Christmas 2 (4 January 2026)
Readings: Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 147:12-20; John 1:1-18; Ephesians 1:3-14.
John 1 is probably one of the best-known passages in the bible and exactly therefore, probably one of the least-known. And perhaps therefore, it may be a good idea to look at John through the lens of Jeremiah. Biblical scholars often refer to Jeremiah 30 and 31 as the “Little book of Comfort.” (Theme of this: the promised return of the exiles from Babylon.) The first thing that strikes one here is the exuberant tone of everything. The poet speaks of women who rejoice in the dance and both young and old men being merry. And the most moving and beautiful of these promises: “I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them and give them gladness for their sorrow.” It sounds like the words of people who have already been liberated. However, the truth is very far from this. Scholars reckon that these words were written when Jerusalem was under siege by the armies of Babylon, during the darkest hour, on the eve of their exile. It was written when Judah’s fortunes reached their lowest point, just before Jerusalem crumbled before the power of Babylon. The prophetic words are not a report of something that the poet sees. It is the eyes of faith that imagines the return of the exiles as one great, joyous event. What is most conspicuous in this vision, is the complete absence of the three foundations on which Israel had built their hope in the days before the exile: the king, the temple and the land. It is as if in their darkest hour, when their own resources had completely dried up, they came to see for the first time again, the only reason for their existence, the Light of God, the only Light that darkness can never conquer.
Epiphany 1 (11 January)
Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7; 10-14; Matthew 2:1-12; Ephesians 3:1-12.
The road to Epiphany in the lectionary is twelve days long. The “twelve days of Christmas” start on the 25th of December and end on January 6th, the feast of Epiphany. “Epiphany”, as it is used here, means the manifestation of the light and, in particular, the manifestation of Christ as the light of the world. To understand the notion of Christ as the light of the world, one has to go back to Genesis 1 and the story of creation. Creation begins with the divine utterance: “Let there be light”. This light was clearly not the light of the sun because the sun was only created on the fourth day. The light that is referred to here is the light of God and creation begins with that light: the light of understanding everything, the whole creation in the light of God. So the feast of Epiphany – following the birth of Christ – is to see everything, the whole world, in the light of Christ.
We are told the magi saw ‘his star rising’ – so they followed it all the way to Bethlehem. And they did so, to come and ‘pay homage’, as the NRSV puts it. However, the word that is translated with ‘homage’ – proskuneō – means to ‘bow down in deep respect’ and is usually translated in the NT with the word ‘worship’. Although it is a bit lost in translation, the word appears three times in these few verses. The best way of understanding it, is to go back to the origin of the word ‘worship’ which originally was ‘worth-ship’. The light of epiphany is the light that breaks through in understanding who or what is worth-ship: who is worth worshipping? And this is an extremely important question to answer, for we know, we become what we worship.
Epiphany 2 (18 January)
Readings: Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; John 1:29-42; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9.
The Gospel reading begins with John pointing to the one that will be the Lamb of God and the Light of the nations (the one taking away the sins of the world). If one wants to understand anything of the poignancy of what this means, one must go back to Isaiah 49, even if it just to appreciate what it means to use ‘Lamb and Light’ together as in these two readings. In Isaiah God tells Israel, here described as one “deeply despised and abhorred by the nations” (49:7), that they will be a light to the nations. By the time of this prophecy, hundreds of years have passed since Israel was taken into exile and for the first time there was hope that the exile was about to end. Many Jews had settled in Babylon and started to live comfortable lives. So there is this strange ambiguity: having it much better than previous generations but still despised by the people around them. Living as it were, between Babylon and Jerusalem, between paganism and faith, between despair and hope. It is in this context that God speaks to them through the prophet Isaiah. What would we have expected that God would tell them in these circumstances: Hold out, have hope; redemption is at hand? Just pray and trust in the Lord? No, he tells them, there’s work to be done to restore Israel as God’s people, but not only that, there more: God is looking at them (the despised and rejected) to become a light to the nations. ‘Look beyond your own needs’ he tells them, ‘And look at the needs around you’. There’s work to be done. As Abraham Heschel already noted, “religion begins with an awareness that something is asked of us.”
Epiphany 3 (25 January)
Readings: Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1; 4-9; Matthew 4:12-23; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18.
What was foreseen in last week’s readings are being put into practice in this week’s readings: the light that Israel was called to be, came to the world and goes out into the world. Here Jesus goes out and calls out to those that will follow in his footsteps and will further his mission.
And if God called Israel – who was/is the despised and rejected – then that pattern is continued with the towns where Jesus first travelled to. The territory of Zebulun and Naphtali were according to tradition the first to go into exile and Isa 9 describes the contempt they were held in. So also Galilee, closely associated with the cloud of darkness casted by the Assyrian empire. And the first disciples were fishermen: often romanticised in the contemporary church as ‘simple folk’ and therefore even idealised for their ‘simple faith.’
The reality, however, is that in biblical times fishermen did not enjoy an elevated social standing. Even though they were often relatively well-off, they did not enjoy a great deal of respect. Perhaps not the most despised and rejected but not far behind. And it was here – among these people and these towns – that Jesus planted the first words and issued the first calls, where he called out (ek-klesia) to those that would grow to become a group of the called (ekklesia): what we today call the ‘church’.
Perhaps that’s the deepest reason we never find anyone volunteering for discipleship in the Gospels. They (the disciples) were the last ones who would’ve thought that they’d be called.
These Lectionary Reflections were prepared by Rev. Dr Ockert Meyer
