Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Happy New Year! I hope that you've had a great Christmas celebration and are now enjoying
this first day of 2014. Welcome to another edition of "Dig into God's Word" where we
look ahead to the upcoming week's readings from the lectionary. As you can see I'm not
at Faith this week. I'm coming to you today from Peace Lutheran Church in Great Falls,
Montana where I'm spending this week after Christmas visiting my family.
In our readings this week we see a lot of light....light shining to reveal things. We
like light. Darkness can be scary, but light is comfortable and safe.
This week we celebrate Epiphany and remember the magi following the light of the star to
visit Jesus and his parents.
Epiphany means to appear and commemorates God becoming man and being manifested in the
flesh and revealed to the gentiles (the magi who had come to visit him)
This week the Old Testament reading is Isaiah 60:1-6. In this reading, the prophet Isaiah
speaks of the darkness that covers the earth. The darkness is broken by the glory of the
Lord when he comes into the midst of his people.
This light draws the nations to himself. It's like if you were out in the pitch black darkness
and you saw a light in the distance you would be drawn to it, so also Isaiah says the nations
will be drawn to the light of the glory of the lord.
It is interesting to note that in verse 6 we hear that when these people come they will
brings gifts of gold and frankincense...possible foreshadowing of the visitors that we'll hear
about in the gospel.
Our epistle reading is Ephesians 3:1-12. Paul is writing from prison and talking about the
mystery of his message that has now been made known. What is this mystery?
In verse 6 he reveals that the Gentiles are fellow heirs of the promise of Salvation through
Christ. This isn't an exclusive club for his fellow Israelites, but rather salvation is
for all people. In verse 9 we see the reference to light where Paul is talking about bringing
this good news to light for all people.
Finally, our gospel reading for today is Matthew 2:1-12. This is the familiar narrative of
the magi visiting Jesus and his parents in Bethlehem.
Often we place our magi in the same manger scene with the shepherds immediately following
Jesus' birth, however it is clear that they arrived at a future time.
When exactly? We're not sure but as we heard last week, Herod killed all young boys 2 years
old and younger in an attempt to get rid of Jesus so we can say it was within the first
2 years.
Another interesting thing to note is that while we often refer to them as "kings", the
word magi is more appropriate as they weren't kings but magicians or sorcerers. They weren't
necessarily wise either and are just as unexpected as guests as the shepherds were.
This further demonstrates God's method of working in ways that are unexpected to us.
The first revelation of Jesus' coming into the world to bring light and life doesn't
come to kings or the rich and powerful, but rather it comes to the poor and lowly and
the foreigners.
God's ways are not our ways, but when his light came into the world the darkness could
not overcome it. His salvation is for you and for me, what a spectacular gift.
Blessings on your study of God's word this week and I hope you have a blessed New Year's
celebration as well!