Arise shine, YOUR light has come. On this Epiphany Sunday, it’s like the words of Isaiah are saying to us Christians: “OK, you have passed through Advent and lit the candles of hope, peace, joy and love in anticipation of the celebrated birth of Jesus. You have gathered on Christmas Eve and lit more candles and proclaimed the light of God that even the darkness cannot put out. you have gathered around the manger and pondered the mystery of God’s incarnation—of being born—in the baby Jesus and how amazing that is remembering of course that it’s the tradition’s way of inviting you to be aware that you are also the embodiment of God’s presence—the hands and feet of Christ. Then, if your household is like mine, we collapsed into the week between Christmas and New Years—perhaps still frantically working the kitchen, cleaning, travelling, eating and drinking, enjoying family time. And then we land on Epiphany with Isaiah’s words. It’s as if the prophet is wondering, “OK you have done all that. Now what are you going to do about it? Arise, shine, YOUR light has come. The glory of the LORD has risen upon you…. Lift up your eyes, look around.....
While this is an awesome text post Christmas. I think it would be even more fun to read on Groundhog Day imagining the returning spring light as we drift out of winter’s hibernation. But let’s not get too far from the point. I believe that Isaiah’s words are intended to help us bask in God’s light of hope and promise and vision. Our light has come. The Prophet’s invitation is to lift up our eyes and look around.
This is especially significant for our congregation. We have weathered the past 5 years of our own version of exile and return post disaster. We have suffered emotional losses, material losses, human losses and physical losses to be sure. We are finding our way home to a new kind of normalcy how ever we understand that and now, in this season of Epiphany—the season when the tradition remembers and points to God’s revelation in the newborn Christ—we enter God’s light arising and shining upon us. It’s the time when we move more deeply and intentionally into our spiritual identity as God’s people living our faith and compassion in community as a congregation. It’s the time when we own what we say and do, proclaim it, and reconstitute ourselves for a life in mission and ministry together.