This past week we celebrated the end of the Christmas season and the beginning of Epiphany with the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord Jesus Christ. An Epiphany is a revelation or a discovery. This came right on the heels of the Second Sunday of Christmas. In Luke 2:41-52 Jesus comes to the Temple on the Passover Feast with his family. At the age of twelve the person who will perfectly fulfill the the Law of God willingly submits to the Law and tradition of the Old Covenant. This is an act of His will to be in alignment with the Father’s will. But in addition to this we get to see boy Jesus “learning” to “discovering” his own vocation or calling as a child of God. (This is a Trinitarian mystery but we do know that Jesus is unaware of some things see Mt. 24:36) Where most human beings love lawlessness, the Son of God and Son of Man subjects himself to God as a model for being a child of God and also part of making Salvation possible for lawless humanity.
Lawlessness and disorder in the soul (and therefore everything else in life) is what human beings embody since the great rebellion in Gen. 3. As humans we can never follow the will of God perfectly. That is why we need Jesus. The Father gives us exactly who we need in the Son and Holy Spirit. The foreshadowing of the Boy Jesus in His Father’s house on Passover is undeniable. He will be the Passover sacrifice made once for all that redeems the human race. And he and the Holy Spirit are God’s gifts that redeem and restore individuals who become part of Christ’s body - the Church.
But it doesn’t stop there. The Church is there to help guide God’s adopted children to imitate Jesus as the perfect man. Liturgy, Feasts, Traditions all come under the authority of the written revelation of God in the Bible but are there to assist us on our way. The Book of Common Prayer is a rule of life and an ordering of life which includes Daily Bible Reading, Sacraments, and Prayer in an order. The Liturgy gives us wisdom and shapes our desires. Much of this happens without our noticing.
This Sunday I am beginning a rule of life class which aims at making some of these patters (along with others) more intentional for each of us, I hope you will consider attending for the next seven weeks. Let’s commit ourselves as those who have been redeemed and saved by Jesus to follow his example in ordering our lives and our households together.