Sunday Stretch: Vol. 63 - Epiphany I

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Hi Readers,

Happy 2024! Maybe it’s the compression of Sunday, Advent 4, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Christmas I, and Epiphany I all in just a couple of weeks - but for some reason as I write this Sunday Stretch and study the accompanying texts, I have the sense of many things coming together at one time.

In the western churches, we typically celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 and Epiphany on Jan. 6, which is the celebration of the coming of the Wise Men, or Magi, from Persia, or what is today Iran, following the star to Bethlehem to bring gifts to the baby Jesus.

Timelines throughout the Bible are not as linear as a modern mind might prefer or expect. Throughout the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels, the same stories are told multiple times, but from different viewpoints. We go forward and back. Emphases are tweaked. One Gospel (Luke) focuses on the registration and census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. Another, Matthew, tells the story of the Holy Family’s escape as refugees to Egypt, after King Herod threatened to kill all of the firstborn Jewish boys. John takes a poetic and wide-lens approach, beginning with Light just as the Genesis 1 creation story begins with light. And Mark, the Gospel of action, begins with John the Baptizer and Jesus’ baptism as his entry into ministry.

None of these stories are quite linear or maybe even quite literal. And still - they are all true. I wrote about a year ago in this newsletter more about Adam and Eve and the nature of biblical truth:

I think our task, as modern-day followers of Jesus, is not to judge the literal or scientific veracity of the biblical texts, though there may be some benefit to taking them apart and analyzing their disparate parts.

As a theologian and a pastor, though, I am drawn more to synthesis, to the task of putting all the parts and stories together to arrive at God’s revealed truth for my life. Which brings us to today: the first Sunday of 2024, and texts that bring the elements of light, fire, and water all together. For me, it says something about the necessity of coexistence and cooperation. What might it look like for us to lean into those words, as American followers of Jesus, in 2024?