Book: Isaiah

Beloved, as a bearer of God’s image, you belong to God. You are not a cog in the corporate machine, a slave to your work or to the state. Always remember your unparalleled worth as God’s creation, fully realized in your adoption as sons and daughters through faith in Jesus Christ. For the authorities can take everything else away from you, but they can never take away your faith.

Because Christ’s return is imminent - the Lord is at hand - and he is present with us now, we are not to be anxious about anything. If during our moments of anxiety we could see Jesus sitting next to us, ready to take our hand, would that not be a comfort to us? And yet, he is indeed ready to do that through the gift of prayer.

Though the enemies of the cross shall wish to steal everything from you, they can only steal those earthly things which they hold valuable. But in imitating the saints and martyrs like Saint Paul, we will desire something greater, giving us a Faith in Christ, which can never be taken from us.

Let us thank God for keeping us safe in the midst of trouble and let us not forget how He comforted our waste places in the past. Perhaps today you still find yourself navigating the wilderness. Whether now or in the future, when we wander through those desolate places, we must never forsake to answer the question that matters most: “Who do you say that Jesus is?”

Keep justice. Do righteousness. Keep the Sabbath. Keep your hand from evil. We acknowledge our failures in all these things as we worship every Sunday, and once we are made clean, we all receive the same wafer - same size, same shape - and drink the same wine, receiving the same Grace from Christ Jesus. This is the source and summit of our Christian lives.

Here is the key for us today: all of us have been commissioned in the priesthood of believers as planters for the kingdom of God. Not only does that mean the preaching of the Gospel, but it means the seed of our own faith as well - perhaps that more than anything else.

This greatest and most important spectacle - the celebration of Holy Week, culminating in the glory of Easter, portrays all that was, all that is, and all that is to be in the drama of our salvation.

Secular culture espouses many useless sayings which may make us feel good but are devoid of meaning because they deny the power and reality of the Triune God. The expectation of Christians is not to merely be nice or say nice things – it is to be kind, persist in prayer, and to boldly speak about our faith. What good is our faith if we don’t tell anyone about it?

The Epiphany has not ended; it shines forth to this day, radiating out from the day of Christ’s Incarnation; it is the very reason we as Gentiles can share in the riches of Christ’s inheritance. This means that we who have received this light have the responsibility to both continually seek its source and reflect it so that others may do the same.