Who is This Baby?

 Epiphany Sunday!

 

                            Prayer

                      Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

 

1st Movement

 

When I graduated from High School in 1977, I hadn't even seen a Personal Computer.  In the sixties, we had experienced the Apollo Space flights and we had seen the big room-size computers on T.V., and we were taught that this was going to be a coming thing.  Everything was going to go to computers because it made everything so easy.  I think Personal Computers had been made, but they were so expensive that the common person or a small business couldn't afford to own one.  For the most part, everything was still done by hand, by typewriter, or by files in filing cabinets. Yes, I guess I am that old!  When I started to college in 1992, one of the first classes they enrolled me in was Computing Essentials.  When I sat down behind my first computer among others who had considerable more exposure to computers than I had, I was somewhat terrified.  I do not know what I thought the computer was going to do to me, but I know my heart was beating very rapidly.  The class went well and I learned to use WordPerfect 5.1 on a Dos IBM PC.  When I say it went well, that does not mean it was always easy.  I can remember having a lot of confusion about whether I was in a program or not!  You would exit from WordPerfect.  You would exit from the print screen.  You would exit from the menu that they had set up on the computer.  The teacher would tell us to exit out to DOS, and I didn't know when I was there.  It was all quite confusing to this seventies kid who had never seen a computer. 

I can remember two things that really opened my eyes to what was going on.  First, a parishioner I had at the time gave me a 286 PC that had WordPerfect 5.1 on it.  I got a bunch of shareware from the College library and my brother-in-law showed me how to set up a Menu and install these programs.  As I worked in DOS and did this my eyes were opened.  The other time was when I took a programming language called Turbo Pascal.  I learned that files with the extension .exe were executable files and were going to do something.  These were the programs!  My eyes were opened!  An Ah Hah moment!  These were Epiphanies.  That is what an Epiphany is:  an Ah Hah moment.

 

2nd movement

In our scripture today, we have an Epiphany: an Ah Hah moment.  Jesus had been born the cute little baby in Bethlehem.  He had been raised like any other little boy.  He had helped his dad in the carpenter shop.  He had played in the streets with the other kids.  He had grown up in the shadow of being an illegitimate child; after all, only his parents really knew otherwise.  Today, he comes to John to be baptized.  After his baptism, a dove descends from Heaven and a voice from Heaven declares, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."  Ah Hah!  He isn't an illegitimate child but a son of the creator God:  the God of the universe, the God of the Hebrew people!  And this is to be a new beginning to be associated with the time that the Dove came back to Noah with the Olive twig.  The Noah story is about a new beginning!  It is about resetting the world with a new start!  This would be a new beginning!  Jesus as the God-man: the Savior of the world!

It is appropriate that as we conclude the Christmas season and we look at the Epiphanies of who this baby is, we realize as the Wisemen (who by the way were gentile (outsiders)) came to the realization that this baby was a King and brought gifts fitting for a king. We realize today the Epiphany that this child who grew up as any other child was indeed God’s son.  We realize the Epiphany that this Jesus brings a new beginning after we have messed the first one up!  It is also appropriate as we begin a new year that we think of this new beginning in Christ and give the year and ourselves to God!

3rd movement

Now we can understand!  As we take Communion together today, remember who Jesus is.  He isn't just the cute baby of Christmas, but he is the Son of God.  He is our Savior.  He is God in the flesh.  He is the one in whom we can place our Hope!

As we have an anointing of hands, pledge to let God use you this new year! Thanks be to God!

 

Prayer of Confession

Service of Communion and Anointing of Hands