January 12 | Epiphany 1, Year C
Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
We are not alone, but we often feel as if we are. I am reminded of a cartoon in which a little child is sitting on the floor while the parents are texting and checking the internet on their smartphones. The caption: “I wish you would hold me and talk to me as much as you do your phone.” The truth is that we live isolated and lonely lives surrounded by tools of communication that connect us to strangers around the world — but isolate us from our immediate neighbors. It is natural that we take our experience of loneliness into our existential relationship with God. And we are never quite so lonely as when we are suffering or in danger. It is into our lonely and abandoned circumstances that God speaks through the prophet Isaiah.
Who is this One who is with us? In fact, where are we that he would be with us?
In Epiphany, the Church answers that question by celebrating who Jesus is and whom he reveals to the world. He is God and reveals God’s true nature. Although the manifestation of Jesus’ true nature is central to the season of Epiphany, there is more to the revelation than his identity. If he is the sovereign God, then along with the manifestation of his nature comes the revelation of his will. After all, the Bible describes God as acting in the world. During Epiphany we learn about what God does through the transformation of water into wine, the release of captives and the giving of sight to the blind, the proclamation of the good news to the nations, and the revelation of God’s salvific work in Jerusalem. God’s purpose and direction in the world is manifested in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
As the body of Christ, the Church exists to continue the work of Christ in the world. That means that we are to go out into the world with the message of God, so the world that does not know or acknowledge God will see him and be transformed by conforming to his will. That, of course, means that resistance and conflict will be inherent in the experience of being the Church.
God has spoken through the prophet and through the Incarnation. Isaiah spoke about the promise of God to be with us even as we pass through rivers and fire. He created us, formed us, and redeemed us. He is our Savior. Likewise, the last of the great prophets, John the Baptizer, proclaimed Jesus as great and righteous — the good news for his people. At his baptism in the Jordan, Jesus was declared the Son, the Beloved, by the voice of God. Through the Incarnation, God has fulfilled the promise of Scripture that he would be our God and we would be his people. Jesus is God-with-us. Through faith, we are never alone in this life — even if we are the only one left on the island.
Look It Up: Revelation 21:3-4
Think About It: Jesus said, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20b).
The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, former rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, teaches anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School.