The Season After Epiphany 2023
Epiphany 2023: Shine As The Sun
February 19, 2023 • Brian Zahnd
The Transfiguration on Tabor is the turning point in the gospel story of Jesus. Here Jesus outshines the Law and Prophets represented by Moses and Elijah. Here we learn that Jesus Christ is what God has to say. Here we see the eschatological anticipation of creation made resplendent in glory. And here the light of the world shines as the sun from the face of Jesus Christ. Here is the selection from Rushdie's essay on the Taj Mahal that I will read. (It's in the introduction to The Unvarnished Jesus.) The problem with the Taj Mahal is that it has become so overlaid with accumulated meanings as to be almost impossible to see. When you arrive at the outer walls of the gardens in which the Taj is set, it’s as if every hustler and hawker in Agra is waiting for you to make the familiarity-breeds-contempt problem worse, peddling imitation Mahals of every size and price. This leads to a certain amount of shoulder-shrugging disenchantment. Recently, a British friend who was about to make his first visit to India told me that he had decided to leave the Taj off his itinerary because of its over-exposure. If I urged him not to, it’s because of my own vivid memory of pushing my way for the first time through the jostling crowd of imitation-vendors, past all the myriad hawkers of meaning and interpretation, and into the presence of the thing itself, which utterly overwhelmed me, and made all my notions about its devaluation feel totally and completely redundant. The building itself left my skepticism in shreds. Announcing itself as itself, insisting with absolute force on its sovereign authority, it simply obliterated the million million counterfeits of it and glowingly filled, once and forever, the place in the mind previously occupied by its simulacra.
Epiphany 2023: Anger Issues
February 12, 2023 • Derek Vreeland
Jesus knows that all forms of spirituality built on legalistic, rule-based religion focused on behavior modification is a dead-end road. It cannot produce life. Inward transformation, a change of the heart and the formation of character, becomes the foundation for real life in the kingdom of God. Jesus warns us of the judgment that is to come if we allow anger to become angry words that seek to hurt and destroy. It is ok to get angry, but there is a massive difference between being a person who feels angry and being an angry person. One is Christlike and one is not. If we are to be made new, renewed in the likeness of God, we have to deal with our anger issues. To do so we need to answer at least three questions: How do I respond to the anger I feel? How do I resolve the anger that seems to linger? What about righteous anger?
Epiphany 2023: Break Forth Like The Dawn
February 5, 2023 • Jacob Taylor
The saga of Israel's exile and return to Jerusalem becomes the backdrop for the prophet Isaiah to speak a timeless word to the people of God - then and now. The prophet reminds us that piety alone will not shed light into the darkness of our world. It is when the church chooses to worship Jesus in the sanctuary and work for justice in the neighborhood that we see our light break forth like the dawn.
Epiphany 2023: The Beatitudes
January 29, 2023 • Brian Zahnd
Blessed are the depressed who mourn and grieve, For they create space to encounter comfort from another. Blessed are the gentle and trusting, who are not grasping and clutching, For God will personally guarantee their share as heaven comes to earth. Blessed are those who ache for the world to be made right, For them the government of God is a dream come true. Blessed are those who give mercy, For they will get it back when they need it most. Blessed are those who have a clean window in their soul, For they will perceive God when and where others don't. Blessed are the bridge-builders in a war-torn world, For they are God’s children working in the family business. Blessed are those who are maligned and mistreated for the right reasons, For the kingdom of heaven comes to earth amidst much persecution.
Epiphany 2023: Jesus Christ Is the True Lens of Scripture
January 15, 2023 • Brian Zahnd
All Scripture finds its fulfillment in Christ. If we don’t see a particular text as Christlike, we have not yet interpreted it correctly, and thus we have very little to say about it. Either we find a way to conform the scriptural text to Christ or we leave it alone until we can—because Jesus Christ is the true lens of Scripture.