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So much happens at the beginning of every year...as we shift from Christmas to Epiphany in the season of the church - we also take note to recognize that we take part in the saving Grace of God.  

We were honored with the presence of Bishop Murray Finck this last Sunday as he presided over the installation of Pastor Todd - our now officially placed Senior Pastor.

Bishop Finck talked in his sermon of Baptisms and Epiphanies.  A few important notes on how we live out our calling as people of God... 

“Epiphany”, said Bishop Finck, “is a revelation, it is something wonderful brought by God,...John the Baptist was a walking epiphany, a prophetic voice of God…and he proclaimed that Jesus is the Greatest Epiphany...This is the lamb of God…”

Because of the actions of John the Baptist and Jesus we are able to understand more clearly how we are also claimed by God.  And that we also need these epiphanies, to remember and understand and relive our baptisms - where sin and evil separate us from God and one another, we are called to live out our own baptismal promises…. To renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God, the powers of this world that rebel against God and the ways of sin that draw you from God.  We are called to make public affirmation that we practice this belief… And God watches us in God’s Holy name - and like Jesus we walk from death - out of an empty tomb...to life in the Spirit...

We still need epiphanies today.  And we can seek them and look for them… and remember - “You are a child of God, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever…”

Repentance and seeking forgiveness - just as important today as it was in the time of John the Baptist.  Can we find ways to live that in daily practice?  Some of it is remembering our brothers and sisters in Christ and modeling for one another and the world - that God is with us in conversation and dialog and that we can find more ways that we are connected than ideas that separate us.

May you find yourself with God walking beside you as you enter into the coming weeks…

Pastor Erin