1st Sunday after the Epiphany, Jan. 12, 11am.
Recent Articles, First Sunday after the Epiphany, Jesus’s Baptism, Jan. 12, 2025
First Sunday after the Epiphany, Jesus’ Baptism
The Season after the Epiphany – What’s it all about ? Focus on the Gospels
Lectionary-Epiphany 1, Year C
Visual Lectionary, Jesus’ Baptism
The Baptism page, 2025
The Epiphany
The Epiphany was Jan. 6, 2025 The Season after the Epiphany lasts until March 4, Shrove Tuesday.
Epiphany Sermon, Trinity Episcopal, NY, Jan. 5, 2025
Epiphany Content and traditions
3 Miracles associated with the Epiphany
Epiphany Readings
The Epiphany – a perfect start to the new year
Bursting Forth – An Epiphany Reflection
January, 2025 Newsletter
January Greetings from St. Peters in Port Royal, Va. on the Rappahannock River.
Thinking of you all today and found this 1774 map showing the Rappahannock with many names that are familiar to me. (Cleve Marsh, Skinker, Turner, Buckner etc.) I grew up looking out of my family’s window at Cleve Marsh & the Rappahannock River. Turners and Taylors & many more have visited in recent years and I have been proud to show them the town with a visit to St. Peter’s Church(built in 1835) too.
Rev. Tom Hughes and his wife Alice will be with us at St. Peters this Sunday (Dec. 5th) “The Feast of Epiphany”. Coffee Hour will be held following the service at the Heimbach’s lovely home RIVERVIEW next door to the church. We thank them for their hospitality!
Bible Study will begin again this Wed. Jan. 8th at 10 am in the Parish House. Cleo and Cookie will lead the discussion. Join us for coffee and study as we learn more from our Bibles.
Larry and Jan Saylor are still on vacation but will return next Wed. the 15th.
Johnny and I will be out of town this Sunday because his brother-in-law Herbert Wilkerson will be buried at their home church in New Kent County. We give thanks for his life, his wife Joanne and their family.
Our friend, Laura Carey, has also lost a friend this week. Her friend of 52 years in Chicago died on January 2nd. She was 102 years old (just 3 months from 103). An amazing woman, and many of us loved her when she visited here. They had a special friendship and she will be missed by many.
Next week on Sat. Jan. 11 at 1pm Rev. Catherine will be at St. Peters to lead a celebration of life service for Boyd Wisdom. He and his wife Barbara lived at Portobago Bay after retiring from Dahlgren and later moved to Chancellor’s Village in Fredericksburg. Her email is bwisdom8263@gmail.com . In lieu of flowers Barbara asks that St. Peters or other charities be remembered. The ladies of the church will host a reception in the Parish House following the service. Please contact Elizabeth or Cookie if you can help.
The next Vestry meeting will be Thursday Jan. 16th at 2pm at the Parish House. Vestry elections will be held at the Annual Meeting on January 26 following the service. Larry Saylor and Robin Monroe have agreed to serve. Talk to the Senior Warden if there are others you wish to nominate.
THE FOOD BANK goods will arrive by truck on Jan. 21st…join in unloading and setting up about 9:15. Food is distributed to the needy the following day.
Lectionary-Epiphany 1, Year C
I. Theme – Participating in Jesus’ Baptism and receiving the Holy Spirit
Baptism of Christ – Fra Angelico (1400-1455)
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
Old Testament – Isaiah 43:1-7 Psalm – Psalm 29 Epistle – Acts 8:14-17 Gospel – Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
The first Sunday in Epiphany is traditionally about Jesus’ baptism. However, this year, the focus is less on Jesus, and more on how God’s people are invited to participate in the baptism and to receive God’s Spirit.
Isaiah suggests that God chooses and gathers us to bring compassion and justice to a suffering world In the Psalm, God’s voice is celebrated, which shakes the earth, but which also – by implication in the Psalm – strengthens and brings peace to God’s people, even as God’s voice affirmed Jesus. In Acts, we witness Peter and John spreading the good news of Jesus Christ beyond their comfortable social and ethnic borders. In today’s gospel, Jesus is baptized, and we are invited to acknowledge him as God’s “Son, the Beloved.” It is significant that Jesus begins his public life with baptism. Not only is he baptized, he also hears the assurance of the Holy Spirit. A voice proclaims him God’s beloved, empowering him and sending him to the blind, the lame and the prisoners awaiting his good news.
We read about baptism year after year because God is still at work in the world, and still invites us to participate in God’s saving and liberating work. But, to do this, we, like Jesus, will need to be strengthened and empowered. We will need to be baptised in the Holy Spirit. We surrender our usual sense of control, because we must sacrifice what we are for what we might become.
This Sunday provides an opportunity for people not only to reflect on their own experiences of baptism (as participants and/or observers), but to wonder together about Jesus’ baptism.
Rev. Mindi Welton-Mitchell writes of the symbolism of the waters in the passages
” The waters were a symbol of trial and tribulation, a boundary to be crossed, perhaps the Red Sea or the Jordan River in ancient times. For the people who had been exiled, the waters may have symbolized the entire time of exile—a turbulent time in which all they knew had been taken from them. For Christians, we seem the waters of baptism as a symbol of those trials and troubles, a symbol of death itself, and we come out on the other side, with the gift of new life, the hope of resurrection, everlasting life in Christ. We commemorate the baptism of Jesus today, reminded that we all have the gift of new life, of starting again with God, of renewing our commitments and reorienting our lives to God. The same God whose voice called out over the waters, who called down from above over the waters of Jesus’ baptism, is the same voice that calls us Beloved, and calls us into the promise of new life”
Visual Lectionary Vanderbilt, First Sunday after the Epiphany, Jan 12, 2025
Click here to view in a new window.
Epiphany Sermon, Trinity Episcopal, NY, Jan. 5, 2025
Sermon Trinity NY. Jan. 5, 2025 Sunday Sermon, The Rev. Kristin Kaulbach Miles
The three themes for today’s scriptures are arise shine, redemption as relationship, and another road home.
Epiphany, one of our seven principal church feasts, means manifestation, the manifestation of the divine, specifically the coming of God into the world through the birth of Jesus. It’s about seeing stars and people and discerning what is true. It reminds us that paying attention is a very important practice
The writer Sylvia Boorstein says that liberating understanding comes more from seeing how things are than from seeing how we are. She says we ruminate and regret and reflect and rehearse endlessly. We pass by now only briefly on the way from ruminating to rehearsing, hardly pausing to relax. In her book about meditation, Don’t just do something, sit there. Sylvia shares how she has covered her habit of transforming neutral fact into painful opinion many years ago.
Many years ago when she phoned a monastery to arrange for a private retreat, the person she spoke with said you need to speak with Robert. the retreat master. She left a message for Robert and was assured he would call back. The following day she had a message on her answering machine from Robert saying he had returned her call. The day after that she phoned and was told once again that Robert wasn’t there. She explained that she had called Robert and Robert had called her and here she was now calling Robert again. She added, maybe this is a sign that I’m not supposed to do my retreat there. The response she got was “I think it’s just a sign that Robert isn’t here.”
Epiphany is a day to receive God’s gift of God’s self for us by being present to where we are to see more clearly what is, not more than it is and not less .
The Season after the Epiphany – What’s it all about ? Focus on the Gospels
The Season after the Epiphany – Epiphany is all about establishing the identity of Jesus. Now that he has been born who is he ? Epiphany continues to define who Jesus is – healer, preacher and the Messiah, the last one comes early in Epiphany and continues.
Epiphany refers to the appearance of Jesus Christ as the savior of the world—of Israel and the Gentiles. For this reason, Epiphany is commonly associated with the visitation of the Magi (or “wise men”), who were almost certainly Gentiles, in Matthew 2:1–12.
We focus on the mission of the church to reach all the peoples of the earth with the great gift of God’s grace in revealing healing truth and light to the world.”
It is very much present oriented. The main idea of Epiphany is that Christ is the light of the world that came at Christmas and now beckons us to travel with Him ths year. The story of the Epiphany is about discovery—following a star to the source of salvation.Epiphany is filled with unexpected revelations that change our minds and ways – we have to be willing to experience them.
Epiphany is our jumping off spot. From the Eucharistic Prayer – “With each new day, you call us to feed the hungry, bring recovery of sight to the blind, liberate the oppressed, heal the broken hearted and bind up their wounds, and keep watch for the dawn of your reign on this earth. ”
The Baptism Page 2025
“Go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit….and remember I am with you always.” – Matthew 28:19-20
Baptism is…..welcoming into the community of faith & the Body of Christ.
Baptism is…..belonging to God as “Christ’s own forever.”
Baptism is….washing of our sins and renewing our life in faith.
Baptism is…..a holy sacrament, an outward sign of God’s inward grace.
Baptism is…..a gift of God’s grace through the Holy Spirit.
“Why baptize? God has no need of our baptism. But we do. We need to hear; we need to know. Whether emerging from the waters of the womb or the waters of a river, we need to hear again that we are beloved.” – JoAnn A. Post in the Christian Century
Michael Curry – From Crazy Christians A Call to Follow Jesus
“We come to the mountain, then, and experience a deepened and revived relationship with God and with each other.”
“You will notice this three-fold pattern in how Jesus forms his disciples and sends them out. First he invites his disciples to come. “Come and see,” he says, “Follow me” (John 1:39; Mark 1:17). Jesus beckons his disciples to him in order to enter into a deepened relationship, through him, with God and each other in community. That is what baptism is about, a deepened relationship with God and each other in Christ.”
“If you look at the words of the Great Commission, you’ll see this is precisely how Jesus forms his disciples. After the resurrection, Jesus takes the disciples to a mountain. He tells them: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20). We form disciples through baptism and teaching so they might come into a deepened, transforming relationship with God and each other, as we learn and live the gospel of Jesus.”
The Setting for Sunday
We have just celebrated the birth of Christ and will experience his death and resurrection on Easter. However, one key event we should put in the same category is Jesus’ baptism. We have various weeks set aside for baptisms – first Sunday after Epiphany (Baptism of Jesus), Easter, Pentecost,Feast of the Transfiguration (Sunday nearest Aug. 6), All Saints Sunday, whenever the Bishop visits) . Whether we have a baptism or now, we usually include the section in the prayer book for the renewal of the Baptismal Covenant in the service. In the past we have also “sprinkled” people.
From the SALT Project – “Jesus’ baptism is Mark’s Christmas story, so to speak, the moment when Jesus is reborn through the waters of baptism as God’s Child, God’s Beloved. In that sense, Mark and his community likely thought of Jesus as miraculously adopted, as opposed to miraculously conceived (as in Matthew and Luke) or miraculously present as God’s only begotten since “the beginning” of creation (as in John).”