January 9, 2011 Baptism of Our Lord

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Isaiah 42:1-9
This past week, in our weekly chapel service, I asked our school children if they could define the word Epiphany. It was Thursday, the first day of the liturgical season of Epiphany. And I was hoping that they would understand what the season of Epiphany is all about. Epiphany is a liturgical season. But it is also just a word, a word that is used in common speech, and we were observing how the two things are related.
One student defined an epiphany quite well as "a sudden realization". There was something you didn't know, or didn't understand that all of a sudden has become clear, a eureka moment. I suppose we might compare it to Thomas Edison when he invent the light bulb - there was a problem of materials and understanding and then suddenly he hit upon the solution and the proverbial light bulb came on (pardon the pun). He suddenly understood and the problem was solved.
The Church season of Epiphany is really the very same sort of a thing. Jesus was a person, a man, as much a regular guy as you could meet. To look at him there was nothing special or spectacular to cause him to stand apart from the rest...
Except there was.. This man was the result of a miraculous conception; the Holy Spirit and Mary. This man was the Son of Man, the Son of God who had come to save his people from their sins. But he didn't look it. One could look into his eyes and look right past the most significant part of who he was. To get this, to understand this, to believe this required that eureka moment, that epiphany, when the Spirit who was the origin of his conception infused faith in the heart to open eyes and prove to that one the divinity in Jesus. It happened with the Magi who experienced their own epiphany when they bowed to worship the baby as their lord and it happened today in our Gospel text when the Lord himself from heaven pointed out this man just baptized was His Son, his beloved, one with whom he was well pleased. It was truly an 'Aha" moment. An epiphany. A sudden realization. This Jesus of Nazareth, the son of the carpenter is the Son of God.
For you and I, we live in a world that needs just such an epiphany, just such a revelation. We live in a world that needs to have the darkness taken away, the blinders removed from their eyes so that they can see. so that they can acknowledge Jesus the way the magi did, with worship on their knees, with gifts and devotion and service and love. The world doesn't know its Lord. these people are darkened in their unbelief.
Our Old Testament text, which is the basis for our meditation today, is the first of Isaiah's Servant songs. These songs are poems of the Lord written about His Servant. Here in chapter 42 the Lord says that his servant will bring forth justice to the nations.
Now, usually when we think of Justice we think of retribution. We think of that typical courtroom scene where the family of the victim of some crime shows up in court to demand justice from the court and to confront the accused. This is not the sense to be implied here. There is another way that the word can be used. The word can also indicate a decision or a verdict. we might say something like, "The high court has pronounced judgment on the issue." We mean to say that they have reached a verdict and have come to a decision. This is what the Lord intends to say here. The Lord has made his decision, reached his verdict, and the Lord's servant is to pronounce the judgment, the decision, to the nations. He is to deliver the verdict to those who have been appointed to hear.
And here is that verdict:
"I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open eyes that are blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness."
The people are blind. The people are in prison. The Servant of the Lord will give sight to the blind and release for the captives. Or, to put in another way, the Lord will bring about an epiphany a eureka or an "aha" moment for those who do not know and who have not heard.
If you back up from where our text begins, back into chapter 41 of Isaiah, the Lord further elucidates what he means and what he intends here. The Lord offers a fuller explanation.
In this previous section the Lord is confronting the idolatry of the nations, the worship of false gods and idols. He challenges these idols to offer any hope or consolation, to accurately predict those things that are yet to happen. They cannot. The Lord responds to the false gods who would challenge him; (Isaiah 41:28-29 28) But when I look, there is no one; among these there is no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer. 29 Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind."
They are a delusion; "their works are nothing, their metal images only an empty wind." The gods of this world are nothing. They are Zip. Zero. Zilch. the Lord would have us think back to Genesis 1:1 when as he puts it the world was formless and void. The world was nothing. There was nothing, no light, not even dark. no earth. no land. no water. no air. no gold or silver. no mountains or streams. no fish or birds or livestock. No ipods or cell phones either for that matter. There were no HDTV's. no internet. nothing. Completely formless and empty. That is the power and the strength of false gods, they take us back. They undo God's creation.
Baal, Thor, Zeus, Ra, different cultures have name their different gods. Our own culture has her own gods. Whether you worship wealth or power or entertainment or fashion or personal happiness or fulfillment. whether your god resides in the vault at your local bank, or can be purchased at the mall, made from leather with a heal and can be worn either casual or dressy. Whether your god carries the pigskin, or has a retina display, our world today is filled with all sorts of gods. God's that people worship and gods that we are tempted to worship too. idols that we look to for our happiness and fulfillment, that we look to for our safety and security. idols that we allow to displace the one true God. Lets call them what they are. "A delusion, nothing, an empty wind." The world needs an epiphany, the world needs to wake up from its delusion, shake off the sleep of idolatry, and come to a sudden realization that her gods are not going to save her. The world needs a god, a true God. The world needs that servant who can proclaim release to captives, a god who can give sight to the blind, a god who can provide salvation to that people who walk in great darkness.
When the Lord came into this world that was formless and empty, that was dark with nothing way back before the beginning of life and even time. The Lord came and he spoke. Let there be light and there was light. Light in the darkness. a flash of brilliance and radiance where there had been pitch black. Can you imagine how glorious that first light must have been. Strap on your Ray Bans, grab your Oakleys, because the Lord has come. With light and truth.
In a very similar way, this is what the Lord has done for us. In the darkness and death of our sin he has come to us with the light, with the truth, with the revelation of his glory found in his word. His word that gives the sudden realization that these gods we have been holding on to and holding out for are worthless junk and that the true value and glory and light lies with the Light of the World, the Light for the Nations, the Light that shines in the darkness. The Word made flesh. He came to us and gave us that very Epiphany, that Eureka, that discovery so that we could see the light.
All those years ago Thomas Alva Edison sat alone in his workshop tinkering with electricity and bits of filament until he hit upon the formula to get that little strand to glow. Today the world is awash with light because one man took the time and the effort to create light from what was dark.
How much more illumined are we because of the Gospel, because that one man Jesus Christ sat not at a workbench in a workshop, but fixed to a cross. In that moment he absorbed the darkness of sin and became the electricity for the light of our faith. His glory shines out from the cross and those who have eyes to see know the crucified lord to be God and Savior.
This God is your god. God for you. God in your heart and God in the world.
May the light that is in your heart be reflected to the nations.
Amen.