Reflections
Herem Warfare in the Hebrew Bible (Part I)
Fr. Eric Dudley
When I was ten or eleven years old I was seated in a dentist’s office
awaiting my turn in the dreaded chair; I picked up a book from the trove of
magazine offerings and began to look through it. It was a Bible story book, part
of a series, by a fellow named Arthur Maxwell, and this particular volume dealt
with the opening chapters of Genesis. As I flipped through the pages, filled with
dramatic color drawings of Adam and Eve in the Garden, that horrid snake, Cain
and Abel, I came upon a double page of The Flood story! The sky was dark, with
lightening flashes, rain pouring hard, and this huge ark floating along in the sea
of water, with animals of various kinds poking their heads out of wooden
windows. None of this was particularly interesting as I’d seen similar things a
hundred times in Sunday school classrooms, or in small children’s Bibles. But
what I’d never seen pictured before were people in the water crying out for
help. Men, women, and children (I assumed) with distressed faces, hands
reaching up for help, bodies hidden by the deep, dark water. They were
drowning! No, it was worse than that: they were being drowned by God
Himself! I studied that picture for quite some time, considering the horror of it,
the shock of realization. Noah and the Ark was not just about a bunch of cute
animals walking two-by-two up a little ramp into a warm, safe boat; it was
about God’s anger toward humanity! God was so angry with human beings that
He who created them, and just a few short chapters ago said that their creation
was GOOD, was now killing them all- all the people of the earth being drowned
in that dark tumultuous sea except for one little family of eight. Believe me, the
dentist’s chair was nothing after that! That little visit to the dentist’s office
began for me what has been a life-long process of making sense of the Old
Testament in light of the New.
Last year I taught a year-long class on the books of Samuel and Kings, all that
rich history of the establishment, development, and division of the Nation of
Israel, a thousand years before Jesus. A member of the class, an older
gentleman, sitting to my right, was taking careful notes throughout the class.
Week after week, he was taking notes. Then, one evening I glanced over at his
notes and discovered that it was more than notes, it was some kind of running
tabulation of numbers. I paused and asked, “What is all that mathematical work
you’re doing over there?” He said, “Oh, every time God calls the People of
Israel to slaughter some group or other, I write it down. So far it looks like He’s
killed a little over two million.” This was a real cause of consternation for this
man who was still new to the study of Scripture. He had the same questions
that so many of us ask: “How could God order the slaughter of men, women,
and children, over and over?” “Is this the same God as the One who, through
Jesus, calls us to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek, to forgive 70 times
7?” We remember too well the horrific genocide that took place in Rwanda just
a few decades ago, and have heard all too often the threats of Jihad by radical
Islamists; yet, how are the many slaughters demanded by God in the Old
Testament any different?
I am currently teaching a class on the Book of Isaiah, and this past week we
were reading our way through chapters 13-23. Isaiah proclaims God’s judgment
against one nation after another (Baylon, Israel, Assyria, Moab, Damascus,
Egypt, etc.), proclaiming utter destruction. God using, as the vessels of His
judgment, the armies of the nations to destroy one another. Every proclamation
of destruction is as bad, if not worse, than anything that happened in Rwanda.
In one oracle it reads: “…I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for
their iniquity…the earth will be shaken out of its place at the wrath of the LORD
of hosts…whoever is caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in
pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives raped.”
(Isaiah 13:11f.) Does this sound like the Prince of Peace?
Some “scholars” of a more fundamentalist bent will say that it was necessary to
“cleanse” the earth for the establishment of the Chosen People of God (I think
modern-day politicians in Israel obviously agree as they continue to “cleanse”
Gaza). Or some say, it was necessary to “cleanse the Promised Land” in
preparation for the coming of Christ.
Some other “scholars” say that the ancient Hebrews were known for hyperbole,
and that in many places they exaggerate the number. There is no doubt that
hyperbole can be found in both the Old and New Testaments; but, that cannot
be said for every one of the numerous calls to slaughter in the Conquest of
Canaan. And even if it were so, whether we are talking about the slaughter of
1000 people, or just one, the suggestion that God would call on a faithful
follower to murder another human being just doesn’t square with the character
and nature of God that we see in Jesus. Jesus says “Love your enemies!”
“Forgive 70 x 7,” “Turn the other cheek.” Did God change in character and
nature between the Testaments? Is God off the hook for slaughtering men,
women, and children, because He’s God and can’t be expected to abide by the
same principles He holds before us?
Herem Warfare in the Hebrew Bible (Part 2)
Fr. Eric Dudley
“Herem (Cherem) Warfare” is the concept that in some instances God called on
the ancient Hebrews to “devote” an entire city or people group to His honor and
glory. They understood this in the same way they understood the sacrifice of a
lamb or an ox in the context of sacred worship, something entirely given over,
sacrificed, to God. We see this many times in the Conquest of Canaan, but
perhaps most memorably in Joshua 6, regarding the city of Jericho: “As soon as
the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they raised a shout, and the wall
fell down flat; so the people…devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword
all in the city, men and women, children, oxen, sheep, donkeys.” It now seems
rather horrific that I grew up in God’s Church singing joyfully about “Joshua
fought the Battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho; Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho,
and the walls came tumbling down.” Thankfully, as a child, I was unaware of
what happened once those walls came down! The Old Testament is full of these
stories of conquest, as Israel destroys one city after another through bloody
battles, harsh destruction.
A little more than twenty years ago, I was in a weekly Bible study at a local
Jewish Temple. The Rabbi there led the study which was comprised of a half-
dozen Protestant Christian clergy of various denominations. The United States
had just entered the war in Iraq and the Rabbi, like all of us, was feeling the
weight of that sad reality. He said, “You Christian ministers have got to help me!
I want to preach this Sabbath against war, but all of my guys (meaning Moses,
Joshua, Saul, David, etc.) love war; you’re the ones with the guy (Jesus) who
says ‘Turn the other cheek,’ so give me some advice for what I might say.” It
had never really dawned on me, until that moment, how difficult it would be to
preach against violence if all you had to draw from was the Old Testament
(Hebrew Bible). I am not arguing that there are no passages about love, care for
the neighbor, and hospitality toward the foreigner in the Old Testament, but
they are few and far between. So, as I questioned in Part One of this essay, how
do Christians deal with the testimony of warfare that dominates more than half
of the Bible, when the One we call Savior is The Prince of Peace?
Some scholars argue that all those texts that deal with the slaughter of
thousands in the Hebrew Bible must be seen through the lens of hyperbole;
they exaggerate! And these scholars point to the contradictions, here and there,
that claim, on the one hand that all the Canaanites of a village were
slaughtered, but then, on the other hand, you discover later in the text that
there are still Canaanites in that area. This is a very weak argument in my mind,
not only because there are not enough of these examples to counter the
slaughter of thousands, but because even if there was only one instance of such
slaughter (only one person for that matter), it still stands against everything we
know about God in the Person of Christ. Some more conservative scholars
simply state that these people (Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites,
etc.) were an unholy people, and that the “Promised Land” had to be “cleansed”
of unholiness to make way for the Chosen of God.
I am far more persuaded by those scholars who talk about “Progressive
Revelation” as the lens through which we read the Hebrew Bible. In the
Hebrew Bible we discover that far along in the text there is still an
understanding of a multiplicity of gods, despite all the talk of their being only
ONE God. While the ancient Hebrews do come to see Yahweh as the Primary
God, the most powerful of the gods, He is still a God among gods (cf. Exodus
20.3; Pslam 82; Judges 11.24; Exodus 15.11, et.al.), and part of the sin of Israel is
that while they worshiped Yahweh in the Temple, they also went up to the
“High Places” where they made sacrifices to other, lesser gods. Point being, that
it was a slow PROCESS for God to shape and guide the Hebrew people to pure
monotheism. In addition, we discover that it was a slow PROCESS for God to
shape the Hebrew people away from the pagan idea that child sacrifice was
something that appeased God (e.g., Judges 11; 2 Kings 16; 2 Kings 21; 2
Chronicles 28). We also see that God, working through the sacrificial system that
was characteristic of paganism, reshaped it as a way of teaching the Hebrews
the nature of His Holiness and their own unholiness. Finally, we could point to
the way that God slowly works to help the Israelites understand that even their
enemies are loved by God (cf., Jonah; 2 Kings 5; Ezekiel 33.11, etc.), and that His
purpose was made clear to Abraham in His Promise to Bless them SO THAT they
might be His vehicle for the blessing of all the nations of the world.
All of this very slow, progressive revelation lays the groundwork for Jesus
coming “in the fullness of time” (Galatians 4). In the life, teachings, and
death/resurrection of Jesus we see most clearly the nature of this God of Love
who seeks to restore the WHOLE CREATION to Himself. In the Anglican tradition
we stand for the Gospel as it is processed out into the congregation every
Sunday. We process it out to remind us that God in Christ has come among the
people to proclaim His Good News, and we stand to honor the Words of Jesus as
the lens through which all the rest of Scripture is understood. This doesn’t mean
that we do not have great respect and appreciation for the Hebrew Bible, and
the other writings of the New Testament, but it does attest to the fact that we
believe in a “canon within the canon,” i.e., that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, representing the very life and words of Christ, take precedent
over all the other writings of the Bible, and act as the interpretive lens for the
others. Is this not precisely what Jesus was doing in that resurrection
appearance on the road to Emmaus? Interpreting the Hebrew Bible through the
lens of His life, death, and resurrection? (cf. Luke 24)
In terms of how this shapes our understanding of Herem Warfare in the Hebrew
Bible, it says that we believe the God of the Hebrew Bible is the same God who
comes into the world (via the second Person of the Trinity) in the Person of
Jesus. That we see the fullest nature of God in Jesus (“To know Me is to know
the Father… the Father and I are One.” Jn. 10), and so we understand that God
was revealing His nature slowly to primitive, tribal people in a pagan world,
working through their own culture and sin to show them His true nature. And, I
would go a bit further and say, that God continues to work through fallen, frail,
blind human beings to reveal a depth of Love, Wisdom, and Truth that we are
slow to understand.
RECONCILIATION (Part 1)
Fr. Eric Dudley
Is reconciliation something you think about a lot? Is it in any way a primary focus of your daily life? If not, perhaps it should be, at least for all of us who call ourselves followers of Christ. So what is reconciliation? In simple terms it is restoring a relationship that has been broken. Etymologically the Latin translates: To recover, to repair, to put right. We could say, then, that the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ is summed up in that one word: Reconciliation. God has come into the world in the Person of Jesus to reconcile the world to Himself. To recover the love; to repair the broken relationship, to put right what is wrong with His fallen creation.
As we move to the end of Lent, toward Good Friday and Easter, it seems that some consideration of reconciliation is appropriate.
2 Corinthians 5: 17f. “So if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” NRSV
Colossians 1: 19f. “For in (Christ) all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him God was pleased to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His Cross.” NRSV
I was in a parish more than 30 years ago where I came to know two very bright, very organized, strong-willed women; and, they were always at each other! One of them was the Chair of the Altar Guild (we will call her Jean), and in that parish Chair of the Altar Guild was high office! Unless your great-great grandma had been a member of that Altar Guild, you didn’t stand a chance. But the other woman was Chair of Women’s Ministry (we will call her Tammy), which meant to her that ALL of the women of the church served under her, including the women of the Altar Guild!
These two women were always undermining each other, in constant competition, and creating absolutely unnecessary battles in committee meetings. They had a long history of hurtful words and intentional sleights that had led to deep wounds. Outside of committee meetings they never spoke to each other. But as God would have it, their sons were best friends!
The boys were the same age, and grew up playing basketball on the same team, attending team practices, team trips, and working out in the gym together. They were close, and went in and out of one another’s homes like family; they even became roommates in college. In their sophomore year, they were in a fraternity house for a big house party where there was far too much drinking. A couple of fraternity members of a rival fraternity tried to crash their party and a big fight broke out. In the midst of this fight one of the fraternity brothers pulled out a gun and fired a couple of shots; one of those bullets hit Jean’s son, Jean who was Chair of the Altar Guild. An ambulance was called, but the boy died before they got him to the hospital. His best friend, Tammy’s son, went home and locked himself in his bedroom, devastated by the loss.
The church was packed for the funeral, one the largest we’d ever had, students filling at least half of the nave. Tammy attended the funeral, sitting in her normal seat on the opposite side of the church from Jean. Tammy participated in the liturgy, heard the prayers, mumbled her way through the songs, but could only think that this could just as easily have been her son. When the family processed out of the church Tammy couldn’t help but look up to see Jean’s face: she was gaunt, ashen, empty. Tammy slid out by the side aisle, and pushed her way through to get out to the churchyard where I was standing with the family as the casket was being loaded into the hearse. Tammy pushed past me and went immediately to Jean, threw her arms around her neck, and the two of them stood there with their head’s on one another’s shoulders, crying. I could only think: what a sad thing that it took the death of a child for these two Christian women to let go of all that petty rivalry.
I have seen a lot of division in God’s Church over the course of forty years in ministry: a lot of pettiness; a lot of ego-driven competition; a lot of behind-the-scenes manipulation. Most of the division I’ve witnessed was superficial in nature, like so many arguments between husbands and wives. But sometimes the brokenness that happens is not the result of something inconsequential, not when it’s caused by disrespect or hate; by abuse; by infidelity; by a selfishness that smothers love. When these sorts of things are at the heart of the break, reconciliation becomes much more complicated; then it takes something bigger than what caused the break, something more weighty, something more powerful to open that heavy door to reconciliation, something perhaps like the death of that boy.
Reconciliation is the heart of the Gospel.
RECONCILIATION (Part 2)
Fr. Eric Dudley
I wrote an essay just before Easter about the key role of reconciliation for those who have chosen to follow Jesus. Now, we find ourselves well into the Season of Pentecost, a time when we celebrate God’s Spirit raising up and empowering the Church to be the Body of Christ upon the earth, continuing His work of reconciliation. God, in the Cross of Christ, has shown us how far He is willing to go to restore us to His loving purposes by overcoming the power of sin and death, and by the giving of the Holy Spirit has empowered us to continue that work of reconciliation.
Why is reconciliation even a thing? Why do we Christians think it is such a big part of our life in Christ? We believe, based on Scripture and the experiences of our daily lives, that something is lacking, something is wrong, and Scripture tells us that what is wrong is that we are not in harmony with the One who made us. As with any human relationship, when we hurt each other, we damage the relationship, we undermine the foundation of love and trust. When we turn from God, disregarding His purposes in creation, we do not only harm the relationship, we cut ourselves off from the very Source of Life. St. Augustine put forth the idea that we experience restlessness, emptiness when we are separated from our Maker. Sometimes this is talked about as having a God-shaped hole in our hearts that only God can fill. Christians feel the rub of this reality when we confess that “I Believe” in God, that “I love the Lord,” but continue to hate certain other people, to see ourselves as better than some others, as we refuse to forgive those who have hurt us. We build walls that keep us from God and keep Him from us. He seeks to break down those walls, and we keep building them up.
We see such a clear example of this in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. Corinth was a major seaport for trade, so it was a very metropolitan place: a kind of melting pot, with sailors and merchants from other countries everywhere you turned. People poured into Corinth for the Isthmian Games; not as well known as the Olympics, but nonetheless a very popular pan-hellenic competition every two years. People also came seeking healing at the large spa dedicated to the god of healing, Asclepius; some stayed for weeks or even months hoping to be healed. There were five large temples dedicated to various gods: Apollos, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Athena, and Hermes. Corinth was a kind of sin-city like New York City back in the 1970s , and Paul was the kind of missionary who went straight into the mouth of the lion! He thought if he could establish a strong presence for Christ in a place like Corinth it would have a significant impact in the larger Greco-Roman world. But, as we know, Paul had a life-long struggle with that church whose members were always at odds with each other; divisions of every sort! It was like the recent fires in California, as soon as Paul had one under control another would break out. There was the Jewish-Gentile division; the rich-poor division; the division over morality and life in Christ; division about whether or not you could eat food offered to idols; a division over who was baptized by whom and whether one person’s baptism conferred more status and power than another.
Paul becomes very frustrated with these Corinthian Christians and tells them that they are like baby Christians: superficial in their commitments, and blind to the true meaning of the Gospel! Paul had hoped that this group of Christians would become so deeply rooted in their faith in Christ that they would reflect the Light of Christ brightly into the dark realities of Corinth. But it doesn’t happen; they don’t have the Christian maturity for it. They are so caught up in their own egos, their own needs for power and importance that they stumble about from one division to another, making God’s Church look like any other human enterprise; and why would anyone be drawn to that?
So Paul writes them a letter, a sermon really, telling them that because of what God has done for us in the Cross of Christ, we who believe, who accept His transforming Grace, are made into new people who see through new eyes. We no longer see each other they way the world sees (summing people up based on wealth, power, pedigree, etc); we aren’t in competition with each other- the old way of seeing is gone! We now see with the eyes of Christ, with eyes of love and mercy, kindness and forgiveness. Because we are ONE in Christ we can no longer allow divisions between us. Whatever hurts we have experienced from one another, whatever sleight we may feel, whatever jealousy, or annoyance, we let it go; it means nothing, because we have been reconciled as ONE PEOPLE in CHRIST!
Who is going to believe the Gospel we profess if it isn’t even visible in the lives of those who profess it? How can we not be reconciled to each other? How can we not daily seek reconciliation with all those in our lives: family members who are difficult; friendships that have been damaged or broken; reconciliation with bosses who have mistreated us; reconciliation with people who are different from us, whether by race, creed or color; reconciliation with people with whom we disagree politically?
Paul says, “God has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation…,” making us ambassadors for Christ out in the world. We should not only be spreading the Good News of God’s reconciling purposes, but that we should be examples of it!
Based on my experience, a million different things can cause division; but, only one thing prevents reconciliation: EGO. It is our lack of humility, an unwillingness to let go of hurt, anger, and unforgiveness that maintains our broken relationships, with God and with others.
Faith and Politics Fr. Eric Dudley
When I was growing up, my mother, like many others across the country, had a rule that at the dinner table you could not discuss religion or politics. Because both religion and politics carry so much importance in our lives, we can become very passionate about them to the point of argument, anger, and division, even among family. I know of a man who has not spoken to his brother in eight years because of a political argument that got ugly and created hurt and resentment. I know of a woman who got fired from her job because she kept bringing up touchy political topics and creating chaos at work. I had a parishioner ten years ago who left the parish because I would not agree to endorse a political candidate from the pulpit.
I’ve been reading two really interesting books lately that do much, in my opinion, to give clarity and guidance to Christian people in the midst of the current political upheaval in our country. The first book is titled, “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory” by Tim Alberta, a staff writer for the Atlantic, and perhaps more importantly, a man raised by a father who was the lead pastor at a very large evangelical Christian church that began to tear at the seams over issues of presidential politics. Alberta takes us through the beginnings of the “Moral Majority”, to Ralph Reed’s “Faith and Freedom Coalition”, and into the many large evangelical congregations where senior clergy are using their pulpits to shape and control people for the sake of hardnosed politics.
The second book is a bit more philosophical in nature, but enormously helpful for taking the knowledge gained in Alberta’s book and applying it in a way that reflects the nature and character of Christ. This book is titled, “Love Your Enemies” by Arthur C. Brooks, who headed the American Enterprise Institute, and now teaches at Harvard. Brooks is a Christian, and a conservative, but is deeply concerned about what he calls a “culture of contempt.” What he means by this is that we are living in a highly politicized culture where we cannot simply agree to disagree over political issues, but must hold those with whom we disagree in utter contempt. It seems that all political disagreement these days is advanced with high-pitched rhetoric that not only diminishes the
argument of those with whom we disagree, but diminishes the people with whom we disagree. If someone takes the opposite position on the issue of immigration, abortion, Israel, or any number of other hot topics, we seem unable to engage reasonably or respectfully. We must, rather, regard them as “stupid” or “evil,” and utterly unworthy of our respect and care. This book has real depth for Christians, and calls us to seek to love those with whom we disagree by listening to what they have to say, seeking earnestly to understand their prospective, and then disagreeing, if we do, in a way that maintains respect for them as fellow human beings. I would sum up the book as encouraging us, when we find ourselves in a political disagreement, to see the other person as more important than the issue at hand. No one was ever convinced to change their perspective because of an argument.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus, on the night before His crucifixion, prayed a very long prayer for His followers (John 17), and the heart of that prayer was that we might “all be one.” That above everything else, there would be a unity among those who follow Him, a unity that finds its’ roots in love. As the United States continues to tear itself apart over political arguments of one kind or another, how might the Christian Church set a different tone? How could we act as the Presence of a Living Lord, reflecting His Grace and Love, in the midst of such hatred and division? Perhaps by refusing to be drawn into it; by not allowing those on my side of the argument to get away with hateful language toward those on the other side; by disagreeing in such a way that it honors Christ by loving the person with whom I disagree. What would American politics look like if all American Christians, of every denomination, refused to play the game of hate ?
ADVENT: A Time to Prepare
Fr. Eric Dudley
Christian churches that follow the Liturgical Year find ourselves in Advent, which is the first season of the year. There are two major feasts (celebrations) in the liturgical calendar: The Feast of the Resurrection (Easter), and The Feast of the Incarnation (Christmas), and there are additional seasons that prepare us for these celebrations (Advent and Lent), and that flow from these celebrations (Epiphany and Pentecost) The word “Advent” comes from the Latin “to come” and during this season we focus on Jesus’ first coming into the world through Mary, as well as His anticipated second coming. Many churches use blue vestments during this season of Advent because in artwork, through the ages, Mary is identifiable not just because a halo is painted above her head (that is done with other saints as well), but because she is in blue. In the ancient world blue cloth was very expensive, indicative of royalty, and in the Old Testament the Ark of the Covenant was covered with blue cloth as though enshrouded in the power of Heaven. Mary is a kind of Ark carrying within her the Word of God.
During this season Mary and John- the- Baptist are primary actors, representing the themes of waiting, and preparing. In the midst of all the chaos and hullabaloo of the secular Christmas season, the Church attempts, through Advent, to slow us down, focus us on the heart of Christmas, and help us, in Godly ways, to learn how to wait and prepare. Mary represents that image of faithful waiting: the pregnant mother who realizes that the life that is in her is beyond her control, as is the time of delivery; so, she patiently waits on the Lord, trusting Him to shape and deliver this child into the world.
Most of us, I think, struggle with the reality of waiting. Our world is so fast-paced and demanding that the least amount of waiting creates anxiety, frustration, and anger. I had a friend recently who was furious that his Amazon package did not come the day after he ordered it! We want what we want NOW! In this frenzied world, it is important for Christians to learn anew how to wait, because in waiting for God we are reminded that we are not in charge; we learn to trust Him for the future that we cannot control or manipulate; we learn to stop, listen, and look for His guidance and purpose. Learning to wait for God, rather than simply rushing forward with our own desires and purposes, is at its’ heart, a matter of faith.
But Advent isn’t just about waiting, it’s about preparing as we wait. One of the key passages of Advent is from John’s Gospel where John -the- Baptist, crying in the wilderness says, “Prepare the Way of the Lord.” We are called not only to live daily in a state of preparedness for the consummation of history (when God brings history to its’ fulfillment as He restores the Heavens and the Earth to His purposes), but to prepare this Advent to receive Christ anew at the coming of Christmas.
The beginning of the Church Year is about resetting our lives, refocusing our priorities before moving forward into a new calendar year. This is a time when we examine our hearts to see where we have moved off course; where we have lost our love and joy for serving the Lord. This is a time for confessing our sins, seeking to recommit to our baptismal vows, to realign our lives with the Life of Jesus, as we seek to love those different from ourselves, to forgive those who have hurt us, and to care for those less fortunate than we. But we don’t go through this process of learning to wait for God, and recommitting ourselves to modeling our lives after Jesus, just to give it all up once Christmas has passed and the decorations are back in the attic. We go through this process with the hope and intention that as we are faced with all the challenges and hardships that may come with a new year, we are so solidly rooted in Christ that our ability to wait, trust, and prepare, will carry us through.
The Meaning of Epiphany
Fr. Eric Dudley
“Epiphany” is an odd word that doesn’t get used very much in our daily vocabularies, but it’s an important word in God’s Church. Together with Christmas and Easter, Epiphany is among the most important celebrations in worldwide Christianity. After the 12 Days of Christmas (December 25-January 5) the Season of Epiphany begins with the Feast of Epiphany, on January 6th . The word Epiphany comes from the Greek, and means “to reveal” or “to show forth.” In the context of Christianity, it has to do with the revelation that Jesus is the Son of God who has come into the world as a gift of love and grace for all people. The primary Scripture lessons during this season are the visitation of the Wise Men (Jesus for the Greeks and not just the Jews); the Baptism (Jesus revealed as the very Son of God, God incarnate in the world); and the first miracle of Jesus at the wedding at Cana in Galilee (the water is turned to wine, a symbol of the new wine of God’s Grace that is being revealed, in anticipation of the ultimate purpose of Jesus, “The marriage feast of the Lamb” when God restores the whole creation to Himself).
The Season of Epiphany stretches from the end of Christmas to Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of Lent. The primary symbol and theme of Epiphany is light, because“Jesus is the Light of the World.” This is an important truth for Christians as it reminds us that Jesus didn’t come into the world just for Jews, or just for those Gentiles who converted and became Christians, but for the whole world. From the beginning, as God reached out to form a relationship with Abraham and his progeny, He promised that He would use the family of Abraham (Israel) as a vessel to draw the whole world to Himself; to restore His creation to the beauty, love, and harmony for which it was created, and to an intimate relationship with Himself. God’s love for all people is a Truth that can be found in both the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible), and the New Testament. We see, for example, in the Book of Jonah, how God called Jonah to go to the people of Nineveh (the hated enemy of Israel) to call them to a relationship with God. Jonah was not excited about this, and in fact hoped for their destruction. Near the end of the book, God says to Jonah, in essence, that He gave life to the Ninevites and cares for them as well as the people of Israel. Similarly, in the New Testament, we see Jesus engaging pagans (the Roman soldier whose servant He healed; the
Syro-Phonesian woman whose daughter He healed; the Samaritan Woman at the Well- Samaritans were seen by Jews as being little more than pagan) with warmth and kindness, knowing that God loves them too.
The revelation that the God of Christianity loves and cares for the whole world is a loving and joyous proclamation that needs to be heard today as much as it did in the first century. There is such hatred and division in the world, and all too often Christianity contributes to that hatred and division, rather than acting as a bridge of loving kindness. Those who claim to follow Jesus are charged with acting as “the Body of Christ” still upon the earth (Jesus is no longer with us physically, but has sent His Spirit to dwell within us and use us as His vessel), continuing the work of Jesus, a work of reconciling love. To spread the Light of Epiphany is not to use that light to hate and condemn others, it is to allow that Light to so penetrate our hearts that we become instruments of God’s Love.
What is The Purpose of the Season of Lent?
Fr. Eric Dudley
In the Christian Church there are two basic liturgical cycles that shape the annual calendar. The first is a cycle with the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas) at the heart of it, and the second is a cycle with the Feast of the Resurrection (Easter) at the heart of it. Each cycle has a season that anticipates the Principal Feast, and each cycle has a season that succeeds the Principal Feast. For Christmas, the season that anticipates it is Advent (a time of preparation for the coming of Christ), and the season that succeeds it is Epiphany (a time that represents the carrying forth of the Light of Christ to those beyond Israel). For Easter, the season that anticipates it is Lent (a season of repentance and preparation), and the season that succeeds it is Pentecost (a season that celebrates the Power of the Holy Spirit raising up the Church to spread the Love and Joy of Christ throughout the world). The purpose in having a liturgical calendar is so that Christians are marking their lives, keeping time, by following the life of Jesus, rather than just secular celebrations. The idea is that rather than having our lives shaped primarily by President’s Day, the Fourth of July, etc., our lives are primarily shaped by the Life of the Lord. We begin the year with Advent, anticipating His birth, and then follow the development of His life all the way around to the next Advent, such that all the Scripture lessons read through the year correspond to the liturgical calendar and keep pace with the developments of His life.
As I write this we are about to enter the season of Lent. Lent, as I’ve indicated, is a season of repentance (not that repentance is neglected the rest of the year, but that it’s emphasized as we anticipate the crucifixion of Jesus); it’s a time when we step back to take stock of our lives, in relation to the Life of Christ, and to look more deeply at those things that keep us from being fully God’s. Lent lasts for 40 days (reflecting the 40 days that the Lord was in the desert after His baptism, being tempted by Satan). These 40 days begin with Ash Wednesday (a service at which we are both reminded of our mortality and dependence on God- “ashes to ashes”-and of God’s Grace, as the ashes are placed in the form of the cross of Christ), and end with the first Eucharist of Easter. If you count these days on a calendar you’ll find that to get 40 days, you actually skip all the Sundays, as Sundays in the Church are always seen as Celebrations of the Resurrection. The liturgical color that dominates Lent is the color purple, reminding us that in the midst of His Passion they placed a purple robe on Jesus (making fun of Him by calling Him “King of the Jews”). During this season no bells are rung in church, the word “alleluia” is not said, no flowers are placed on the altar (though greenery is allowed), and no festive celebrations are held. It is a time to focus deeply on what God has done in the cross of Christ; a time to consider what it meant for God to become incarnate, to suffer, and to die, out of love for us. This is a time to ask earnestly if our lives have been truly shaped by that love; whether they reflect the gratitude that should be a proper response to such sacrificial love. It is, in other words, a time to prepare for New Life, to be resurrected in the way we live, as we celebrate the joyous Resurrection of our Lord on Easter Day.
One very important part of this season on which I have not focused in this brief essay, is what we call “Holy Week,” that last week that begins with Palm Sunday, follows with Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and finally, Easter. Each of these days has its’ own significance, underscoring the final hours of the Lord’s life (Palm Sunday, His final entrance into Jerusalem; Maundy Thursday, the Last Supper and the washing of feet; Good Friday, the somber focus on the crucifixion; and, Holy Saturday, oftentimes marked by a Vigil- a long service that begins at night in the dark, but moves into bright light, celebrating the First Eucharist of Easter).
The longstanding practice of liturgical seasons in God’s Church is simply a disciplined effort to have our lives more shaped by the Lord than by the world.