A Meditation for the Eve of the Second Sunday of Epiphany
Apres Ski Eucharist Series, All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto
Preached Saturday, January 13, 2024
Since our Apres Ski services start within the season of Epiphany, and since that part of the church year is not understood as well as it could be, Rev Sharon and I have agreed that we would devote our meditations to various themes of Epiphany, at least until we get up to Lent, at which point we’ll change themes and we’ll change the wine and cheese to dry bread and water (just kidding).
So here’s a quick sketch of the background of Epiphany. It starts on a fixed date, January 6, and the name comes from the Greek word epiphaneia, meaning showing, as in divine revelation. Thus in the early church the season was also called Theophany, meaning the showing or self-revealing of God. By the fourth century, the Season of Epiphany came to focus on four particular moments when Christ’s glory as the Son of God was seen:
- The Visitation of the Wise Men or Magi
- The Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan
- The Miracle of the Wine at the Wedding in Cana
- The Transfiguration of Christ on the Mountain
Our meditations will focus on these and other important moments in the weeks to come, but let’s look back to last Sunday and think some more about baptism. The baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan has long been remembered within the first eight days of the season, called the Epiphany Octave. In the Eastern church, that included a liturgy involving baptismal water.
Today we heard the account of Jesus’ baptism from Mark’s gospel, in which John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the promised Messiah and new King of Israel (“the one who is more powerful than I is coming after me”). John’s words are confirmed by the voice from heaven which proclaims Jesus as “my Son, the Beloved” (Mk 1:11).
We will hear the voice from heaven again at the end of the Epiphany season, when the traditional reading is the story of the Transfiguration, when we temporarily see Jesus in the full blinding glory of heaven. But, in Mark’s gospel as in the other Synoptics, after Jesus’ baptism there is no blaze of glory. Instead, there is the only the hard and solitary forty days of temptation in the wilderness which confirms Jesus’ identity as the sinless Lamb of God.
As we sing each Sunday, it is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and it is through baptism, his and ours, that Jesus achieves this. We think of baptism mostly nostalgically now, as the christening of cooing, innocent babies in whom it is impossible to imagine any sin. But baptism is really about rescue, our rescue from the three things that haunt us most: fear of our guilt and worst natures (sin), fear of being abandoned, and fear of death.
Thus Paul in Colossians writes that through baptism we are brought into the family of “the saints in light”, we are rescued from “the dominion of darkness” and brought into “the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:12-14). And likewise in Romans, Paul writes that through baptism we are “bought from death to life” (Rom 6:3, 11-16).
Our baptism has rescued us from sin, brought us out of loneliness into the family of God, and allows us to rise with Christ to eternal life. After this homily, as we say the Apostle’s Creed, we will remind ourselves of these things by a gentle sprinkling with holy water, a custom normally done in churches at Easter, but also very appropriate for now at Epiphany. Because, if Epiphany is about God’s glory being revealed, then how wonderful it is that we are invited to share in that glory as God’s family in Christ?
The water is blessed, three times, with the sign of the Cross or with a Cross dipped in the water; each time the following is said:
Now sanctify this water, we pray you, by the power of your Holy Spirit.
Almighty and Merciful God, in the Baptism of your Son, you have restored Creation and fulfilled it as a means of salvation. Show this water to be the water of redemption and the purification of flesh and spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
From A Rite for the Blessing of Waters, Anglican Church of Canada
https://www.anglican.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/A-Blessing-of-the-Waters.pdf
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