For the Baptism of our Lord festival in Series C of readings, the three passages are Isaiah 43:1-7; Romans 6:1-11 and Luke 3:15-22. The text to prepare for a sermon will be Isaiah 43:3, “For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place.

The word Epiphany in the Greek language means a manifestation or appearance. The Church uses the term to refer as to how the holy Scriptures manifest Jesus the man from Nazareth. While the date could be January 6 or January 19 depending on the calendar system used, it primarily focuses on the coming of the Wise Men to the baby Jesus some time after the family left the stable and now resided in a home. The significant item mentioned in that visit is that the Wise Men worshipped the Child. This demonstrates their understanding that He was indeed God Himself.

While for many Christians who have heard the Biblical accounts of Jesus again and again, we often assume that the Old Testament made it clear that the Messiah would be God Himself. But that certainly was not obvious to the majority of Jews living at the time of Jesus. Indeed, the Messiah would be the promised Son of Man but that he would be God Himself was not taught. It is a fact that once we read the New Testament, we now interpret the Old Testament books with new eyeglasses and see passages that are indeed read as the promised Messiah would be God Himself.

If interested in a longer presentation of the Epiphany appearances of Jesus go to www.lawgospel.com and click on Radio to hear our explanation of the Epiphany of Jesus on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday’s broadcasts.

One such passage is in today’s readings from Isaiah 43. Verse 1 is God the LORD revealing that He created Jacob and formed Israel. Verse 3 even reveals that “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” There is nowhere in the Old Testament that God reassigns the task of being Savior to either a created angel or created human being. No, God Himself is our Savior. Thus, when Jesus is born, the Church refers to it as the incarnation of the Son of God. John the Baptizer himself speaks of Jesus as the One in Whose hand is the winnowing fan and that He will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire (Luke 3:17). When one looks up this reference in Isaiah and Jeremiah, it is clear that God is the One Who does this work.

The goal of this sermon would be to concentrate on the Epiphany or appearing of Jesus not only as the Son of Man as promised; not only as the Messiah as promised, but specifically as God Himself becoming incarnate to fulfill His promises of salvation that He made through the prophets. 1 Corinthians, chapter 3 makes clear that those of us living in the times of the New Testament are learning about God in a way that was not clear to those who came before us. The Corinthians’ passage makes specific note of the Gentiles also being part of God’s holy people without any distinction between Jew and Gentile.

But among the greatest of revelation and insight made clearly known to New Testament believers, is that the Messiah is none other than God Himself. This is a most comforting revelation because it means we can pray to the man Jesus because He is also God and in His humanity is omnipresent, all knowing and all merciful and gracious. He indeed is the proper mediator between God and man because He is both God and man. Christians today need to be aware of how radical was such a notion to many of the Jews at the time of Jesus that the Messiah was more than a super Son of Man–He was and is God Himself!

For a fuller examination of the Epiphany appearances of Jesus as God, go to www.lawgospel.com and click the Radio button to hear the Monday through Wednesday broadcasts of Law and Gospel.