Epiphany 1
Jan 8, 2023
Fr. Phil Eberhart
Salt
and Light
This
morning begins a rare adventure for me and for us together. I will be speaking to the church from the
pulpit for the next 6 weeks, the majority of Epiphany. I feel that there is both a sense of urgency
and a sense of breakthrough in the air right now. As I pray and as we share with other pastors
in the area, God is talking about our first love, about a RESET /
REBOOT, about the need to be courageous in the face of increasing darkness and
ungodliness in our culture. Indeed, as
we enter this season of Epiphany, to be the LIGHT THAT WE ARE!
Jesus, in
his Sermon on the Mount, refers to the Church as both Salt and as Light,
telling us in Matt 5: 16 to Let your (our) light so shine before men, that
they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.
I’m
reminded of the story that Del Tacket tells in the Truth Project videos about
doing the experiment with his son’ closet.
He opened the door and the light rushed into the dark closet! He closed the door and did it again: Once more the light rushed into the
closet. Several more time he opened and
closed the door and not ONCE – NOT ONCE – did the darkness ever fall out of the
closet as he opened the door! The Light
Always WON.
John, in
his preamble to his Gospel, says it this way:
1 In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. 2 He
was in the beginning with God. 3 All
things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was
made. 4 In him was life,[a] and the
life was the light of men. 5 The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Some time
back with PromiseKeepers was still doing stadium events, this may have been at
Mile Hi with 80,000 men there, one of the teachers, said that the reason the
world is so dark is not a problem with the dark, it’s a problem with the light
– the world is a dark place by its nature.
It’s just dark being dark! The
issue is with THE LIGHT. That’s US! Dark isn’t something! It’s nothing. If the dimmest candle is lit and lifted up,
the dark is gone!
The dark
never falls out of the closet! So the
question is how can we be light?
HOW CAN
WE BE LIGHT IN OUR WORLD TODAY?
Light is
first of all PRESENCE. If no light is
there, then there is darkness. It’s a
simple fact. If those who are light or
who have the light, choose to not be present, then the darkness wins. But the light we bring isn’t just our
presence, it is HIS PRESENCE.
In my
work with Transform World and Ed Silvoso, he has been known to say that we, the
church, are “Mobile Arks of the Covenant!”
As the curtain was torn from top to bottom at the death of Jesus Christ,
God gave us access, full and final, into His Presence, but more than that
happened 50 days later, as the Fire of God came to rest on each one in the
upper room at Pentecost.
Peter,
that day quoted the prophet Joel, as he explained what was happening on the
steps of the temple:
17 “‘And in
the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my
Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall
prophesy.
Paul
urges us to be “transformed from glory to glory” as we “reflect the light of
Christ with “unveiled faces:”
16 But
when one[c] turns
to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now
the Lord[d] is
the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled
face, beholding the glory of the Lord,[e] are
being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.[f] For
this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
John
tells us that “if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have
fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all
sin” and further that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us and to cleanse us from all sin.”
When I
was instituted as the Rector of the this church, the preacher was the canon to
the Ordinary for the Diocese of Colorado, Canon Burt. His message was that 99% of the effectiveness
of most of ministry was involved with just being present – showing up!
Friends,
it is time for us to “show up” in our world.
This
series is going to be taking it cues from a book I’m reading right now by Eric
Metaxes, called “A Letter to the American Church.” I urge you to get your own copy, and we’ll
place a link in this Thursday’s Constant Contact. Much remains to be seen in our country but we
are on a path that is getting more and more dangerous, every step of the
way. Let me just share a single quote from
one of the chapters, attributed loosely to Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “
Silence
in the face of evil is itself evil! Not
to speak, is to speak. Not to act is to
act. God will not hold us guiltless.”
Over the
next few weeks I will consider with you, ways in which God may be calling us to
be LIGHT and SALT. There are ways in
which we are seeing breakthrough right now, but there, as the song goes, “ is a
long way to go, and a short time to get there!”
We as the Church of Jesus Christ are being called to let our light, the
Light of Christ, reflected in and from our lives, shine before the world around
us, in very real ways. Welcome to
Epiphany! Arise, Shine, for your light
has come!
In the
Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit…
Amen
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