Sermon, Epiphany 2, 18 January 2026
Readings: Isaiah 49.1-7; 1. Corinthians 1.1-9; John 1.29-42
Theme: Epiphany: The Manifestation
At the end of what the secular world considers to be the period of Christmas, the church continues to reflect on the meaning of the world-historical event of the birth of Christ. What does it mean that the Word has become flesh and dwelt amongst us? The meaning of this event is too much to swallow in one go and the period of Epiphany prolongs this period of reflection so that we can really dwell with this mystery of the God who has dwelt with us in the flesh and now dwells with us in his Holy Spirit.
This is why during the period following Christmas until the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas), the church celebrates the season of Epiphany. The word ‘Epiphany’ means ‘manifestation’. As a season, it is the period when the child born at Christmas is shown to the world. This is why the season begins on the festival that we associate with the three kings, as the kings or magi represent the world to whom the Christ-child is shown or manifested during this time.
This theme of ‘manifestation’ is coupled with that of the mission of Jesus because his identity and his mission are united in one un-divided person. Such a unity of identity and mission is shown in the very name given to the Christ-child, of ‘Jesus’, whose Hebrew meaning is literally ‘God saves’ or ‘The Lord is our salvation’. In other words, who Jesus is and what Jesus does are one. Jesus is the one who brings salvation, the one who brings the righteousness/justice to Israel and to the nations/gentiles, which the prophet Isaiah speaks of in the first reading as redemption of the House of Israel and a light to the gentiles/nations.
So, during this season of Epiphany, the readings of the liturgy invite us to contemplate just how the identity and the mission of this Jesus are revealed to us and how this manifests who this God really is. The God revealed to us is the God who is totally for us. He is not a God who stands over against us, a distant and uncaring god, but the One who is intimately involved with us as one of us; Emmanuel, the God who became one of us, for us.
This God who became one of us is the One who is love. It is not as if he has a personality and this personality does separate things from his identity. His very person, which we understand through the Trinitarian unity of three persons, of which the Son of God, Jesus, is one of these persons, is oriented to reach out to us and to offer us salvation. But what does this salvation consist in?
The salvation offered to us through the manifestation of Jesus is the glory of God. This is the gift of sharing in the divine life itself which knows of no beginning nor end. As Isaiah foretold, it is the glory of the servant Israel in whom God is glorified. Such is the nature of this gift that by its giving, we are adopted and transformed into the love of God. This adoption and transformation occurs through the power of the Holy Spirit both now in time and space, and for all eternity in the divine transformation of our reality which is what is meant by heaven.
So, this is why John the Baptist exclaims, when he sees Jesus, ‘Look, here is the lamb of God!’ This ‘lamb of God’ is the gift of God, the offering of God’s very self to us, in Jesus, so that we might be washed clean of our sins and adopted, through his grace, into the very life of our Trinitarian creator, redeemer, and sanctifier God. Such a manifestation of the Son of God is also a moment in the revelation to us of the God who is Trinity. This is why the incident of the encounter with John the Baptist in the Gospel of John is one in which the manifestation which takes place does so in the context of the manifestation of the voice of the Father and the descent of the Holy Spirit.
In coming to know who Jesus is, we come to know who God really is: A Trinity of divine persons, who each share in the intimate life of the other. This sharing in the intimate life of each other is extended to the creation through the manifestation of the Son of God appearing in the flesh, because this is the moment when God’s very self is clothed in the flesh of the world. It is thus not surprising that the encounter with John the Baptist is a Trinitarian self-disclosure because John is the herald of the Messiah. And, the Messiah, is not only the saviour of Israel, but also the very manifestation of the Son of God which had been foretold and has now become clear for all to see.
So, during this period of the Epiphany, we are given the time to really locate this child born at Christmas in the unfolding narrative of the self-communication of God to God’s people of Israel. This self-communication is the manifestation of God in Jesus whose nature is to give, because God is love. Such love is the heart and the meaning of the Trinity which is the relational identity of the God whose communal life has now been shared with the creation through the Son. No longer present to us in the flesh, it is the Holy Spirit who manifests the presence of God to us in Word, Sacrament and in the very beauty of the creation itself which now clothes the person of the Son of God. May this season of Epiphany teach us to grow in our understanding of the wonderful manifestation of our saviour in the flesh and of the Trinitarian God who has reached out to us definitively in his Son, Jesus the Christ.
Happy season of the Epiphany!