This is the first Sunday of Epiphany. The term epiphany means "to show" or "to make known" or even "to reveal." In Western churches, it remembers the coming of the wise men bringing gifts to visit the Christ child, who by doing so "reveal" Jesus to the world as Lord and King.
After a recent particularly moving sermon, I was driving home when a driver cut me off. I cursed him out loud and thought, “That sermon didn’t last very long”… I had, if you will excuse the expression, an epiphany.
Are we “pew Christians”? Do we follow Jesus’ teachings once we leave church on Sunday? Do we try living the Gospel out each week? Are we revealing or making Jesus known through our actions? Most of us will never become a Mother Theresa or a Desmond Tutu, but we can try to live the Gospel each day. We can make Jesus, whose birthday we just celebrated, known to those we encounter. We can do this without evangelizing, and most often without evoking the name of Jesus, but through our actions, by showing what it means to be a Christian, by living our lives as an example. St Francis said, “You may be the only Gospel your neighbor ever reads”.
As we continue through the season of Epiphany, I ask that we meditate on how we may make Jesus and his life of the Gospel known. How we may live out our baptismal covenant and live our lives in his spirit and by our actions. Do we live the whole Gospel, or does our Gospel have a hole in it?
"Meister Eckhart (a German Theologian) once said: ‘What good is it that Christ was born 2,000 years ago if he is not born now in your heart?'
May we live in faith, walk in hope and be renewed in love.
LET US PRAY:
“Father, we thank you for revealing yourself to us in Jesus the Christ, we who once were not your people but whom you chose to adopt as your people. As ancient Israel confessed long ago, we realize that it was not because of our own righteousness, or our own superior wisdom, or strength, or power, or numbers. It was simply because you loved us, and chose to show us that love in Jesus.
As you have accepted us when we did not deserve your love, will you help us to accept those whom we find it hard to love? Forgive us, O Lord, for any attitude that we harbor that on any level sees ourselves as better or more righteous than others. Will you help us to remove the barriers of prejudice and to tear down the walls of bigotry, religious or social? O Lord, help us realize that the walls that we erect for others only form our own prisons!
Will you fill us so full of your love that there is no more room for intolerance. As you have forgiven us much, will you enable us with your strength to forgive others even more? Will you enable us through your abiding Presence among us, communally and individually, to live our lives in a manner worthy of the Name we bear?
May we, through your guidance and our faithful obedience, find new avenues in ways that we have not imagined of holding the Light of your love so that it may be a Light of revelation for all people.
We thank you for your love, praise you for your Gift, ask for your continued Presence with us, and bring these petitions in the name of your Son, who has truly revealed your heart. Amen.”