A grandmother dies unexpectedly. A middle school student learns she has cancer. A friend is hospitalized. Another friend becomes weak and homebound. A senior citizen suffers a heart attack while on vacation. A baby is born 3 months prematurely. A family member is murdered.
These are all events that have happened recently to Epiphany members or friends and family of our members.
So why do these kinds of bad things happen to us?
I used to raise chickens as a child on my parents’ farm. We had three chicken coops full. One coop was full of Leghorns which were good for laying eggs. The second coop was full of Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, and Barred Rocks for butchering. The third coop was full of our show birds for 4-H – Black Cochins, Yokohama and Polish chickens.
When you study Scripture, you realize that God really seems to like mountains. After the flood, Noah’s ark comes to rest on Mt. Ararat. Abraham has his knife raised ready to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mt. Moriah. God gives Moses His Ten Commandments and shines in His glory on Mt. Moriah. God burns up Elijah’s sacrifice among the 450 prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. Jesus gives His beatitudes on a mountain. Jesus prays in the garden on the Mt. of Olives. Jesus dies for the sins of the world on Mt. Calvary. Jesus ascends into heaven from a mountain.
The residents of Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth thought they knew better than the Son of God who was standing in their midst. Jesus had come home. The Nazarenes had heard about all the great miracles Jesus had been doing in the surrounding country and how He was preaching with authority. They filled up the synagogue on the Sabbath. During the Divine Service the hometown boy read from Isaiah 61. A big time Messianic prophecy! It’s where God promises to send a Savior. He would be the anointed Messianic preacher of the Gospel for the spiritually oppressed, freedom for those under spiritual captivity and spiritual sight for the spiritually blind.
“We Three Kings of Orient Are” is one of the few Epiphany carols that is popular enough to be played on the radio during the Christmas season. “We Three Kings” was written and composed by John Henry Hopkins, Jr. in 1857. Hopkins served as the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and he wrote the carol for a Christmas pageant at his alma mater of General Theological Seminary in New York City.
Years ago, one of the large circuses featured a Bengal tiger act. One night, the trainer went into the cage for his performance. All went well, until the middle of the act. With tigers moving everywhere, the power within the entire big top went out. For two minutes, that trainer was locked in darkness with a cage full of ferocious, man-eating tigers
“Did you see his face?” Mary bit back a sob as she continued trudging up the rocky slope.
Joseph shook his head. “Mary, every boy looks like that the first time they see the lamb slaughtered. There is a stark contrast with the red blood on the white wool. They don’t realize what death is yet. They don’t realize what it is to sacrifice a lamb. And it was his first Passover, Mary. Of course he looked like that.”
It was spring of 1977. I was a seven-year-old boy anticipating watching a movie that was going to be unlike any other before it.
My family rarely went to the movie theater, so this was going to be a real treat. My mom packed my two younger sisters and myself into the station wagon. We arrived at the theater. I was excited to see words scrolling up the movie screen, Stormtroopers miss everything, and Darth Vader use the Force against the Rebel scum.