First Sunday after Epiphany - 2025 (Book Review and Pastoral Letter)

 

The First Sunday after the Epiphany.

Psalm 47. Omnes gentes, plaudite.

O CLAP your hands together, all ye peoples: * O sing unto God with the voice of melody.

2 For the Lord is high, and to be feared; * he is the great King upon all the earth.

3 He shall subdue the peoples under us, * and the nations under our feet.

4 He shall choose out an heritage for us, * even the excellency of Jacob, whom he loved.

5 God is gone up with a merry noise, * and the Lord with the sound of the trump.

6 O sing praises, sing praises unto our God; * O sing praises, sing praises unto our King.

7 For God is the King of all the earth: * sing ye praises with understanding.

8 God reigneth over the nations; * God sitteth upon his holy seat.

9 The princes of the peoples are joined unto the people of the God of Abraham; * for God, which is very high exalted, doth defend the earth, as it were with a shield.

Glory be to the Father, &c.

As it was in the beginning, &c. 

The Collect.

O LORD, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people which call upon thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 60.1-9

Psalter: Psalm 47, 48 | 66, 67

Epistle Reading: Romans 12.1-5

Gospel Reading: St. Luke 2.41-52 

Homily 

Here’s a book review I did on a devotional guide just for government officials: Government in the Gospels 

This was from my letter to my congregation this past week: 

It’s a new year, and a good time to think about one of the minor prophets, to help keep us oriented in this new year. The minor prophet I have in mind is Hosea. One of the ideas that is prominent in Hosea is how often God’s people looked elsewhere than to God when they had troubles. They looked to other powers and strongmen for help and recovery. For example, “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound” (Hosea 5:13). 

But they also refused to accept responsibility for their condition and sought to shift the blame and fault for their troubles to other sources or forces. Therefore, they multiplied their idols, and built a plentiful quantity of altars, “Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning” (8:11), so they could try and placate the powers-that-be to fix what was ailing them. And yet, as God diagnosed the issue: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” (4:6a). Thus they sowed the wind and reaped a whirlwind (8:7). What a striking description of the hole in their lives (personally and socially). 

Nevertheless, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Yahweh, is always beckoning his people to quit putting their hopes and trust in all the wrong things and quit shifting blame and fault. And he calls them to come close to him: “Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth…For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings…Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you…So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God” (Hosea 6:3, 6; 10:12; 12:6). 

No matter what we’re experiencing, let us check our initial reactions. Are we looking for ultimate help and recovery from other powers and strongmen? Are we shifting the blame and fault onto other sources and forces? In whatever we’re going through, let our first, foremost and fullest response be to seek the LORD, pressing on to know him, and continually wait for (long for, watch for, listen for) him. For there is our decisive help, “They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon” (14:7). And there is the way of wisdom, and a steady path forward, “Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them” (14:9). 

May we find the ways of the LORD are right, and walk in them in 2025.