Year A Epiphany 2 16 January 2011
Isaiah 49: 1-7 Psalm 40: 1-11 1 Corinthians 1: 1-9 John 1: 29-42
There is a call and there is a destiny!
John 1:42 Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter).
The name “Simon” means “reed” but Peter, or Cephas, means rock.
Jesus was definitely showing himself to be God.... he kept changing people’s names! Way back from the time of Abraham, God was recorded as changing people’s names. Each time a name change happened there was an accompanying promise. God gave a promise with each name change and with that change he declared the destiny that he had pre-destined for that person.
Isaiah never had a name change but his name already declared his prophetic message. Isaiah means “God is my Salvation”. God had revealed to Isaiah that God knew him and named him before he was born, so I guess, in that sense God did give Isaiah a name.
Isaiah 49:1-2 “ 1 Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the LORD called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.”
Isaiah’s life was spent in bringing the message of God’s salvation, just as the meaning of his name declares, but Isaiah, like most of us felt the exhaustion of not seeing the fruits of his labour:
Isaiah 49:4 “4 But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all.
Yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand, and my reward is with my God.”
So often we may proclaim God’s message and not see any signs of acceptance. Our youth groups may not grow, our Bible studies have no regular attendees and our congregations may be small and dwindling, but we must not stop proclaiming God’s message – until He tells us to.
Many times it was declared that the prophet’s responsibility was to declare the message. If people heard the message the responsibility to respond was theirs. But if they didn’t hear the message, God held the prophets accountable for the life of those to whom they were sent. The Church is the prophet of God to the community around us.... and we are the Church... we are the body of Christ.
Isaiah also prophetically proclaims the ministry of Christ when he writes about the servant of God.
Isaiah 49: 6 ““It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
The Gentiles are the non-Jews... I guess that would certainly include most of us... and certainly the message of God has reached to the ends of the earth. But who is it that God is calling to fulfil this call, to be a light to the nations, in the year 2011?
Psalm 40: 6 “ 6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire— but my ears you have opened—
burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. 7 Then I said, “Here I am, I have come— it is written about me in the scroll. 8 I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.”
We are called, not to do anything difficult, but simply to share what God has revealed to us. If God has opened our ears to hear His message then we have a responsibility to pass on the revelation of God.
This season is called the Epiphany. An epiphany is a revelation and a realization that Jesus is God. The wise men who worshiped the baby Jesus brought him gifts which signified this epiphany. Do you recall the words of the song? “Frankincense to offer have I, incense owns a deity neigh” - in other words, this gift declared Jesus as God. The Gold signified Jesus as King and the Myrrh declared that he would suffer and die for us – as myrrh is used for embalming.
John the Baptist declared the revelation or epiphany that he had of Jesus. John 1:29 -31 “ 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”
John realized that Jesus was more than mere man and he passed on this knowledge by proclaiming that although Jesus came after him, Jesus was before him, thus proclaiming his eternal being.... Jesus has always existed.
John also proclaims that Jesus is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” In this John is revealing that Jesus will take away our sin, but also, that he would be sacrificed to enable this to happen. The “Lamb of God” was well understood by the people to whom John was speaking, as one of the regulations of their Passover festival was to have a lamb that was sacrificed to make restitution for sin. This was John’s equivalent of the wise men’s gift of myrrh with a whole lot more explanation.
John came baptizing so that Jesus might be revealed to Israel. This is an interesting statement that we seldom think about. John’s baptism was one of repentance. It seems that Israel needed to acknowledge her sin in order for Jesus to be revealed. It isn’t that Jesus wasn’t there, but that Israel could not see unless they were repentant. To be repentant means to acknowledge guilt and to humble ourselves before God. Is it the same for us and the community around us? Do we fail to hear God and see his hand because we and the community around us remain unrepentant?
John had followers who had been baptized. Therefore they were those who had acknowledged their human condition and recognised their need for a saviour. John was an amazing man because he recognised that his ministry was to point people to Jesus – and that meant he would diminish his own group of followers. Interesting thought... we can see that John was only concerned about passing on the truth of God and not about how many people were giving credence to his own ministry.
John’s followers took up the responsibility of sharing the revelation of God with others. Andrew shows the certainty of his revelation when he tells his brother about Jesus. He doesn’t tell him that he has found an inspiration speaker, a prophet or a good moral teacher; John 1:41 “41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus.
And the rest, as they say, is history.... but it isn’t, it is actually destiny. We, as Christians are baptized into this same destiny. We have the revelation of Jesus and a responsibility to share what we know. The problem is our feelings of inadequacy, but we need to know that we have no reason for this, as God has given us every gift that we need.
1 Corinthians 1: 4-9 “4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— 6 God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
St. Paul was speaking to a very difficult community who seemed to be side-tracked in their mission by an over emphasis on the more showy of the spiritual gifts. Despite this he thanks God for the gifts that God has given them and assures them that they have everything they need to walk in the call of God. More than that, he assures them that God would keep them firm and blameless to the end.
The Corinthian Church suffered from something that is common to all of us and that is ignorance. St. Paul needed to remind them that God has given them everything that they need. The same goes for us. We have everything that we need to achieve that which God has called us to.
Last week I asked what burdens you might be carrying that are stopping you from walking in the call of God. This week my question is, “What is it that you think you need to enable you to walk in the call of God?” And then I would encourage you to read that passage from Corinthians, realizing that God has given us every spiritual gift that we need to achieve that which he has called us to do.
We don’t need the world class speakers to bring revival. We don’t need to hire an international team of talented artists so that people will come to hear the message. The only sacrifice that God requires is a heart that says, “Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will”.
Lord, fill us with your Holy Spirit and open our eyes to your truth. Make us see as you see and give us the strength to continue in your will when we don’t.
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