A Homily for the First Sunday after the Epiphany
We, being many, are one body in Christ,
and every one members one of another.
—Romans 12:5
We have turned a page in the calendar of the Church year. In our calendar—unlike the civil calendar—the pages represent liturgical seasons, rather than months. It is not the rotation of the moon, but the rhythm of the spirit that sets one calendar page off from another. Our year begins with Advent, a season of penitence and solemn preparation for our Lord’s coming again as well as for the anniversary of his first coming in the flesh. Then follow the twelve days of Christ-mass, during which we rejoice in the mystery of the Word-made-flesh and contemplate in wonder the birth of the Christ-child.
This week, we enter the season of the Epiphany, that is, of the manifestation or showing-forth of the Lord Jesus. In the Western Church, on the day of the Epiphany itself, we commemorate the showing-forth of the infant Messiah to the Gentile wise men, who followed a star to come and worship him. In the successive weeks of this season we re-read the familiar stories of Jesus’s manifestation of his divine power in human form. Today, we read how he astonished the priests and scholars of the Temple with his knowledge. Next Sunday, we will read of his baptism by John in Jordan, when those gathered about heard the voice from heaven saying: “This is my beloved Son.”
On the third Sunday after the Epiphany, we would ordinarily read about Jesus’s first miracle, wrought at Cana of Galilee, when he changed the water into wine. However, this year, that lesson will be displaced by a reading of Jesus’s revelation of himself to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road. And on the fourth Sunday, we shall read of his first healing miracles: the cleansing of a leper and the cure of the centurion’s servant.
In the nineteenth century, Bishop Christopher Wordsworth wrote a poem about the Epiphany lessons, the successive manifestations of Jesus Christ to his people. (It is now number 53 in our Hymnal).
Songs of thankfulness and praise/ Jesus, Lord, to thee we raise,/ Manifested by the star/ to the sages from afar. . . .
Manifest at Jordan’s stream,/ prophet, priest, and king supreme,
And at Cana, wedding guest,/ in thy Godhead manifest:/ Manifest in power divine,/ changing water into wine. . . .
Manifest in making whole/ palsied limbs and fainting soul. . . .
May we imitate thee now,/ and be pure, as pure art thou,/ That we like to thee may be/ at thy glad Epiphany
And may praise thee, ever blest,/ God in man made manifest.
This is the theme of the Epiphany season: manifestation, showing forth. It is about the showing forth of God’s power and of God’s love. We may also think of manifestation as a theme of the Church itself, of what we are and what we do as the Church.
Every celebration of the Eucharist is a little Christmas, because at every Eucharist the eternal Word and Son of God is made present under the outward form of flesh and blood. And every celebration of the Eucharist is a little Good Friday and Easter, because at every Eucharist there is an anamnesis, a re-presentation, of the great saving acts of God, the one oblation once offered, and the of resurrection to new life in God.
So, too, is every celebration of the Eucharist a little Epiphany, because every Eucharist is a manifestation, a showing forth, of the power and love of God. At every Eucharist the priest shows the bread and wine, transformed by the power of God into the body and blood of Christ, to the people, saying the words of John Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God; behold him who takes away the sins of the world.” And we respond with the words of the centurion who came to Jesus to ask for the healing of his servant: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”
But there is an epiphany, a manifestation or showing forth, not only in what we do as the Church, but in our very being as the Church. This is so because it is true what Saint Paul wrote in the letter that was read for today’s Epistle: “All of us, though there are so many of us, make up the one body of Christ, and, as different parts of the body, we are all joined to each other.”
There is a great misconception abroad about what the Church is. A lot of people think—and this manner of thinking is encouraged by the secular media—that the Church is some kind of institution, not unlike the Bank of America, or the University of Southern California, or, perhaps, the United States Army. Not only that, it is an institution comprising the clergy: the bishops, the priests, and (heaven help us) maybe the deacons, too. And the rest of us are customers, or enlistees, just passing through.
But the Church, in her catechism, teaches that she is the body of which Jesus Christ is the head and all baptized people are the limbs and organs. Wherever there is a Christian, the Church is present; and wherever two or three Christians are gathered together, there is Christ in the midst of them—in the midst of us. And one of the great tasks of the Church is to manifest Christ to the world around us.
What do we really manifest? What do we show forth to the world?
In the letter read for today’s Epistle, the Apostle Paul urged the Christians of Rome: “offer their bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable God.” He explained that he meant that they should worship God by their behaviour. “Do not model your behaviour on the contemporary world”; but be transformed, think in a new way, discern for yourselves what is good and acceptable and mature behaviour, because that is the will of God. But do not pride yourselves on being better than you really are.
When the world looks on the Church, Christians as individuals and gathered together, it looks to see whether we manifest the teachings of Jesus Christ in our lives. If those teachings cannot transform us, renewing our minds and shaping our behaviour, why should anyone outside the Church take those teachings seriously?
Now, we do have some things going for us. Foremost, we have the God the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the Church and makes it holy. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit was another strengthener, and an advocate, and that the Spirit would teach us and lead us into all truth. So the business of renewing our minds and transforming our lives does not depend on our will alone; God the Holy Spirit is among us to do the heavy lifting. We just have to ask.
And we have the sacraments, those outward and visible signs that effectively convey God’s grace inwardly and spiritually. We are washed in the waters of baptism; we are confirmed and sealed by the Holy Spirit; and we are fed with the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. By the sacraments, God prepares and assists his Church in the process of transformation and renewal.
Church
of Our Lady of Walsingham
Corona, California
11 January 2004