Tag Archives: Epiphany

Transfiguration Sunday and the Longing of Epiphany

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Yesterday was transfiguration Sunday which marks a peak of ascent in the Christian calendar and journey. It is from the vantage point of the mountain of transfiguration that we see behind us the season of Epiphany and before us the season of Easter. Behind us is Christ’s baptism and before us is his death and resurrection.  It is from this vantage point that along with Peter and James, we see Christ transfigured before us and then from out of a cloud of unapproachable light, we hear the words, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” (Matthew 17:1-9).

These words spoken from God the Father act as a segue from Epiphany into the season of lent. From the action of Christ’s baptism (in Epiphany) to its meaning for us (Easter). The first phrase from the clouds of the Mountain of Transfiguration was first spoken at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel:

“And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” – Matthew 3:16-17

After these words were spoken at Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3, we find Jesus being, “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights.” (Mat. 4:1) This brings us to the longing of lent:

  • To not live by bread alone, but by the words that come from the mouth of God. (Mat. 4:3-4)
  • To not put the LORD to the test (Mat. 4:5-7)
  • To dismiss Satan with our worship of “The LORD our God, serving him alone.” (Mat.4:8-10).

On the mountain of transfiguration where we stand in the Church calendar we are invited into this season of Longing, of Lent with the words, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” So we respond to the Epiphany of Jesus as God with obedience; listening and following Christ into a wilderness season of Lent that leads to the death and new life of Easter.

February 2011 – In – Review

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The Mission Front:

Anna turned five months old this month! It seems just like yesterday she was born … and yet, I cannot imagine emotionally a time that she has not existed. She has been such a blessing from the Lord and I am so proud to be her father! During this month Anna has learned to roll-over, sing songs in baby language, do the ground-pound (a way she slams her heels simultaneously on the floor). She has also learned to sit up in her high chair, eat rice cereal (and her foot), and most recently she has begun the teething process! Bridgette started nannying a 2-year-old, Caleah! It amazes me how wise and gracious Bridgette is as a mother. She is so steady, loving, and filled with grace towards Anna and daddy (me). She has taught me a LOT about parenting.

On the job front, we are getting more and more discernment from the Lord where we will end up. I feel an assurance that it will be in the Lord’s service – most likely, within the Anglican Mission or Anglican Church of North America. Bridgette and I are really finding our hearts turned back to a zip code somewhere in North Eastern Ohio and are hoping to one day plant a church there. So would you join us in prayer about this transition? Hopefully in the “March 2011 – In – Review” I will have more for you on this front.

February marks a new monthly post called, “In – Review.” At the end of each month I will write-up highlights from the month around two themes: 1- what’s going on in my family, ministry, and life. 2- What was posted last month. It is a way for me to reflect back on the past month in my life and action.

February also marked the beginning of the end for my tour of duty at Asbury Theological Seminary (well at least as an M.Div. Student). Ironically, this semester I do not any classes during the week and am in Exegesis of Exodus and two 1-hr Christian Discipleship classes at various weekends throughout the semester. I am also taking two Philosophy classes online (Apologetics and Suffering, Tragedy and the Christian Faith). I am active in Theta Phi (a theological honor society)  as Treasurer|Secretary and am planning for Marva Dawn to come and speak at Asbury in March. I am also very  thankful to be working with JD Walt and the rest of the Worship Design Team this semester at the chapel office. My season at Asbury has been one marked by deep inner-healing, spiritual formation, and theological education – I am more whole for ministry in Christ as a result of my tenure here in Wilmore.

The Blog Front:

February was my most productive month of Blog writing to date! Posting 22 different times in 28 days is remarkable and I hope to continue writing in this 20-25 posts a month range in the future. Part of the writing discipline I am trying to abide by going forward is keeping my posts 333 words or less. Something that you could read on the toilet, or in a taxi, or in less than 3 minutes. With some posts, I will inevitably break this rule  (most likely with Philosophy/Theology/Technical posts – but hardly anyone reads those anyways). So the following is a sampling from last month:

  • Journey through Epiphany - I have been taking the Lord’s Day, Sunday as a time to reflect on the Church Season and abide in a different time-line.
  • Bob Dylan and Exodus - Folks seemed to really like this post (and it was one of my favorites as well). The Book of Exodus put to the tune of Bob Dylan. Look for more  posts from Exodus in March.
  • Eating Words - Another popular post, in “Eating Words” I discussed my practice of reading the Bible devotionally throughout the year.
  • Poetry Fun – I only posted one poem in February, it was goofy, ironic, and just fun ( I cam up with it during a meeting).
  • The V-Day Tax Money Bet – So read this post if you want to hear about a bet my wife and I made concerning a portion of our tax return … Update: I barely made it a week and Bridgette is still holding strong.
  • Revolution, Revival and the Book of Joel – Some “thought strings” that I attempt to connect together concerning the ME revolutions/demonstration/whatever, Revivalism, and the Book of Joel.
  • The Adjustment Bureau - Last week I got to see an early showing of the upcoming movie, The Adjustment Bureau. People were really interested in these posts for some reason. I also attempt a post on the MANY symbols/images/types/motifs used in the movie (the over-saturation of images/types can make the movie a bit unruly.

Epiphany In Worship

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The season of Epiphany, when the Church explicitly remembers how Jesus is revealed as God in the Gospels is now coming to a end.  In this season we have followed the Magi, remembered Christ’s baptism, and  witnessed the Kingdom of God. Yet before we look too far down the path of Epiphany, to the palms of Sunday and the ashes of Wednesday, let us consider Jesus’ revelation as God in Worship.

The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) all mention the account of Jesus teaching at the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. In the Luke account we find that  during this Sabbath worship service it was Jesus’ turn to read the scroll, which happened to have been from  the Prophet Isaiah. SO as was the custom, Jesus takes the scroll of Isaiah, stands up and gives the reading:

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

This verse is drawn from Isaiah 61:1-2 and 58:6. What was Jesus’ interpretation of these verses from the Prophet for those in attendance?  ”Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk4:21). There was amazement at the grace of his words and then the questions and challenges came, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Jesus then begins to unpack his amplified interpretation of these verses from Isaiah in Luke 4:24-30 as the hearers with rage try to lay hands on him. To think that God would extend his grace and blessing outside of “clean & chosen” Israel to lepers, widows, the poor, and Gentiles!

The people of Nazareth missed Jesus as God in the reading and failed to glorify God, acknowledging him for who he is. Today I sometimes wonder if the church fails in this respect to acknowledge God for who he is in worship. Three benchmarks for worship as a response to God’s glory (that I have adapted from Simon Chan’s Liturgical Theology) are:

  1. Worship is not something we do for God - “Praise” does not bring down the glory of God. “Waiting” does not bring down the glory of God. “Playing Louder Music” does not bring down the glory of God. The glory of God is a self-giving gift and thus, everything we are and have to offer is a gift from God.
  2. Worship is its own end. In the pragmatic context in which we find ourselves in history, everything including worship has to have and end or purpose (mostly for us). What do you mean Jesus this reading is fulfilled in our hearing? Aren’t you Joseph’s boy? What’s in it for us? As William Willimon writes, “Worship loses is integrity when it is regarded instrumentally as a means of something else-even as a means of achieving the most noble of human purposes”
  3. Worship is a response to God’s total character. True worship must reflect the reality of who the triune God is. I agree with John Wesley’s observation of the verse that Jesus reads above, “The Spirit of Lord is upon me” as a reference to the Holy Trinity. Do we worship a triune God today in American Christianity?

The Epiphany of Suffering

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During this past week suffering and death have been ever before me: From a philosophy class I am taking on Suffering, Tragedy and the Christian Faith, to a Time article written by Rob Bell concerning him getting his call to be a pastor in the midst of severe headaches, to a guest lecturer in Chapel talking about growing up in the persecuted Church of Columbia, to filling out ACPE (Association of Clinical Pastoral Education) applications about my views of spiritual care and suffering, and last night hearing a friend’s testimony about God’s presence with him in the midst of his young wife’s death. These events bring me to today:  the Lord’s Day, Sunday, the First day, and the eschatological eighth day… and then I’m reminded of the “reason for the season”, Epiphany – Christ being revealed as God in the Gospels… in the midst of suffering.

Before the Passion of Lent and the Resurrection of Easter comes the Epiphany of the B.C. proclamation in Isaiah 53, “Surely he has borne our infirmities   and carried our diseases;  yet we accounted him stricken,  struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,  crushed for our iniquities;  upon him was the punishment that made us whole,  and by his bruises we are healed.”

The picture  and the Isaiah 53 passage above are an attempt to articulate the reality of suffering, tragedy, sin and death in light of the reality of Jesus as LORD. It attempts to show that the cross is not only a historical event, but it is also a reality of God’s cruciform love for the world. I remember Robert Mulholland saying in class, “The Cross is not just something Jesus DID, it is a revelation of  WHO God is.” During the season of Epiphany we see Jesus transfigured before us as God: Healing diseases, exorcising demons, and raising the dead. We follow the reality of Jesus as God in Epiphany into the reality of Christ’s cruciform love revealed in the Passion of Lent.

My Birthday And Epiphany – Part I

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Today is the Lord’s Day. Today is Epiphany. Today is also … my 28th birthday!

Whether we know our exact date of birth or not, all people have a day in which they were revealed to the world through their birth. My day came 28 years ago on a cold morning in northern Ohio. During the season of Epiphany we reflect on how Jesus Christ is revealed in the Gospels as LORD. What do the Gospels have to tell us about the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth as his revelation to the world? What does Jesus’ birth narrative(s) tell us about our own birth?

The Gospels of Luke and Matthew tell us about the revelation of Jesus the Messiah from the onset of their narratives. After a genealogy of Jesus’ ancestry, Matthew 1:18 explicitly states, , “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.” In Matthew chapter 1 we are told how the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth and in Matthew chapter 2 of the wise men traveling from the east as a result of a rising star of the newly born King of the Jews. Their response to King Herod for their coming, that “they may worship him.”

In the Gospel of Luke we have a more detailed account of Elizabeth and Zechariah, Mary and Joseph, and the accounts of the angels with the shepherds, Simeon, and Anna the prophet. These two Gospel accounts testify that the birth of Jesus was somehow different than my birth 28 years ago. And still, the birth is scandalously common: Jesus was born as an infant, from a woman, in a zip code, to parents. Unlike my birthday visitors of grandparents, relatives, and family friends, Jesus had angels, shepherds, wise men (kings?), and prophets testifying that the Messiah,called Emmanuel, “God With US” has been born. They testified with Simeon in Luke 2 that they, ”Have seen [God's] salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all people,  a light for revelation to the Gentiles   and for glory to your people Israel.”

But there is another birth that the Gospels attest to and which I am born (along with the great cloud of  witnesses). This birth is revealed to the world through the sacrament of baptism which Christ initiated. In tomorrow’s post I will look at this birth from the Gospels of John and Mark.

Ephiphany, Week 5 – Beauty Reflections (Part II)

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“Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.”Augustine of Hippo (Algeria/354-430).

Beautiful Theology

This is my second reflective post on beauty during the fifth week of Epiphany. In my last reflection on beauty, I focused on the beauty of a united Christian community. Today’s reflection on beauty focuses on theology. The goal is not to share a deep theological treatise on what is beautiful, but a reflection on the beauty OF theology.

I was blessed recently in a Sacramental theology class taught by a visiting professor, Dr. Bob Stamps. Dr. Stamps once said something that stuck with me, “Our theology needs to be as beautiful as it is correct.” This summer during my chaplain candidate tour, I engaged in a lot of theological discussions with chaplains of different denominations. Somewhere during the theological dialogues with these friends our theologies and our souls became more beautiful. Now, theologically I am Wesleyan and they are Reformed, but the dialogue sharpened us and made us more like Christ. Once we moved beyond the differing ‘theology’ and got focused on the ‘theos’ (gk. for God), we found our desire to be more like Christ greater than our desire to be more like a John Wesley or a John Piper. A beautiful theology should bring life (and not death) to a Christian friendship. I am not suggesting a relative understanding of truth, but a desire to know the embodiment of the truth (and the way and the life), Jesus Christ.

When you leave the place where you worship on Sundays, do find yourself humming to the theological message of the Pastor’s sermon? Or maybe when you are walking around at your school or work, do you find yourself quoting TULIP, systematic theology, or the ontological argument? No. You usually find yourself chanting a creed, singing the great hymns of the church, or perhaps belting that line from a contemporary worship song that touched your heart in a meaningful way.

Beautiful theology is theology that is sung. This is why the ‘worship leader’ is such a vital role in a church. As John David (JD) Walt, Asbury Theological Seminary, dean of the Chapel, said many times, “the worship leader is the practical theologian of the church.” Revelation 14:3 reminds us that before the eschatological throne of heaven we won’t be saying the right things, but singing a beautiful new song, “And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one could learn the song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand who had been purchased from the earth.”

Being able to sing your theology gives it wings more beautiful than angels.

Ephiphany, Week 5 – Beauty Reflections (Part I)

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Beauty and Christian Community

” Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.” Augustine of Hippo (Algeria/354-430).

The Bible that I am reading through for morning devotions this year is called the Mosaic Bible. At the beginning of this Bible is the Christian Church calendar broken down into weekly meditations. We are currently on the fifth week  in the season of Epiphany, a season celebrating the light and the witness of Jesus Christ to the whole world. This season leads up to the reflective forty-day season of Lent.

The meditative theme for week 5 of Epiphany is Beauty. What is truly beautiful? When thinking of beauty our culture has trained us to think of movie stars, cosmetics, runway models, physical attractiveness or even appreciation for the ascetic beauty of nature. Could it be that this cultural type of beauty is only a surface understanding of what it means to be beautiful? It is a beautiful thing to see a child being born, an African sunrise on the equator, the deliverance of an evil spirit, the restoration of a broken family, and the return of a Prodigal son (see yesterday’s blog).

There is beauty also in community. How we love one another can be a beautiful thing. More beautiful even than the Sistine chapel or any work of man or nature. To see a community that loves extravagantly, forgives generously, and shares their hope compassionately is truly a beautiful thing to behold. To see a united church as Christ prays us to be, to see the church act as one body as Paul told  the Corinthian church to be, and to see the church adorned with grace, mercy, love, and humility is to behold the bride of Christ.