[RCL] Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17 The Epiphany Season is a time in the church year when we focus on many epiphanies, shinings forth of the glory of Christ, among them his manifestation to Gentiles as an infant, the time at Cana when he supplied wine for a wedding, and his mountaintop…

[RCL]: Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17 In the 1950s, a young Harvard professor, Dr. Ed Wilson, discovered something fascinating about ants. When an ant dies, after a couple of days, the other ants take it to the colony’s refuse pile where other dead ants and junk gets discarded. Ed Wilson discovered –…

God, our strength and our hope, grant us the courage of John the Baptist, constantly to speak the truth and boldly to rebuke injustice, with eyes open to recognize God among us. We are in the season of Epiphany, the season of growing light, the season of the Magi and the revelation of Christ to…

Having a baptism today gives us something to celebrate. Whether the person to be baptized is a child or an adult, a baptism done on this day is more than special, it is triumphant. In a world that celebrates life achievements mostly for celebrities, the church rejoices at the baptism of a person into the…

Jesus joins the crowd at the river Jordan. His cousin John has been baptizing people with water – the water of repentance. Only a few weeks ago in Advent, we heard John tell those gathered at the river that one would come – whose sandals John was not worthy even to hold – who would…

“Covenant” is an interesting word. Mind you Episcopalians hear so much about the “Baptismal Covenant” nowadays that it is in danger of becoming one of those pious slogans often used and seldom contemplated. When The Book of Common Prayer was revised in the 1970s, some of the leading thinkers in our church were developing a…

This is my Son, the Beloved. (Matthew 3:17) It may come as a surprise to you that today is the first of five Sundays after the Epiphany, yet in many Episcopal churches the feast of the Epiphany itself is hardly celebrated at all. In fact, Epiphany is perhaps the only great festival day of the…

Last week we celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany, the manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. In these Sundays following the Epiphany you will hear a series of stories and teachings that carry out the theme of God made manifest to us in Christ. Each year on the first Sunday after the Epiphany we…

John Milton, who once marvelously celebrated the birth of Jesus in his “Ode to the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” later attempted a sequel upon the Passion. After writing a few stanzas he ceased in despair and later published the fragment he did write with an appended note: “This subject the author finding to be above…