Epiphany IV

Epiphany IV The truth is

The truth sets us free. The truth also hurts.

Jesus not only speaks the truth he is the truth. He not only proclaims the Good News of God’s love he is the love of God in human flesh.

When Jesus preached Good News in the synagogue in Nazareth the people heard the news gladly and with amazement. In only a few minutes their amazement turned to anger and hate. What happened? How did they make such a dramatic transition in their attitude towards Jesus?
I believe the key lies in the comment of the crowd: is this not Joseph’s son?

Jesus not only proclaimed the Good News of God, he declared the truth that he is the fulfillment of the Good News. Jesus is the truth and could only proclaim the truth. He was not just a teacher, preacher or even a prophet. Had he allowed people to believe that he would have been safe. But, he would not have been fulfilling the Father’s Plan and Purpose for his incarnation.
At the moment of his baptism in the river Jordan, Jesus heard the words of his heavenly Father: this is my son. The beloved.

There is a one word answer to the crowd’s rhetorical question: is this not Joseph’s son? The one word answer is no. Jesus is the Son of God. His message of love is validated and made real by the truth that he is the co-eternal Beloved of the Father.

The transition in the story begins when Jesus clarifies who he is. At that point, all who had spoken well of him as a preacher began to find fault with him

What happens next is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ arrest and condemnation by the religious court. For a human being to claim to be God is blasphemy. It is also a challenge to the human desire to create God in our own image.

Jesus never gave people the option to accept him on their terms. He was very clear about his identity as the Son of God.

He initiated a discussion that clarified the passage from the prophet Isaiah that he had just read. He reminded the people of Nazareth that God’s love is universal. God sent Elijah to help a Sidonian woman. God commanded the prophet Elisha to heal a Syrian general.
It is at this point that the crowds become enraged. Good News for Israel brought praise. Good news for the pagan gentile world brought rage. The reality of God’ universal love in the person of Jesus Christ was too much for the crowd. They had been educated in fear and trained to hate.

The crowd was poised to throw Jesus off of a cliff. Then, mysteriously, Jesus just walked through the midst of the crowd and left the city. It was not the time, the place or the method of his death.
Why would Jesus do this? Why didn’t he just bask in the praise for awhile?

The answer is simple but not easy. The answer is love. That love is eternal. That love is the pattern of truth. There can be no love apart from truth. The truth is that Jesus is the love of God reaching out to a lost and broken people. Jesus came to set people free from separation and sin. He had to reveal to humanity our condition and our need in order to present himself as the solution to that need.

Jesus is the perfect mirror to the human soul. When we truly look into that mirror we see our self will, fear and pride. Jesus’ real presence in our midst allows us only two options: love or separation. The way of love is the way of faith. The way of faith says: Heavenly Father not my will but your will be done. The way of separation is the way of the human will to power. The will to power always says: my will be done.

As it was then so it is now. We need to be very clear about who Jesus is. We need to be very careful in what we say about Jesus.

Jesus is God the Father’s only begotten Son. Jesus is God the Father’s Plan of Salvation for the entire human race.

Jesus is the love of God in human flesh. That love is universal. That love is also truth. There can be no love apart from truth.

Jesus invites all people everywhere to receive the gifts he brings: forgiveness of sin, reunification with God the Father, a new life of transformation in the Holy Spirit, eternal life in the resurrection of the body. This is the gift of salvation.

Jesus offers himself to everyone but imposes himself on no one.

Jesus is the truth that sets us free. That truth is the love and compassion of God. It is also the fulness of divine revelation to humanity. Jesus is God up front and personal. For many people, perhaps all of us at times, the reality that God is his own person is an affront to the human will to power.

As Jesus revealed the fulness of God in his own person the people of Nazareth reacted with murderous rage. The truth is that human beings want God but we want God on our own terms. Humans reserve the right to define God according to our own needs and desires. God in person is just too much God. God in person reminds us of the pain of our choice to separate.

God in person is also the solution to that pain.

The truth is that there is only one God.

The truth is that the one God has not only revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ but continually offers himself to us in Jesus Christ.

The question for all of us is: how will we receive Jesus? Will we receive him as the true love of God in human flesh?

The truth is Jesus Christ.
　

Epiphany 3

Epiphany 3 Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

Jesus studied the scriptures.

As a child, Jesus learned about Moses and the Prophets in the same way other children of his time learned about the Bible. When the co-eternal Son of God came to earth and became a human being he emptied himself. He emptied himself of his divine prerogatives. He emptied himself of his power and knowledge so he could experience life as we experience life.

There was one choice Jesus made that no human being has ever made. Jesus made a real choice never to separate from His Heavenly Father. Jesus was, and is, fully human in every way that we are with one single exception. He never chose separation as the way of being human.

The Good News that Jesus brought to his generation and to all generations is that God offers us reunification with the divine as a gift. The Good News is that it is not only possible to be human in union with the divine, it is the best way possible of being human.

Jesus manifests the reality of God’s plan and purpose for humanity.

In Jesus’ baptism we see and hear God the Father revealing the ineffable mystery of the Holy Trinity. God the Father sets His only begotten Son on his course to the cross by declaring Jesus is the co-eternal beloved. Jesus is anointed by the co-eternal Holy Spirit. Jesus is fully human and fully God.

At the wedding feast of Cana Holy Mother Mary invites her son to meet a very simple and ordinary need. In the miracle that follows, Jesus reveals the transforming power of God to change water into wine, law into grace, fear into faith, self will into divine will.
As Jesus preaches in the synagogues in the province of Galilee and in his home town of Nazareth the people hear him with gladness. John tells us that at this point of Jesus’ public ministry every one who hears him praises him.

Jesus’ preaching elicits a response of gladness and praise because Jesus came to proclaim Good News.

People were accustomed to their religious leaders proclaiming bad news. The Pharisees preached against the Sadducees. The Sadducees preached against the Scribes. The Scribes preached against the Pharisees and the Zealots preached against everyone with an apocalyptic message of hell fire and condemnation.

There is certain power in the preaching of condemnation. It is the power of fear, self will and pride. It proceeds from the place of separation and perpetuates the pain of separation. Through careful use of fear a preacher can intimidate and manipulate people. The price of such preaching is always pain. It is the pain of a broken heart. It produces the fatal pride that leads to despair. It is the bad news that fear rules the soul. It doesn’t have to be grounded in fact. It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to touch the place of separation in the human soul and activate fear.

Most people knew very well who they should fear, who they should hate, who deserved God’s blessings and who did not deserve God’s blessing. Most people heard the bad news of division and separation and exclusion all of their lives. Most people lived with the frustration and anxiety that some one else was to blame for their problems. Most people lived with the guilt and shame that when bad things happened in their lives it meant God was punishing them for their failure to be righteous and their failure to destroy the unrighteous in their midst.

Jesus had heard this kind of preaching all of his life. He had seen the result in the bitter divisions and conflicts in his society. What made Jesus’ response to this kind of preaching different was his life of constant prayer. The focus of his prayer was always: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done.

I imagine as a child Jesus hearing the messages of hate, fear, anger and division. I imagine Jesus praying: Heavenly Father is this true? And, I can imagine the Father asking Jesus: what does my word say? What have I already spoken to the human race through Moses and the prophets?
Jesus studied the Bible as all children study the Bible. But, Jesus studied the Bible by placing his will in union with the will of the Father. Jesus studied the Bible under the anointing and the guidance of the Holy Spirit with humility and with an open heart. Jesus wanted to know and embrace God’s truth even if it contradicted the bad news of the religious leaders of his day.
As the child Jesus studied the Bible he formed his life according to the pattern and the plan his heavenly Father revealed in the Bible. The Bible became the context for his life. As the child Jesus grew into the adult Jesus he re cast our human understanding of the Bible through his own person. His life became the context for the Bible.

When Jesus began to preach at the age of thirty, he knew Plan of Salvation from studying Moses and the Prophets. And, he knew that in his heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation there is only grace. There is no condemnation. There is no division, fear, anger, hatred or spite. There is only faith, hope and unconditional love.

That is why the people heard Jesus with such gladness and praise. Jesus preached the Good News of God’s great love.

Jesus announced that he was fulfilling prophecy. The prophecy he was fulfilling declared God’s compassion for the poor, the lonely, the broken and the lost. The prophecy promised healing. The prophecy promised divine favor, grace.

Jesus manifested his co-eternal Sonship as the Beloved of the Father and as the anointed of the Holy Spirit by declaring the Kingdom of Grace. In Jesus, God pours himself out to all people everywhere to give us what we abandoned. In Jesus, God reaches out to all people everywhere to find the lost and to heal the broken.

The fulfillment of prophecy comes in a person. It is the prophecy which helps us understand the person. It is the person who makes the prophecy real. Biblical prophecy points to Jesus Christ. Jesus fulfills Biblical prophecy.

Jesus Christ is God the Father’s gift to the human race. Jesus Christ is the human face of God reaching out to all people with the invitation to receive the blessing of eternal love.
In the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus read the book of the prophet Isaiah. It was the book that formed his life as a child. Now, as an adult, Jesus would fulfill the words of the book in his own person, by his words and by his actions. He declares the intent of his three year ministry in the words of the prophet Isaiah. And he declares the Good News that today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

As it was then so it is now. Our living Lord Jesus Christ continues to fulfill the Law and the Prophets in our lives as he reveals to us through the Bible and the Sacraments the Good News that the kingdom of God is rich with the blessings of grace. The Good News of the Kingdom is that God invites all people every where with no exception to receive the blessing. The Good News is that in Jesus Christ God continues to reveal himself as unconditional love.

Today this scripture is being fulfilled in your hearing in the real presence of the living Lord Jesus Christ.
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

Epiphany 2

Epiphany 2 Jesus did this and revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him.

Jesus performed miracles.

Jesus performed miracles by uniting his will to the will of his heavenly Father.

Because Jesus united his will to the will of his heavenly father, the miracles he performed revealed God ‘s purpose and plan and person to people. The result of the miracle was faith.
Jesus came into the world to find the lost, to heal the broken and to give humanity the gift of eternal love. The miracles were instrumental in this purpose. Not all who witnessed the miracles responded with faith. Some chose to react with fear, self will or pride. For some, the miracles appeared as a challenge and a threat.

This is one reason why Jesus was reluctant to perform this first miracle. The miracle would result in faith for some and rebellion for others. The first miracle sets the precedent and the expectation for futrure miracles.

The first miracle Jesus performs reveals something very important about God.
Many people believed God was a stern judge. They believed that God held a balance scale. If your sins outweighed your good deeds then God punished you. The corollary to that belief is that if bad things happened to you then it was the sign that God is punishing you for your bad deeds.
Jesus came into the world to show us that God is love. God is not condemnation. Bad things do happen to people. Jesus knew this well. He lived in a world of great turmoil and suffering. Many times the bad things are a result of human greed or indifference. So it is that in order for some people to acquire great wealth many people have to live in poverty.

Some times the bad things in life just have no easy explanation.
Jesus reminds us that the trials and tribulations we encounter in life are not the manifestation of divine wrath or indifference. Jesus reveals that God is love. It is not always easy for us to hold these two truths.

The miracles Jesus performed can help understand the reality of Divine Love in the midst of human suffering.

This first miracle seems very odd. It appears Jesus is reluctant. He even avoids taking the credit. And the miracle itself seems strangely extravagant and frivolous. Jesus turned water into wine so a party could continue.

There is, of course, a deeper meaning and purpose to the miracle. There is also the less obvious answer that Jesus came to give us abundant life. He met the need of the moment because he wanted to help the bridegroom celebrate one of the most important events in his life: his wedding.
　
Jesus cares about every aspect of our lives. He is with us in our joys and in our sorrows. Here, in the wedding feast, Jesus responds to Holy Mother Mary’s intercession by solving a very ordinary human problem. There wasn’t enough.

Jesus sets the pattern for future miracles by bringing forth abundance. In the Kingdom of heaven there is only abundance. There is no scarcity. There is no deprivation.

The more profound meaning of the miracle is two fold. One is material and the other is spiritual.
The material meaning of the miracle is that the world our heavenly Father created is a world of abundance. The resources to meet human need are there. It is not a scarcity in the creation that results in deprivation, hunger and poverty. It is a scarcity in the human heart, the human mind, the human will.

The miracle Jesus performed in the material world reminded his disciples and all who read the story that there is abundant goodness in the creation. The problem is how we choose to manage the resources God has provided.

The spiritual significance of the miracle lies in the understanding of the images of the wedding feast, the bridegroom and the stone water jars.

The wedding feast was a great celebration that took place over several days and involved the entire village. It was a sign of faith in the present and hope for the future. It even took precedent over normal religious duties. It is the pre eminent image God uses to describe the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of heaven is joy and celebration. The Kingdom of Heaven is limitless abundance.

The Bridegroom’s father had the responsibility to provide for the feast. It was his honor and his duty. In the Kingdom of heaven, Jesus is the Bridegroom. The Church is the Bride. God the Father is the father who has responsibility to provide for the celebration.

The large stone water jars represent the Old Covenant. They are there for ritual purification. They indicate the family are Pharisees. They further suggest that the family is well to do. It was expensive to maintain such large quantities of water for ritual purposes.

The premise of ritual purification is that people are spiritually unclean. This is more than the bad things we sometimes do or the good things we fail to do. It is a fundamental flaw in human nature. It is also a fundamental aspect of human life.

The Pharisees believed this spiritual uncleanness was an affront to God. In order to avoid God’s wrath, people needed to perform certain religious rituals. The rituals work for that moment only. They have to be repeated over and over.

When Jesus turned the water into wine he was demonstrating something very important about the kingdom of God. The kingdom is not about law and punishment. It is not about debits or credits. It is not about who is clean or unclean. The kingdom is about grace. The kingdom is about grace because the kingdom is a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ.

Turning water into wine is a manifestation of divine power. It is also a revelation of divine grace. It is grace that infuses new life into the soul. It is grace that changes the waters of ritual purification into the wine of joy and gladness. It is grace that doesn’t just abolish the Law but fulfills the Law. It is the grace that invites faith in a person: Jesus Christ.

The servants saw the miracle and believed. The steward of the feast tasted the wine and in astonishment said to the bridegroom: you have saved the best for last. The disciples observed all of this and they believed. They believed in a person, Jesus Christ.

It is the person who makes all things new. It is the person who celebrates with us in the happy times and comforts us in our sorrows. Law cannot do this. Religion cannot do this. Only a person can do this. Only Jesus can transform scarcity into abundance, law into grace, fear into faith, water into wine.

In this unlikely miracle, Jesus’ first miracle, God manifests himself to us and reveals not condemnation or demand but glory. The glory of God is Jesus reaching out in love to all people everywhere with God's abundant grace.

Jesus did this and revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him.
　
　
　

Epiphany I

Epiphany I
The Baptism of Jesus "This is the beloved."

The great theme of Epiphany season is God made manifest.

God does not prove his existence. God reveals his love. He reveals his love in the same way human beings attempt to communicate love. Love is made manifest in relationship.

The essence of the Christian faith is a personal relationship with God in Christ. Every thing else about the Christian faith: the church, the Bible, the sacraments, service to others, proceeds from this relationship and helps to build this relationship.

Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan by his cousin John, the last of the prophets, is the way God the Father chose publically to introduce Jesus Christ as His only begotten Son.

John’s baptism was a symbol of repentance and preparation. John called people to recognize their separation from God and to make a conscious choice to seek reunification with God. But, Jesus never separated from God.

John called the people to prepare their hearts, and minds and will to receive the Messiah, God’s anointed one. But, Jesus was the Messiah.

Why then did Jesus seek out John and enter the waters to receive baptism?
The apostle Matthew quotes John asking the very same question. Jesus replies with the answer: to fulfill all righteousness. As the rightful King of Israel Jesus led by example. He didn’t need John’s baptism. He chose to accept the baptism to tell the people: I will not ask you to do anything I will not do.

The reality of God is in the relationship God establishes with us in Jesus Christ.
As the one who came to seal the breach between divinity and humanity in his own person, by his life, death and resurrection, Jesus entered the waters of baptism to teach and to lead by example. Jesus came to save. That is the meaning of his name. He came to save all humanity from separation, sin and death. The symbol Jesus forms by his baptism in the river Jordan is the symbol of the suffering servant who not only identifies with the separation, sin and death of humanity but immerses himself in that separation, sin and death.

Baptism is a symbol of going under the water to die to the old way of living and emerging into the air to take the first new breath of a new way of living.

Jesus’ baptism is a foretaste of his sacrifice on the cross. Sacramental baptism is now the symbol and the reality of a soul that is buried with Christ in his death and raised with Christ is his resurrection.

What Jesus offers to all people everywhere is not just fire insurance for the future. What Jesus offers all people everywhere is a new life here and now. That new life is eternal life. It is a new way of thinking, feeling, and making choices.

It sets the soul on a new path in life. It recreates the soul into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. It initiates a process of personal transformation, which the Church calls sanctification, that begins with baptism and never ends.
It never ends because it is a living, growing, transforming relationship with the co-eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Our Heavenly Father, the first person of the Trinity, spoke audibly to the crowds on the river banks that day Jesus received John’s baptism. He spoke to all who were present and announced: You are my Son, the Beloved. At the same time the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, took visible form and appeared to descend on Jesus.

In this image we see the One God in three persons, the Holy and Eternal Trinity. And, we see the essence of the divine nature is an eternal relationship of love.
The Father just doesn’t call Jesus a beloved son, or my beloved. He calls Jesus "The Beloved." The Beloved is the co-eternal expression of love that defines the very nature and being of the divine.

God the Father is the one who eternally loves. God the Son is the one who is eternally the Beloved. God the Holy Spirit is the co-eternal resplendent glory of that love that has no beginning and has no end.

All who are baptized into Christ are reunited to the Father by the divine presence of the Holy Spirit. As we unite our souls to Christ we share in his divine image and likeness. We become the beloved of the Beloved. We enter into the relationship that reveals God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To be in Christ is to be immersed in the steadfast holy and eternal love of the Trinity.

To be baptized into Christ is to be set free from slavery to fear into the freedom of faith.
To be baptized into Christ is to be set free from the slavery of self will into the freedom of divine will.
To be baptized into Christ is to be set free from the slavery of pride and its dark underside, despair, into the freedom of joy.

Jesus accepted John’s baptism to show us the way. Jesus is the way, the new way of living by grace through faith.
Jesus accepted John’s baptism to show us the truth. Jesus is the truth that we can live in the hope that God is with us.
Jesus accepted John’s baptism to show us the life. Jesus is the life whom God the Father calls: The Beloved. In Jesus life is the unfolding and manifestation of divine love in human relationships.

In Jesus, God reveals that the primary relationship that gives meaning and purpose to all other relationships is our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. As we unite our souls to Jesus in the waters of baptism we reunite to the Beloved. As we immerse our souls in the blessed sacrament of the altar we immerse our mind, heart and will in the eternal Presence of the Beloved.

That immersion into the eternal Presence of the Beloved is God’s invitation to a new way of living. As we learn to make choices from the place of steadfast holy love we discern where we need to make changes in our lives. These changes may be difficult at times. But, the choice to live from the place of steadfast holy love always brings greater meaning and purpose to our lives.

The choice to cultivate the personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ is the reality of God’s existence. So many modern secular people look for the proof of God’s existence n the fulfillment of human desires. They say, if God is real then God will give me what I want. Others want proof of God’s existence in rational categories of human logic. The say: if God exists then God must demonstrate that existence in the way I have been trained to think about the universe.

God does not prove his existence. God makes manifest his presence.
God made manifest is Jesus Christ rising from the waters of John’s baptism.
God made manifest is the Holy Spirit taking visible form to embrace Jesus in the waters of creation.
God made manifest is our Heavenly Father who declares to Jesus so all the world may hear: you are my Son, the Beloved. The Beloved is the co-eternal God of God, light of light, very God of very God. Begotten, not made.

In the reading of this event today the Holy Spirit is speaking to each of us. If you have never embraced the gift of God in Jesus Christ, make a real choice to embrace the real presence of the Beloved here and now.

If you have accepted Jesus as your personal lord and savior, use this moment in time to make a real choice to say to God: I want to immerse my mind, my heart, my will in the new life of the Beloved. Where is my next step in sanctification? What is my next choice in personal transformation? What do I need to give up? Where do I need to make a change? How can I live more fully and completely and joyfully in Jesus Christ?

Luke records for us the action of the Holy Spirit and the voice of our heavenly Father as God in three persons manifests himself to us in Jesus Christ, the co-eternal Son, the co-eternal Beloved. God continues to manifest His divine presence to all people everywhere as He calls to into a new way of living in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.