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The First Sunday after Epiphany, 2005
January 9, 2005
Christ Church, Covington
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).
Did anyone else see the rainbow on Lake Pontchartrain on Friday afternoon?
It was visible to me for a few minutes as I made my way back across the
Causeway, and I’d hate to think that it was a “private viewing” of divine
splendor. It grew in intensity as I headed north, and then vanished from
sight.
God gives signs all the time. The rainbow, of course, is a convenient one
for us, since it is a divinely given sign in the story of Noah and the
Flood. In the midst of the water, God saves the human family from
destruction, and brings them to a new life. The dove points the way to dry
land, and God gives the rainbow as a sign that he will never again destroy
the world by water. Note how this story is reprised in our Gospel today,
where people pass through the water of the Jordan river as a sign of
repentance and a new beginning, and a dove again points the way, this time
to Jesus Christ himself. The voice of the Father is heard from heaven,
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”.
There are signs throughout the Scripture, and signs in our own lives too.
On occasion, authoritative and exceptional signs; more often, signs of
what I might call “ordinary grace”, like the rainbow I encountered on
Friday. These are the everyday encounters in which God is at work. We see
them, and we know them as what they are, signs of blessing, freely given
by God. But we cannot reduce them to a formula or slogan; they don’t have
that kind of message for us. But in them we can detect the presence of
God.
So let’s move beyond the weather. You’ve all had experiences of “ordinary
grace”; I’m taking that as a given, even though we may not have defined
them this way. Perhaps things simply “fall into your lap”, coming very
easily to you. That’s ordinary grace. Perhaps you’ve been fortunate in
your upbringing, or preserved from some danger, so that you’re conscious
of blessing: ordinary grace again. A nun I used to know once corrected me
when I referred to good luck. “You know as well as I that there’s no such
thing as good luck, Father!” Of course she was right. Ordinary grace is
experienced at significant moments in life: the birth of a child, a
wedding day, graduation from school, and a host of others. We encounter
ordinary grace at home, at work, at play. God gives signs; God gives
grace. I hope you’re thinking about these occasions of grace in your life,
perhaps even considering grace present in some places you had not thought
about before.
Yet there is even more. We are not always conscious of grace; and sin can
separate us from it. So God gives signs that are means of grace; signs
that are effective and available through faith. Not the “ordinary grace”
of our experience, but something exceptional, a covenant of God. Baptism,
of course; that powerful sign that our Gospel reading celebrates, which
brings with it forgiveness of sin, new life and new relationship with God.
It makes no difference if we remember the event, or how we feel about it,
because grace does not depend on those things, but instead depends on God.
It is a sign that claims us, a sign instituted by God that makes grace
present. Also the Eucharist, “an outward and visible sign of an inward and
spiritual grace”. Christ’s Body and Blood, given and shed for the
forgiveness of sins, so that Jesus’ life may live in us. Our hearts are
hard, and we run from grace; but God gives more grace, in authoritative
signs that transform us.
Unlike the rainbow, our experience of these signs grows in intensity
without disappearing. God sets these before us, so that the Church can
gather around them. The signs are all around us; God’s grace is all around
us. We have only to reach out and touch the reality.
The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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