God Above Comes As A Dove: A Homily for the Second Sunday of Epiphany

 Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, 18 Januarey, 2026, the Second Sunday of Epiphany.  Texts for this day:  ISAIAH 49:1-7; PSALM 40:1-12; 1 CORINTHIANS 1:1-9; JOHN 1:29-42

And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him’ (Jn 1.32)

How many of you have a birdfeeder outside your house?   How many of you have two?  Or three?   We currently have three on the go, and keeping them stocked is an expensive job, especially if you shop at one of those fancy bird stores.   We don’t mind the expense.  Someone once said that birdfeeders are basically TV for old people, and I won’t deny that we’ve reached that point in life.   There’s something about the fragility of small birds, especially in the winter, the joy of seeing their quick movements and colours, and the satisfaction that comes from providing for them.

I think we feel a connection to wild birds that’s perhaps a closer connection to nature than we get from our house pets.  Wild birds, like the other creatures we see on hikes in the forest, are in their proper environment,  they are truly part of nature, or as people of faith would say, they are one with God’s creation.

My mind has been going in this direction with our gospel reading today because of the dove and the other nature imagery (thanks to Cody Saunders for noticing this - https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-after-epiphany/commentary-on-john-129-42-7)

John the Baptist testifies that “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him”.    The dove is a common feature of all four accounts of Jesus’ baptism, though in this gospel, we don’t see the baptism,  we just hear John the Baptist describe it.  However, all four gospels describe the Spirit of God being present all say that it was  like a dove.  The Greek word translated as like, hõsei, is an adverb that is often used for similes (something is described by a comparison to something else).   For example, when Jesus sees the crowd in the wilderness, they are described as being “like/as sheep without a shepherd” (Mt 9.36).

So why am I geeking out about a Greek adverb?   Because similes, working as they do, suggest that X is sort of like Y, but is really X.   So in the case of the dove, is it actually a dove, or is it just the Holy Spirit in a dove costume?    Again I hear you thinking, why is this important?    I think it’s important because it leads us to think about something we’ve heard about quite a bit over Christmas, the Incarnation, where as John’s gospel puts it, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

If I say to you, Jesus was just God pretending to be human, then to me at least, it makes it all sound a bit of a cheat.  If Jesus was just masquerading as human, why did he need to be born as a human, did he really die on the cross, and was he really resurrected if he was never really dead?   On the other hand, if Jesus as a person of the Trinity actually became human, then I can relate to a God who wants to know what my life and my death are like, and who can understand my human failings and sins and take them away from me.   

So, if the Holy Spirit somehow is a dove, that’s important (at least to me) because it reinforces the connection between God the creator and the created world, what we call nature.   Yesterday, at Sheila Dixon’s funeral, we sang at her request the hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful”.  That hymn ends with the prayer that we truly see creation and so praise God for making “all things well”.   So if God has made creation and done a good job at it, does it not follow that we God should be invested in it, or even present in it?

There’s a habit in Christianity of saying that everything physical is just a way of talking about the spiritual, but think about how important the natural world is in the stories (and legends) of the Nativity.  Mary rides to Bethlehem on a donkey.   Jesus is laid in a manger, warmed by the breaths of barn animals.   Shepherds come from the hills, lit by a starlight.   Magi come on camels (or whatever their ride was).  Presumably the same donkey carries Mary and Jesus to safety in Egypt.   None of this natural imagery would happen if Jesus has been born in a palace.

Likewise in the baptism accounts, besides the Spirit/Dove, John the Baptist greets Jesus as the “Lamb of God”.   To be sure this a  figure of speech, Jesus is not actually a lamb, but John sees something of Jesus’ role as the pure and sinless sacrifice.  Lambs play a huge role in the Jewish scriptures, from the story of Abraham and Isaac (the ram caught in the thicket) to the lamb’s blood that allows the firstborn of Israel to be spared on the Passover.    Lambs, like doves, are creatures of Temple sacrifice, and their blood speaks to the long and futile quest to deal with human sinfulness through the blood of innocent animals.

Besides animal imagery, there is of course water imagery.   John baptizes with water at the River Jordan, and his ministry is predicted in Isaiah by the promise that God will make a way in the desert and springs in the wilderness (Isa 43.19).  The psalms of course are full of nature and water imagery.  In Psalm 72, for example, God’s reign of justice will be “like rain upon the mown field, like showers that water the earth”.  Abundant water in a desert country is a perfect way to show God’s care and concern for creation.

I think we’d all have to admit that God cares for creation more than we humans do.  I know it’s hard to believe in global warming in the midst of such a snowy winter, but we know that the earth is getting warmer and glaciers everywhere are receding.  Skiing is good here but in Europe the industry is in peril. The seas are getting warmer.  Yesterday the  Economist magazine reported that disease transmission will increase because more mosquito species are developing a taste for human blood.  Why?  Because as biodiversity decreases there are fewer other species for mosquitoes to feed on. So yes, we should be concerned about the fate of the Earth that God gave us.

In Romans 8, there is a famous verse where Paul describes all Creation as groaning for its salvation.  What if we thought of Jesus’ birth not just as God dwelling with us, but God dwelling with all creation?  What if the Spirit becoming a dove in all four gospels is a sign that Jesus is born to save not just us, but all the world?  And if that is truly God’s purpose, shouldn’t attention to creation be our purpose?

In the religions of Jesus time doves and lambs and other sacrificial animals paid the price for human sin.  Today we don’t sacrifice animals for religion, but we still sacrifice entire species for our greed.  Would our attitudes change if we believed that God was as present in the created, natural world as God is present in our lives?