Weekly News | 1.30.26

Dear Church of the Cross,

A confession: self-absorption comes quite naturally to me. (You too? I suspected there may be more of us). I’ve found this penchant for self-centeredness to be quite hazardous in preparatory church seasons like Advent or Lent, where the call to repentance and amendment of life are handily warped into plans for spiritual self-actualization, followed quickly by the pride of success or the dejection of failure. I’ve also found ways to turn the great feasts of Christmas and Easter into me-centered affairs, what with my gift-giving (and receiving) prowess and my bi-annual culinary feats. Have you had my Easter lamb?

The one church season that remains gloriously impervious to my swellheadedness is the one in which we now find ourselves: Epiphany (or Epiphanytide, if you like). Try as I might, I have found no way to make it about me. From the visit of the Magi and the presentation of the Christ in the temple, to the baptism of our Lord and the mount of Transfiguration, these Epiphany moments are decidedly not about me.

And herein lies the grace of Epiphany: we cannot generate, perpetuate, discover, exploit, or extinguish the Light of the world. We can only behold him; and, beholding him, stand in awe.

Read all the gospel “epiphanies” of the season and you’ll find the same thing: beholding Jesus in his glory kindles self-transcendent awe. The Magi are in awe before God made manifest in the flesh. Simeon and Anna are in awe when they behold the Lord in his temple. John the Baptist is in awe that the Son would join him in the Jordan, that the Father would speak and the Spirit descend. Peter, James, and John are dumb struck with awe amid the mountaintop glory-cloud where they behold his appearance "like lightning." In awe-fully beholding Jesus, each one finds that their truest self plays a crucial role in a story that is decidedly not about them. How gloriously freeing! To be unburdened of self-absorption, visited by merciful self-forgetfulness.

Thanks be to God that his epiphany glory has broken into, is breaking into, and will one day fully break into our world. Will you join me in worship this Sunday as we do something mercifully notabout us? As we behold Jesus together, may fresh awe bubble up, that we might find our truest selves “again for the first time” in a story that is decidedly all about him.

Peace,

Justin