11 January

Dear Friends.

At the high point of Jesus’ baptism, something remarkable happens:

“Just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’”

“This is my Son” could well serve as a refrain for the season of Epiphany. Epiphany is the time of the church year when we are invited to see Jesus. To see Jesus as he truly is. First, as a baby lying in a crib, God becoming human in the most unlikely of circumstances. Then, as God revealing Godself in our daily lives, just as God did to the shepherds, the Magi, and so many others.

Perhaps this season of Epiphany invites you to reflect on the question: who is Jesus to me? In Matthew 16, Jesus asks this question directly to his disciples: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” Their answers sound familiar even today: “Some say John the Baptist; others Elijah; still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Jesus has often been compared to great figures of the past, a good moral example, someone who lived long ago, an ethical guide, or a prophet. But the conversation doesn’t end there. Jesus goes deeper and asks them more directly: 

“But who do you say that I am?”

This is the question we are called to face during Epiphany: who do you say that I am? One helpful way of going about answering this question may be to write your own credo, your own confession of who Jesus is to you. Our second reading for Sunday, Isaiah 42:1–9, though written several centuries before Jesus was born, offers a good starting point for confessing Jesus in our world today:

Take a good look at my (God’s) servant.

I’m backing him to the hilt.

He’s the one I chose,

and I couldn’t be more pleased with him.

I’ve bathed him with my Spirit, my life.

He’ll set everything right among the nations.

He won’t call attention to what he does

with loud speeches or gaudy parades.

He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt

and he won’t disregard the small and insignificant,

but he’ll steadily and firmly set things right.

He won’t tire out and quit. He won’t be stopped

until he’s finished his work—to set things right on earth.

Far-flung ocean islands

wait expectantly for his teaching.

Marius Louw