Sermon: Choral Mattins Epiphany

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 5th January 2014

Service:

Choral Mattins

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‘‘Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ (John 1.29) This declaration of recognition by John the Baptist is at the heart of what Epiphany is: ‘Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ Epiphany is two poled: it is about the manifestation of God in Christ to the world, and the invitation to the recognition of that proclamation. In the Epiphany of the Lord, manifestation and recognition form a golden cord that draws us into the divine life itself, the ‘divine exchange’, as Gregory of Nazianzus calls it, that connection in which, on divine initiative, humanity comes to recognise and share in the divine life.

Just as the single umbilical cord uniting the child in the womb to its mother has three conduits, so the Epiphany has three threads that, woven together, connect us to the divine life. We can trace this golden cord back through the chronicles of the Nativity and forward into Jesus’ ministry of healing, teaching and loving, as they are woven together through the gospels.

The first thread of Epiphany is transformation, like that of the water into wine. John proclaims Jesus, ‘who takes away the sin of the world!’ thus enabling the transformation of the brokenness of our sinful lives into the possibilities of his ‘lively life that deathless shall persevere’ (Francis Kindlemarsh , ‘An earthly tree’). This is the thread of what the angel revealed to Joseph, ‘and you are to name him Jesus, [a name which means God saves] for he will save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1.21).

The second golden thread is that of Jesus’ Baptism. And John is the Baptizer who testifies to who Jesus is. He testifies as he dances in his mother’s womb (Luke 1.41), he testifies at Jesus’ baptism. The Baptism of Jesus is not just an action done to Jesus but a theophany, a revelation of the fullness of God. In the baptism of Jesus the richness of the Trinity is revealed: the Father who speaks declaring the Sonship of Jesus the Christ, bound in the power of the descending Holy Spirit. The Baptism of Jesus by John also enables us to see that Jesus is so much more than a prophet. As John the Evangelist sets it out in the opening verses of his Gospel,

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. (John 1.6-8).

Absolute clarity. Jesus is not a prophet, he is the one ‘through whom time was made, [yet] was made in time’ (Augustine of Hippo). ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1.1). And here he is rising from the waters of the new creation.

The third thread of Epiphany is the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, the nations. It is that, ‘Behold, here he is’ proclamation of John. The thread can be traced back to the arrival of the shepherds at the manger, long before the magi from the East. Tracing it forward the thread weaves through to the Gospels to the Greek visitors, Gentiles, who ask the disciples, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus’ (John 12.20-26). They are told most emphatically that to see Jesus fully is to see him in his human body, incarnate, giving that body on the cross to give life to the whole world and created order. The thread ties in to Thomas’ recognition of the Risen Christ as, ‘My Lord and my God!’ (John 20.28)

So in one sentence - ‘Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ – John the Baptist encapsulates the Epiphany message in which golden threads – transformation, Baptism and manifestation - are woven together in an unbreakable Trinitarian cord that unites us to our Creator, our Lord and God.

That’s all very well, but what the gospel demands of us as Christian disciples is not simply cognition of the evidence, but a thorough searching and re-searching of who Jesus is that yields in re-cognition, recognition. John the Baptist’s statement is a statement of recognition and more than that: in that one sentence Jesus is recognised and proclaimed. It is at once a statement of faith and of evangelisation. It identifies Jesus as the one who comes to die for us, the sacrificial Lamb and Shepherd – priest and victim.

Our Epiphany challenge then is to recognise the Epiphany threads woven into the fabric of our own lives, weaving us together in the Body of Christ and uniting us to the Father. May we recognise Christ present in his world heralding the Kingdom, and, just as we do in the Eucharist as bread and wine is laid before us, proclaim, ‘Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’