Fourth Week of Epiphany

Feb 1 - 7

Zechariah, Job, 2 Timothy, Titus, Gospel of John

This week’s readings deal with falsehoods. In the Old Testament, Satan builds an entire project of affliction against Job with a false accusation about his faith. In his letter to Titus, Paul notes a surge of false teachers in the church who are upsetting the saints in Crete. The opening lines of John’s Gospel account address a false teaching about Jesus’ divinity.

False teachings are often attractive, but they are always a letdown. They may promise material blessings, but those are perishable. In the end, they never offer any greater hope of salvation, only confusion and division. Those who preach falsely “profess to know God, but deny him with their works.” (Titus 1:16) We see a picture of this failure in Job, sitting amongst the ruins of his once grand estate, longing for the relief of death as if it were a friend, not an enemy the Savior would come to conquer.

But the darkness of deception is short lived before the light of God’s Word. The Word not only created the world, but became flesh within it in order to carry out his redemptive work for us so that we can have fellowship with him. The death and resurrection of Jesus is our sure hope - not a vain promise or secret knowledge, but a historical fact that guarantees us a place in heaven.

The accuser may labor to make us question our relationship to God and lure us away from the promise. But it has already been pierced by the light of Jesus, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Fifth Week of Epiphany

Feb 8 - 14

Job, Gospel of John

When the Epiphany season began, the Bible readings offered us pictures of where Jesus can be found and how God has chosen to reveal himself. As we begin the final week of Epiphany, the focus shifts to how we approach our Lord.

Our self-righteous flesh would rather approach the Lord on its own terms; it insists upon having a seat at the table of salvation. We see this in the well-intentioned advice from Job’s friends, which acknowledges the righteousness of God, but cannot reconcile it with the suffering of a seemingly righteous man. In John’s Gospel, the Pharisee Nicodemus is willing to recognize Jesus as a prophet, but the idea of being born again in the Spirit does not square with his birth status as one of God’s people.

As it turns out, some of the least likely candidates are the ones to find favor with the Lord. The Samaritan woman, resented for her sex, ethnicity, and adultery, would seem like the last person the Messiah would want to speak with. But when Jesus confronts her with her sin, she does not bristle. Instead, when she learns he is the Christ, she takes him at his word. Similarly, a Roman official, generally hated by God’s people for his status as an oppressor, persistently asks Jesus to heal his daughter. He believes and goes on his way.

It is an Epiphany picture we ought to take to heart. On this side of heaven, we will suffer and struggle with sin and its consequences. But the promise Jesus gave to Nicodemus is our promise, too – and it was fulfilled at the baptismal font. We have been born again of the Spirit, and we now worship in Spirit and truth. We indeed are God’s people, made holy in Jesus.