Happy Feast of the Epiphany! Christmas ended last evening with Twelfth Night, and today, like clockwork, the light dawns, insight floods us and we see it all clearly, right?
There are a number of bible passages associated with Epiphany – Jesus’ birth, his first miracle at Cana, the wise men and their star – and the story we are examining this week, Jesus’ baptism, which gave rise to the premiere rite of initiation into the Christian church. Holy Baptism is one of two main sacraments accepted by most Christian traditions (two points to the person who can name the other…). The Feast of the Epiphany seems like a good day to talk about sacraments – for they are Signs which reveal the hidden realm of God and make it discernible in our day-to-day world. They allow for multiple epiphanies.
The Prayer Book catechism defines a sacrament as “an outward and visible sign of an inward, invisible grace.” Something is enacted on the outside – what liturgical scholars call a “Sign Event,” and we believe by faith that the Holy Spirit accomplishes transforming work within us as we move through that rite. The material “signs” in baptism are water and oil, as well as the baptismal candidate and the gathered Body of Christ. The “signs” in Holy Communion are water and wine and the gathered Body. And the Holy Spirit is the one doing the work. We just show up with our faith.
The major sacraments of the Church are those rites which we believe Jesus himself instituted – the Eucharistic meal at the Last Supper (“Do this in remembrance of me…”), and Baptism in the Great Commission recorded in Matthew 28 (“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”). Personally, I’m pretty sure he also commanded his followers to wash each others feet regularly as a mark of servanthood and union with himself (John 13), but only the Moravians do that more than once a year, more’s the pity…
The ancients referred to sacraments as “the Holy Mysteries,” because in them the unseen reality of God is made known in human flesh, as it was more fully in Jesus’ incarnate life. They are ways for us to touch and taste and feel God, to draw as near as possible to the presence of the divine. We believe they are effective for us whether or not we’re conscious – but how much more powerful for us when we open ourselves to experiencing God in them!
How do you experience sacraments? In addition to the two major ones, some churches include confirmation, marriage, anointing the sick, confession and rites at the time of death. Can you recall a time when you had a transcendent experience during baptism or communion or another rite? What were the circumstances?
If your experience is not earth-shaking (mine rarely is), what is the dominant feeling you associate with these holy rituals? We might pray before we participate, “Jesus – make yourself known to me.” Or “Holy Spirit, fill me.” Or “God of heaven and earth, draw near to me.” And trust that God showed up, whether or not we felt it.
Martin Luther had a slightly different definition of a sacrament – “rites which have the command of God and to which the promise of grace has been added.” Grace is God's unconditional promise to us! Sacraments are an invitation into an encounter with the grace of God. Our epiphanies dawn as we become aware of just how powerfully that grace has made us whole.
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