Matthew 2:1-12

On this Epiphany Sunday Susan began with a portrayal of the wise men's perspective crafted by Frederick Buechner. Why did the magi follow the star to where Jesus was? "To be wise is to be eternally curious."

Is to live without Christ the real death, and to die with him the only life? Jesus invites us to pick up our cross; not an appealing image... When we take up the cross we empty our hands and bid goodbye to our old lives, both good and bad.

Paul is an example of giving up his old life with much esteem, to follow Christ. When we die unto Christ, we surrender our identities. Pay attention to the names you call yourself and see what they say about your identity. What is there that you need to surrender to fully embrace your new identity?

John 1: 1-18

Susan Scott reminded us of a powerful image from this week's scripture in John where Jesus became flesh and "tabernacled with us." Jumping back in time to Exodus, God instructs the chosen people in great detail on how to build a portable tabernacle, a sanctuary, for God to dwell in, but only a very select few people could enter. Later the tabernacle is built in stone in Jerusalem with the holy of holies that contains the Ark of the Covenant and God's presence, but is destroyed by the Babylonians and then rebuilt when the Israelites return from captivity. During Jesus' time Herod massively expanded the temple, but the building had no Ark, no cloud of glory, no miracles, and no prophesies like the first one - a silence of 4 centuries. The high priesthood was corrupt and under the influence of the Roman occupiers. Into this darkness, John tells us that the long awaited return of God's glory to the temple has been fulfilled by Jesus, to an extant even greater than that of the first temple. But God is doing something new, amazing, and unexpected this time. Instead of being reserved for an elite few, God's glory now walks without elaborate trappings among all the people, prophesying and doing great miracles. As the short, dim days of winter continue, take some time to reflect on the bright glory of Jesus in our lives - God tabernacling with us, not apart from us.

Isaiah 55:1-13

Buy it quick before it runs out! One day sale only! Maybe I should get two just in case. We are trained from an early age by society and by advertising to fear that if we don't purchase something, it will not be available to us in the future or at that price, and we will suffer somehow for not owning it. People are good at manufacturing the fear of scarcity despite the fact that we are surrounded by an abundance of stuff and things. Jordan Morehouse, reflecting on the scripture from Isaiah, contends that in the face of abundance we are so conditioned to scarcity that we don't know how to trust that there is enough. Our fear of scarcity drives us to work longer hours or side hustle for more money, and reduces our capacity to build community with family, friends, and other believers. This in turn reduces our available social safety net, which leads to more fear, which leads to more work, in an ever-tightening spiral. The powers of the world use the threat of less to justify war and cruelty, and the whole system would collapse if everyone views what they have as abundance. Tyrants fear abundance, but God delights in it. God brings manna, loaves and fishes, and salvation through Christ all without cost. To combat this sinister mindset of scarcity that constantly robs our lives of joy and community, our church bodies must lean in to a culture of radical, reflexive generosity, giving more than we expect to ever receive, without strings attached. These small kindnesses will quietly build, multiply, and produce unimaginable abundance as God's love has already shown us through Christ's example