May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all
our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
As you should
all know by now, we are in the process of bringing two parishes together in one
new parish. Right now we have the Parish
of Touchwood Trail and the Parish of Holy Faith. These two parishes have existed side by side
in this area of the Diocese of Qu’Appelle.
Now we are working to come together under as one group of the followers
of Christ; several communities with one shared mission and vision of our
purpose here in this area. As part of
this process we need to choose a name for the new parish which reflects our
sense of purpose and the spiritual direction and needs which we see in our future.
As a starting
point, I gave a very short summary of the meaning of the names of each of the
churches which are or have been part of our parishes. I apologise for leaving out All Saints –
Katepwa. I accidentally left it out of
the list. I will include their summary
in next month’s parish in print.
Throughout the Easter season, we will be looking at various saints and
festivals. My hope is that by the time
we reach Pentecost we will be ready to ask the Spirit’s guidance so that our
new parish name may reflect who we are and what we do both here and throughout
all of our communities.
This week we are
looking at the feasts of Epiphany and Transfiguration and at the
Resurrection. For Epiphany and the
Transfiguration I will read their entry from For All the Saints. There is no entry for the Resurrection which
we commonly call Easter, but we just talked about that last week.
The Epiphany
of the Lord 6 January
Principal
Feast
January
Today we
commemorate an episode which is recorded in the Gospel according to Matthew —
the epiphany or “manifestation” of Christ to “wise men from the East.” Such
“wise men” were the high priests of an occult religion whose chief centres lay
in Mesopotamia. They were supposed to have special insight into the ways of
nature, interpreting dreams and reading the stars in order to determine the
will of their gods. But then the appearance of a strange star in the heavens
manifested to them the birth of “the one who is born king of the Jews.” So much
their learning in the ways of nature told them; but they needed to go to
Jerusalem, to those who were learned in the Jewish Scriptures, in order to
locate this king. In Matthew’s view, true knowledge of salvation was from the
Jews, but it was a knowledge now available to the Gentiles as well. The star of
Bethlehem was an evangelical symbol. Because it manifested Christ to the wise
men and brought them to worship him, it represents the proclamation of the
Gospel to the pagan nations outside Israel. If the star of Bethlehem symbolizes
the Gospel, the wise men symbolize something equally important — the obedience
of the Gentiles, in contrast to the anxiety of the rulers and official teachers
of Israel. The wise men started with nothing more than their learning in the
ways of nature; and yet this same learning enabled them to respond to the light
of divine revelation. The Christian tradition has seen in this story a sign of
hope for everything that humans know and endeavour by the light of nature. For
it means that no truth or wisdom in the created order is contrary to the
revelation of God in Christ. On the contrary, so far as humans are obedient to
the light they possess by nature, God will complete it and manifest its
fulfillment with “the truth as it is in Jesus.”
If we were to call ourselves
the Parish of the Epiphany, we would be defining ourselves as people who
believe that God walks among us as a human being. We would be devoting ourselves to the search
for Christ in everyone we meet and within ourselves. It would be a commitment to treating everyone
equally regardless of their origin or background. It would also mean a reverence for nature as
a source of God’s message to us.
The
Transfiguration of the Lord 6 August
Holy Day
August
An account of
Jesus’ transfiguration on the mount is included in each of the first three
Gospels, and in each one it serves as an epiphany, a manifestion of the truth
that Jesus is not only the messenger of salvation but also the saving message
itself. Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain, where they beheld his
figure clothed in dazzling glory and his conference with Moses and Elijah.
Moses was the servant of God who received the divine covenant and delivered it
to Israel; while the prophet Elijah was expected to come again and inaugurate the
end of the ages, when Israel would be restored and vindicated in the sight of
all the nations. The vision of Jesus conversing with these two figures revealed
that he was the third founder of Israel and, as God’s very Son, the fulfillment
of all the promises made in the Law and the Prophets. The Transfiguration also
foreshadowed the still greater event of resurrection, and it gave a foresight
of what salvation and the life of glory would be like. The evangelists all
began their accounts of the Transfiguration by focusing on Jesus’ clothing. It
was not stripped off him, as it would be at the crucifixion; instead it was
almost unbearably enhanced. Saint Paul would pick up on this image in his
Second Letter to the Corinthians, where he spoke of the Christian hope in these
terms: “While we are in this earthly tent we sigh with anxiety; not that we
would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is
mortal may be swallowed up by life.” Elsewhere he would speak of “putting on
Christ” and of “being clothed with Christ.” Salvation, then, will not be a
stripping away of what makes us human, but a donning of the vesture of glory;
and the vesture of the blessed will be nothing other than the life of the risen
Christ himself.
If we were to call ourselves
the Parish of the Transfiguration, we would be defining ourselves as people who
believe that God is revealed to us in everything around us. It would be a commitment to bringing out the
divine in ourselves and in others. It
would mean that we intend to work to show that the Kingdom of God is already
here in our midst and to strengthen that Kingdom every time we encounter it.
If we were to call ourselves
the Parish of the Resurrection, we would be defining ourselves as people who
believe that there is always hope. We
would be committed to the message that death has no power. Just as we are baptised into Christ’s death
so that we can rise with him into new life, our two parishes will die to make
way for the new life of Christ’s eternal message of hope and love here in our
communities.
All three of these feasts
are, in their own way, about new life or rebirth. All three would be powerful names which could
set us on the road to a future of purpose and mission in our new parish. All three describe a life of discipleship
which should be part of our basic Christian lives. I hope that this decision will not be an easy
one. It should require prayer and
discussion and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
So I pray:
Holy and Gracious God, be
with us as we do our best to discern where you are calling us as a new
parish. Give us your support and your
guidance that we may know our part in your purpose here in our communities and
how you wish us to show our love for you in our lives. This we ask through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
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