Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Third Sunday after Epiphany
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.
Day: January 21, 2024
Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany
“Speak the word only”
The Collect, Epistle and Gospel for each Sunday provide the interpretative framework for the pilgrimage of our souls to God and with God. The epiphany season is particularly about the pilgrimage or journey of the understanding with respect to the things of God made manifest in the images and teaching of the eucharistic lessons. They are at the heart of The Book of Common Prayer, itself the heart of Anglican Spirituality, at once reformed and catholic, and as embodying a credal or doctrinal reading of Scripture. It is a good devotional practice, I suggest, to pray and read the Collect, Epistle and Gospel before the service in preparation for hearing and receiving the Word proclaimed and celebrated.
Today’s Gospel presents us with a double healing, the healing of the leper and the Centurion’s servant by Jesus Christ. Epiphany season abounds in miracles. They belong to the making visible of the glory of God. A miracle, after all, is a sign of wonder as we saw, I think, last Sunday. The healing miracles are a wonder. But what exactly do we see? Only the signs of the glory in the effects of what is said and done. The wonder, really, is the wonder of Christ.
Christ heals a leper from within Israel and he heals the paralyzed servant of the Centurion who is part of the Roman military order, literally responsible for one hundred men, but who is from outside Israel. Jesus speaks and he acts. There is healing. The healings are within Israel and beyond Israel; both to those near and those far away in every sense of distance literal and metaphorical, cultural and historical. Through the history and meaning of Israel, the glory of God is not only made known to the world but for the whole world. The leper is healed within the context of Israel and is held to the requirements of the Law in Israel. Yet with the Centurion’s request, Jesus acknowledges something more: there is the wonder of faith which coming out of Israel transcends Israel. “I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel.” For both the leper and the Centurion, Christ is the wonder. There is an epiphany.
Christ is the wonder before he puts forth his hand, even before he speaks. The healing miracles are surprisingly not the glory. They are only the making visible of the glory which is already present in Christ Jesus. He is the glory. And he is the glory which is somehow known and known not just in his effects but in his person.
Month at a Glance, January
(Services in the Hall until Palm Sunday, March 24th)
Thursday, January 25th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club – Parish Hall: ‘To Govern is To Serve: An Essay on Medieval Democracy’, Jacques Dalarun (2012, trans. 2023); and ‘Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State’, Anna Grzymala-Busse (2023). Note the change from Tuesday to Thursday.
Sunday, January 28th, Septuagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Upcoming Event:
The Annual Parish Meeting will be held on Sunday, February 18th following a pot-luck luncheon after the 10:30am service.
The Third Sunday After The Epiphany
The collect for today, the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all our dangers and necessities stretch forth thy right hand to help and defend us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: Romans 12:16b-21
The Gospel: St. Matthew 8:1-13
Artwork: Sebastiano Ricci, Christ Heals the Centurion’s Servant, 1726-29. Oil on canvas, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.