Tag: Epiphany

Our Quest for Eternity

There is an ancient legend about a sea king who longed for the fellowship of a human being. One day, upon hearing a cry, he left his palace beneath the sea and rose to the surface of the water to investigate. There he discovered a lonely child in an abandoned boat. The sea king's heart was uplifted by the thought that the child could be the companion for whom he longed. Just as he reached for the child, a rescue party intervened and he missed the prize he wanted so much. But as the child's rescuers left the spot, the sea king threw a salt wave on the head of the child. And as he submerged to return to his undersea palace, the sea king said to himself, "That child is mine. When he grows to young adulthood, the sea will call him, and he will come home to me at last."

It is only a legend, but it holds the suggestion of a larger truth; that God has placed eternity in our heart. We are restless and constantly on a quest for something better, something eternal.

The story of the Magi is the account of humanity's quest for something more, something always just beyond, something that makes us pilgrims on the earth, always in search of something of eternal value and significance.

Those wise men followed a star. The star led them to the Only Begotten Son. They worshiped him. And then they returned to their own country to live out their lives. When they returned, they were different people. They had encountered eternity in their journey and it must have transformed them.

Throughout our own lives, there are those times when we too encounter eternity. In these personal epiphanies we are changed, made new, and enabled to reach a littler higher, to show a deeper reverence, to walk in new ways, and to allow the Only Begotten to be made manifest to others whose paths intersect with ours.

Each year, during this season, we read accounts of ways God was manifested in the life of Jesus Christ – for example, in his Baptism by John in the Jordan River, at the Wedding Feast in Cana of Galilee, in his preaching and teaching, in the calling of his disciples, in works of healing, and in his Transfiguration.

Each example proclaims the good news that God's manifestation in the Only Begotten Son was for all people in all times. Our Baptism declares that we are included in that manifestation! Baptism launches us on our quest for eternity. In Baptism, we are "sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own for ever."

What God says to us and to the world in our Baptism is similar to what the sea king said after splashing water on the head of the child for whom he longed, "That child is mine…and will come home to me at last."

How is your quest going? Perhaps this is a good time to renew your pilgrimage, or to seek Christ in new places or different ways. There may be a ministry to which you are being called and that will allow God to be manifest to others in new ways through you. You may have gifts or talents that you need to share with your community of faith to build it up and extend its influence in the lives of others.

This season of Epiphany is a good time to check to see if there is forward movement on life's most important quest. If you'd like to talk about it, priests and spiritual guides are available to you. Don't pass up the opportunity.

I'll see you in Church!

The Very Rev'd Ron Pogue
Interim Rector
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church
Keller, Texas

January 3, 2020
Our Quest for Eternity

There is an ancient legend about a sea king who longed for the fellowship of a human being. One day, upon hearing a cry, he left his palace beneath the sea and rose to the surface of the water to investigate. There he discovered a lonely child in an abandoned boat. The sea king's heart was uplifted by the thought that the child could be the companion for whom he longed. Just as he reached for the child, a rescue party intervened and he missed the prize he wanted so much. But as the child's rescuers left the spot, the sea king threw a salt wave on the head of the child. And as he submerged to return to his undersea palace, the sea king said to himself, "That child is mine. When he grows to young adulthood, the sea will call him, and he will come home to me at last."

It is only a legend, but it holds the suggestion of a larger truth; that God has placed eternity in our heart. We are restless and constantly on a quest for something better, something eternal.

The story of the Magi is the account of humanity's quest for something more, something always just beyond, something that makes us pilgrims on the earth, always in search of something of eternal value and significance.

Those wise men followed a star. The star led them to the Only Begotten Son. They worshiped him. And then they returned to their own country to live out their lives. When they returned, they were different people. They had encountered eternity in their journey and it must have transformed them.

Throughout our own lives, there are those times when we too encounter eternity. In these personal epiphanies we are changed, made new, and enabled to reach a little higher, to show a deeper reverence, to walk in new ways, and to allow the Only Begotten to be made manifest to others whose paths intersect with ours.

Each year, during this season, we read accounts of ways God was manifested in the life of Jesus Christ – for example, in his Baptism by John in the Jordan River, at the Wedding Feast in Cana of Galilee, in his preaching and teaching, in the calling of his disciples, in works of healing, and in his Transfiguration.

Each example proclaims the good news that God's manifestation in the Only Begotten Son was for all people in all times. Our Baptism declares that we are included in that manifestation! Baptism launches us on our quest for eternity. In Baptism, we are "sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own for ever."

What God says to us and to the world in our Baptism is similar to what the sea king said after splashing water on the head of the child for whom he longed, "That child is mine…and will come home to me at last."

How is your quest going? Perhaps this is a good time to renew your pilgrimage, or to seek Christ in new places or different ways. There may be a ministry to which you are being called and that will allow God to be manifest to others in new ways through you. You may have gifts or talents that you need to share with your community of faith to build it up and extend its influence in the lives of others.

This season of Epiphany is a good time to check to see if there is forward movement on life's most important quest. If you'd like to talk about it, priests and spiritual guides are available to you. Don't pass up the opportunity.

I'll see you in Church!

January 6, 2016
Sermon at The Episcopal Church in Parker County ~ January 11, 2015

The Baptism of the Lord

Listen to the Sermon January 11, 2015

Read the Sermon for January 11, 2015

January 11, 2015
Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

When Jesus began his public ministry, the first thing he did was to form a community. Those disciples, walking with Jesus for two or three years, were formed and shaped to continue his mission after his death and resurrection. The calling of the disciples marks the beginning of that community of followers of Jesus we refer to as “The Church.” The Church was formed by Jesus Christ and continues to be empowered today as the delivery system for his message. The Church doesn’t have a message; the Message has a Church!

The experience of those first disciples set the pattern for those who would come after them. They did not volunteer for the mission. They were called. There is an important difference. The Church is made up of disciples, not volunteers.

Take Nathaniel, for example. (Jn. 1:43-51) He was approached by Philip, who had already met Jesus and answered his call. Philip said to Nathaniel, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathaniel’s response is priceless. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip was not at all discouraged by Nathaniel’s skepticism. “Come and see,” he said.

Nathaniel went and Nathaniel saw. His encounter with Jesus was profound. Jesus knew his name and seemed to understand him in a way that surprised Nathaniel. Nathaniel blurted out, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Whatever epiphany occurred in that initial encounter convinced Nathaniel that Jesus was for real and his own inner response compelled him to go with Jesus.

Those who have experienced a similar encounter with Jesus know that we did not initiate that relationship. We did not volunteer to love him and serve him. We found ourselves in a place where the invitation was so generous and personal and the presence so powerful that we could not resist. We knew in an instant that we would follow him anywhere and learn from him how to live life to the fullest. He would be the one to open heaven!

On occasion, we’ve had an opportunity to introduce others to him or to invite them to “Come and see.” More often than not, those invitations have been met with a certain amount of skepticism or resistance. But those who have accepted the invitation and met the Savior in Word and Sacrament, in an authentic community of his followers, in the signs and wonders his Church has been able to perform in his Name, often find themselves in the same place as Nathaniel.

In this season of Epiphany, as we read of those early encounters with Jesus, we have opportunities to reacquaint ourselves with the Lover of our Souls. As he calls us by name and invites us again to follow him, we are strangely compelled to go with him beyond the limits we have imposed upon ourselves. We find ourselves wanting to intro-duce others to him. They will come with us because they see in us an unmistakably authentic devotion. Does it make sense? Not always. As Blaise Paschal said, “The heart has reasons which reason cannot know.” But we all know what it is to love someone and believe in someone so intensely that we will do whatever is necessary to sustain and enrich that relationship.

So it is with the followers of Jesus.

January 12, 2012
The Journey of Faith: The Long and Short of It

Since the Third Century C.E., the Feast of the Epiphany has been observed on January 6. From the Greek epiphaneia, meaning “manifestation” or “appearance,” the feast commemorates the appearance of God to humanity in the form of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. The account of the visit of the wise men or magi who followed the star seeking the promised Messiah has traditionally been associated with this day. It also marks the disclosure of Christ to the gentile world – that world outside the Hebrew nation.

Actually, two groups paid a visit to Bethlehem at the Savior’s birth. One group was close by, the shepherds, just down the hill from the manger. The other group, the wise men, came a long way. They followed a star from faraway Persia in a journey to the newborn King. Both the shepherds and the wise men were on a journey of faith.

The shepherds made the short trip. It was easier for them. They were prepared for the news of the Savior’s birth because they were part of the people to whom the promise of a Messiah had been given. They were expecting the promise to be kept. It wasn’t hard to convince them and they had only a few short steps to take in their journey. The shepherds didn’t care about all the theological implications that were involved. They were not concerned about the problem of relating ancient truth to modern knowledge or the historical accuracy of the scriptures.

The wise men, on the other hand, will walk out on you if you skip over those intellectual problems of faith, because they expect all journeys to be long and it doesn’t seem right to them to take short cuts. The wise men and women of faith have always been the ones who take the long way, those who come the farthest distance, and have had the more torturous trek. For them, believing isn’t easy. It takes awhile. It is a long, hard journey.

You’ll find both groups in church and synagogue, just as surely as you would have found them at the manger so long ago. It’s a fact of human intellectual and psychological make up and neither group is preferred over the other.

What is critical for each of us to remember, whether the journey of faith has been short or long, is that it isn’t how long it takes or how complicated the task of believing, but the fact that we’ve taken the journey.

You remember the popular and legendary children’s story The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy is swept up by a cyclone in Kansas and deposited in Oz. There, she is joined by those three remarkable characters in the search for the Wizard of Oz, who will answer all of their questions.

The Scarecrow wants a brain. The Tin Woodsman yearns for a heart. The Cowardly Lion wants courage.

Their journey is perilous, through many obstacles, just like the wise men, but they finally come thru it all. The way they come through is really the point of the story. For, whenever they are confronted with some sort of physical danger, it is always the Cowardly Lion who manages to fight their way out. When the danger is more cerebral, it is the brainless Scarecrow who manages to get them out of it. And, as for the Tin Woodsman, who is journeying in search of a heart, he lends a hand whenever he can and he has so much pity and sympathy for other people that they have to gather around him all of the time with an oil can so that his tears don’t rust his joints. When they finally reach the Wizard, he points out that each of them already has what they traveled so far to find.

This is where the story of The Wizard of Oz becomes more than a story and teaches us. Things like courage and love and wisdom come to us when we take the first step on the journey toward finding them. It is the same way with faith. Faith is not something simply handed down to us prepackaged for us to accept on the authority of some institution or even some book. Faith begins when we begin the journey! Like those characters in their journey to see the Wizard of Oz or like those in their journey to the Christ of Bethlehem.

It is easy for people who come to faith easily and quickly to assume an attitude of righteous superiority over those who have a more difficult time of it. If you are one of those, let me remind you that nowhere in the scriptures do we find the Shepherds saying to the Wise Men, “What took you guys so long?”

At the same time, it is common to find those who have had a hard intellectual struggle in faith’s journey assuming an attitude of intellectual superiority over those who have not. To you, I say, scripture does say that the Savior reveals some things to the humble and meek that he conceals from the wise. True wisdom is achieved when the intellect and the heart become friends.

All of us are sojourners, looking for a new way to believe that will guide us in a new way to live. And, as we will see in the weeks following the Feast of the Epiphany, the manger is not the end of the journey nor the end of the epiphanies.

January 5, 2012
e-piphanies about Epiphany

Yesterday, January 6, was the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord. For the next six weeks, we will continue to reflect upon the epiphanous events in Jesus’ life. This is a good time for me to explain how my blog came to be called e-piphanies.com.

First, let me make sure we’re all on the same page regarding the meaning of the word "epiphany," especially as Christians use it. Answers.com offers a pretty comprehensive definition if you are not sure what I'm talking about.

Our Christian concept of epiphany starts with the manifestations of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, and continues in our own lives as we recognize the reality of his reign. In other words, he is not finished manifesting himself to us!

Brian McLaren’s book, The Secret Message of Jesus, heightened my awareness of the kingdom of God as the core of Jesus’ message. Moreover, I realized that I was not alert to the signs of the kingdom all around me. McLaren writes, “I think that the best glimpses of the kingdom of God come to us unexpectedly in everyday life – and the sermons we hear (or books we read) help us keep our eyes open so that when those moments come, we don’t sleepwalk through them.”

With that prompting, e-piphanies.com was born. I intended it to be an interactive online journal of glimpses (epiphanies) of God’s hand at work in our lives. Sometimes, my postings must suggest that I just have a firm grasp of the obvious. However, that’s what is so amazing about the kingdom in our midst, isn’t it? It is hidden in plain sight! What may be obvious to some of us may be an epiphany for the rest of us. Jesus went around pointing out signs of the kingdom in what often appeared to be ordinary. That's what I want to do in e-piphanies.com.

So, I hope you will enjoy reading and contributing to e-piphanies.com. Use the comment feature (below) to share your own insights, glimpses, and concerns.

I also hope you will take advantage of the season of the Church wherein we are reminded of ways the kingdom was manifested in Jesus’ life and his invitation to us to be witnesses of that kingdom. Our testimony will be more believable if we've actually seen it so we can tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

And, I hope you will find a copy of The Secret Message of Jesus and read it. Your eyes may be opened a little wider to discover glimpses of God’s hand at work.

Here's a wonderful passage from the book:

Earlier in the season, I heard the unmistakable sounds of a flock of cedar waxwings passing through on their way north. I never saw them, but by the high chatter of their unique song, I knew thy had passed by as I lay in bed. Before I learned the distinctive call of these common birds, I heard the sound, but I didn't know what I was hearing. . . I wonder if the secret message of Jesus isn't like that. Maybe you've been hearing it all along, but you didn't realize it. Maybe you've been seeing it or seeing signs of it, but you didn't know what you were seeing. Maybe the best outcome of this book is that your ears and eyes – your heart and mind – will have been in some way "born again," so that you will now and forever know it when you hear it or see it, when it comes near and sings its song in the high branches.

And, in its own way, maybe my e-piphanies.com will provide for you a similar outcome!

January 7, 2010