For the FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT, Pastor Bestian continues his series, "How to Be Confident in Uncertain Times," a study on II Corinthians 4–5, with the message, "Be Certain: The Best is Yet to Be."
Tom Miles is Director of Contemporary Worship and Office Manager at Saint John’s. You can reach him at the church office Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, at 482-5316, or via email.
March 1 is the day Lutherans commemorate George Herbert, at 17th century poet whose works have been adopted into the Christian hymnody. A favorite: THE CALL.
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
And such a Life, as killeth death.
Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.
Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joyes in love.
Here are the rehearsal tracks for the Festival Choir music for Transfiguration Sunday. You can listen online (hit the play button!) or download the song to your computer (right-click and select "Download this song").
We rehearse next Sunday, February 7, at 9:00 am, right after the Classic Grace service. We'd like to start as soon as possible, so we'll have some coffee and donuts up in the sanctuary for you to enjoy. Skip the line!
We'll also rehearse on Thursday, February 11, at 5:30 pm in the Sanctuary.
This February, we will see yet again the abrupt transition from Epiphany to Lent, going with Jesus from the Mountain of the Transfiguration to the path to Jerusalem and the cross. It’s instructive to consider how and why we move so quickly from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry to the end.
In the lectionary—the standardized collection of readings that we use for worship—we experience the three-year ministry of Jesus with each of the synoptic Evangelists in turn. In Year A, we travel through Matthew’s Gospel, and dwell in the teachings of Jesus, especially those from the Sermon on the Mount. Mark, who frequently uses the word “immediately,” rushes us through Year B with a sense of urgency. We are led in Year C by the doctor, Luke, who methodically recounts the life of Jesus.
The chronological flow of the Lectionary is diverted through the flood gates of the Ecclesiastical seasons. The church year is divided into a special calendar that runs from Advent through Christ the King Sunday. Advent ends with Christmas. The twelfth day of Christmas is Epiphany. The time after Epiphany ends with a celebration of the Transfiguration, which leads into Ash Wednesday and Lent. The forty days of Lent end with the Easter cycle: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Sunday of the Resurrection, the climax of the church year. The Easter Season lasts for fifty days, until Pentecost. The season after Pentecost begins with Trinity Sunday, stretches across the summer and fall through All Saints Day to Christ the King Sunday at the end of November.
February sits at the intersection of two seasons: Epiphany and Lent. We will return to Luke’s account of Jesus’ ministry this Summer, but the narrative flow following the early part of Jesus’ ministry is now interrupted that we may begin the stories of Lent.
And, in a way, it’s fitting. What better time to begin preparing ourselves for the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus than after seeing Him revealed to us as our Lord and King, fully God and fully human, in Epiphany? It gives us a keen awareness of who it is who goes to the cross on our behalf: God’s own Son, Almighty God Himself, Emmanuel!
Epiphany is a season of revelation and realization, when Jesus overturns expectations to show us how His kingdom really works.
Take the story of Epiphany itself, when, through the visit of the magi, it is revealed that Jesus came to save not just the Jewish people to whom he was born, but to make all humanity God’s chosen people. Who in this little town of Bethlehem would have thought that this infant would change the world?
Or how about the first miracle that Jesus performed, at a wedding in Cana (John 2:1–11)? Once again, He is upsetting the normal course of things. In “God in the Dock,” C.S. Lewis observes that miracles are often God short-circuiting the natural processes that He created—natural processes that are His, therefore, to do with as He pleases! “Each miracle writes for us in small letters something that God has already written, or will write, in letters almost too large to be noticed, across the whole canvas of nature.” Every day, God turns water into wine with a grape vine, which takes up water from the ground to create, out of it and other nutrients, sugar-rich grapes that ferment into wine. It’s a mundane process to us, but it must seem so overly-complicated to Jesus, who carries the whole thing out without so much as a wave of the hand!
St. Luke makes it clear early in his Gospel that Jesus is not being accepted in His hometown. His family, friends and neighbors must have wondered about this boy who was visited by wise men in His infancy and spoke like a wise man (Luke 2:41–50) in His adolescence. When Jesus gets up in front of the people one day and announces “Today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing,” it’s no surprise that the congregation, rather than shouting, “Amen,” ask, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” and begin carrying out the punishment for heresy.
Jesus came was born into this world to save us from ourselves: our sin and our evil ways. Should we be surprised that He has to “break a few eggs” in the process? As we worship our King this Epiphany, hearing the expected stories and singing the expected songs, think about how Jesus is moving in unexpected ways in your heart and in your life!
