Monday • 1/25/2021
Week of 3 Epiphany

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Isaiah 48:1–11; Galatians 1:1–17; Mark 5:21–43

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

I remember (painfully) a couple of times in my childhood when my mother grabbed my ear and said, “Are you listening to me?!” 

Suddenly brought back from whatever had been distracting me, I’d reply, “Now I guess I am!” 

“What does it take to get your attention?!”

Isaiah is having one of those moments with Israel. The prophet has been laying out Yahweh’s plan for an exciting new exodus, promising to bring the nation home from their exile in Babylon. Instead of seeing the repentance and renewal of worship that such good news should have called forth, Isaiah is watching the children of Israel carry on their compromised and idolatrous—religion. They presume to call themselves by Yahweh’s name “but not in truth or right,” because they continue to fashion for themselves idols, and put their trust in carved and cast images (Isaiah 48:1b,5b). 

Yahweh reminds them of their long history of treachery towards him, and their rebelliousness against this voice (Isaiah 48:8). He accuses them of having necks as unyielding as iron and heads as impenetrable as brass (Isaiah 48:4).  Nonetheless, he’s deferring his anger, he says, and he will not destroy them. They are people he’s made for the peculiar honor of praising him. Through their praise, implicitly, they will serve as the vanguard of his renewal of all of creation. 

Isaiah reminds Israel that her recent travails (like my mother’s ear-pulling) have been for her refining (Isaiah 48:10). He has not rejected her; he is still committed to her. However, it’s time for her to put away the distractions, to get rid of the fake gods, and to revere the most precious name of the only true God in the universe. 

“My glory I will not give to another!!” (Isaiah 48:11). This is Isaiah saying, a bit like my mother, “Are you listening to me?!”  

Paul begins a similar conversation with the churches in Galatia (a province in southern or central Asia Minor (current-day Turkey). After an initial enthusiastic response to Paul’s message of the free gift of God in Christ—“who gave himself for our sins to free us from the present evil age” (Galatians 1:4)—these mavericks are thinking about adding a codicil to that message. They want to require and adjoin the shedding of their own blood (via circumcision) to the shedding of Christ’s blood. To Paul, that would be the undoing of the whole relationship. They would be presuming to become their own payers of sin’s debt. 

And so, like my mother, Paul writes this first paragraph of his letter to grab their ear and overture an extended brief, “Are you listening to me?! Christ pays it all, or he pays none of it!!” (Stay tuned.) 

Mark. The ultimate grace is that grace has come in person, in the person of Jesus Christ. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus offers healing at the mere touch of the hem of his garment (Mark 5:24b–34), and by the simple taking of a hand and the offering of tender words (Mark 5:21–24a,35–43). All this in response to one single thing: faith.

To the woman who has been hemorrhaging for twelve years, Jesus says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mark 5:34). 

To the man who is on the verge of losing his twelve year old daughter, Jesus says, “Do not fear, only believe” (Mark 5:36). 

This season of After Epiphany is one in which we give thanks for the epiphany or manifestation of God’s astoundingly great love in the life and ministry of his Son Jesus Christ. It is not the nature, really, of our Heavenly Father to content himself with yanking on our ears and constantly haranguing us with, “Are you listening to me?!” He sent his Son, that healing may flow from his very being—sometimes healing of the body in this life, always healing of sin’s carnage and eternal condemnation. “Do not fear,” he says, “only believe.” 

Collect for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany. Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+