be? We pray, and we follow up. We ask, “How can I pray for you?” and then, “Can I check in on how that’s going?”

This may be a new practice, but if you’re thinking, “It’s January—maybe we should try something new,” then let’s try this one for Epiphany. For Epiphany, let’s pray and follow up, so that we can model what it looks like to walk in the steps of Jesus—the One who not only enters into death but leads His people through it.

It sounds a bit like Psalm 23, doesn’t it?

“Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

The King James puts it dramatically so you won’t miss it: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” Have you said “yea” to anyone this year? It’s a wonderfully emphatic way of saying, “Don’t miss this.” Even in Death Valley, the Shepherd promises not to watch from a distance, but to be with us.

This morning, as you come to the table and as you pass by the font, I hope you’ll take a moment to remember not only your promise to God, but His capital P Promise to you—that He will be your God and you will be His people. As you come to the table, remember that Jesus has set this banquet at the cost of His own life and death. He went through death so that we might have life, so that He could provide grace and strength for the next few steps of our journey.

This text originated as a recent sermon by Fr. Christopher Caudle, and was edited by Copilot as well as staff editors at Third Millennium Ministries.