Epiphany
We know the word: a moment of piercing awareness, the sudden jolt of understanding. This is the season of Epiphany, a season celebrating the revelation of the Savior, the light of the world. Throughout the season we focus on the ministry of Jesus: the calling of the disciples, the teachings of Christ, his miracles, and finally his transfiguration. The epiphany of Epiphany is that this is no mere teacher or prophet— this is the Son of God, the Messiah. Epiphany calls us to live God’s mission, announcing the good news of Christ’s arrival to every culture and to those who live across the street. We, the church, are sent out as the manifestation of Jesus to a watching world (from Seeking God’s Face by Philip Reinders).
- Calling -
O Lord, open our lips.
And our mouth shall proclaim Your praise.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen. Alleluia!
The Lord has manifested his glory:
O come, let us adore him.
- Constitution -
Read/Listen, Meditate, Pray, and Contemplate on God’s Word, remembering that God is with you and ready to speak to you because he loves you.
Praying the Psalms
Psalm 7
A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning the words of Cush, a Benjaminite.
[1] O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,
[2] lest like a lion they tear my soul apart,
rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.
[3] O LORD my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
[4] if I have repaid my friend with evil
or plundered my enemy without cause,
[5] let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
and let him trample my life to the ground
and lay my glory in the dust. Selah
[6] Arise, O LORD, in your anger;
lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.
[7] Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you;
over it return on high.
[8] The LORD judges the peoples;
judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness
and according to the integrity that is in me.
[9] Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
and may you establish the righteous—
you who test the minds and hearts,
O righteous God!
[10] My shield is with God,
who saves the upright in heart.
[11] God is a righteous judge,
and a God who feels indignation every day.
[12] If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword;
he has bent and readied his bow;
[13] he has prepared for him his deadly weapons,
making his arrows fiery shafts.
[14] Behold, the wicked man conceives evil
and is pregnant with mischief
and gives birth to lies.
[15] He makes a pit, digging it out,
and falls into the hole that he has made.
[16] His mischief returns upon his own head,
and on his own skull his violence descends.
[17] I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness,
and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.
Psalm 8
To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.
[1] O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
[2] Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
[3] When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
[4] what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
[5] Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
[6] You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
[7] all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
[8] the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
[9] O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Psalm 9
To the choirmaster: according to Muth-labben. A Psalm of David.
[1] I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
[2] I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
[3] When my enemies turn back,
they stumble and perish before your presence.
[4] For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.
[5] You have rebuked the nations; you have made the wicked perish;
you have blotted out their name forever and ever.
[6] The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins;
their cities you rooted out;
the very memory of them has perished.
[7] But the LORD sits enthroned forever;
he has established his throne for justice,
[8] and he judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with uprightness.
[9] The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
[10] And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.
[11] Sing praises to the LORD, who sits enthroned in Zion!
Tell among the peoples his deeds!
[12] For he who avenges blood is mindful of them;
he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
[13] Be gracious to me, O LORD!
See my affliction from those who hate me,
O you who lift me up from the gates of death,
[14] that I may recount all your praises,
that in the gates of the daughter of Zion
I may rejoice in your salvation.
[15] The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught.
[16] The LORD has made himself known; he has executed judgment;
the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah
[17] The wicked shall return to Sheol,
all the nations that forget God.
[18] For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.
[19] Arise, O LORD! Let not man prevail;
let the nations be judged before you!
[20] Put them in fear, O LORD!
Let the nations know that they are but men! Selah
Old Testament Reading
Nehemiah 2
[1] In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. [2] And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. [3] I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” [4] Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. [5] And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ graves, that I may rebuild it.” [6] And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. [7] And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, [8] and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.” And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me.
[9] Then I came to the governors of the province Beyond the River and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen. [10] But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.
[11] So I went to Jerusalem and was there three days. [12] Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode. [13] I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire. [14] Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, but there was no room for the animal that was under me to pass. [15] Then I went up in the night by the valley and inspected the wall, and I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned. [16] And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, and I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work.
[17] Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision.” [18] And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me. And they said, “Let us rise up and build.” So they strengthened their hands for the good work. [19] But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” [20] Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem.”
New Testament Reading
Acts 12
[1] About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. [2] He killed James the brother of John with the sword, [3] and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. [4] And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. [5] So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
[6] Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. [7] And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands. [8] And the angel said to him, “Dress yourself and put on your sandals.” And he did so. And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” [9] And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. [10] When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him. [11] When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”
[12] When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. [13] And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. [14] Recognizing Peter’s voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. [15] They said to her, “You are out of your mind.” But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, “It is his angel!” [16] But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. [17] But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, “Tell these things to James and to the brothers.” Then he departed and went to another place.
[18] Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. [19] And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there.
[20] Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king’s country for food. [21] On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. [22] And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” [23] Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.
[24] But the word of God increased and multiplied.
[25] And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.
- Communion -
Pray for yourself, others, our church, our neighbors, and the world.
Pray the Lord’s Prayer & the collect of the week:
Our Father who art in heaven...
Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
- Commission -
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:14)
Let us go forth in the name of Christ.