Epiphanies
If you look throughout scripture for images of God, you will find more than we can imagine. They range from the Voice in the Garden of Eden, to the pillar of fire and cloud leading the Israelites through the desert.
They include things such as the mighty fortress and the mother hen. There is the light and the bread of life. Maybe you prefer something like the potter or the shepherd. We could fill this whole newsletter with images that have been used for God and for Jesus.
We are in the season after Epiphany. We normally think of it as a season in which God is revealed to us through Jesus. Last Saturday, in our scripture reading, Jesus is revealed as the Incarnation through the miracle of providing wine for the wedding. I wonder if that understanding of Epiphany, God being revealed to us, is just a little off.
Yesterday I listened to a story about the James Webb Space Telescope whose deployment is nearly complete, 1,000,000 miles away, four times further away from the earth than the moon is. The story shared a couple of accepted research proposals for the telescope. One was to study a lava planet so hot that solid continents cannot form and clouds of “rock vapor” like our own clouds of water vapor are expected to be found. Another proposal is to look into one of the darkest parts of the universe, so as to search for “light” from the very beginning of time. I am fascinated. I can’t wait to hear what we learn from these and the many other research projects the telescope will be a part of. And as I listened to all of this, there was a mantra playing in the back of my mind, almost subconsciously. “Wow, God is there.” All of these things were “Epiphanies” in the Christian sense for me.
The question for Epiphany is not, “Where is God?” Epiphany is recognizing “God is there, God is here.” It is not that God has arrived, but that we have eyes to see God’s presence, and hearts to respond. So, during this season after Epiphany, the question for each of us is “Where have you noticed God today?”
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Alan