Matthew\n2:1-12<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n May the Light of the Lord\nshine upon you, as the light of Lord shined through Jesus upon Israel and all\nwho met Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\nis the Day of the Epiphany of our Lord, the beginning of the season of the\nEpiphany. For most of us, I\u2019m sure that doesn\u2019t mean a whole lot. The word\nepiphany, by itself means manifestation, but my guess is, that even knowing\nthat definition, doesn\u2019t help. Most of us have a faint recollection that the Epiphany\nhas something to do with the Wisemen and it does, but not so originally;\noriginally Epiphany had much more to do with Jesus\u2019 birth. You see, in the\nBible, epiphanies had to do with God and his appearances or manifestations to\nhumanity. Epiphanies are not common, but there are a number of stories of God\nappearing in human form and other forms throughout Scripture. You might\nremember that God appeared to Abraham, a few times as a man and Abraham made\nfood for God, walked and talked with God, he even negotiated with God for a\nreprieve for Sodom and Gomorrah; this kind of thing we call an epiphany. God also\nappeared to Moses; he appeared to him first in a burning bush that was not\nconsumed (speaking from the bush) and God appeared to Israel as a pillar of\nfire by night and a pillar of cloud by day as he led them and safeguarded them\nin the wilderness; that too we call an epiphany. When Isaiah described his\ncalling, he spoke of the appearance of the Lord God in the Temple of the Lord, and\ntold about how his robes filled the Temple, such was the greatness of God; that\nwe also call an epiphany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within\nChristianity, beginning in the Eastern realms of Christianity, the Day of the Epiphany\nmarked the birth of Jesus. In Jesus, God put God\u2019s self into a helpless human\ninfant. God manifested God\u2019s self in an all new way in this birth, and did so for\nhumanity. It was God\u2019s plan that through Jesus, God would make himself known;\nhe would experience humanity in an all knew way and humanity would have the\nopportunity to come face-to-face with God. God\u2019s will, God\u2019s love, God\u2019s\nforgiveness and mercy were all manifested in Jesus. Why then has it been linked\nto the Wisemen? In the visit of the Wisemen to Jesus, God was manifesting God\u2019s\nself to the Gentiles. This is something special; God had time and again\nmanifested God\u2019s self to the Jews, to God\u2019s people, but rarely to Gentiles. But\nover the centuries the celebration of the Epiphany has been linked to other\nevents in Jesus life, events that proclaimed Jesus as God\u2019s Son, like at the\ntime of his Baptism. And for many Christians the Epiphany became a celebration\nof the Baptism of our Lord; if you remember the story, the Holy Spirit\ndescended upon Jesus as a dove and the voice of God rumbled out of the clouds that\nthe Lord God was pleased with Jesus his Son. The Holy Spirit manifested itself\nas a dove, God\u2019s voice manifested its self from out of the clouds and of course\nthere was Jesus, the ultimate manifestation of God in human form, but this manifestation\nwent well beyond appearances, here God\u2019s Son was Jesus. God was a part of who\nJesus was, he came here to live and to die, to experience joy and suffering and\nto bring about our salvation. This was not God just popping in and popping out.\nToday we have a Sunday (separate from and in addition to the Epiphany), on\nwhich we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord. Next Sunday will be that Sunday. But\ntoday we celebrate the Epiphany of our Lord, that is Jesus, in which God\nmanifested himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\ncelebrate this wonderful event and connect it with the arrival of the Wisemen,\nbecause our date, on which we celebrate Jesus birth, is a couple weeks prior. But\nwe should understand, this is the day that the Eastern Rite Christians (Greek\nOrthodox Russian Orthodox, etc.) celebrate as Christmas. Because of the\ndominance of western based Christianity, Epiphany has often been called \u201cLittle\nChristmas\u201d. But Epiphany is not about, which churches celebrate what holiday\nwhen, but about, the manifestation of God to us, to the world. It is about\nrecognizing God in the baby Jesus, in the boy Jesus who sat in the Temple among\nthe teachers, about the man Jesus who was baptized, who preached, healed\npeople, organized a group of disciples, taught them and others, fed the poor\nand raised a couple people from the dead, who was arrested, condemned,\nscourged, hung on a cross to die, was buried and raised from the dead. And all\nof this was for us. This Epiphany, this manifestation of God\u2019s Son among us,\nwas all so that we might know God\u2019s love; it was so that we might receive God\u2019s\nforgiveness and so that we may enjoy salvation with our Lord and Savior Jesus\nChrist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n God\ndoesn\u2019t seem to just appear, create an Epiphany, just for the fun of it, though\nGod could, could appears to us for a reason. When God appeared to the prophets\nit was to give them a message that they were to share with the People of God,\nusually a message of warning, reminding them of God\u2019s will and God\u2019s intention\nto punish them, if they refused to repent. When God appeared to Moses it was to\nhave him lead the People of God out of slavery and into freedom. When God\nmanifested God\u2019s self in Jesus there was much more going on. The warnings\nrarely worked, and even as he watched over and protected Israel from their\nenemies they went astray. God was doing something different; he was entering\ninto creation through his Son and subjecting God\u2019s self to all that humanity experiences,\nboth risks and joys. When Jesus died, somehow (at least) a piece of God died as\nwell. This Epiphany was much more than an appearance; when God manifested God\u2019s\nself in Jesus, it was for real, and more important, it was for us. All the\nEpiphanies of the Lord were for God\u2019s People, Jesus (however) was for all human\nkind. May the Lord continue to appear to us and may his Epiphanies bring us the\njoy of the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew 2:1-12 May the Light of the Lord shine upon you, as the light of Lord shined through Jesus upon Israel and all who met Jesus. Today is the Day of the Epiphany of our Lord, the beginning of the season of the Epiphany. For most of us, I\u2019m sure Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions\/75"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}