What is Epiphany?
ST ANDREW’S CHURCH
JANUARY 28, 2024
LIGHTING OF THE CHRIST CANDLE
ANNOUNCEMENTS
CALL TO WORSHIP
God’s praise endures forever,
and eternity meets us in fleeting moments.
God’s praise endures forever,
and glory bursts into ordinary activities.
God’s praise endures forever,
and faith is steadfast in the midst of change and challenge.
Let us worship the Eternal God who calls us to this time and place.
HYMN 73 – Praise to the Lord
Praise to the Lord. All of you, God’s servants
Blessed be the name of our God now and ever
From the rising up of the sun may the Lord be praised
Praise to the name of the Lord
There is none like our God in the heavens or on earth
Who lifts the poor from the dust seating them with the mighty
Who stoops to raise the weak and low, may the Lord be praised
Praise to the name of the Lord
Prayers of Adoration
Loving God, you are the wisdom behind all mystery, the glory hidden in all that makes us wonder, the strength that nourishes in all. With eyes open and spirits alert, we experience your glory around us. Scattered throughout the earth, smoldering deep inside us and radiating in acts of love, sparks of your glory reside. We feel joy each time we encounter you. So we gather to express our praise and gratitude for all the good we have experienced, knowing it all comes from your hand, for you are Creator, Christ and Spirit, Ever Three and Ever One. Hear us now as we confess before you …..
UNISON PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Gracious God,
we confess there are many times we forget you.
We focus on what troubles us and ignore the
help you offer. We seek wisdom and meaning
in the wrong places. In thoughtless moments,
we harm the earth and each another. Forgive us.
Remind us to live each day focused on your
Purposes revealed in Christ who loves us. Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
Hear the good news: Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. The old life has gone. New life has begun. Thanks be to God that we can make a new start, forgiven and set free.
THE PEACE
HYMN 773 – Jesus bids us shine
- Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light,
Like a little candle burning in the night;
In this world of darkness, so we must shine,
You in your small corner, and I in mine. - Jesus bids us shine, first of all for Him;
Well He sees and knows it if our light grows dim;
He looks down from heaven, to us shine,
You in your small corner, and I in mine. - Jesus bids us shine, then, for all around
Many kinds of darkness in this world abound:
Sin, and want, and sorrow— so we must shine,
You in your small corner, and I in mine.
Source of Wisdom, still our minds as we listen to the Scriptures. Send your Spirit to keep us alert and attuned to your life-giving Word this day. Amen.
SCRIPTURE READINGS
Psalm 111 p 952
Mark 1 : 21-28 p 1562
SERMON
I speak in the name of the Father, Son an Holy Spirit.
Today is the fourth Sunday of Epiphany – the time between Christmas and Lent. Epiphany is key to our discipleship of Jesus in the world God so loves. The season of Epiphany begins in the Gospel of Matthew (2:1–12) where God's self-revelation in the baby Jesus, is recognized by the Magi following their journey from the East.
Epiphany in simple terms means a sudden, intuitive perception or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, Epiphany means “light dawns,” as we also, recognize who God is in Jesus Christ.
All that is going on in Epiphany, most people, including many Christians, are completely unaware of. It’s like we’re being let in on a secret: here’s the weird way God saves the world. Our existence as a church suggests God has reached even beyond his first choice of a people to include even us, the non-chosen.
One of the reasons people loved to listen to Jesus was that he talked about things they knew about, scenes and events from their everyday lives. But the lives of the people Jesus talked to can sometimes seem very far away from our own. His illustrations don’t always mean that much to us.
This short exorcistic scene from Mark 1:21–28, in a synagogue in Capernaum on the Sabbath, is a sign of God’s reign for those in attendance in the room. It is spoken by a Jesus who wants nothing to do with dominance schemes and good publicity. He aims with urgency to enlist his disciples, and anyone else with ears to hear, in their own local awareness of apocalyptic struggle.
It’s a startling scene. An unnamed man with an unclean spirit speaks first. The fact that the possessed man speaks of himself in the first-person plural -“us” only amplifies his cry: “What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” The man with the unclean spirit seems to recognize Jesus’ eschatological purpose of destroying evil, as well as his identity as “the Holy One of God.” For this, Jesus rebukes and silences him, which is typical of , but especially pointed here, given Mark’s desire to suppress what some call Mark’s messianic secret. The “we” of this demonic host obeys, but not without convulsions and cries commensurate with such a corporate, embodied struggle.
Jesus’ success underlines the authority attributed to his teaching and eschatological power. The point in Mark’s Gospel is not to provide information. It signals the urgency of the coming apocalyptic struggle and invites readers into it.
Now the term “Eschatological beliefs” which ministers throw out on occasion often get puzzled looks - what is she talking about ???. Eschatology refers to beliefs about death, judgement and the final destiny of individual souls and humankind. Christians believe that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection encompass beliefs about the afterlife.
A second word we use – is “apocalypse” The Greek root for apocalypse is a verb meaning to uncover, reveal, lay bare, or disclose.“ Apocalypse”-especially in the biblical sense means a time of crisis and change, of hidden truths revealed. A time, quite literally, of revelation. God wants humans to live abundant lives full of his wisdom and to rule an ordered world with him. That means an apocalypse is never a bad thing for any of us. An apocalypse is always something God does in our lives to produce good and beautiful results, bringing glory to his name and ultimate good to his people.
Mark never lets his readers forget that all of Jesus’ eschatological vision and apocalyptic miracles need to be understood in light of the cross. Mark’s cross, of course, is not just another cipher for substitutionary atonement. It is a way of calling things what they really are. Apocalyptic rhetoric is not about escape, but naming the world, its pain, and its promise aright.
But what do we do with Mark’s apocalyptic praxis of struggle when the things that threaten our world are not so much demons and ripped-open heavens but regular old broken or demonic systems of human construction? , We readers have best be ready to respond with some degree of shared urgency.
Where in our own struggles are we confronted with the demonic, yet keep laying hold of a divine promise that Jesus preaches as “the gospel of God” (Mark 1:14)?
Had we read todays lectionary text in Deuteronomy , it points forward. God will be faithful.. One Christian theologian, asked if he were pessimistic about the future, answered with another question: “How can I be? The future includes the eschaton.”
Do you examine your heart as often as you examine your behavior? Your relationship to Jesus is the basis for your actions; what kind of relationship is it? Think about it.
We pray broken, self-serving, near-sighted prayers (“Lord, we just ask you to …”), and God responded by taking flesh from a virgin and dying our death to create the world all over again.
Who Jesus is, matters for the way in which we should practice steadfast resistance to the demonic, right? Our Jesus is not self-aggrandizing but silences demons when they speak of his identity. We do not need to establish Jesus’ dominance through exorcism but rather note his self-awareness throughout the Gospel of Mark that he is on his own steadfast way to the cross.
God always has a set-aside and preferred people—Israel, and then us religious types. But God can’t stand being stuck just with us. God always longs for those outside our number, those whom we may have disregarded.
But if the details of people’s lives have changed a lot from Jesus’ day to this, people themselves have not. We’re just the same kinds of folks they were back then. And we have the same kinds of problems, and the same sorts of faults, and we need to hear exactly the same lessons
The message of this lesson in the book of Mark is that there is nothing that Jesus cannot do. But we can only get the message if we don’t let ourselves be distracted by trivia, and if our relationship with God is healthy.
What is God doing in this church? Do not say, we are too poor, we are too few. What God can do with a faithful remnant is more than an army of Pharisees can do. If Jesus could feed the 5,000 with five loaves and as many fish, what kind of a community do you suppose Jesus can build up from the people sitting here in the pews today? If you have Jesus, you have everything you need. And if Jesus has you, he will make you what he needs you to be.
Remember what God has done, for you, for people you know, through the witness of history, through the testimony of Scripture. Stop and ask yourselves, “What is impossible for God?” There is nothing that Jesus cannot do. But we can only get the message if we don’t let ourselves be distracted by trivia, and if our relationship with God is healthy.
We are called to praise God. However, we must remember that our praise is not simply the repetation of words. Our praise of God is a remembering of God’s redemptive and salvific activity in the world; it is a recollection of God’s provision. Further, our praise is a living into covenant such that we honor family, community, humanity, and all of creation. We are called to live out God’s commandments. In doing so, our praise is best reflected in our ability not only to name God’s work in the world, but to participate in God’s work as a reflection of who God is.
We come to remember, and to praise, because it is the witness of the past that makes us certain of God’s power for tomorrow. AMEN
HYMN 57 On Eagles wings
You who dwell in the shelter of our God
who abide in this shadow for life,
Say to the Lord my refuge, my Rock in whom I trust !”
Refrain
And I will raise you up on eagle’s wings
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of my hand
The snare of the fowler will never capture you
And the famine will bring you no fear
Under God’s wings your refuge,
God’s faithfulness your shield
Refrain
And I will raise you up on eagle’s wings
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of my hand
You need not fear the terror of the night
Nor the arrow that flies by day;
Though thousands fall about you
Near you it shall not come.
Refrain
And I will raise you up on eagle’s wings
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of my hand
For to God’s angels is given a command
To guard you in all your ways ,
Upon their hands they will bear you up
lest you dash your foot against a stone
Refrain
And I will raise you up on eagle’s wings
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of my hand
OFFERING
Jesus’ ministry was filled with challenge and choice. We too face challenges and choices as we follow him. The invitation to make an offering week by week is a challenge. Yet the gifts we choose to offer continue his ministry of healing and hope. Take the challenge and give as God has blessed you.
DOXOLOGY
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him all creatures here below
Praise him above ye heavenly host.
Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost
OFFERTORY PRAYER
Lord Jesus, we bring our gifts to you, asking you to bless them so that they may accomplish more than we can ask or imagine. Bless us, too, so that our lives speak of our choice to follow you, offering others the healing and hope you have offered us. Amen.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
Holy God, Lord of heaven and earth, your energy fills the cosmos and enlivens every cell of our bodies. You are around us, within us, and beyond us. Thank you for the simple pleasures of each day, and for the strength to meet the challenges that arise.
When it feels like we have come to the end of our own resources, replenish us with the energy of your Spirit so that we know you are there for us.
In these uncertain times, we are grateful for prayer in its many forms which lead us to communion with you - through word and silence, music and movement, feeling the Spirit’s breath within us. Draw close to us whenever we need you, and renew our spirits to continue serving you as best we can.
Hear us now as we pray for the earth, this precious, fragile home to all living things: For declining species of plant and animal life [Silence]For the earth’s climate and places with too much or too little water [Silence]For the oceans and rainforests, the skies and the air we breathe. [Silence]Teach us how to be more faithful stewards of your earth and live more respectfully in your creation.
Hear us as we pray for the economy: For those whose decisions shape it [Silence]For employers and business owners [Silence]For workers and those who cannot find work [Silence]For all who seek economic justice, fairness and the common good, and those who struggle to discern what this means in a complex world. [Silence]Teach us how to care for our neighbours in these days of economic uncertainty. We pray for people who struggle to afford food to eat during these difficult economic times, and for food banks and those who support them with donations of food and money.
We pray for congregations as they prepare to gather for their annual meetings.
We pray for our own circle of family and friends. Heal, bless, lead and encourage them. [Silence]
We pray for neighbours and strangers in our community who face struggles and sorrows we can’t even imagine. [Silence]
Remind us that we belong to each other and to you and help us respond to one another with compassion and kindness.
Finally, in silence, we bring to you the cares and hopes on our minds today. [Silence]
Thank you for hearing the prayers of every heart.
We join our prayers with all who follow Jesus as we pray the words he taught us:
THE LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
HYMN 642 – O Master, let me walk with thee
Oh Master let me walk with thee
In lowly paths of service free;
Tell me they secret , help me bear
The strain of toil, the fret of care
Help me the slow of heart to move
By some clear winning word of love ;
Teach me the wayward feet to stay
And guide them in the homeward way.
Teach me thy patience ; still with thee
In closer dearer company,
In work that keeps faith sweet and strong
In trust that triumphs over wrong .
In hope that sends a shining ray
Far down the future’s broad’ning way;
In peace that only thou cans’t give
With thee o Master let me live
BENEDICTION
CLOSING SONG 646 Sing twice
Lead me Jesus I will follow
Down the dusty pathway, all along the sea,
Teach me Jesus to be loving
Your disciple I will be
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