Seek the Light. Share the Light.
Seek the Light. Share the Light. The Rev. Bingham Powell Today, on the Feast of the Presentation, we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of Epiphany. We are a month in, but still have a month to go because the beginning of Lent is late. We have a full Epiphany season this year. One way we can think about the seasons of the church year is to think of them as individual units: what is Advent telling us, what is Christmas telling us, what is Epiphany telling us. That is one way to think about the seasons. Another way to think about them is to think of them as larger units, as a series or stories that happen over multiple seasons. If we think of them this way, Advent and Christmas and Epiphany are one unit, a trilogy, or perhaps a trinity, of seasons that are working together for the same thing. These three seasons are all about the Incarnation. In Advent we are preparing for the coming of Christ, at Christmas we are celebrating the birth of Christ, and in Epiphany, people are having their epiphanies. They are realizing that in the person of Jesus, there is something happening. He is more than just a regular person. The thing that they are experiencing is the fullness of God dwelling within this human. So we have Advent, a season of preparation, Christmas, a season of celebration, and Epiphany, a season of realization. Each week we hear stories of people having their epiphanies, their encounters and their realizations about Jesus. These stories don’t work perfectly chronologically. There are two tracks going on here. We have the kid track and the adult track. We start the season off with the Magi, who meet the baby Jesus. Then the Sunday after that we go to Jesus’s baptism when he is an adult, and the people who have their epiphany when the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove and a voice comes out of heaven. Then we have the story of the first miracle at Cana in Galilee and the realization the folks there had. The following story was about Jesus in the Temple where he read the scriptures, and the people realized He was the embodiment of Isaiah’s dream for this world. Jesus said, today this has been fulfilled in your sight. He is the embodiment of the Good News to the poor, and release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind. This week we jump back to the kid track, and we hear Simeon and Anna and their epiphanies when they meet the baby Jesus. Next week we will go back to the adult track, and in the following weeks hear stories about people having their realization when Jesus calls them, when he heals folks, when people hear him teach or preach. The whole season ends with the most magnificent realizations when Peter, James, and John go to the mountain and have the experience of the Transfiguration. If we think about these seasons, not as individual units, but a larger grouping of preparation, celebration, and realization, we notice there are other threads going through them. One of the threads throughout all three of these seasons is the thread of light. In Advent we heard readings about light, and we lit more candles week by week. At Christmas we celebrated the Light of Christ into the world, and we heard more readings about light, including the Prologue to John’s Gospel in which John said that the Incarnation of God is the coming of the Light into the world. No matter how dark it gets, John promises us that the darkness cannot overcome this Light. As we get into Epiphany and the story of the Magi, we have the light of the star. Today we again have light. Simeon, when he encounters Jesus, says, “Lord, you have now set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised. For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior whom you have prepared for all the world to see. A light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.” What Simeon experiences is seeing the light. What Anna experiences is seeing the light, the light of Christ that came into the world that John promises us cannot be o