Epiphany week 1

Psalm: Psalm 29

Old Testament: Genesis 1:1-5
Gospel: Mark 1:4-11
Epistle: Acts 19:1-7

Friday marked the day of Epiphany in the church year.  Epiphany has traditionally been a time of celebrating the wise men who visited Jesus and worshiped him as King.  Thus, in some cultures, Epiphany is called Three Kings Day. The wise men “reveal” or “show” who Jesus is.  Matthew portrays these Gentile pagan wise men as the first people to recognize who Jesus is.  For some Christians, Epiphany is also a time to celebrate Jesus’ baptism when Jesus was “revealed” as the Son of God.

Our brief passage from Genesis this week invites us to God’s original act of revelation.  Creation is God’s act of revealing who He is.  Creation is an expression of who God is and it is only through creation that we know God or are even known by God.  At Epiphany the message is that God continues to use creation to bring about salvation.  In the church, we have a tendency to deny the importance of creation or matter, but Christian doctrine doesn’t allow this.  From the very beginning, God has used creation to meet us and to speak to us.  This very idea is what the Psalmist proclaims.  The Lord is the Lord over creation, which sings his praises

Both of our New Testament passages deal with John or some of his disciples.  In Mark we have the message of John followed by his baptism of Jesus.  Notice first, that in Mark’s gospel, John doesn’t recognize Jesus as the “coming one.” He baptizes him without any protesting and there is also some ambiguity as to who hears the voice from heaven or sees the dove. Mark’s gospel doesn’t report John’s later inquiry from prison as to whether Jesus is the coming one or not.  So, in some sense, Jesus’ baptism is an epiphany or revelation, but no one really gets it yet.

The passage from Acts brings up more questions than answers.  For starters, who were these 12 men disciples of? John? If they followed John, didn’t they realize John’s message was pointing to someone who would come after him?  They seem ready to accept Jesus as the Messiah and had probably heard of him, but how had they never heard of the Holy Spirit?

Bringing Acts and Mark together, a couple observations can be made.  First, the importance of baptism.  Baptism is assumed in the New Testament and there is no debate as to if or how.  So, I get a bit upset with people who say that baptism is optional.  Nazarene’s only have two sacraments and we better use them. We believe that a sacrament must be an explicit command from Jesus, comes associated with a promise, and have a physical element.  Why would we want discourage any means of grace for a person?  To say this paradoxically, baptism isn’t an option but neither is it required.  God in his loving grace extends salvation to those who, by some circumstance, haven’t been baptized, but at the same time, obedience requires of us that we be baptized as a seal, symbol, and marker of death and new life in Christ.

Secondly, Jesus Christ brings the Spirit to those who are baptized in him.  The Holy Spirit is the promise we have when we live for Christ.  Although I find this a difficult teaching, I think at least Acts is clear that the Holy Spirit comes as something as a “second work,” to quote the old time Nazarenes.  Whether there is a short elapse of time or a longer period sometime after receiving Christ and being baptized the Holy Spirit comes to the believer.  How anyone can live a Christian life without the Holy Spirit I don’t know, but as the timeline plays out there is a definite “second-ness” to it.

Well, what baptism and the Holy Spirit have to do with epiphany that is for you to figure and discuss. But let me leave you the thought that God is still at work revealing himself to us through his creation.  Just as God was able to use a star for the wise men to follow, I challenge you during this time of Epiphany to be mindful of how God is speaking to you through his creation.  You might actually have to take a walk for this to happen, so do it. I already went to the Kansas City Zoo today and experienced many blessings and wonders of God’s creation.